The best system I have heard personally I’m told was about a million bucks total cost- this included things like the $200k+ Magico Q7 speakers, the $17,500 Clearaudio Goldfinger cartridge, numerous “garden hose” sized custom for the application MIT cables, numerous Boulder amplifiers, dedicated wiring with conditioned power, and “floating” side room walls that could actually be tuned. It was something else!
But that said, while it showed me the possibilities of what a state of the art system is capable of, it never diminished the experience of listening to any good system done on a much more common budget, either mine or those of friends. Anything set up with love, dedication and a good ear has returned a very pleasurable listening experience. There’s always the possibility for improvement and of course a room custom built with tunable floating walls, dedicated wiring and six figure speakers plus a cartridge alone valued at many of our members’ humble systems (probably mine included) is going to illustrate this but that shouldn’t diminish what we’ve achieved at a fraction of the cost. I know my system has left friends who aren’t as deep into audio slack jawed at the sound.
Regarding the original topic of “kids are alright”, the most satisfying experience this past year was watching my niece’s growing interest in vinyl- and not just contemporary music and bands, but the classics. She’s not one to go for trends, so her appreciation is authentic- the draw of interacting with the physical media is big. Tangible, tactile elements. And the interest in music like classical, jazz, blues and soul, pioneering rock bands of various genres- that’s thrilling to me considering how restrictive the modern music industry can be.
I busted my wallet buying her records and for a pretty worldly and intelligent kid I believe she was pretty jazzed and impressed with the new editions to her collection- and I’ve opened another door to interesting conversations with her.
Her system is pretty simple and not even approaching any level of hifi quality, but that will come, I’m sure, with time. She has another year of initial college then additional time in school to get through first. This means years ahead for me to share with her and help her experience improved sound quality in steps, over time.
We’ll start slowly with coffee and conversation and my system playing in the background.