Many thanks to everyone for taking my question seriously and giving such thoughtful relies. Just to reiterate some of what has already been said and add a couple of ideas of my own.
Firstly, the importance of distinguishing between better and different. There’s a danger of changing components for superficial changes in sound character rather than fundamental improvements in quality. In my opinion, the way to avoid that is using the Tune Dem method. Listening to a short passage of music before and after the change for which it is easier to follow the tune.
I’ve never felt the need to change speakers or power amps in 25 years. In that time, all my upgrades have been with sources, pre amp, crossovers, network and digital signal processing as technologies have advanced. That’s where I have found the biggest improvements to come from. If you can get the loudspeaker system right in the first place and stick with it, that stands you in good stead for the other upgrades.
Tom Martin points out the manufacturers traditionally strive for incremental gains from reducing noise and distortion, while paying less attention to imaging, dynamics, bass in real rooms and undesirable digital artefacts. He emphasises the importance of these issues in achieving believability in audio sound.
It makes absolutely no sense to most people that audiophiles put so much effort into fancy systems when it is perfectly possible to enjoy music on a humble bluetooth speaker. Yet clearly we enjoy listening to better quality sound. This is the contradiction at the heart of my worry that we are not achieving anything with our upgrades. I don’t necessarily think we are wasting our time. It’s more I think we should be cautious, especially as the upgrades become more expensive.
As has been said, the elephant in the room is the room itself. Furthermore, it’s always helpful to listen to the best mastered version of each album.
Happy New Year.
