Audiophile kit used to be a vice of mine, just as most fishing tackle is designed to catch fishermen rather than fish the same, should be said for the majority of kit tagged “audiophile”.
I my experience the first thing to consider is proper acoustic treatment, where you put the speakers and what the sound will refract from or be absorbed by is the first step, a good few weeks can be spent carefully angling the speakers and measuring the distances (you’ll need an expensive laser measure/level)
Then you’ve got to get the best quality interconnects, find the ones that you cant possibly afford, those are the ones that you’ll need.
If you’ve gone for non-active speakers then you need to keep the amp to speaker cable short and the interconnects can go the distance. (mono blocks or active are the best way to go, integrated stuff will make you go slowly deaf, sterile and possibly catch the “gays”)
After that you need to isolate the kit from the mains, the quality of the power coming into your property will have a noticeable & detrimental effect on the reproduction. Your best option is to stick a battery array in, I used to have an old compaq UPS that ran all my kit from the “clean” battery feed and not only did this make everything sound better it made me thinner, more attractive and able to wheelie down hill one handed. (As you’ll not be able to get one of those old UPS’ then you’ll have to go out and buy a bank of Rolls batteries with a charging system)
By now you’ll have spent most of your budget but there’s still things that you NEED, if your expensive kit is simply sat on your expensive hifi rack then you are making a CRIMINAL mistake, there are vibrations EVERYWHERE; from passing traffic, airplanes even from your fridge or the wifes hoovering! but fear not, you can protect yourself and your fellow listeners from this! what you need is an Isolation system, oil baths rather than air or spring dampened isolation pads are an essential. Also their procurement usually goes un-noticed by your significant other, a great way of satisfying your “Gear Acquisition Syndrome” (aka GAS).
Now hopefully you’ve got your equipment properly set up and you’re ready to enjoy it, the best way to do this is listen to Reference CD’s supplied by the manufacturers, careless or poorly thought out musical choices are just as bad as using those cheapo thin black and red interconnects sold at car boot sales! Only an idiot would spend upwards of 5k on a HiFi then WASTE IT by listening to anything other than Jean Michelle Jarre, Yes, Dire Straits or if feeling particularly wild, Genesis.*
I achieved the hallowed “Perfect Sound”, my system could raise the hairs on the arms of the deaf, make cats and dogs interbreed and cure cancer, but eventually something strange happened, I stopped listening to music at home. THE “EYES” IN MY EARS HAD OPENED!! I’d listen to albums in the car, on an ipod, on a paint covered wireless, through a length of hose pushed into my neighbours loft. All of these forms of listening gave me such exquisite and yet audiophile sinful pleasures, I felt dirty but it was worth it, every snippet of every shop piped tune I passed was a pure titillation. I would hang around building sites hanging on every builders bent noted whistled, I’d be found sqouring subways for demented buskers, eventually this led me into bars where I’d hear people playing these instrument things with rampant abandon, no concern paid to the angles their sounds might carelessly refract from, I wept, it was like a rebirth! So I joined them, I began playing an instrument too and people listened, people would visit my home to hear me play. Fifty times the visitors attended my house than those that would attend my “guess the interconnect” evenings!
Then I went into the studio…
* I’ve never owned any Genesis, Yes, or other such twaddle, although I did have a dream last night about some bloke from genesis, I think he was the guitar tech.
In short, the most important thing about listening to music is not the kit you play it on but rather the reaction and situation that it involves.
