The Unease of the Audiophile

unleash_me

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The Unease of the Audiophile

Music and its accurate reproduction can provide some of lifes great pleasures. Beautiful art meets wonderous technology, and fanatics find communities of fellowship and glossy magazines with which their desires are regularly stoked. But audiophilia comes at a price, and not just in dollars and cents. A three-decade obsession with sound has convinced me that the natural state of an audiophile is not, as we are promised, the relaxed contemplative state of auditory bliss, but the slightly anxious ambivalence of uncertainty. We vary one way or another, but our resting place is not where it should be. When I look for a resolution, I make the following observations to my fellow fanatics about what it means to be an audiophile:

1. You will live with a persistent sense that all is not quite well, that you could do better, and that your system is always in need of something. What this something might be will shift depending on how much youve already invested: it could be a special fuse or a pair of vacuum tube monobocks, but despite the promises, there is no end point in system design; you can always do better. This is your steady state condition and if you lose your perspective on this point, you are destined to be unhappy and poor. If you gain perspective, you can settle on just being poorer.

2. In an attempt to compensate for your unease you will develop a highly cynical reaction to reviewers who you will come to believe are at best delusional and at worst corrupt, on the payroll of manufacturers who provide them with audio goodies and more. Unfortunately, this cynicism does not quite sate your hunger to locate online reviews of products that support your purchasing decisions. In the absence of full reviews, isolated quotes that agree with you, or the words of complete strangers on web forums will work, as long as they confirm your choices.

3. A further ambivalence is invariably induced by the way audio products are priced. You have every reason to doubt the sanity of a world where a pair of interconnect cables can cost more than a car, and where glib reviewers speak of windows being opened, blacks being blacker, and highs being cleaner as a result. Difficult as you find it to admit, you secretly want to try these in your own system to determine if they actually might do something, which you secretly fear is so.

4. Your system will always sound its worst when other audiophiles come to listen. For some reason, the electricity will be a bit dirty that day, your cables will be on a downcycle, your tubes not warmed up enough, or your tension will transmit itself to the turntable. No matter what you do, people wont be hearing your system at its best and this will drive you crazy. For some reason, dealers (think about that name!) never experience this, only users (and that name!). Worse, this experience will scar you for months as if your very credibility as an audiophile is under question by your fellows.

5. You will start to listen to music you never really cared for in the past. Your spouse will become suspicious that your rock and serious instrumental tendencies have given way to smoky voiced chanteuses with, heaven help you, backing bands of players you hardly recognize. You live in fear of being exposed as a closet air guitarist rather than a soldering-gun wielding jazz afficionado. Worse, you start to pick up a collection of audiophile-approved recordings that have fantastic soundstages wrapped around sterile tunes. And you leave these lying around in full view, just in case.

6) To convince yourself that you are sensible, you will have one product in your rig that is killer for the price. You appeal to the price-sensitive normal human in us all by invoking this giant-slayers reviews and revealing how you heard it once compared to a mega-priced equivalent where you were the only person prepared to admit they could not hear a difference. Sanity partially and temporarily restored, you secretly plan to rewire your living room with audiophile-grade wire and to steam-clean your LPs.

7) In an attempt to appear cost-sensitive, you will dabble in DIY. This could take many forms, but your new-found obsession with affordable paper-in-oil capacitors and high-quality resistors will serve as a shield against claims that you have become a nutter. Now you can quote the cost-to-manufacture for basic audio items and speak authoritatively of the mark-up due to marketing that you and your fellow DIY-ers avoid. You secretly realize those boxes you assemble look ugly to everyone, even you.

8. Once you are a fully paid-up member of the audiophile brigade (with multiple magazine subscriptions, shelves full of old issues, and an obsessive need to track that vintage CD player on Audiogon to see just how much it sells for at auction), you will, not as miraculously as you might have once imagined, become email buddies with a power conditioner designer who has single-handedly unearthed new laws of physics and applied them to domestic wall outlets. You remain unclear if your power cords are the last yard or the first three feet but you feel certain they make a difference and spend accordingly.

9. You have become blase about double-blind reviewing. You wish reviewers would do it but you cant bring yourself to try at home. You find every convenient excuse why its a problem: your auditory memory is too faint, you cant trust your kids to make the changes unseen by you, its too much hassle, and everyone knows it doesnt work in audio (though its been used to great effect everywhere else where human taste and preference are evaluated). Secretly, you fear that you might not be able to tell the difference between the SACD layer and redbook, so why risk the humiliation. Better to lessen your unease by espousing relaxed sighted listening as the only meaningful approach.

10. Your home will become a temple to your religion. Cables will be dressed, risers bought, pucks placed on tops and speaker positions taped to the floor so you can always move them an inch or two around during a private listening service, safe in the knowledge that your little undo trick will work. You will even contemplate brutish sound panels which in your eyes (only) will be justified to others as room decoration. Though you intend to sell your spare equipment, you dont. It sits in a pile, ready to be repurposed for a second, third, even fourth system for the garage that never actually gets assembled. You forget how much you paid for some components even though you would cry if your pension plan dropped that same amount.

Ah friends, it never ends. Its all about the music, people will tell you, but you and I know it is much more than this: unease is your disease. And we wonder why young people arent audiophiles!

Source
 
This hobby sometimes gives me sleepless nights tinkering a problem or deciding upon a new plan of speakers. It has certainly left and continue to leave me uneasy and poorer as I read a lot, learn and experiment and make more speakers and then again start looking forward to making a new set up ! Never satisfied and then there is so much info which results in so many variables.....

This Formula will give you Peace of mind.:)

Philips AD12100/HP4 [12" Dual cone 4-Ohm Fullrange drivers]

I'm sure you know IPL Acoustics TL enclosure Plans

For tweeter use a single cap between Frd & Hfd not conventional networks.

I lived with this formula speakers peacefully over 2 decades.

Trust me No other Formula Works Better than this one.
 
Thanks. To be exact, please let me know where to source the Philips speakers, which tweeters to use, what cabinet plan you used.

I have a 20 watt x 2 channel, Class A Yaqin tube amp, so life would be easy. Its time I took a break and rested to enjoy some music.

Other plans will catch on.....

Mr.Reuben
http://www.hifivision.com/sale-owner/53166-philips-ad12100-m8-full-range-drivers.html
I suggest not to for for tweeter at all, if you are not satisfied then you can think of any tweeter you like or prefer I had simple alnico magnet 4"Paper Cone tweeter, but I'm sure you would go for domes only & these frd's dont need twentyyyy watts 10 will be more than sufficient if you follow IPL TL 10" design carefully its all abt coupling speakers energy to air particles in your room with high efficiency.
Sorry yogi they been sold it seems but try in Ebay but 4 Ohm ones will give you more Attack, you may think of selling your sub when you build these masterpieces.
_001.jpg
Yogi Cross Bracing like this is very important for TL's cuz they generate lot of high energy low frequency sounds.
 
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How about Philips AD 9710 M8 Full Range drivers? I may get a deal on them.

I wish I could get the IPL TL 10" cabinet design plans. They sell only the kits. If I have the dimensions, I can get them made in MDF.

Yogi if you go for 8" you endup keeping sub.
I prefer particle board over MDF cuz the wood flakes are dispersed perfecty not like a dense [MDF] board which resonates like a sound board in acoustic guitar's
crossbracing is more important than accuracy of dimensions.
 
Goos Day Yogi,

Yeah hahaha Kids observe more than we ever think they do.:) he was absolutely right cuz sub sound very unusual in TL's bass is soo well connected to the music you dont feel gap

between mid-lows & lows at all, Its really upto you whether to go for MDF or Partical Board whatever you choose I strongly suggest simple crossbracing cuz that way you Grand children

will also be able to enjoy your creations.;) Obviously how can a normal mid range product like IPL going to take care of strengthening their enclosures. Only high end guys offer such

products, The image I posted is of Tannoy Westminster
 
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Purchase the Audiolab 6000A Integrated Amplifier at a special offer price.
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