A light-hearted essay on loving music vs the audiophilia obsession

Very good article thanks...

But ,

This analysis suggest that an audiophile is merely a gear chaser,

Alas! it is true for many , but not for all, at least not for me...

The three embeddings controls, mechanical, electrical and acoustical and not the least but very much important in a small room, the psycho-acoustical control...Yes they are 4 like the 3 musketers...These controls exceed in improvement together most upgrade of any gear piece...

Then some audiophile like me listen music now without bothering themselves with elusive perfection or useless upgrades...

I am in the same situation than the article writer....But perhaps more satisfied because upgrade is not an attractive option now....

My system value is 500 bucks think about that....This is the power of embedding controls...

I know my system is lacking. I know a change is gonna come, yes, it will. But for now, I couldn’t be bothered. I am too busy listening again and again

And a final thanks for the info about this persian artist...It seems the writer ans me partake the same musical tastes...😊

I am too busy listening again and again to a young Turkish musician, Sedat Anar: who plays an Indian instrument, the Santoor,

«When music shine there is no more sound, only silent meaning»- Anonymus suicidal and perfectionist recording engineer

Very fun to read and to feel the empathy! You put into more words the adage that many audiophiles use music to listen to their system. And you also nailed how Audiogon (and USAM) completely enable many of us, as you wrote, go from recreationally using to full-blown addiction, helped by Paypal Credit and Affirm financing. 

Your first example of commenting on the sonic clarity is akin to someone watching a video clip of a particularly poignant event of movie commenting on the video quality.

Or like when someone posts a link to a piece they wrote that details an experience many of us here on this forum have had, only to have many members smugly snark about a social media site. 

And you also nailed how Audiogon (and USAM) completely enable many of us, as you wrote, go from recreationally using to full-blown addiction, helped by Paypal Credit and Affirm financing.

One has truly crossed the addiction Rubicon when they start paying triple digits (or more) for things like speaker wire and DACs.

Thanks hilde45 for providing a link to the article. In any case, yeah, it's a common trope that audiophiles are more interested in chasing quality of sound than quality of performance, but that's a pretty unforgiving perspective. In any case, I ain't one of  those "sound-o-files.". It doesn't hurt that I have more than a few recordings that give me both. Not only can I have my cake, I can regularly eat it, too. Having both is an unadulterated treat.