If you spend your whole life obsessing over material things, you can miss the things that matter.
I care about audio quality, but not to the extent where I can call myself an audiophile. For me, the goal is the music. When a symphony clicks with you, when you find the time to listen to it all in one go, and when you are in the right state of mind to take it in, it's a rare experience. No amount of equipment will get you that. What will get that absolute high is making life decisions that carve out the space to engage with the music.
Yup. I was quite into this when I was younger, obsessed with research etc. Then with a new well paying job as a web developer/programmer I spent something like $9k or so in 1997 (in NOK, that's the USD conversion for that year) on a Rotel + Infinity 5.1 system, including a projector and a screen, VHS / CD / Cassette / LD - and then, best decision every, went completely cold turkey on the research/equipment obsession - I just checked out.
So from then on I have just been enjoying content instead, slowly over the years peeling down the input side to just a HTPC with a high end soundcard (with a multi channel RCA to DB25 cable), and the playback to now a Samsung QLED (2016).
So yeah, that was a lot of money back then, but I still use the base Rotel pre/amp + Infinity speakers (refurbished once), and the sound is absolutely lovely. (A no-name, cheap but big subwoofer was added along the way too, and it fills in the bottom end just right).
Divided by 26 years, I think I did pretty well. Some titles such as the new Dune movie still gives me goosebumps audio wise. Amp needs a service now, lost a channel, but once done I reckon it'll be good for many more years.
> When a symphony clicks with you, when you find the time to listen to it all in one go, and when you are in the right state of mind to take it in, it's a rare experience.
I don't think it's rare. Engagement happens when there is a balance between what is familiar and what is foreign. You might look at all the cover art, names and reviews, but if it's too familiar or too foreign, it won't click.
So music you like should be sorted by familiarity. If you're not switched on, you can tell your system, 'don't play this in a while' and the next time it chooses to play it to you, it'll be far more interesting.
With symphonies, I'm already familiar with them after listening to them the first few times. Like I've listened to individual movements separately several times, but if I listen to all them together, fully concentrating on the music , and not distracted with anything else, the whole is a lot more than the individual components. In busy lives hyper focused on always being productive, maximizing for status or money, getting the time to listen to hour plus long symphony in one go is hard. And having a settled mind to do that is even harder.
> In busy lives hyper focused on always being productive, maximizing for status or money, getting the time to listen to hour plus long symphony in one go is hard. And having a settled mind to do that is even harder.
I care about audio quality, but not to the extent where I can call myself an audiophile. For me, the goal is the music. When a symphony clicks with you, when you find the time to listen to it all in one go, and when you are in the right state of mind to take it in, it's a rare experience. No amount of equipment will get you that. What will get that absolute high is making life decisions that carve out the space to engage with the music.