Many of us are not in the position where we can borrow and evaluate items for an extended time in our home. Even listening in a showroom is fraught with problems because there, we are listening to a system, so isolating the contribution of any one item in that audio chain is near impossible.
So we rely on reviews that are sabotaged by the same dilemma where one item in the reviewer’s chain might have a ying cancelling out the yang in the item under consideration. Poring through a number of reviews is the only answer so one can have more confidence if the item is good in a number of different situations. Hopefully it then has a better chance of being good in your system.
But then the anxious audiophile reads that another owner likes B better than the favoured A. What to think? Maybe A is not as good as hoped because there is someone out there who preferred another item.
Time to re-appraise. But just because someone else likes B better than A is no reason to conclude buying A would be a mistake, although of course, horror of horrors, it could be. Time to think again. What is going on?
Well for starters people hold different opinions on all sorts of things, audio included. Obviously we all think differently as a result of genetics and experience. Besides it is not as if we always think the same way. Our feelings at the moment are heavily influenced by the immediate environment, the degree of tiredness and good health of the brain and associated ears plus maybe also by opinions being voiced by others nearby. Standing back it is easy to doubt if one is thinking clearly and making rational decisions. And just to confuse it all is the emotional response generated by listening to fine music in the first place.
So yes, buying any item runs the risk it will not yield the result hoped for in the home system. But then one might be delighted at how different the music now sounds. However it could be a mistake to extrapolate that different sound to mean there has been a move towards audio Nirvana. More likely it has been a sideways rather than a move forward. Been there in the last 60 years and done that far too often!
Bottom line is that Audiophilia is a pernicious and expensive condition to suffer from with a depleted bank balance frequently the only inoculation. And sadly that vaccination can quickly wear off as the bank balance looks healthier.
All that said, do go ahead, read all the reviews and listen all you can because playing with these electronic toys is such fun. And, BTW, listening to music is culturally good for the soul. What other hobby can be so rewarding!!!
Tbh I never understood that everlasting quest of audiophiles for better gear, listening to subtle differences and flipping components regularly.
I think you nailed the key point with highlighting that a change in sound character after flipping components or tweaking can always be ´sideways´. Yes, absolutely! In many cases one recording sounds better, the other sounds inferior.
What really cures this everlasting dissatisfaction in my understanding is to learn how to deal with DSP without taking measurements into account. And to do listening comparisons with a full variety of ´non-audiophile´ tracks maximizing the ratio of albums which just ´sound fine´ and give enjoyment on one’s system instead of pulling out the dozen of ´super-audiophile´ tracks. I noticed that many people trying to find some ´audiophile Olympus mountain´ with a limited number of tracks while neglecting the majority of music they might explore in future, are those suffering the most.
comparison is the greatest thief of joy
It’s so you can better spot the massive differences in recording quality of the source 