Stuff You Tried To Love


I know we talk a lot about confirmation bias- we buy something and then convince ourselves we like it. Or something like that. But did you ever buy something you wanted to love and just couldn’t make it work? For me, Esoteric X-05 SACD/CD player. Bought from a local who was upgrading to the X-03. Big, beautiful piece of gear, but I couldn’t get used to the sound after 6 months of trying. Sold it to another local- I insisted he listen before he bought and I believe he sold it soon after as well. Totem Forest and Hawk. I loved the whole concept. Slim, easy to live with. Couldn’t get them to work in my room. The Model Ones were much better. I had a couple of other pieces, but this is long enough. BTW, these were bought used without audition.

chayro

For sure you are right!

Be it Miles Davis and any other great musicians or Bach or Ali Akbar Khan, we cannot impose our values and tastes... We can only communicate them politely...

Anyway all great musicians are in a world of their own and are uncomparable and all necessary for humankind ...

Even those i will not name whom i like less...😊

Never understood the concept of bashing someone else’s preference in music. Personally, I have nothing against classical music, but I wouldn’t listen to it even if I could use someone else’s ears to do so. It’s not good or bad, it’s just not what I like. I also never audition my system for others because I didn’t build it to please others. I built it to please me, and it does that admirably.

I listen to jazz probably 40% of the time (otherwise classic rock - only classical is that part of Days of Future Passed), mainly late fifties to mid 60's with a little progressive stuff in there from the 80's and beyond.

Of course Coltrane is heavily in the mix. I just can't stand A Love Supreme and it is always rated highly among his records. Same goes for a few other very highly rated jazz choices that are I guess a little too "out there" for my taste like Eric Dolphy and Wayne Shorter's The All Seeing Eye.. 

If you don't like Miles you don't like jazz, and that's OK. Kind of Blue is a masterpiece, highly influenced by the great Bill Evans. This is the only album of Miles' he plays on. BTW, I only like Miles' records from the late 50's to early 60's, and I know Bitches Brew is always named among his best, but that is also in the Love Supreme category. I just don't get it. 

Sometimes it is not the opinion the problem...

Sometimes it is the way the opinion is phrased as an ultimatum...

😊

@sokogear 

Totally agree re A Love Supreme.  But love his lyrical stuff (e.g., My Favorite Things, Plays the Blues, Ballads, etc.), and love virtually everything he did with Miles - the contrast with the Miles “notes not played” approach was pretty brilliant.

(uhmm, I think it's "Bach Partitas")

To get back to the regret-drenched topic of this thread: some years ago I went through a long period of researching passive volume controllers. I had been using a very nice sounding, transformer based PVC from NHT for years, but needed additional outputs, so went on a deep PVC dive. Ultimately it led me to a Goldpoint PVC that (with much difficulty) I had the mfr configure the way I wanted, not the way he wanted. Paid a lot, put it in system, and the sound was horrifying: thin, bright, lifeless.

In fairness to Goldpoint, which makes terrific stepped pots, PVCs that don't use transformers or autoformers often sound pretty bad, as they're wholly dependant on the impedance/capacitance of whatever is upstream & downstream.

In any case, I wasn't paying attention. The answer was to search for PVCs that use transformers or autoformers. There are some beauties of this kind out there. Unfortunately they're very expensive. Ah, well. Another day, another unfulfilled obsession...