Hifi ...a hobby or a drug?

Hi all,

Just wanna share my experience and exchange opinions among us.Its not a debate but just a topic.I've been involved in this hobby or maybe 'drug' since 1990 (almost 20 years) and became 'addicted' till then.Even scary when I estimated that I've spent more than RM80K along the road searching for hifi nirvana.Its just like never ending road or just like chasing a rainbow.Never end and no such things as High End.Worst of all when I wanted to buy new gears, I started torturing myself, cut my daily expenses,purposely overlapsed car installment and even worst loaned from my ex boss (luckily zero interest ) just to get what I want.That's the reason why I called Hifi is a drug and once addicted it become a nightmare.Went to dealers showroom,listened to their stuffs and when back dreaming,wake up in the middle of the night because of dreaming of the stuff.So is my word harsh if called hifi as a 'Drug'?Maybe some have same experience like mine or can share something how to make hifi a wonderful hobby despite became a slave to it.

TQ
Zam42

my views

Its a drug if uncontrolled.

Its a hobby if its controlled.

On the flip side;

There are different tiers of enthusiast, it is still a hobby.

cheers

I guess we all have to learn to live with our own systems and not crave after others'. I realise now I was happier when I wasnt salivating over turntables and I agree that it can be a real pain if we let this hobby get out of hand. So the old adage holds true that in all things (not only in hi fi), contentment is great gain

Hobby can kill and drugs also can heal, need proper usage!

I guess I should restated it as a "presciption drug" whereby u can only buy it with an advise of your consultant or attached your approval letter....from your wife (for those married man ).Than things should be better and your addiction hopefully can be control maybe not totally cured.

I guess I should reinstate it as a Prescription Drug whereby you have to get approval from professional consultant i.e. your wife (for those married man) before you can buy new stuff.Then life should be more easier rather torturing your mind.I agreed with Mr Wingman saying that it is a controlled drug provided if we can control it wisely.
As Mr JC Low mentioned,try our best to enjoy and appreciate our own system totally justify this issue.
Thanks mates, JC & Wingman.

Of course it's a drug man. It's needed to keep the fever in us manageable. Or is it the other way around ?

Regards,
Joe Ling

music enjoyment is my passion!!!

i miss my music at home, when i am in office working or out of town dealing with other things (don't tell my wife though )

i enjoy music at home every night, it is like standard operating procedures
many times i wish that tomorrow is not a working day and once a while i take half day off to rush home for music...


by the way i think music enjoyment= music +hifi, most of us are in between the 2 extremes though different individuals have varied inclination so you may post yourself some simple but faith demanding questions: you listen to speakers, amplifers, cdp, turtable? capacitors/resistors/cables/interconnects/ tubes/fuses/plugs/ etc etc or you enjoy music? what about imaging/ soundstaging/soundscaping, depth, width, height? ambience, ambiance, emotions? wet/juicy/dry/warm/cold/cool? atmosphere etc etc... you are sure of music enjoyment or not???

which is which? what is what? hobby/drug/passion/past time???

probably hifi is none of the above but a very means of egoism, or out of topic ha...






have a nice weekend!

wingman wrote:my views

Its a drug if uncontrolled.

Its a hobby if its controlled.

On the flip side;

There are different tiers of enthusiast, it is still a hobby.

cheers

HiFi is like Osim to me.
After a hard day's work and been so many noises from the workplace, it is good to have hifi to cheer me up the remaining of the day.
Very relaxed.

zam42,

I have carefully analyzed your condition and have come to the following conclusions.If I may say.......

1.You have a serious case of gear aquisition syndrome aka GAS.
I've seen several such cases,even among guitar & bass players.
Yours truly was a severe case and am still under medical & spousal supervision(my wife i.e.)

2.Hot sweating at night,nightime/ daytime daydreaming and itchy fingers at the ATM machine are all symptomatic of a severe case of poisoning.

3.Other symptoms include staring into space,always buying hifi mags and constant changing of cables,interconnects etc.

4.Secret rendezvous with other like addicted patients in locked soundproof rooms with soft lighting and speaking in hushed tones.

5.Making excuses to the wife to disappear at odd hours of the day to head to demo rooms in plush shopping centres.

Sadly, the list goes on.
May I humbly suggest you seek professional help.
Together with this also have deep prayer and fast.If all fails, then you have no choice but to go cold turkey.
That means locking yourself up in a room with only a cheap made in China mini compo for a week. It's sadistic, but you want to have a life,don't you.

Just my $0.02 worth.

cheer up
teleman51

Everybody have their own point mainly positive and that's good.For me hifi as a hobby especially to married man like me is good.Why, because most of the time you are at home listening to your set and your wife would not worry so much and won't suspicious about u.I have a funny story of mine just wanna share with all my dearest hifi kakis here.It happened during my bachelor years,my lady boss asked me why a handsome guy,that's me(boasting myself ...sorry guys) don't have a girlfriend.I just simply replied to her that I already have ones and said that my hifi set is my girlfriend . I said that I always keep on changing my "girlfiriend" (changing/upgrading my set).She said that I'm crazy,even to make her mad, I told my boss that my "girlfriend" never complaint about me,its only me that always complaints and that the reason why I keep on changing my "girlfriend" and she walked away with red face .I concluded hifi as a good 'Presciption Drug'.

Enjoy and happy HiFi ...ing.

Zam....

End of the day ... is to enjoy what you have and if you have the means to upgrade.....weight the pros and cons, ensure family is kept in mind first.... after all that consideration then you "plonk the dough for your upgrade....."

Then its a passion, hobby, drugs... no worries as other matters are taken care....

Then sit back and enjoy the investment...

cheers

U guys forgot the one word: "obsession"!!!!!

This problem with the mind can sometimes be reduced to a minimum if one takes the trouble to go listen to as many setups as possible. Along the way one may find someone who could enjoy the music with whatever he has, which in some cases not listening to expensive gears. One learn to optimised the available gears and learn to 'listen' to the music and the sound!

If one if to ask "What is the ultimate sound"? What is the complete sound that one could enjoy just listening to music? We may find the answers to our problems of reclassifying what hifi exactly is. If we meet up with the right people at the right time we may sometimes find salvation in the music! Unfortunately, many are still lost in the 'land of hifi'! And wondering in the hifi wilderness for the next many years! If one wants 'help' one have to 'apply' for it or 'reach' out for it!

Put on some Barry White and it's more than a drug. It's an aphrodisiac!

Wonder if I spelled it right?

Guys, my point of brought up this topic is because I wanted to share experience with all hifi kakis here.I've learned from my experience along the road of hifi land.I have another true story to share with you guys that might be a lesson to those new in this hifi land.There was a time when I influence and persuade my office mate to join the club or so called hifi by bringing him to my house and listened to my set.Along the way I told him what is hifi all about and what we trying to do in search for the closest sound of music or to be exact of 'being there' in a recording studio or stageshow.Explaining him our term of hifi i.e. soundstaging,imaging,vocal clarity etc etc.But my bad intention was maybe if he joined in I can sell my stuff to him later on if I wanted to upgrade because in those days is hard to sell our 2nd hand stuffs (no website, only can advertised on Stars newspaper ads but very costly...and it cost about RM30 - RM50 for a very small collums A DAY!).Unfortunately after he joined the club he became addicted.Within less than a year he already owned hifi gears that far more advance/better than mine.I feel bad because he sold his Camry and bought a Proton Saga just because he want the money to buy high end turntable.I hope you guys got the morale of my story.That's the reason why I called hifi as a 'Drug' to those who obsessed.
I'm pretty sure many of you guys have a bad attitude like me whereby RM50 shirt is expensive but RM500 cable is cheap.....am I right guys???? .

I agree with uncle_vic.
What started off as a hobby and passion leads to obsession...

I draw a very thin line between my passion and obsession where hifi is concerned.

Landy,

Nice avatar you chose for yorself there.

It screams "HIfi Superwoman"

Errrr,also maybe don't mess with you.

I promise to behave myself from here on.


cheers & shalom
teleman51

i treat hifi like part of my home furniture, its there but not to play around with.. just there, sitting like a dead duck!!

I personally think no matter how mad you are in hi-fi is still considered a healthy hobby compare to many other hobbies e.g
alcohol,woman,gambling,etc.
So why feel guilty?
I have been playing hifi since my school days, and is still on after almost 19 long years.
In fact i feel proud to be a audio enthusiast, at least we know how to appreciate "real" music instead of the loud boom noise.
So sit back, relax and enjoy what we have, buy what we can afford.
Life time hobby.

tannoy wrote:I personally think no matter how mad you are in hi-fi is still considered a healthy hobby compare to many other hobbies e.g
alcohol,woman,gambling,etc.
So why feel guilty?

Hahaha!... I think this is the very same line some people tell their WIFEY without flinching an eyelid.
Just short of giving out an ultimatum in writing to her.

i used to think like you though some guy wrote rather meaningfully...

if you resort to hifi in substitution of booze and women, you are living in a very very sad world indeed!



please think about it, rather meaningful indeed!!!





cheers

tannoy wrote:I personally think no matter how mad you are in hi-fi is still considered a healthy hobby compare to many other hobbies e.g
alcohol,woman,gambling,etc.
So why feel guilty?
I have been playing hifi since my school days, and is still on after almost 19 long years.
In fact i feel proud to be a audio enthusiast, at least we know how to appreciate "real" music instead of the loud boom noise.
So sit back, relax and enjoy what we have, buy what we can afford.
Life time hobby.

State your point to ease understanding lah.
Why speak in circles?

Yes, it is like a recreational drug where one can easily get addicted.

I started off with a very humble system which cost a couple of thousand RM (say 4.5k) which comprised an integrated amp, CD player, speakers and some generic (cheap) intercoonects and speaker cables.

A good friend of mine who has been an audiophie for quite some time told me one day that a reasonably good system would cost RM 30k to 40K and I got quite a rude shock. But after listening to his system and compared to mine, I immediately felt the huge difference and yearned for an upgrade. The more one listen and audit, the more demanding one becomes. It is just like an addiction, addcition for upgrade I upgraded my amp to a better integarted amp, then pre and power, then speakers, then interconnect, then CD player, then speaker cable, then speaker cable again and now I am going to upgrade my CD player again. The next upgrade will be a better pre I guess it is a never ending process.

HIFI is definitely like a drug that gets us addicted

And finally going one big round of upgradings.......the time will come to come back to just a simple mini compo!!! Just listen to the music, because we couldn't get it lor(can't get to hifi nirvana)!!!! And also by the time we get 'very very high on hifi' we would have already lost our earing senses, everything sound the same to our ears, including that mini compo set we avoided all these years!


Worst still, even before getting back to mini compos we will realise that our listening room acoustics have given us 1 hell of a time, and we being listening to a 'belign' sound all these times and only realised it as we grow older and the big big realisation only came when we are about to lose all our hearing ability!!!



To add to more headaches and nightmares, we do a stock check of what music softwares we have to realise that we have something like 5,000 CDs and 2,000 LPs!!! Horrors, what are we going to do with these stuff now that we no longer can hear so well!!!! More horrors, when we recount that we've even have these music in our harddisks too, which will sure to benefit some younger cikus who will probably inherit our precious collections but don't care a damn about the type of music we cherish so much. Probably think he could make a fast buck on ebay selling them off!!!

Broadly speaking, a thin line between a horder, hifi addict, music lover and the obsessed (whole or major part of adult life is concentrated around hifi, even more evident when hifi talk becomes 99% content in just about every meetup and due conversation).

For most of us who have been in this hobby after a while realise that there is no such place as "audio nirvana". I wish audiophiles, musicphiles, hifi hobbyists, reviewers and those related to reproducing music or sound would stop using this misleading term - "audio nirvana". Newcomers to this hobby (like when I first started) think it is something reachable, only to realise that our ears, just like our eyes can never be "satisfied" . Rythum and musicality, 2 most important requirements in the enjoyment of music has been 'corrupted'. Like what unc Vic said, go get a good mini compo. Listen to it. Then ask yourself- Is your setup more musical and pleasant to listen to ? heehee. The higher you go the less musical it is ! No ? Let anyone who is in audio nirvana (A N) tell me. I would like to go listen and ask you this question - when did you attain A N and when was your last gear change ? For when one is in A N one does not need no more read hifi magazine or listen to other systems ! Right ? heh heh. We are all in this same boat . Yes in many ways its a drug.

Unlce Vic.....

Thats an "Icer" and its bringing every one of us back to reality as we mature in age.

I met these old chap in Amcorp yesterday while we were rumaging thru some records for sale... comparing notes....

Quote from the nice "matured" gentleman:

"everything sounds the same and it comes with ageing"

But still an avid collectors of Lp's..... hoping his son will appreciate his collection.

cheers

wingman wrote:
But still an avid collectors of Lp's..... hoping his son will appreciate his collection.

Hahaha...fat hopes! if the son is into gadgetry and digital stuff?
My sons can't even agree to the music I have, let alone thinking of the aftermath.

Hah, hah, hah!!!! That's some light moments!!!!


We had better get to hifi nirvana(if ever is one) by our '30s if not it's downhill with our hearing all the way!!!! Not forgetting that despite this inevitably will happen, we could still decipher/perceived the differences between speakers, amplifiers, cables & wires, and with different room sizes!!! It's when we forget our growing weakness of hearing that we tended to go upgrading and upgrading because we could hear the difference!!! Truthlly, we do enjoy the upgradings and the music too of course.

Btw, I'm still using the same speakers and amplifier the day got started in hifi, and that was some 30 years ago. But added in the subwoofers one at a time. And still enjoying the music, and collecting CDs and LPs. And still at teh tarik sessions, talk soundstage, depth, width, bandwidths, dynamics and lush and seductive sound!!!


If anyone get to know me better, will probably end up to save lots of $$$$ and just enjoy the music!

Uncle vic.. better you'd be of service counselling those kiddos with loads of headphone gear with loud music DIRECT INTO THE EARDRUM..(so much for canal blah blah) perhaps at the rate they're going, impaired hearing by the age of 40+.
Save money is doable, saving the ear from impairment is a big problem. Those headgear might evolve to hearing aids instead.

CM....

the sad truth....aint it......ha ha

cheers

Audio nirvana don't exsist in a hungry hearted person. Its more like a dream to keep us going "reaching" for the best, we just don't want to stay where we are and want to get on(up-grading) every now and then to make us busy=happy.
True nirvana lies in the heart of the person who are willing to stay where he/she is.

Somebody did came up with a name for this affliction - Audioholic. I would classify it under the same category as shopcoholic.

There is even a web site by that name!

But uncle vic is a audioholic in another sense. His is another kind of craziness. Take a look at his room treatment, you will know what I mean.

hifi is healthy if we know how to appreciate but "hellthy" if otherwise.

OK, coming to room treatments. This is something not many will realised. Most young listeners have a compensating mechanism built into the brain to contra those unwanted reverberations in a room, hence many young listeners could tolerate listening in the hall(not that they don't have a room, but some really don't, because staying with aged parents or extended family members). Once a person reaches 50 years of age, the brain's compensation devices don't work very well, and tend to hear a longer reverberation time and it's very annoying. Room treatments make the listening sessions more comfortable. But the problem of visiting and listening to other systems still bring along the hearing disabilty suffered by seniour audiophiles, so much so they will be discouraged from making visits, because they won't really enjoy a listen session accept back home where the room sounded so much nicer to the ears.

tannoy wrote:Audio nirvana don't exsist in a hungry hearted person. Its more like a dream to keep us going "reaching" for the best, we just don't want to stay where we are and want to get on(up-grading) every now and then to make us busy=happy.
True nirvana lies in the heart of the person who are willing to stay where he/she is.

Then he/she more like retired or semi-retired audiophile. A passionate audiophile never stop . Different category.

Hi all Audioholics,

When Zam42 was created this topic I never expected so many viewers,comments and opinion among members here.Some says that hifi is obssesion and some agreed with me hifi is sort of addiction.I still believe that some have the symtphom of addiction and withdrawal if they didn't listened to audio/hifi for days.Am I right if I said there're many out there that have more than 2 sets of hifi system, more than 3 sets of monoblocks, 4 pairs of high end speakers or maybe 10,000 collections of LPs or 2,000 to 3,000 collections of CDs?Just imagine if this guy have 3-4 pairs of speakers, 4 pairs of monoblocks.....can I call them as hardcore Audioholic???? .

Staying in an considerably average double storey terrace house but owned a system worth more than RM200K.Am I wrong if I assuming this guys as Audio or Hifi Hardcore Addict? Anybody here want to argue or bring up your point of view? Again I want to reinstate that this is suppose to be a heallthy discussion....ok guys. (As he said earlier...RM50 worth of shirt is damn expensive but RM500 worth of cables is damn cheap)

Now that's an audionut!

My 2 cents if anyone is interested.

There is a very fine line between passion and obsession. In fact, often the line is blur and there is not a hard and fast differentiation. The only criteria, IMHO, is that we should not sacrifice ourselves or any close one for our passion. But other than this, it is also important to have an open mind and to see things from all angles. Let me give a few examples to explain my point of view.

Take the example of that RM50 shirt being expensive and RM500 cable being cheap. In the first place do we lose anything or suffer from wearing that RM50 shirt ? Put another way, let's say I spend RM500 to buy a Guy Laroche shirt instead. Would I have gained anything from that, over the RM50 shirt, other than status or ego ? On the other hand, RM50 say used to buy a shirt on offer during Jusco members day can get us some reasonable brand like Arrow or Durban, etc. Is there a lot of shame to wear an Arrow or Durban ? Do we suffer.

Put another way, if we are to reverse the situation say spend RM500 on a Guy Laroche shirt but RM50 on a pair of interconnect from Pasar road also have to think twice, then it simply means you like branded clothing more. In fact, if we want to be picky, we can even say we sacrifice our ultimate enjoyment of music by buying that RM50 cable instead of that RM500 cable, vs we don't really lose anything (though I suppose a Guy Laroche shirt is a lot more comfortable than an Arrow shirt) if we reverse the situation. In the end, NEITHER is a necessity, BOTH are LUXURY and as long as we buy it with our SPARE money, then I feel it is not a problem.

Even if we choose to eat more simple in order to save up money to buy hifi, it does not necessarily mean it is bad. In the first place consider whether one loves food that much. Sometimes also it is important to realize that as far as food is concerned, moderate is better than indulgence because of the risk of high cholesterol or diabetic, etc. In my opinion, it is bad only when we avoid buying our family a good meal and choose instead to spend all the money on hifi.

If we continue along this food line of discussion, then personally to me the fine line into obsession happens when we intentionally starve ourselves, or we eat food which is not healthy, e.g. maggie mee for all meals, just so we can buy hifi. Now that is bad no matter how we look at it. If we scrimp on things such as medical or health or safety, THAT would become taking the obsession too far.

A good example would be that heart-touching advertisement recently about the three old lady in an old folks home, sharing a simple meal of chee cheong fan. We see/hear two of them boasting about how great their son is. My son is a famous heart surgeon (from what I remember). My son is so successful he's got a bungalow in Dah-man-sah-rah, says the other. But whenever I call my son he always says he very busy. No time to even talk to me. Or "my son never calls me for so long already".

"Eng-ah, how about your son ar ?"

"My son ar? Good. He's very good. He's coming to pick me up anytime soon lar".

And so a simple Proton Iswara arrives and the old lady climbs into the car, greeted by her two precious grandchildren.

"Where are we going ?"
"Cameron (for a holidy)".

And the cheap Proton drives off and that two old lady with their 'great' sons, looked at each other sadly and continues to eat their chee cheong fan alone.

OK, I apologise for being long winded. But I love this advertisement because it shows the fallacy of modern living so much. My mother have told me about her friends who never saw their children for years. Or the one who's fortunate to stay with the son. Which turns out the son thinks he's already doing his mother a great service by accepting her in his home. So when they have good food, like bird's nest, they, son, wife, children, eats but mother along with maid do not have share.

Indulging in hifi is not an issue. My wife and parents are proud of my hifi system. And they are able to be proud and happy because I try my very best NEVER to scrimp on THEM. So THEY come first. Then only the hifi. But once the necessary has been taken care of, then hifi becomes a PASSION, no longer an obsession. And a passion is always important for a man because it allows him to direct his focus and energy and gives him an avenue to spend his time usefully and healthily, instead of getting drunk in a pub somewhere every other day for e.g.

Wow, dua sen becomes dua ringgit worth of words.

Sorry ar.

this one more like RM20 instead of 2 sen lor ...

WongKN's words are very wise.

When I was a student, I would sacrifice on meals just to be able to go to Reading Festival and other shows, buy an entry level hifi set and CDs. Now as I grow older, I have other priorities and sacrifices need to be made. It's important to prioritize certain things in life. There are more important things in life than hifi. The cravings and temptations will always be there, but one has to realize he/ she cannot have all.

And to add to that, I don't want to have to question myself, why I can spend certain amount on hifi and cds and not a fraction of it on my parents.

[quote="WongKN"]My 2 cents if anyone is interested.


"If we continue along this food line of discussion, then personally to me the fine line into obsession happens when we intentionally starve ourselves, or we eat food which is not healthy, e.g. maggie mee for all meals, just so we can buy hifi."



I urge everyone of us not to quote any brand in our discussion especially in the negative note. We can use instant noodles instead. Go for the generics. Use MSG instead of A****moto.

My 2 sen.

Maggie mee has become synonym for instant noodle. Just like handiplast has become synonym for plaster and so forth. I actually think the brands themselves would be proud since it means when we talk instant noodle, the first thing that comes into everyone's mind is maggie mee. So as you can see, we must be able to look at things from all angles. Same goes for ajinomoto.

Yup, that's called truly Branding in its finest form, owning the mind-space of the consumers.

Clorox, Maggi mee, "Milo Tin" (to mean cheap flaky metal products but not to mean that Milo is bad, on the contrary its highly nutritious) , Blue-Tack {actually BluTack(tm) by Bostik}, ... etc.

Any fellow marketeers here ... ?

Like how the Americans refer a photocopy machine as Xerox.

It is actually an indication of how good or superb the organisation's marketing department is. Imagine people think of your brand whenever they want a generic item. You want medicine for headache ? ASPIRIN. Not Uphamol though PANADOL is getting close. You want a medical plaster ? HANDIPLAST. You need MSG to spice up the food taste ? AJINOMOTO. Not Lee Kum Kee for e.g. Many manufacturers will pay any amount of money to acheive this level of branding. (I studied Marketing as an elective in university).

joydivision wrote:Like how the Americans refer a photocopy machine as Xerox.

Ya.. Totally agree. That's how some of my colleagues call the machine as well.
"Nah, ni kasi Xerox-kan 10 copy."

Yes.. It proofs that their marketing strategy is very strong.
Like Walkman.. Everybody call a portable player a Walkman last time but it was actually the name of Sony portable players.

Same goes to Clorox.. My friends hardly call them bleach.

car o scope wrote:
Same goes to Clorox.. My friends hardly call them bleach.

Korek, korek, korek!... nowadays thats how many like to agree on something being well said.