@cat_doorman,
As @mapman said,
"In any pursuit, not just hifi, you have to have a clear vision of the goal or call it the target before you can hit it.
If you are asking the question it sounds like you don’t know what the target is in which case one is shooting blindly.
So how to identify the target? Easy, you listen to a lot of things until you can identify “That sound” you want to hear. Both live music and recordings on good quality “reference systems” help. The more you listen the more your brain becomes trained to recognize that good sound when you hear it.
Then the question becomes how to get it in your room? That’s the other hard part.
But the key is to start with fundamentals. Speakers that will work well in your room, placing them properly for best sound, acquiring an amp capable of not just playing them but driving them to their max, a good quality preamp that matches output impedance well to the amp, and of course a good quality source (setting up a phono rig is a whole story in itself much harder than finding a good quality DAC for streaming)."
A good an introduction as you could want.
This hobby, like so many others, eventually is eventually revealed as no more or no less than a quest for self knowledge and discovery.
Therefore identifying the target (the wish, the goal, the destination, the end stop etc) should be of some interest.
Initially some might find just the journey alone is worthwhile and self fulfilling but eventually that could cease to be the case and impatience and frustration leading to regret might set in.
A better way, I think, is to know yourself first and what you want deep down.
Are you a subjectivist or an objectivist.
Or maybe you’re foremost a pragmatist?
Just how well do you really know yourself?
Bear in mind that this is likely to be a solo journey without much interest from many outsiders.
Who else has the time, the interest, the patience or the resources to assist with someone else’s life journey?
Thankfully, you’re in the right place here to make an educated start.
As @mapman said,
"In any pursuit, not just hifi, you have to have a clear vision of the goal or call it the target before you can hit it.
If you are asking the question it sounds like you don’t know what the target is in which case one is shooting blindly.
So how to identify the target? Easy, you listen to a lot of things until you can identify “That sound” you want to hear. Both live music and recordings on good quality “reference systems” help. The more you listen the more your brain becomes trained to recognize that good sound when you hear it.
Then the question becomes how to get it in your room? That’s the other hard part.
But the key is to start with fundamentals. Speakers that will work well in your room, placing them properly for best sound, acquiring an amp capable of not just playing them but driving them to their max, a good quality preamp that matches output impedance well to the amp, and of course a good quality source (setting up a phono rig is a whole story in itself much harder than finding a good quality DAC for streaming)."
A good an introduction as you could want.
This hobby, like so many others, eventually is eventually revealed as no more or no less than a quest for self knowledge and discovery.
Therefore identifying the target (the wish, the goal, the destination, the end stop etc) should be of some interest.
Initially some might find just the journey alone is worthwhile and self fulfilling but eventually that could cease to be the case and impatience and frustration leading to regret might set in.
A better way, I think, is to know yourself first and what you want deep down.
Are you a subjectivist or an objectivist.
Or maybe you’re foremost a pragmatist?
Just how well do you really know yourself?
Bear in mind that this is likely to be a solo journey without much interest from many outsiders.
Who else has the time, the interest, the patience or the resources to assist with someone else’s life journey?
Thankfully, you’re in the right place here to make an educated start.