Hello friend. Hey, listen...we know how it is. Believe me, most of us have been there too. You've spent years toiling in the muck of audiophilia. You read ALL the reviews. You watched ALL the youtube videos. You visited ALL the other forums where everything always makes a difference. You bought the cables and the little bridge thingies for them to sit upon and the benefits were magical. You bought the $1000 IEMs that only truly sang after 250 hours of burn-in. Not 200 hours...or 225 hours, but 250 hours! It must be that for the magic to appear! You converted your entire music library to super high res and enjoyed the blissful new details that never were revealed by the awful, cludgy mess that was 16/44 cd. Never have your ears been assaulted by the likes of bluetooth audio or lossy mp3! You searched endlessly for the perfect dac...the dac that truly brought the magic! You bought one after another, each more expensive than the last, searching for the one, true dac that sounded better than all the rest...
And then you arrived here...and posted about your dac discovery, and were told that a dac shouldn't sound like anything at all! Suddenly your audio reality came crashing down around you. How can this be? Why shouldn't a dac sound great?? Why would expensive dacs even exist if they all sound the same??? Wounded, you lash out angrily! It's idiocy! It's retarded! These people have dead ears! It hurts. We understand. It's been a long time and you've spent a lot of money, all for naught. But once the pain diminishes and you've had time to deal with your emotions just give it some thought. Do some reading here and once your ban is lifted, maybe ask a few questions. Instead of locking your eyes shut against the bright light of objectivity...just open them up a little. Just a squint! Let a bit of that light in and bask in a warm, tubey glow that actually means something! Perhaps, as with many of us, a weight will begin to lift off your shoulders. Perhaps there is freedom in this new reality! You might discover that there is a different way...a way that wields real magic. A way that actually answers questions and reveals truth while at the same time leaving your wallet fat and happy! Welcome my friend. Welcome to ASR where the truth shall set you free!
A friend of mine always starts of his droll anecdotes with the phrase 'funny story'. So here's my 'funny story'.
Many many moons ago, when night clubs were called discos, I managed to purchase a Technics CD4 'discreet' system for way under the retail price. The store manager was a close friend of my brother, so instead of the usual $1200 I paid around $500. I'm talking around 1977 or so. A lot money for me then.
It was a moment of some excitement for me when the CD4 indicator would light up, signaling that the LP playing had been recorded in CD4 mode.
Over the decades a combination of too much drinking and too much gambling made sure that I couldn't afford those ultra expensive and glorious looking bits of kit that appear in the glossy hi-fi mags. Recently, I realised I actually can now afford to buy a system for between 4 and 5K. I thought, oh well, I won't be able to afford anything really good - but at least I'll get something that won't be totally embarrassing.
Trawling through websites, and magazines and articles was like diving into a huge bowl of mullagatawny soup mix with minestrone and with a few bricks on the bottom of the pot for you to bang your head against. I thought, this is ridiculous. How does anyone know what is good and what isn't? I knew that if I went into a retail store and said 'I'd like such and such speaker' the salesperson would no doubt say 'oh, great choice, but for a little bit more money you do much better!' And I'd be done like a dinner.
After luckily discovering ASR - it became clear that I could narrow down the vast field of choices by simply discarding anything that hasn't been independently and objectively assessed. And, I could probably with some judicious choices put together a very decent system for my 5K.
Thank the lord I found ASR - quite apart from the site being a great source of information - the members seems more than happy to help out those with less knowledge and experience in audio.
I will be making a contribution to keep the site going - although it won't be a large one- (see previous comment re: gambling)
thanks to all.
Then I found ASR.
