Big Chris started an interesting thread a few days ago about how frequent upgrading is often maligned when maybe it should be looked at as a pursuit of excellence. This touched a chord with me (no pun intended, lol) . Why do people get caught up in upgrade mania?
I acknowledge that there are many people who stick with their gear for many years unchanged. This post is for the rest of us. The reasons for this constant box swapping are obviously numerous and there is no single answer. However, after some thought I feel the following are 2 major factors.
1. When you first dive into hifi and you buy your first quality budget system, there is immediate gratification. The sound quality (SQ) improvement is typically pretty big. This big jump in SQ is one of the causes of upgrade mania. Once we experience this big jump in SQ, we want to achieve it again by spending more and moving further up the chain. Unfortunately, the biggest gains in SQ are typically in the budget category. SQ improvements are not linear with cost. High end gear tend to offer smaller and more subtle improvements. So chasing that initial SQ boost when you went from a cheap boombox to a NAD or CA setup is a bit elusive as you move up the chain in cost.
2. When you first move to a quality hifi system, your best recordings will sound even better, and your worst recordings will sound even worse. This is because distortion has been reduced and you can now more clearly hear the quality of the recording. So, rather than all your CD having a sound qaulity range of say 4 to 6 (on a 1-10 scale), now your worst recordings are a 2 and your best recordings are a 9. This is because a low end poor quality system makes everything sound somewhat similar. On a high quality system you can hear compression, sibilance, over blown bass, and many other recording anomalies that are masked by a low fi system. And truly great recordings will blow you away. So now your scale is much broader. You now want all your recordings to sound like a 9. Before you purchased a quality system, you were blissfully unaware of how good some recordings can sound. Now that you know, you want everything to sound that good and that creates dissatisfaction with your system. Unfortunately, it's often the fault of the recording and not the system so therefore it cannot be improved by upgrading, but people will still try.
Yes, I know, I'm over thinking this. LOL, it's what i do...
I acknowledge that there are many people who stick with their gear for many years unchanged. This post is for the rest of us. The reasons for this constant box swapping are obviously numerous and there is no single answer. However, after some thought I feel the following are 2 major factors.
1. When you first dive into hifi and you buy your first quality budget system, there is immediate gratification. The sound quality (SQ) improvement is typically pretty big. This big jump in SQ is one of the causes of upgrade mania. Once we experience this big jump in SQ, we want to achieve it again by spending more and moving further up the chain. Unfortunately, the biggest gains in SQ are typically in the budget category. SQ improvements are not linear with cost. High end gear tend to offer smaller and more subtle improvements. So chasing that initial SQ boost when you went from a cheap boombox to a NAD or CA setup is a bit elusive as you move up the chain in cost.
2. When you first move to a quality hifi system, your best recordings will sound even better, and your worst recordings will sound even worse. This is because distortion has been reduced and you can now more clearly hear the quality of the recording. So, rather than all your CD having a sound qaulity range of say 4 to 6 (on a 1-10 scale), now your worst recordings are a 2 and your best recordings are a 9. This is because a low end poor quality system makes everything sound somewhat similar. On a high quality system you can hear compression, sibilance, over blown bass, and many other recording anomalies that are masked by a low fi system. And truly great recordings will blow you away. So now your scale is much broader. You now want all your recordings to sound like a 9. Before you purchased a quality system, you were blissfully unaware of how good some recordings can sound. Now that you know, you want everything to sound that good and that creates dissatisfaction with your system. Unfortunately, it's often the fault of the recording and not the system so therefore it cannot be improved by upgrading, but people will still try.
Yes, I know, I'm over thinking this. LOL, it's what i do...