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Mental Health and Audio Perception/Enjoynment

Allswell

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I keep asking myself, "how can I make what I'm listening to, sound 'better'?"

I keep finding myself wanting to spend more money on audio equipment, when in reality, perhaps I don't really need to.

I apparently have a top of the line DAC (my cellphone of all things... the LG G7), good headphones (Grado RS1i, among others) and decent source(s) (high quality streaming apps...).

And yet, I never feel "fulfilled", "satisfied" or that "wow" factor anymore. (it's extremely rare)

I remember feeling this way in my earlier days of finding high end audio (being easily wowed that is) ... though the equipment hardly changed since then, I did have some wow moments pairing an old 70s Technics stereo receiver with my Grado's and also when I had a pair of Lambda Nova Basic's by Stax (I miss them).

Have I just simply (naturally?) grown miserable? More "jaded" and "over it" ? What am I looking for , what will "wow" me again?

Ironically enough, the last "wow" moment was when I briefly had the Topping D30 DAC paired to my computer and RS1i's. (Though I was told my phone was doing a better job than the Topping DAC this whole time!). Why did I have that teary eyed wow moment with the Topping then??
Was I just having a bad day and that particular song "moved me" more so than it normally would have?

I'm not sure if I'm making much sense.

I'm just trying to figure out whether more "better" audio equipment will bring me "more joy" or whether it's just me.

Thank you for reading.
 
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direstraitsfan98

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I understand everything you are talking about. The common word used is “nervosa” and it has nothing to do with mental health.
 
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Allswell

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I understand everything you are talking about. The common word used is “nervosa” and it has nothing to do with mental health.

Thank you for understanding.

I am currently suffering from depression among other things and didn't quite know how to depict that in what I wrote/ I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to flat out say it. But I guess that cat's out of the bag now.

Can you explain what "nervosa" is and how it relates?
 

direstraitsfan98

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Thank you for understanding.

I am currently suffering from depression among other things and didn't quite know how to depict that in what I wrote/ I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to flat out say it. But I guess that cat's out of the bag now.

Can you explain what "nervosa" is and how it relates?
I really do understand you even more in that case. I don’t really feel comfortable getting into a public discussion about this but as for the nervosa it’s sort of like a paranoid desire to upgrade and change gears for no reason. There isn’t really a cure other then to try to stop obsessing and thinking too much about your gear and enjoy what you have. I suffer from OCD myself and it’s been very difficult.

I also find myself being moved emotionally from song to song, it just depends on my mood. In those situations I find it’s a song that brings up a very specific memory. I might tell the story sometime, I’ve told it elsewhere before. It involves a broadway show and how I felt such an emotional connection to the main character. That actually makes a lot of sense, it makes sense to get emotional over something that has personal significance to you.

People are complicated beings and everyone reacts diffent to stimuli. I bawl my eyes out during the stupidest scenes (and not sad) in movies. I’m sure it’s normal for anyone else to feel emotional over the music. I actually wish I felt this way more often, I find it therapeutic. Just out of curiosity what song was it?
 

raistlin65

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I understand everything you are talking about. The common word used is “nervosa” and it has nothing to do with mental health.

Sure it can be. When nervosa or "upgraditis" is more of an OCD thing, it can be anxiety-driven. Anytime anxiety decreases quality of life, it's a mental health issue. Or if upgradeitis causes someone to spend and spend money on new equipment, money they don't have, in the form of an addiction, well, addictions are a mental health issue, too.
 

raistlin65

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Have I just simply (naturally?) grown miserable? More "jaded" and "over it" ? What am I looking for , what will "wow" me again?

Ironically enough, the last "wow" moment was when I briefly had the Topping D30 DAC paired to my computer and RS1i's. (Though I was told my phone was doing a better job than the Topping DAC this whole time!). Why did I have that teary eyed wow moment with the Topping then??
Was I just having a bad day and that particular song "moved me" more so than it normally would have?

I'm not sure if I'm making much sense.

I'm just trying to figure out whether more "better" audio equipment will bring me "more joy" or whether it's just me.

Try listening very low-fi only for a few days. While you may not capture that "wowness" that is about the newness of thing, there's often a refresh of how I perceive my hifi equipment. For example, if I've only been listening to my factory car audio system for a few days, my Focal Elears sound amazing to me when I put them back on again.

As for getting that newness wow effect, that's a potential addiction. I used to hang out on Head-Fi, and people get caught up in the FOTM (flavor of the month). You see them buying new IEMs every week or two, always trying to get that same high again. I got caught up in a little bit, realized what was happening, and just decided to stay away from all the discussion of the different IEMS that were being released and what people were trying.
 

Robin L

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I understand everything you are talking about. The common word used is “nervosa” and it has nothing to do with mental health.
Truth is Audiophilus Nervosa is a mental health issue. It's, obviously, at the level of neurotic behavior. Part of the problem is unrealistic expectations. No matter how much money and/or knowledge is applied, recordings at their best are engineered as best as reality allows. There is a limit. A recording/playback chain is never a 1 for 1 representation of the original musical event. Can't get there from here. But audiophiles aiming for that are guaranteed dissatisfaction. The materials one finds in "audiophile" magazines are designed to give the illusion that if you buy "X", your audio problems will all go away.

They won't.
 
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Allswell

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pozz

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Deep topic. I think all of us suffer like this.

Some amount of learning helps—I know it helped me. It makes promises less enticing and informed opinions more valuable.
 

pavuol

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You have reminded me one final sentence in verdict of one of Amir's reviews:
"So let me make this short: the Massdrop THX AAA 789 has my strongest recommendation. Buy one and be happy forever. :) "

So maybe you "just" need that one really last upgrade :)
Of course I'm just kidding and trying to ease things a little, whether appropriate or not :rolleyes:
 
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I am the same. I up to now called it GAS Gear Acquisition Syndrome. I have Major Depressive Disorder and Anxiety. Often if feeling in a down cycle the search for the next 'grail' and purchase provides short term pleasure rush and then feels empty and on and on, i try to control it by switching my pursuits around so i dont spend too much time. Not always easy but thats life.

I dont know where you are but take a look at therapy if you are too concerned.

Regardless on how my kit measures or looks shiny or not, Listening to music still brings joy
 

Sgt. Ear Ache

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Some important things to remember that can help alleviate these feelings of dissatisfaction...

First, a fair portion...really, a very large amount of what "audiophiles" describe, talk about, wax poetic about, is utter and complete bullshit. It really is. They are rarely hearing what they think they are hearing. There's a recent review by Guttenburg of a speaker that is a new version of an older model. He goes on and on about the "special qualities" of the newer model that make it an improvement over the previous version. He's talking about dynamics, and musicality, and it just has "something"...a "sweetness" that makes it a nicer speaker. He doesn't have the old one sitting there to compare...he's making this assessment based on his memory of what the older speaker sounded like when he had it for a while months (years?) ago! It's bullshit. People on the forums talking about the incredible night and day differences between their crappy old $200 dac and their shiny new $800 dac? Utter bullshit. The importance of high def files rather than standard 16/44.1 (or even "******" lossy)? Utter BS. None of them can really hear a difference. They are delusional. Come to that understanding and it's easier to avoid being tempted into the upgrade cycle.

Second, the distance between decent/good equipment and "boutique" equipment - in terms of sound quality - is really vanishingly small. And a lot of that distance can be covered with a bit of EQ work and some basic room treatment. It doesn't take thousands of dollars to put together a system that can produce a reasonably flat signal from 40hz-20khz and there's nothing magical about a $20,000 system's 40hz-20khz compared to a $2000 system's 40hz-20khz. Take joy in having a laugh at the guys scrabbling for sonic crumbs (that they can't even hear) with their thousands of dollars and enjoy the system you have knowing it's very likely getting you nearly where they think they are going.
 
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dshreter

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There’s some middle ground between a desire to upgrade and mental health issues.

There is fun to be had in the novelty of something - just experiencing something new. I was thinking about how Atari used to sell millions of consoles to play what are today extremely primitive games. For sure people had a blast playing video games at home on TV for the first time, it was genuinely fun. But I think you can attribute much of that to the novelty of it. You would have a hard time convincing people to play Atari today, and really care for an extended session of playing Pong.

Experiencing new things is healthy, and provides opportunities for learning and growth too. Maybe you can seek out that feeling of novelty elsewhere, and not use hifi to scratch that itch. Because listening with headphones you’re not going to find some profoundly new experience at this point.

I would suggest putting your energy into music appreciation instead of gear appreciation. There’s a huge world of music out there. And find a new hobby that gives you the enjoyment of experiencing something fundamentally new.
 

majingotan

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I'm not sure if I'm making much sense.

I'm just trying to figure out whether more "better" audio equipment will bring me "more joy" or whether it's just me.

Thank you for reading.

Personally, part of the hobby for me is to try different gears (mostly either DACs or DAC/amp or IEMs for me) that measure from horrible to decent and hear psychoacoustically (sighted listening) if there's an actual difference in the way sound is presented to my ears. Some are chasing the absolute measurements while others on the other end of spectrum use ears and perceived bias to experience something new. I'm a little bit of both and I enjoy the sound coming out of horrible DACs like the Schiit Bifrost 2 or a decently measuring DAC like the Chord Mojo or FiiO BTR5 or Apple lightning dongle. I rotate between them to continue feeling satisfied as some have commented here that psychologically if you haven't listened to your main system for a while and you returned to it all of the sudden it will sound magically better than you've ever heard it play before.
 

Snarfie

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For me listening to music is an way to realy relax as for maney i suppose. These day's it's more a way not to be on the internet or looking to tv.
The time spend with music is for me way more satisfying it let my neurons go there own way an produce
pheromones for thoughts. Ther is only one condition if the sound sounds like shit because of bad acoustic or a terrible recording i can't enjoy the music it bothers me a great deal so i did take care by using roomcorrection an listening to (mostly) quality recordings. ASR an other forums provided me with information to reach that goal sooner than later.
 
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stereo coffee

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Some important things to remember that can help alleviate these feelings of dissatisfaction...

First, a fair portion...really, a very large amount of what "audiophiles" describe, talk about, wax poetic about, is utter and complete bullshit. It really is. They are rarely hearing what they think they are hearing. There's a recent review by Guttenburg of a speaker that is a new version of an older model. He goes on and on about the "special qualities" of the newer model that make it an improvement over the previous version. He's talking about dynamics, and musicality, and it just has "something"...a "sweetness" that makes it a nicer speaker. He doesn't have the old one sitting there to compare...he's making this assessment based on his memory of what the older speaker sounded like when he had it for a while months (years?) ago! It's bullshit. People on the forums talking about the incredible night and day differences between their crappy old $200 dac and their shiny new $800 dac? Utter bullshit. The importance of high def files rather than standard 16/44.1 (or even "******" lossy)? Utter BS. None of them can really hear a difference. They are delusional. Come to that understanding and it's easier to avoid being tempted into the upgrade cycle.

Second, the distance between decent/good equipment and "boutique" equipment - in terms of sound quality - is really vanishingly small. And a lot of that distance can be covered with a bit of EQ work and some basic room treatment. It doesn't take thousands of dollars to put together a system that can produce a reasonably flat signal from 40hz-20khz and there's nothing magical about a $20,000 system's 40hz-20khz compared to a $2000 system's 40hz-20khz. Take joy in having a laugh at the guys scrabbling for sonic crumbs (that they can't even hear) with their thousands of dollars and enjoy the system you have knowing it's very likely getting you nearly where they think they are going.

The self imposed ( certainly in some equipment ) limitation of 20khz is an interesting one to read about:
http://wilson-benesch.com/reviews/Life_Beyond_20kHz_Blackmer_SVC_Sep-1998.pdf
 
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