Do you believe that our hobby is splitting?

I guess I’m tough to categorize.

I’m a music lover and I just try to find gear that sounds good to my ears and fits within my budget.

I own two vintage pieces of gear. I stumbled onto a Kenwood KD-2070 when getting back into vinyl 12 years ago. I never really got it to be the best it could be until this year.

I wanted a cassette deck for... heck, probably because I wished I could have afforded one when I was younger. I found a Nakamichi DR-2 from a reputable eBay seller, and finally got it 100% squared away this year.

I am not sure in which category I fit. :-)
 
Not that I care about the divisions within our community - especially here at HFH. But I think there is a division between the DIY audio guys who believe, in general, that a wire is a wire and a cap is a cap and a resistor is a resistor (as long as the specs are good) and those that believe that caps manufacturers make a difference, power cords effect sound and Audio Note resistors (for instance) at big bucks are a necessity for top-notch sound.
 
I wouldn’t want to be in a group that would have me as a member. (paraphrasing Mr. Marx)
Can a diy guy be audiophile with out boutique parts?
 
As a dealer, I hate dealing with vintage guys. I don't hate the guys - quite the opposite actually - but the approaches are so vastly different that it can be a challenge to find common ground. I have converted a few but most vintage guys have been in that type of gear for 30 years or more, so they've become acclimated to a certain sound and aren't always willing to adapt.

I can say for sure that vintage and new very rarely are able to coexist in a system, barring streaming devices and quality of life sources. In those instances, its more about convenience than sound.

As always, there are exceptions to the rule, but I find them much rarer in regards to this topic.
I freely mix (restored) vintage with modern gear and have done since the vintage pieces were modern. As far as I'm concerned it comes down to a combination of cost and playing to strengths. In the main system I run modern phono pre, modern-ish pre-amp, recent tuner, DAC, speakers and carts. The turntable and arms are vintage as is the CDP I run as a transport. The choice of power amps is vintage, either tube of SS, bit all of them have been modernized to one extent or another. They all play very nicely together in a not-very-vintage-sounding sort of way.

On the other hand I also run vintage pieces collected over many years in secondary systems elsewhere and enjoy them as well for what they are and can accomplish. Different expectations for the most part and sometimes they exceed them as well.
 
There's also a sub group that dismisses DIY for the following reasons and I'm sure there are more.

Home-brew looks, no bling
No resale value
No name brand so it can't compete with the big companies
No R&D ( maybe debatable )
Not cost effective because it doesn't factor in the price of one's labor.

The last one gives me a chuckle as if someone would charge themselves for time spent on a hobby.
 
Not that I care about the divisions within our community - especially here at HFH. But I think there is a division between the DIY audio guys who believe, in general, that a wire is a wire and a cap is a cap and a resistor is a resistor (as long as the specs are good) and those that believe that caps manufacturers make a difference, power cords effect sound and Audio Note resistors (for instance) at big bucks are a necessity for top-notch sound.
Pretty good observations
It amazes me the flame wars over diy beliefs and practices as well as the objective vs subjective camps.
I like to think I live somewhere in the middle, maybe I'm wearing my own diy glasses here 🤣
I was told once that my system was midfi at best... I didn't cry long, just enjoyed the music.
 
There are such a variety of people on here and our members are into a such a wide variety of systems. Lots of DIY of various components which I find super cool. And we all get along. Which is why I tend to capitalize the T and the H when I type The Haven. So thanks everyone! Im probably one of the bigger (if not the biggest or for that matter only) "pot stirrer" on here so thanks for putting up with me! :)
 
Geez, seems I'm all over this topic...

No, I don't think its splitting in 2, there are like a bazillion fractions already. Tube, Solid state, compression drivers, open baffle, subwoofers, no subwoofers, vinyl, streaming and on and on and on.

1. You can pursue the best possible sound, but sometimes (many times) physics and engineering exit the discussion based on applied listening. Let me elaborate, lets say you purchase speakers that go to 20K, and amplifier that measures flat, and Hi-Res streaming. You listen to it, sounds "good"...now you have an experiment and buy a Single Ended Triode amp and high efficiency speakers that on paper don't reach as low nor go as high as flat. You put them in the room and based on your statement of applying Science Rules Engineering...you should like, prefer, get more enjoyment out of the first system but guess what, you enjoy the second system more, you feel it sounds more like music. All the measurements, all the science...what does it mean if to YOUR ears the second system sounds better, more real????

I guess what I am saying is, point 1 above is already flawed if its a measurements, physics, science first...

To be fair, you might like the first setup better, but I would bet money that if 10 people were in the room, you'd have split results. Is one wrong, one right?

ALWAYS TRUST YOUR EARS!

"Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts" - Albert Einstein
 
There's also a sub group that dismisses DIY for the following reasons and I'm sure there are more.

Home-brew looks, no bling
No resale value
No name brand so it can't compete with the big companies
No R&D ( maybe debatable )
Not cost effective because it doesn't factor in the price of one's labor.

The last one gives me a chuckle as if someone would charge themselves for time spent on a hobby.
These issues apply to my system to varying degrees, but then, like Mr Ed, I turn on some music and smile.
 
I'm quite envious of the DIY crowd, I wish I had the skills or the time and motivation to learn them. As it is, I just buy the odd Redboy effort now and then when its offered :).
I started down the diy side around 2000, from an audiogon thread about Lenco turntables. That's the idler love.😎
Slowly at first with a couple tube kits, and then I really started to enjoy the learning process and building more.
I have made it a way to exercise my creative side and and get a level of musical reproduction I could not afford otherwise.
Not that it did not have it's pitfalls and difficulties.... but with persistence and being to stubborn to quit I reached a pretty happy place.
 
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I'm quite envious of the DIY crowd, I wish I had the skills or the time and motivation to learn them. As it is, I just buy the odd Redboy effort now and then when its offered :).

I am envious of the tools and skills I see on this site for building speaker cabinets. I'd love to be able to do DIY speakers. I know you can get flatpacks, but that adds to the cost and it's just not the same.
 
I don't think the hobby is splitting. I've been around audio forums for almost as long as there has been such and there has always been both camps. It has never made sense to me to judge people for what they like. The old adage "the heart wants what it wants" applies to more than just the affections of another person. Sometimes it may not make sense, but in the grand scheme of things it really just doesn't matter.
I like the sound of the exhaust on my Harley and I like the slight whistle of turbo coming through the exhaust on my truck. Both of those sounds cause some people to cover their ears and run for the hills. I don't find the reason for that needing definition or explanation. It is what it is. Live and let live. Like what you like with no regrets.
 
Truly, from the bottom of my heart, the thing that fascinates me the most (other than my own selfish pursuits) is the incredible diversity of our audio world. I'm constantly amazed by the ways in which we all approach this amazing hobby.

I'd hate for it to be any other way.
 
In case anybody is thinking about what a snob I am...this is our ambassador. I've had non-audiophile/stereo-curious friends ask me about things he's said, so he's out there, outside of our little bubble. I just... don't want to be this. Our hobby is shrinking and we're the butt of a lot of jokes and...I guess I'm a snob but I want our hobby to be something that's kind of cool/neat/whatever. Doesn't have to be like wine-snob classy just not this dude in a wife-beater in his basement in the dark. Isn't there something between this and the audio version of sniffing corks? I have that headphone stand, this could be where I'm headed and it scares me.

I miss Art Dudley.
... and a "wife beater" shirt to top it off...
 
I did trim my beard yesterday (FWIW, and apropos of one of my earlier comments to this thread).
 
I am envious of the tools and skills I see on this site for building speaker cabinets. I'd love to be able to do DIY speakers. I know you can get flatpacks, but that adds to the cost and it's just not the same.

If you're interested you can take a weekend course in kitchen cabinet making. Most wood shops offer one. Best thing I ever did.
 
I like the sound of the exhaust on my Harley and I like the slight whistle of turbo coming through the exhaust on my truck. Both of those sounds cause some people to cover their ears and run for the hills. I don't find the reason for that needing definition or explanation. It is what it is. Live and let live. Like what you like with no regrets.
At long last, this thread has “triggered” me, and I’ve FINALLY got something I can get genuinely pissed off and self-righteously inflexible about.

I like cilantro. A lot. But I recognize that much of the population doesn’t. I hear people say that it tastes like soap, and makes them want to wretch. And you know, whatever, live and let live.

Now, imagine that I’m running down my street, shoving great big wads of cilantro in my neighbors’ mouths. Some of them would think it was amusing, particularly if they were also cilantro fans. Some of them REALLY wouldn’t like it. Imagine if then, my attitude was “Whatever. I like cilantro. Fuck ‘em.”

I think that I would make me, at best, a bad neighbor, and a bad citizen. Many would of take the hardened stance that I was an irredeemably shitty human being. They could be right.

Noise pollution sucks.
 
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