Lightbulb moments, or how far have you come in your journey?

[kemmler3D]

For the past few years, I have only listened to pretty capable speakers or good-to-great headphones, my daily drivers are definitely ASR-approved and are some of the best gear I've set ears on, personally.

Today I fired up a portable speaker that I actually voiced myself, but something like 8-9 years ago, without the benefit of a good deal of knowledge I've gained in the meantime. I was (am) pretty proud of it, but it did NOT sound as good as I remembered. The coloration was pretty obvious and the clarity was less than I remembered. It still sounds good for what it is, but my perceptions have definitely evolved since then.

Anyway, it just showed me "how far I've come", if that's the right notion, since I started upgrading my gear in earnest about 3 years ago.

Have you had any experiences that surprised you, in terms of how good you've got it now, or how much your taste in / perception of gear has changed?

 

[Chrispy]

I've not been disillusioned by idiotic audiophilia in many many years but maybe I misunderstand your post. Headphones I consider a last resort of crap, tho.

 

[Angsty]

My last lightbulb moments came after I had swapped out a couple of components. After the initial few months of euphoria, I came to realize that the new components did not really sound better than the prior ones. Audiophilia really does seem to depend on rushes of dopamine and FOMO to sustain momentum.

 

[test1223]

The most eye opening moment was when I tried out a Smyth Realiser demo. The Smyth Realiser is a device which emulates the sound of loudspeakers with headphones. You could instantly switch between the speaker setup and the headphone emulation of the set-up. The emulation was almost exactly the same as the speaker sound!

This showed me how little the contribution of none linear distortion is to the sound signature of a speaker. It is the speakers 3D sound emission and the room acoustics which is important. All the rest is not that important.

 

[Ze Frog]

Finding this place along with Erin's Audio Corner around the time of the pandemic starting was my real awakening. I was already extremely skeptical of so called reviewer's long before, especially when auditioning stuff they absolutely waxed lyrical about only to be left extremely disappointed in real life. There's likely many in that position, hopefully they find their way here as we all have.

 

[mj30250]

Understanding the importance of addressing room modes via proper bass management, EQ, and positioning and then using speakers that perform well on-and-off-axis to handle everything above Schroeder essentially on their own. The results are clearly heard. Going from good, to great, to exceptional can be a fun journey.

 

[Rednaxela]

My recent lightbulb moment.

Maybe they’re nothing special in the bigger scheme of things, I don't really know. But compared to the regular buds I’ve always had so far, switching to these has been nothing short of a revelation.

 

[Anton D]

My last lightbulb moments came after I had swapped out a couple of components. After the initial few months of euphoria, I came to realize that the new components did not really sound better than the prior ones. Audiophilia really does seem to depend on rushes of dopamine and FOMO to sustain momentum.

That sounds a lot like my dating life when I was young!

 

[Joe Smith]

Evaluating all purchases now from the perspective of "what will this really add to my life/do I really want or need it?"

 

[Anton D]

Aha moments are great.

I had a long and slow aha (Eureka!) path that I think taught me a lot about life and Hi Fi: Sometimes we mistake "different" for "better."

When I was a kid, I was hanging out at the local Hi Fi store, The Tin Ear, in Reno, Nevada, and they had just taken a trade in on a pair of speakers, and I got to listen to them and some grown up in the room (I was around 12) sat there and then proclaimed, "Why did I ever get rid of my pair? These sound great!"

Then, he bought the used pair.

So, I tend to keep prior gear on hand and when I get the urge for better, I pull out old stuff and put all the differences in context. That being said, I obviously like stumbling across audio treasures and acquiring them, but my way helps me avoid the newer/better loop that would cost me much more.

Rationalization, of course!

 

[SIY]

The most eye opening moment was when I tried out a Smyth Realiser demo. The Smyth Realiser is a device which emulates the sound of loudspeakers with headphones. You could instantly switch between the speaker setup and the headphone emulation of the set-up. The emulation was almost exactly the same as the speaker sound!

This showed me how little the contribution of none linear distortion is to the sound signature of a speaker. It is the speakers 3D sound emission and the room acoustics which is important. All the rest is not that important.

That was a big one for me. @jan.didden and I had a unit on loan and were blown away by how good it was. Every time I'd hear special pleading from fashion audio types of "well, we don't really have a great understanding of how the human ear-brain system works," I remembered this experience and was able to discount anything further that those people had to say.

 

[Timcognito]

Putting all my Cds (1000+) on a NAS, having a single dashboard (Roon), later adding DSP and rediscovering music I had forgotten about or bought at a yard sale and never played. I have a friend that went to the British Museum and never got out of the room full of clocks. I had that going for a month where all my new new music was my old music that I never really got into because of it's volume and non-ease of use.

 

[test1223]

That was a big one for me. @jan.didden and I had a unit on loan and were blown away by how good it was. Every time I'd hear special pleading from fashion audio types of "well, we don't really have a great understanding of how the human ear-brain system works," I remembered this experience and was able to discount anything further that those people had to say.

Exactly.

I think every speaker or room acoustic developer / engineer needs such a Smyth Realiser to be able to conduct blind speaker and room acoustic tests, since a mechanical speaker mover is very expensive and to test room acoustic treatment blind with fast switching is nearly impossible.

Also for reviewers like @amirm it is a very interesting option, to conduct more meaningful subjective tests.

 

[Open Mind Audio]

My biggest lightbulb moment was finding and fixing a huge bass null. This happened in my first attempt at a full home theater, a freshly renovated room with a 9.2 Atmos configuration. My subs were built in to the towers (Goldenear Triton Ones) and it all looked perfect, but the bass at the main listening position was feeble. I thought the speakers might be defective. But thanks to good advice from Jim Smith's great book "Get Better Sound," I played around with new speaker positions. Long story short, I found the right orientation (by rotating the set up and using Smith's ratios), and the bass became glorious.

Ever since then, I've focused more attention on speaker position than anything else when I set up a room. Granted, I always start with kick-ass speakers.