How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, semente said:

 

The food is rubbish here, a gastro-invasion would be most welcome.

 

2 hours ago, mansr said:

You must be eating at the wrong places.

 

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

 

 

he is likely eating at English food places, instead of the foreign/international food places

 

English food has come a long way in the last 30 years IMO, as has the cuisine in Australia. French food seems to have remained similar, at least I haven't noticed much change.

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

 

Wrong in general, tho xlnt cheese was made.

 

In general, French food did get a big boost from the Arabs - one good thing to come out of the Crusades.

 

Here is a quote from a History of the Med. period: "The tastes of the Norman nobility were far more sophisticated than the English."

Doesn't say much for the English, then, does it?

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, semente said:

 

The food is rubbish here, a gastro-invasion would be most welcome.

I have visited England many times, and I've always enjoyed the food. From a Ploughman's lunch to fish and chips at a pub to a hearty English breakfast to Chicken Vindalu. I've enjoyed every meal. 

[gmgraves]

36 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

I am looking at any and all possible reasons that may effect a change in SQ with a change of cable. I don't need to know the explanation to hear the change. Conversely, some people need an explanation before they can hear a change. This assumes a change is there in the first place which as you say in most cases is unlikely. Paraphrasing @Jud it is the "doctrine" espoused in competing views that sends up red flags for me.

 

I don't get it. A change in tonality would be a cable characteristic, but a ground loop is a fault that has nothing to do with a cable's construction or the materials used.  

[opus101]

Ground loop 'faults' are guaranteed when unbalanced ICs are in use between non-isolated-from-mains-at-AC audio components.

[beerandmusic]

3 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Yeh I did just that for over 25 years. Can't say i made a profit tho but good for you !

 

well i had a good start (wink)

 

the first deal that got me back into stereo was about 8 years ago, when i landed over $7K worth of audio equipment for $500....including 4 AR tube amps, vintage maggies, linn sondek turntable, mcintosh preamp,  and tons more...a whole driveway full....that is still my best "pick" of all my garage and estate sales....

 

my 2nd best pick was a vintage belly dancing outfit...paid $100 and sold for $2200.

 

third best was a pair of LS3/5A speakers...paid $25, sold for $900...

 

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

16 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

my 2nd best pick was a vintage belly dancing outfit...paid $100 and sold for $2200.

 

 

 

 

For that much money I would have expected the belly dancer to be in the costume...well maybe not if it "vintage"

 

[beerandmusic]

34 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

For that much money I would have expected the belly dancer to be in the costume...well maybe not if it "vintage"

 

the funny thing is that i didn't even know what the outfit was worth, as there was no ebay history of sold 1800's belly dancing outfits....it's possible i gave it away too cheap?.....i just put it up on ebay with $5K obo, but purpose of ad was to solicit opinions and advice, with not even expecting anyone to make an offer....when i saw the $2200 offer, i JUMPED on it....I still have no idea what it's real value was....yea, i don't think i would want a belly dancer that was born in the 1800s...lol.

 

 

 

[beerandmusic]

here is one of the 4 exact same amps (2 were still new in the box) that i got in the $500 lot....man i wish i kept one...i was just ecstatic at the deal and moved them too fast, and before i got back into music seriously.

 

 

[Jud]

11 hours ago, gmgraves said:

If you are talking about British food, might I remind you that Britain got the reputation for lousy food during WWII when American G.I.s were stationed there. Hardly the best time to explore any nation's cuisine, but especially then for the British as they had nothing to eat. It's easy to have a great cuisine when you have good ingredients. The British had strict rationing and were lucky to get a tin of corned beef or Spam per month. People often forget this (and many never knew it) but here in the USA, rationing ended as soon as the war ended, but in England it continued into 1953! As for British culture, any country that can produce Shakespeare, Thomas Tallis, Handel, Elgar, Gainsborough, Turner, Vaughan-Williams, The original Morris Mini-Minor and the E-Type Jaguar, and the Mini-Skirt, needn't take a back-seat to anybody; culture wise.

 

When I spent a lot of time in Western Canada in 1989-1994, English cuisine was considered the finest you could have, and it was awful.  It involved a lot of bland dishes with white sauces on meat.

 

When I went to London to visit my sister and her family for the Millennium, we had wonderful Indian, Vietnamese, Spanish and Middle Eastern food (as well as the obligatory fish and chips, which I thought was great too).

[firedog]

13 hours ago, semente said:

 

The food is rubbish here, a gastro-invasion would be most welcome.

Every time I visit there I eat fine food. Lots of fresh locally sourced products. I guess it depends where you eat. There certainly is a lot of poor food there, if you want to buy that. 

[mansr]

8 minutes ago, firedog said:

Every time I visit there I eat fine food. Lots of fresh locally sourced products. I guess it depends where you eat. There certainly is a lot of poor food there, if you want to buy that. 

I have never been to a place where you couldn't find bad food.

[Jud]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

I have never been to a place where you couldn't find bad food.

 

New Mexico comes real close.  

[pkane2001]

14 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Pardon my continuing this exercise ... but why? If your car is playing up, is your interest in whether if someone makes various areas of the vehicle faulty, one by one or in combination, how it feels and sounds - or, what needs to be done to make sure that it never shows faulty behaviour?

 

"Standard" distortions are not relevant to achieving what I call competent sound - so knowing what they sound like would be completely useless, to me.

 

All mechanics I know are trained to recognize specific symptoms of car trouble. All manufacturer service manuals include flow charts that use the presence or absence of specific symptoms as a decision point as to which part to diagnose next.

 

If you think that knowing and being able to recognize specific symptoms within a system is 'completely useless' then please remind me to never bring my car (or audio system) to your garage!

[mansr]

8 minutes ago, Jud said:

New Mexico comes real close.  

I've been there.

[Jud]

1 minute ago, mansr said:

I've been there.

 

Hope you enjoyed it.    A lot to like besides the food, too.  (The Stereophile offices were in Santa Fe once upon a time - their leaving may be considered a disappointment or improvement, depending on your point of view.  )

[gmgraves]

16 hours ago, opus101 said:

Ground loop 'faults' are guaranteed when unbalanced ICs are in use between non-isolated-from-mains-at-AC audio components.

I've never had the problem. But I do know that they can be difficult to run down and correct.

[gmgraves]

5 hours ago, mansr said:

I have never been to a place where you couldn't find bad food.

There's an awful lot of bad food available right here in the good-ol' USA. For instance, I find McDonalds to be inedible. Might as well be eating out of a garbage can. Taco Bell isn't much better and neither is KFC. Those are just the fast food outlets. There are plenty of one-off restaurants that are greasy spoon joints with terrible food as well. When I was in college I and my roomie had an apartment over a restaurant run by an old Greek woman. Her hamburgers were mostly bread filling and her fries were served with half the (rancid) cooking oil still clinging to them!

[Ralf11]

7 hours ago, Jud said:

...

When I went to London to visit my sister and her family for the Millennium, we had wonderful Indian, Vietnamese, Spanish and Middle Eastern food (as well as the obligatory fish and chips, which I thought was great too).

 

This explains the British Empire - they were just looking for a decent meal.

[crenca]

5 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Hope you enjoyed it.    A lot to like besides the food, too.  (The Stereophile offices were in Santa Fe once upon a time - their leaving may be considered a disappointment or improvement, depending on your point of view.  )

 

Santa Fe is a bit of a Hipster bubble when it comes to food and alot of other things.  I do love the food in Santa Fe, fur sur.  Down here in southern New Mexico there are plenty of greasy spoon dives where the food it not so good...

[GUTB]

So, a couple of things.

 

1. California is a failed state. Lifestyle homeless everywhere, gangs / crime, most neighborhoods are bombed out urban decayed trash. A few places like Orange County and the high-tech enclaves, etc, are still very nice but horrendously expensive— essentially a third-world gutter with a minority of haves doing thier best to stay out of the majority of have-nots.

 

2. Are there any places in the UK which are both not decayed urban trash and not horrendously expensive to visit?

[Ralf11]

California's a Garden of Eden

A paradise to live in or to be

[mansr]

1 hour ago, GUTB said:

Are there any places in the UK which are both not decayed urban trash and not horrendously expensive to visit?

It's all class D. It sucks.

[beerandmusic]

1 hour ago, GUTB said:

So, a couple of things.

 

1. California is a failed state. Lifestyle homeless everywhere, gangs / crime, most neighborhoods are bombed out urban decayed trash. A few places like Orange County and the high-tech enclaves, etc, are still very nice but horrendously expensive— essentially a third-world gutter with a minority of haves doing thier best to stay out of the majority of have-nots.

 

2. Are there any places in the UK which are both not decayed urban trash and not horrendously expensive to visit?

 

i love san diego...i considered dozens of other places to retire, and couldn't find one i would like more....great dining and night life, and no better weather anywhere than here also.  (other places i would put high on the list were NM, oregon and washington (too much rain), texas (prop taxes high in austin), vegas and arizona were considered also (too hot)....(east coast, south, or north... either too cold or too humid or both)....really not many places i think are even close to san diego....big city convenience without the traffic and hustle, and economically competitive....lots of jobs, if needed too...

 

[Jud]

3 hours ago, crenca said:

 

Santa Fe is a bit of a Hipster bubble when it comes to food and alot of other things.  I do love the food in Santa Fe, fur sur.

 

True dat, but if you haven’t been up to Albuquerque area in a while there’s quite a food and culture scene kind of flying under the radar.