How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

[4est]

17 hours ago, mansr said:

I don't understand the constant talk about upgrade paths and what to get next. Is it not permitted to simply buy a competent system one can afford and be happy with it (for the time being)?

Well of course, but then why are they here? This site is at least partially about equipment/upgrade paths after all...

[4est]

1 hour ago, Solstice380 said:

 

There are participants at CA who only post in the Music forum, and some who only post in Hardware.   And then there are those who live here! ?.  All are audiophiles.  

 

I bet there are a lot of audiophiles who haven’t even heard of CA.  

Yeah, but I don't hear people getting down talked because they pay/buy too much for music. Audiophile-ness seems to be one of those charged topics that gets overly polarized.

[4est]

10 hours ago, gmgraves said:

Often when I think of the exactitude required in engineering, I'm reminded that it was not that many years ago when everything (including the Tacoma Narrows bridge design) was calculated using a slide rule. When I was in college, the slide rule was still a major part of the curriculum. Unlike scientific calculators, and computer programs, slide rules give the engineer, at best, an approximate answer, and I have often noticed with awe, how some engineers can look at a slide rule and extrapolate very little actual information into 5 or 6 figures! It's a lot like measuring something with a yard-stick graduated in 16ths of an inch and from looking between the graduations, coming up with a measurement out to a 10 thousandth of an inch! That inexactitude might be why common engineering practice is to over-design almost everything. Look at the hundreds of thousands of miles of interstate highway built in the 50's and 60's. All done with a slide rule and material stress specifications gleaned from a materials handbook chart. Very few overpasses in this vast network have ever failed (the ones that did fail, failed due to seismic activity, not engineering errors). Look at the Boeing B52. Designed with slide rule accuracy and still in service 60 years (this year) after the last one rolled off the assembly line. Now that's engineering for the ages!   

I find it interesting that on one hand you suggest that audio signals are readily 100% transferred unaltered while expressing the necessity to over engineer bridges and airplanes because of unknowns and in exact quantification. It would seem to me that you are displaying a bias towards what you think you "know" simultaneously giving deference when you don't. You even seem to applaud their over engineering by calling it engineering for the ages. IME and from what I have read, any and all systems should be designed in a way in which they are capable of handling an order of magnitude beyond their typical use case if they are to be durable and capable under stress.

[4est]

On 6/21/2018 at 11:26 PM, elcorso said:

 

I tried everything Jud, Champix (this side of the planet) and even a shrink...

 

Best,

 

Roch

FWIW Roch, quitting smoking is the single hardest thing I have ever done.