johnnie225
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How high do (we) want our fi ?
rmeyer52
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The high end audio market is only about 3% of sales I believe in the audio market. There are many reasons that people don't get into high end audio including the success of iPods and iTunes which has ruined the "sound" quality market. But it goes deeper than that I believe...not having the time to truly listen to good music and having artists that putting out products instead of great music which can appreciated on a high end system. Then there is the confusion of how much you need to spend to get great sound and the confusion around what and how much as evidenced by the newbe posts that ask for advice.

As I have stated before musical tastes tend to evolve as we get older, at least my did. With that evolution comes an evolution of the need for better sound as well but until people take that first step they don't know what they're missing. Listening to a Coleman Hawkins CD this morning that was recorded in 1957 I was reminded of both how good he played and how great the recording was but I also know that not everyone can appreciate the love that I have for good recordings and artists.

Buddha
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How high do (we) NEED our fi?

We are a small subset of the audio market because most people don't need our degree of minutiae to get off on music.

I think we are the afflicted minority!

Monty
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It took me a long time to come to the conclusion that I have to have two systems. Because I enjoy many crappy recordings as well as high quality recordings, I gave up on trying to find a happy medium as far as system matching goes.

smejias
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Quote:
It took me a long time to come to the conclusion that I have to have two systems. Because I enjoy many crappy recordings as well as high quality recordings, I gave up on trying to find a happy medium as far as system matching goes.

With all due respect, Monty, I hope I never get to that point. Fortunately, with my current system (Exposure electronics, Rega turntable, Totem loudspeakers, Furutech cables), I have no trouble enjoying most of my recordings. (Every now and then there's a stinker, but they're few and far between.)

However, I do like the idea of having two systems just for the fun of it. I can imagine having a relatively high-power solid-state-based system and a low-power tubed-based system, for instance. But I would still expect both systems to play most recordings with little trouble.

Then again, my ideas of "crappy recordings" and "high quality recordings" might be very different from yours. I might own more crappy recordings, and actually enjoy more crappy recordings. Who knows?

I want my fi just high enough that I forget it's there, and feel compelled to buy tons of new music.

commsysman
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Two systems is nice!

We have a few recordings that were not well engineered or whatever, and we just put those on the #2 system (doesn't everyone have one??).

The #2 system evolved as a sound system for the 60" Sony HDTV in the family room. It started out as an old Cambridge 40W amp with two old small Celestion speakers, and now has evolved to a NAD 325BEE amp with KEF iQ9 tower speakers. The OPPO DVD player has a direct audio connection to the amp for playing audio discs, and the rest of the times it does the TV audio. It sounds pretty nice, but is also fairly forgiving when listening to recordings that are not A-1 quality; certainly more so than my big system in the living room.

Buddha
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I'm a believer in multiple systems.

Only having one system is like having only one friend.

Call me a polygamist audiophile.

I've yet to meet the perfect system - they ALL have their idiosyncracies ( which I could tell apart in DBT, by the way...... .....) so having alternate systems can add some spice to one's relationship with music.

More than one system also means good music in more than one place!

One system may fit a certain room and its mood particulalry well, and another system may be the schiznit in another room.

Sometimes I want lean bass, sometimes mo' bass. Perhaps even with the same music.

(I probably have a bit of audio ADD, too. Most days, I wanna simply sit wherever I end up sitting and yack or sip vino or read or sit and do nothing but listen - so having some Hi Fi in different places help change the scenery, too.)

Multiple systems can make for different views into a piece of music, too.

Multiple systems also help keep a little of the OCD out of my listening. Instead of obsessing over one system and getting the shakes over its interconnects and trying to get every recording to sound the way I like it, I can have different options in different places. There's alot of recording to recording variation, and multiple systems may allow one to have different horses for different courses.

Word.

linden518
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Well, kind of echoing what SM said, I've one 150wpc SS amp and one ~30 wpc push pull, and each does its own thing that the other can't do. And it's nice to have both options. Not to mention that when you have toddlers/infants, you can't have your tube/turntable set-up out in the open! So for practicality, I have the tube/analog set-up in the basement study/listening space, and the SS is in the living room where the whole family can enjoy the music. Sometimes, life deals you a hand where you are forced *cough cough* to have 2 systems... woe is me

JIMV
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My second system is also in the living room and is mostly castoffs from my main system. Maggie MMG's, Onyko receiver, Thorens Vinyl, Parasound phono amp, Samsung DVD and a lot of different interconnects and speaker cables. I do not listen to music seriously there.

Buddha
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Quote:
My second system is also in the living room and is mostly castoffs from my main system. Maggie MMG's, Onyko receiver, Thorens Vinyl, Parasound phono amp, Samsung DVD and a lot of different interconnects and speaker cables. I do not listen to music seriously there.

"I do not listen to music seriously there."

Why not?

BillB
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I enjoy the heck out of my secondary system - it gets more hours of use in a given day than my "main" one. The 2nd system is in the family room, so tv and dvd sound goes through that. And when playing CD's there, or stream Airtunes for music (on the continuum from "background" to "serious" listening) we dig it. It's a modest system (speakers are B&W DM601's) but it can catch you and make you sit down to listen even tho you were on your way to do other things...

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