By The pink elephant in the audiophile listening room is that audiophile equipment is almost always really expensive. These days, a few thousand dollars for a component is considered “mid-fi” audio. There are establishment media in this hobby that focus all of their attention on components costing $10,000 and up, which for most people in the real world is not very attainable. One of our stated goals when we launched FutureAudiophile.com years ago was to try dispel some of the endemic snobbery that plagues the hobby. While we review more than our fair share of “Ferraris on the cover of Road + Track”-type products like a $57,000 CH Precision M.1.1 audiophile power amp (read Jim Swantko’s review), we also review high-value and high-performance Chi-Fi (learn more here) gear, such as the Topping D90 III Sabre audiophile DAC for under $1,000 that is a real stunner – especially for the money. Believe it or not, there are actual audiophile companies that won’t consider advertising with us because they are furious at the fact that we listen to our readers, especially the younger ones, who say value is the most important factor in their buying decisions. Don’t worry, we will be fine without the oligarchs of the world, even though my DNA in this business is in their world, as only a few ever sold Mark Levinson’s Cello gear or anywhere near as many pairs of Wilson Audio speakers back in my early retail days.
Audiophile Window Shopping Comes with No Shame (or Debt)
There is nothing wrong with a little window shopping, be it walking down Fifth Avenue while shopping for a fine timepiece or doing your best Pretty Woman Julia Roberts impersonation while picking out a new wardrobe on Rodeo Drive. One of the most important elements of the audiophile hobby is taking the time to enjoy your journey. When I was young, I was able to buy a nearly new, one-owner 1995 Porsche 911. Some of my older and far more savvy audiophile clients were kind enough to tell me to truly enjoy the blessing of being able to own such a wonderful automobile at such a young age and I never forgot that sage advice. Even as I upgraded to a Porsche C4S and ultimately a 911 Twin Turbo Porsche, I never took my blessings for granted. When it came to somewhat exotic cars, I enjoyed every step along the way and, even today, when I see one these rare, air-cooled Porsche 911s, I think back to mine with the fondest of memories. The same concept can and should go for your audio gear. Just because you don’t own that ADCOM GFA-555 amp from 1991 doesn’t mean that you don’t still have a fondness for the legendary Nelson Pass audiophile power amp. Times just changed, as did your system, and that is very much part of the audiophile journey.
Audiophile Consumer Shows Are Perhaps the Best Place to Dream About New Gear
It is no news story that I am an extrovert. That means that I am likely to start up a conversation with random people, specifically at audiophile shows. At last year’s Capital Audiofest, I got on the elevator after getting my press badge en route to meet Paul Wilson on the top floor of the Bethesda, Maryland Hilton. There were two fellow audiophiles in the elevator and both were FutureAudiophile.com readers. One asked me if I had heard anything fantastic. I quickly chirped, “Did you see that $500,000 preamp that uses vintage tubes harvested from a sunken Russian sub in the Black Sea?” Their eyes bulged out of their heads with disbelief and shock, and of course I was totally bullshitting them, but I got a laugh out of them, too, while touching on the absurdity of our hobby that knows no end to the level of exotica that we sell-promote-write-about. Later at the show, I saw a middle-aged couple walking down the hallway. The wife looked a little bored, so out of nowhere, I asked her if she had been to the room that is giving away an Hermes Kelly Bag to one audiophile wife. Again, I was completely full of shit, but engaging nonetheless with results in the laughter department.
The fact that I am a poorly-adjusted 50-something adult is well-documented, as maturity is totally overrated. What is important about these audiophile shows is that we all walk around listening to gear that we can afford and plenty more that we can’t dream of affording. We dream. We think about what that component would do in our setup. We also compare the cost and performance of a hotel room audiophile system to our hand-curated audiophile system at home. Is that a fair comparison? Who cares? We all do it, and it is perfectly OK behavior. Dreaming of what you might own or how you might procure such an exotic and lust-worthy audiophile product is also a big part of the journey.
What Would Your Powerball Audiophile System Look and Sound Like?
On Christmas Day 2023, in the very early days of FutureAudiophile.com, I wrote about my plans for what I will do when I win Powerball in terms of my audiophile system. Now, please understand that I am an enthusiastic Powerball loser. I actually met a real-world Powerball winner at my oldest son’s preschool about 10 years ago. He worked at Ralph’s grocery store in Reseda (the part of the San Fernando Valley where The Karate Kid comes from) and, on his lunch break one day, he bought a Powerball ticket before getting some ramen noodles from an adjacent bodega. That ticket yielded something like $135,000,000 in winnings. My logic seems sound in that I, too, should be able to beat the 290,000,000:1 odds and land myself a nine-figure net worth, thanks to Powerball or MegaMillons. That’s why you might see me feeding a few extra $1 bills into the lottery machine after a trip to the grocery store down here in my recently adopted home-away-from-home in Laguna Beach. The fact is – I am due to win. I am simply done with being a Powerball loser.
The concept of dreaming of what you will do with your audiophile system if you had unlimited funds is fun. Where would you start with your system? Would you start over from scratch or build on what you have? For me, I would build a bespoke room with perfect acoustics, designed by acousticians and architects. I would integrate as much fine art as audio into the room. Ironically, I wouldn’t have much of my audiophile system in the room with me, so as to keep noise, heat and other distractions away from my music listening.
Other audiophiles will likely have a whole other plan. They might want huge audiophile floorstanding speakers capable of subsonic audio performance. Others might want electronics that come with the most exotic pedigree. Perhaps an enthusiast of vinyl might want a truly world-class audiophile turntable that costs $100,000 or more, which presents itself as much as a technological sculpture as it does a working audiophile component. In any of these cases, these audiophile pipe dreams are a healthy place to go that have no real-world impact on your FICO score, but provide an escape from the realities of everyday life with a topic that we are all passionate about. We can get back to audiophile realities at another moment, because dreaming of audiophile gear can be a productive distraction from our often overly complicated lives.
Some Final Thoughts on Dreaming About Audiophile Gear …
Don’t ever let anybody shit-talk your audio system. Ever. The system that you have today is the best version of what you can do with the means and access to gear that you can find today. Will that change in the future? Absolutely, it will. Will you have system upgrades that ultimately don’t work out? Yes, you will. Will you have that “audiophile component that got away” moment? If you don’t, you aren’t trying hard enough to make your system better.
The audiophile hobby is an “Or Hobby” not an “And Hobby,” which means, like homes in expensive cities, you need to sell one to upgrade to the next. Wine and fine spirits (today is two years without a sip by the way – complete with lots of needed health benefits, not to be preachy or anything) are an And Hobby, in that once you finish off that bottle of Macallan 18, you will want to get another one. Watches are an even better example, in that watch collectors don’t sell their Rolex to buy a Patek Philippe. They add to their collection as their means allow. The audiophile hobby is an Or Hobby, meaning we rarely keep our gear as we upgrade. Will we live to regret some of our transactions? We sure will. Dan D’Agostino recently asked me if I still had that 1997 air-cooled Porsche 911. I don’t. He asked me what I got for it, and I told him that I bought it for $65,000 (it was used, with a retail price of $110,000) and got $85,000 for it – thinking that I was the Gordon Gekko of sports cars. Dan informed me that these mini-959s are now selling used for upwards of $500,000 on the used exotic car market. Gulp. But that’s OK. I loved my time with my 1997 Porsche Twin Turbo and I didn’t own it for status or money. I loved my time owning that car, and those memories are where the real value in owning such an asset. The same goes for your audio gear.
Never stop dreaming about audio.
Never stop researching odd or really off-beat audiophile components. Visit exotic retailers and experience their setups. Travel to audiophile consumer shows to experience million-dollar systems in unreasonably large and totally unrealistic rooms. Meet the people who make your favorite audiophile gear, as they are more accessible than you might think. This is the fun of our hobby.
And even if you can’t ever afford one of those uber-audiophile components, that’s perfectly OK. I don’t want to walk around with a $500,000 Patek Philippe Tourbillion watch on my wrist, nor do I want to own a carbon fiber Bugatti, but when I see one in the window at Geary’s in Beverly Hills or parked in Motorworld in Munich, I still get good vibes. Audiophile gear can do the same thing.
What do you dream about with your audiophile system? What do you think about when you are at your local retailer? What do you try to hear most at audiophile shows? Are you “all business,” or do you leave time for fantasy in your mindset? Share with us your take and we will publish your comments below via our moderated system.
