What I learned on Audiogon This Year


Things I learned from the forums this year:

1) In n Out Burger is the best fast food in the world, and Father's Office is the best Burger in LA (thanks BongoFury).

2) Widespread Panic and Arcade Fire are great bands.

3) All Digital is the wave of the future through downloads and analog is dead.

4) Analog is back to audio dominance and will continue to grow, digital is a trend and will die off except for convenience sake.

5) Don't ever say anything derogitory regarding certain types of gear that are defended by thier ______-mafia gangs. Especially___________________________.

6) Expensive Power cords are a still the biggest snake oil in audio.

7) Speakers are the most important place to start building a system.

8) Analog sounds better than digital.

9) Blu Ray is dead in the water, downloads for all media, video and audio is now the standard and will only continue to grow.

10) This is not a hobby, but a terrible affliction/addiction, and I need to change out some more gear.
macdadtexas
the only platform in High-End Audio where serious discussions about gear but also about philosophy etc. is possible. Congratulation!

as we always tend to be very critical where else do we get valuable side information, in the glossy magazines? from sales, marketing and distribution people?

in most cases whenever some distribution guys or gurus who defend their own products appear on the scenery the discussion appears to become very narrow minded. Hopefully this will change a little in 2011.
i learned that hi-rez files on the internet are the latest and greatest thing, but i am still confused on how to get them to come out of MY speakers. trying a search on the forums doesn't come up with much of anything. SO, do i get a Mac Mini, a Squeezbox, a sound card, a specialized DAC, a router, an IPOD, etc...?
I already have a macbook pro, a preamp, an EMM CDP, and an Airport Extreme. SO where do i go from here? i am looking for the simplest and (yet) the best sounding arrangement possible. thanks for your help.
I learned that we all complain about the reviews but continue to subscribe to the audio mags...
This years posts reminded me that there are a lot of folks out there that take this stuff way too seriously.