I lately wonder why I’m an Audiophile.


Ever since I lately stopped obsessing over sound quality and started really listening to  music I’m wondering why fidelity was so important to my appreciation.  Not that I’m totally on the wagon.  I still revel in hearing wonderful sound.  It’s just not so all-important anymore.  And, sometimes very poorly recorded recordings do turn me off.  
It’s just freeing not being so obsessed.

rvpiano

I once got to know a man who has a life experience that few are exposed to.

Well Travelled through adventurism and then at a later time in life their Career, where the person met the lady who was to be come his third wife.

Somewhere in all this and certainly not from their career, the person become a self taught structural and cabinet making quality Carpenter, who started building Horse Drawn Vanner Caravans as their Hobby, where they were even able to function as a wheelwright with their Carpentry Skills.

From the Age of Nine to the day the Couple left the UK at approx' 76 Years Old, the person had been a Falconer, not a keeper of Birds of Prey but a True to the description Falconer, which is how we met said person and wife. 

As a family we visited a Falconry Centre on a family break, to learn it was closed due to retirement , we attempted to learn more and met said person, which was a meeting that created a friendship lasting quite a few years until the UK was left for warmer climates for Old Bones.

Stories of ones life was shared and the accounts were mesmerising, which I always encouraged the wife to attempt to have chronicled, not many has such a rich life experience, and the Stories were worthy of a Film being produced.

Like when gathering flight hours to go into flying Passenger Jets, the planes being flown were propellor planes mainly with a Cargo on board.

A mistake in weight calculation resulted in the plane nearly hitting the Golden Gate Bridge, and follow up Horror Experience relating to weight that took hours to get the point the Plane was safe.

In a nutshell, people like to recollect and many on the Gon are at the age where they like to tell a little about their history.

A Thread like this one has certainly opened the door for a 'chew of the cud' where one is at liberty Speaking fondly of memories means to reminisce or recall past experiences, with warmth, affection, and point out the pleasures had. Focusing in on the positive and cherished aspects of the moments and encounters regerenced.

Why not share publicly, ones nostalgic recall of pleasant memories that were able to be generated, that evoke happiness and a deep appreciation for the past experiences had.           

@mylogic  -1  Spending more on Vinyl and CD then audio gear in the past 55 years proves/says nothing. How large is your Vinyl/CD collection? How many purchases have you made that you currently have little or no interest in? Spending more on software vs. hardware does not prove anything regarding your passion for music.

I think I know why I buy stuff and listen the way I do.  I dislike the expression but I get more "drawn into" the music, and its performance, with my high end system than I do with (e.g.) my TV system.

I restarted my audiophilia in the mid '90s and put together pretty good systems for NYC and my weekend home in VT by about 2000.  I did not change anything then until my VT digital stuff failed and a new CD/SACD player was installed in 2008.

On retirement in 2013 everything was consolidated into one system and I sold or gave away most of the left over components.

Since retirement I have had more time to listen to music, I am no longer training as a competitive cyclist and I cannot ski for 7 hours a day on weekends or play 36 holes of golf!  So I started tweaking and upgrading to get closer to the performance.

I listen exclusively to "classical" music, a genre where there may be over 100 different recordings of the same work.  There have been 160+ recordings of the cycle of Beethoven symphonies as an example; I suspect that this is not the case for other genres.  Listening to different performances of a work is a pleasure, and having a system that clearly displays even subtle nuance of performance enhances the experience. 

I will admit that, on occasion, I find myself listening to the quality of the sound rather than the music; typically this happens for a while after I have changed a component.  This last year has seen major changes, a SACD player/DAC (K-01XDSE), power amp TU-8900 (then rolling tubes in that, WE 300Bs vs RCA 2A3s, Brimar vs Amperex  ECC82s), cartridge (Koetsu RSP), new phono stage (Dos Locos) and new interconnects (Cardas Clear Reflection except for the Transparent Super Phono).  I do try to distinguish between a critical listening session and a relax into the music session.

For me the details just add to the enjoyment, the sense of the space, feeling the vibrations of the wooden body of a string instrument and the like.  So, I am an audiophile because listening to music brings me such peace and joy, and putting the system together has been FUN, its own voyage of discovery, just as is finding new music, or new performances of music I already know.