1st Post Intro & Ramblings


Hi all, I have been a member for about 10 years and never posted anything although I do read a lot. Figured at some point I would, 10+ years later......

 Profession, Audio Visual Tech 22 years. I mostly work in house corporate, conventions and trade shows. Spent some time building clubs, worked a few concerts and home audio has been more of a hobby for a very long time and I have designed and built a few very high end setups years ago. I always hated working professionally on home audio, the customers and sales people are either to cheap or knee deep in marketing and cannot take advice from professionals. My experience has led me to be more aware of the budget, a vast majority cannot spend $10-20k on a stereo and yet some of us spend that on a just 1 component. 
I think that will suffice as an introduction, next I will post some of what I have learned along the way. Keep in mind, most of my recommendations come with a budget mindset instead of $$$ all out performance $$$.
kreapin
Yeah. Its no contest. What's really funny, for all the arguments around here (among audiophiles!) what things matter and what people can hear, in my experience its like your friend, they hear these things easily and obviously. Every single time.  Some stuff is hard to hear, sure. But in my experience everything I hear that seems big enough to matter, they hear it too. 

The other thing is the importance of setup. The co-workers system was set up in like half an hour. Speaker position was like 10 min. Most of which time was enjoying the results. Tape measure, framing square, tweak toe. Rock solid imaging. Done.  

A little knowledge goes a long way!
A few other observations. You guys are nuts. LOL. Some of the setups I have read and seen in pictures is just a whole different level. Me & my friends try and keep it simple at home, we build some large setups that can drag out for over week just to run a 2 hour show. Then tear it all down. We don’t want to work that hard at home. Sorta like the mechanic that drives a clunker. 
Next, I’ve come to love/hate iall the YouTube (and other social channels) so called audio/video pros. This is what has kept my side hustle going for so long ;-) but wow, so much bad information out there.
I’m still using the tape measure most of the time and still tinker a lot, OCD. 
As to what can be heard or appreciated really comes down to the listener. I had someone sitting on my sofa and his exact words were “it doesn’t sound right, the singers voice is in the middle”  I had to absorb that for a few. 
There are some legit sound people here including recording studios and location work, like anything esoteric pick your experts carefully:-) glad to see you post up and share your insights