A new Facebook group for SF area audiophiles

[rustybutt]

It might be a good idea for you to hit PE Tech Talk and get ahold of Charlie Laub; he used to run the Nor Cal DIY annual group meetings. Those were pretty informative and fun as folks would bring their DIY speakers to demo and talk about.

I remember Charlie Laub. He did an extensive presentation at last year's Burning Amp on using Raspberry Pi devices and the like for audio processing.

Thanks for the pointer!

 

[4-2-7]

I didn't get that at all. Other than mentioning the other group seemed to be dominated by merchants selling high priced wares I thought the OP was trying to be more inclusive.

Well below is a very condescending view of the audio world and the people in it, revers snobbery if you will. A snob looks down their nose at others for what they don't have, a snob looks down their nose at others for what they do have. This mans post are so so laced with snobbery.

I love the "Audiokarma" group because that speaks to me the spirit of this hobby - which is always wanting better sound within one's personal means.

But AK is all inclusive, ALL Audio your not, you look at people though socioeconomic eyes.

I see so many posts of images taken from audio shows with Megabuck systems that someone who actually works for a living will never be able to buy.

So people who actually own nice systems don't work, wow! who knew.

A lot of marketing in the extreme hi-end is all about tweaking egos.

If you cant afford something and never tried it how do you know to forum any opinion?

but they're the kinds of people with $20,000+ invested in their systems consisting of gear purchased from audio salons.

That's not a whole hell of a lot to put into a system, if one is committed to invest in it.

The Facebook group I'm trying to put together is much more for DIY audiophiles and people with the kinds of budgets you have when you actually work for a living.

There you go again with insulting speech...

The gear you have far out-prices my own rig.

So, I'm glad it does, it's what I want to own, the price of your equipment means little to me. But with you view in life, "I don't actually work for a living." The really funny part of your post is not seeing what your saying and how insulting it comes off. I have members here come to my home all the time. A new one can show up and not know how to set something up, I'll say come on over, well that's if they don't come off online as a snobbish ass, and look at people as people and not try to fit them in some stereotype box.

 

[rustybutt]

So, I'm glad it does, it's what I want to own, the price of your equipment means little to me. But with you view in life, "I don't actually work for a living." The really funny part of your post is not seeing what your saying and how insulting it comes off. I have members here come to my home all the time. A new one can show up and not know how to set something up, I'll say come on over, well that's if they don't come off online as a snobbish ass, and look at people as people and not try to fit them in some stereotype box.

Wow... You're really angry.

I said your gear is a lot more expensive than mine. I didn't say it was better and I don't think it is.

But to paraphrase my father-in-law:

"If it's gonna make you happy to be unhappy, then you should be unhappy."

 

[4-2-7]

Arrogant view, again and again, it doesn't matter if you think your system sounds better or not, it's yours enjoy what you have and post on AK without insulting and playing your class warfare games.

What you fail to see is when you put down someone for owning a Crosley turntable, well we have members and readers here your insulting, as they own it. When you put down someone for owning a TriangleART turntable connected with $2000 Wireworld IC, well we have members and readers here your insulting, as they own it.

I'm not angry at you, I'm expressing pity.

 

[darkblue94]

I have to side with 4-2-7 on this occasion, I do not see him telling others that their gear is "not worth owning" or telling them that "they must be smoking crack"because they like the way their gear sounds. I personally know some folks that have some pretty spendy gear and they sure as hell work hard for their money.

 

[4-2-7]

I have to side with 4-2-7 on this occasion, I do not see him telling others that their gear is "not worth owning" or telling them that "they must be smoking crack"because they like the way their gear sounds. I personally know some folks that have some pretty spendy gear and they sure as hell work hard for their money.

I don't really know you, the gear your using, or really anything about you. I do know you have an interest in audio and seem like a well balanced person, send me a PM if your ever out this way and stop by, talk audio and listen to music.

 

[sheltie dave]

Many are surprised when they find out that folks with "snobby gear" that costs more than one's house is worth are actually very nice enthusiasts whose interests are shared. I have found, many times, that folks with REALLY expensive gear also have great musical knowledge and tastes, because they can devote their attention solely to their music library if they want.

 

[cubdog]

I still don't believe that rustybutt is a snob and I have a track record of condemning all types of of snobbish prejudicial behavior around here. Maybe I'm wrong in this case, but I don't think so. That's all I have to say on this matter.

 

[Alobar]

Rusty, you appear to be new here so hopefully people will cut you some slack. There is a preconception that audiokarma is about vintage or not crazy high end or whatever but that isn't so. It is all inclusive and as such it will be easier to be here and not start these brush fires if you remember that. If you like brush fires then that is a different story. We are all on this audiophile ladder here and snobbery, like it's ethnic cousin prejudice runs both ways.
Anyway welcome to the AK forum!

 

[rustybutt]

Let me try to clear a few things up.

I have no problem with people owning expensive gear. And the notion of "mine's better than yours" is more than silly, it's sad.

As we are unique individuals, we all approach this thing we love, listening to music, in our own way. It doesn't matter how much we pay for the gear so long as we are enjoying the music. Music does have a sensual quality that better gear can bring out. There's a reason we are still talking about tubes vs. solid state vs. Class D, vs... or vinyl vs. digital... or open baffle vs. monitor/sub vs. planer magnetic vs. electrostatic vs ???

I've always been of limited financial means. For me to attend audio events featuring $80,000+ systems that are vastly beyond my means has little real value to me. I've been at this hobby since Nixon was president. I've attended any number of hi-end shows and experienced truly legendary systems. I'm an active acoustic musician and my wife is a professional classical violinist. I've done location recording of chamber music and other things for almost 40 years now. By this point I've formed a pretty notion of what it is I like in a sound system. Like most of us, my opinions favor certain kinds of gear over others.

Listening to extreme systems is of value because it gives you a reference. You get to experience what that gear does and form your own opinions as to what you like about it and do not like about it. I remember the time about 20 years ago I heard the big Infinity Reference system at a show. It was in a large hallway that was a space probably 50 feet by 60 feet in size. Much larger than a home listening space. The first thing I heard was a large orchestral thing, which sounded very good. A symphony is a large ensemble and with the speakers sitting 12 feet apart in that large space, you got the impression there was an orchestra there. Cool. But then they played a small band jazz piece and the bass player sounded like he was 10 feet high and 8 feet wide. Not good.

But being of limited means, I've always been focused upon getting the most value for my limited audio dollar. It takes time to learn what is out there and where I can put my dollars to best use. That's why I like to visit the homes of other audiophiles and see what they've got and why they made the choices they did. My favorite audio event is the annual Burning Amp show here in the San Francisco area where all the DIY guys show up and you get to see examples of loving craftsmanship and innovation. The more I learn the more I can hopefully make better choices in what I spend on.

I agree that many are capable of being snobs in either direction - up or down the monetary scale. Many people are enamored of exotic speaker cables, interconnects, power conditioners and even power cords, all of which can get quite expensive. I recently took the leap to try out some custom made interconnects and was surprised to hear what I thought was a real difference and wrote about it in another forum. I was comparing them (at $60 for a 1 meter pair) to some old Monster M1000 cables I've had for 30 years. It was my expectation that I would hear no difference, but when I felt I had heard a distinct improvement and said so... Wow... I wasn't ready for the firestorm that erupted.

I'm sure there are plenty of people in this forum who pooh-pooh the notion that interconnects and such can make a difference. I like to think of myself as a skeptic as well, but I'm also willing to listen and make my own call on it. And frankly, cost is part of the equation. I'm OK with dropping $60 on a pair of cables. I'm not OK with dropping $hundred$ or $thousand$ on cables because my budget just can't do it. But if y'all have the bread, by all means spend it.

There is value in owning certain classic pieces of gear - like a Mac 275. It's a very good looking piece and one of its best assets is that it holds its value. Drop $5500 on properly maintained Mac 275 and 5 years from now, you'll be able to re-sell it for at least $5500 and probably more. But drop $5500 on a new solid state amp and 3 years from now you'd be lucky to get $3000 for it.

On the other hand there are those who say that Bob Latino's ST-120 is actually a better performing amp than the Mac 275 and you can get it pre-assembled for about half of what the Mac 275 costs you. But try to sell it 3 years from now and you'd do well to get $1500 for it.

In the end, do you enjoy what you hear? Do I? That's really all that counts.

In my own choices I've leaned towards trying to get value in what I can afford. Living in the San Francisco area I'm fortunate to be local to the home of Siegfried Linkwitz. A friend who is a designer and builder of loudspeakers got me hip to Linkwitz. We went over to his home and listened to his Orion system at the time. I was shocked at how good it sounded, and in fact, how much the tonal balance was like my current curved diaphram full-range electrostatics I had been running. But the imaging was superior and they took up a lot less space. In my little home, that was important.

The Linkwitz systems aren't cheap. They're a huge commitment because they're mulit-amplified and have relatively poor resale value for a variety of reasons. But they are something I can afford. Some guys drive a $40,000 car and run a $1500 audio system. I've always been one to drive something like my 19 year old Camry, which is now probably worth $2000 and run a rig totaling around $8500 or so.

The San Francisco Audio Society seems to largely hold events in audio dealerships, or at homes with systems in excess of $40,000 with manufacturers reps presenting some new exotic piece of gear that is far, far out of what I can spend. I just don't see much value in events like that for me. I much more enjoy meeting other audiophiles, visiting their homes and learning about the gear they have, listening to it and hearing why they made the choices they did.

I suppose cost is also part of the equation. I've been to homes of SFAS members who have the $8000 turntables and such. The choices they make and why they made them are not things I can learn from because they're far out of my price range and guys like that really have little interest in rigs like mine. We just seem to travel in different worlds.

One of the most musical systems I've ever heard belongs to a local audiophile who runs a Thorens turntable with a Technics EPA500 arm, a Mac C22, and Marantz 8B driving a 40 year old pair of KEF Calindas, which if you can find them on the used market, sell for about $400/pair. It's experiences like that which I cherish and attending events which are little more than a sales presentation just don't cut it for me. The point of me trying to put together a Facebook group was to facilitate local audiophiles meeting each other and having the kind of experience I had hearing those 40 year old KEF Calindas being driven by a classic tube rig.

 

[House de Kris]

I can certainly understand the points made by 4-2-7. But, I feel this is just another example of the difficulties non-face-to-face internet based discussions, especially forums. A person may fixate on particular words and interpret the whole message from a skewed prospective that wasn't intended. From the user name, picture, and system description, I realize that I know rustybutt. I've been to his home a couple times, and he's been to mine. In real life, he is a nice guy, and extremely knowledgeable about music - which is, in fact, his entire life. I feel that in attempting to define what his target group was, it was interpruted as defining who isn't included. I didn't read that his group was exclusionary of certain people. Just that they may not be interested in the angle his Facebook group is intended to go. I'm sure he'd welcome audiophiles from all walks of life.

I was a member of the old BAAS club. We had things called SysHops a few times a year to visit as many of the member's homes (and systems) as possible in one day. I really loved SysHops. Real stereos in real homes focused on what each member thought was important in audio reproduction. I think this is the sort of excitement rustybutt is attempting to regain.

 

[Jeffery]

OP, you were dead in the water when you included the "A" word in the title of your post. That word really sets folk here off for some reason.

I wish you well with your club, sounds like a lot of fun and I'd be interested if I was in that area.

 

[4-2-7]

OP, you were dead in the water when you included the "A" word in the title of your post. That word really sets folk here off for some reason.

I wish you well with your club, sounds like a lot of fun and I'd be interested if I was in that area.

I had to go look at what the a word was.

 

[Cadillac Kid]

OP, you were dead in the water when you included the "A" word in the title of your post. That word really sets folk here off for some reason.

At least it was a lower case 'a'. I don't get what all the anger is about. Anyway, that Burning Amp event at Fort Mason looks fun.

 

[Alobar]

Let me try to clear a few things up.

I have no problem with people owning expensive gear. And the notion of "mine's better than yours" is more than silly, it's sad.

As we are unique individuals, we all approach this thing we love, listening to music, in our own way. It doesn't matter how much we pay for the gear so long as we are enjoying the music. Music does have a sensual quality that better gear can bring out. There's a reason we are still talking about tubes vs. solid state vs. Class D, vs... or vinyl vs. digital... or open baffle vs. monitor/sub vs. planer magnetic vs. electrostatic vs ???

I've always been of limited financial means. For me to attend audio events featuring $80,000+ systems that are vastly beyond my means has little real value to me. I've been at this hobby since Nixon was president. I've attended any number of hi-end shows and experienced truly legendary systems. I'm an active acoustic musician and my wife is a professional classical violinist. I've done location recording of chamber music and other things for almost 40 years now. By this point I've formed a pretty notion of what it is I like in a sound system. Like most of us, my opinions favor certain kinds of gear over others.

Listening to extreme systems is of value because it gives you a reference. You get to experience what that gear does and form your own opinions as to what you like about it and do not like about it. I remember the time about 20 years ago I heard the big Infinity Reference system at a show. It was in a large hallway that was a space probably 50 feet by 60 feet in size. Much larger than a home listening space. The first thing I heard was a large orchestral thing, which sounded very good. A symphony is a large ensemble and with the speakers sitting 12 feet apart in that large space, you got the impression there was an orchestra there. Cool. But then they played a small band jazz piece and the bass player sounded like he was 10 feet high and 8 feet wide. Not good.

But being of limited means, I've always been focused upon getting the most value for my limited audio dollar. It takes time to learn what is out there and where I can put my dollars to best use. That's why I like to visit the homes of other audiophiles and see what they've got and why they made the choices they did. My favorite audio event is the annual Burning Amp show here in the San Francisco area where all the DIY guys show up and you get to see examples of loving craftsmanship and innovation. The more I learn the more I can hopefully make better choices in what I spend on.

I agree that many are capable of being snobs in either direction - up or down the monetary scale. Many people are enamored of exotic speaker cables, interconnects, power conditioners and even power cords, all of which can get quite expensive. I recently took the leap to try out some custom made interconnects and was surprised to hear what I thought was a real difference and wrote about it in another forum. I was comparing them (at $60 for a 1 meter pair) to some old Monster M1000 cables I've had for 30 years. It was my expectation that I would hear no difference, but when I felt I had heard a distinct improvement and said so... Wow... I wasn't ready for the firestorm that erupted.

I'm sure there are plenty of people in this forum who pooh-pooh the notion that interconnects and such can make a difference. I like to think of myself as a skeptic as well, but I'm also willing to listen and make my own call on it. And frankly, cost is part of the equation. I'm OK with dropping $60 on a pair of cables. I'm not OK with dropping $hundred$ or $thousand$ on cables because my budget just can't do it. But if y'all have the bread, by all means spend it.

There is value in owning certain classic pieces of gear - like a Mac 275. It's a very good looking piece and one of its best assets is that it holds its value. Drop $5500 on properly maintained Mac 275 and 5 years from now, you'll be able to re-sell it for at least $5500 and probably more. But drop $5500 on a new solid state amp and 3 years from now you'd be lucky to get $3000 for it.

On the other hand there are those who say that Bob Latino's ST-120 is actually a better performing amp than the Mac 275 and you can get it pre-assembled for about half of what the Mac 275 costs you. But try to sell it 3 years from now and you'd do well to get $1500 for it.

In the end, do you enjoy what you hear? Do I? That's really all that counts.

In my own choices I've leaned towards trying to get value in what I can afford. Living in the San Francisco area I'm fortunate to be local to the home of Siegfried Linkwitz. A friend who is a designer and builder of loudspeakers got me hip to Linkwitz. We went over to his home and listened to his Orion system at the time. I was shocked at how good it sounded, and in fact, how much the tonal balance was like my current curved diaphram full-range electrostatics I had been running. But the imaging was superior and they took up a lot less space. In my little home, that was important.

The Linkwitz systems aren't cheap. They're a huge commitment because they're mulit-amplified and have relatively poor resale value for a variety of reasons. But they are something I can afford. Some guys drive a $40,000 car and run a $1500 audio system. I've always been one to drive something like my 19 year old Camry, which is now probably worth $2000 and run a rig totaling around $8500 or so.

The San Francisco Audio Society seems to largely hold events in audio dealerships, or at homes with systems in excess of $40,000 with manufacturers reps presenting some new exotic piece of gear that is far, far out of what I can spend. I just don't see much value in events like that for me. I much more enjoy meeting other audiophiles, visiting their homes and learning about the gear they have, listening to it and hearing why they made the choices they did.

I suppose cost is also part of the equation. I've been to homes of SFAS members who have the $8000 turntables and such. The choices they make and why they made them are not things I can learn from because they're far out of my price range and guys like that really have little interest in rigs like mine. We just seem to travel in different worlds.

One of the most musical systems I've ever heard belongs to a local audiophile who runs a Thorens turntable with a Technics EPA500 arm, a Mac C22, and Marantz 8B driving a 40 year old pair of KEF Calindas, which if you can find them on the used market, sell for about $400/pair. It's experiences like that which I cherish and attending events which are little more than a sales presentation just don't cut it for me. The point of me trying to put together a Facebook group was to facilitate local audiophiles meeting each other and having the kind of experience I had hearing those 40 year old KEF Calindas being driven by a classic tube rig.

Maybe resist the notion that people with expensive taste in audio "don't work for a living". Maybe they do or don't but it could come off as a little insulting, no? . Not everyone with a state of the art system was a trust fund baby, and even if they were, so what? I am retired and living on a fixed pension all the while building a house and such out of life savings . I could probably sell it next year for enough to buy a new 100k stereo system and a double wide in the trailer park if having that level of music reproduction was that important to me, but it isn't. Often it is just about priorities.

 

[rustybutt]

OP, you were dead in the water when you included the "A" word in the title of your post. That word really sets folk here off for some reason.

I wish you well with your club, sounds like a lot of fun and I'd be interested if I was in that area.

When I first saw your post, it didn't make sense to me because the title of the post starts off with the word "A". Later I realized the "A word" was "Audiophile". Uh-oh...

As a band leader and swing musician, one of the things I realized long ago is that we all *think* we speak English, the same language. But we don't. The same word will have different meanings to different people and in particular, very powerful emotions to go along with them. As a swing player, I think in terms of musicians and styles - Basie, Ellington, Latin, etc. But dancers think in terms of West Coast Swing, East Coast Swing, Lindy Hop, etc. It's like we're from two different planets.

The word "Audiophile" has a lot of feelings associated with it, many negative. For me it's about the love of music and always wanting to hear it a little better if I can. Engineering is about designing something within constraints. For most of us, money is one such constraint. There's also the room we live in, whether we have neighbors with thin walls, WAF, as well as hoping to get components to complement each other. I know a guy who bought an 8 wpc single-ended solid state amp and built the rest of his system around that.

For some the word "Audiophile" means very, very expensive gear, cables, tweaks, and a generally anal-retentive approach to home sound systems. There's a lot of ego that gets thrown about sometimes as well. A few months ago I visited a friend who made an enormous leap of faith and dropped $2000 on the CBT36 kit from Parts Express. It's a very unusual curved line array from Audio Artistry. He had it painted at a local auto body paint shop and they look terrific. They are a bi-amped system with sub-woofers added. He did an excellent job and it was very interesting to see. He had another fellow over whom I took it had been an audio dealer at one point. All he could talk about was other people and their esoteric gear. He hardly said a word about the CBT36 or the choices my friend made in putting together his system. He was totally disinterested and really acted like a bit of a jerk. That manner is also often associated with the word "Audiophile".

I prefer my definition.

 

[rustybutt]

Maybe resist the notion that people with expensive taste in audio "don't work for a living". Maybe they do or don't but it could come off as a little insulting, no? . Not everyone with a state of the art system was a trust fund baby, and even if they were, so what? I am retired and living on a fixed pension all the while building a house and such out of life savings . I could probably sell it next year for enough to buy a new 100k stereo system and a double wide in the trailer park if having that level of music reproduction was that important to me, but it isn't. Often it is just about priorities.

I live in the city of Alameda. There's a 2 bedroom, 1 bath 1925 Craftsman bungalow across the street from me which just went on the market. It will likely sell for about $900k. Mind you, Alameda is one of the less expensive communities in the SF area. Homes in San Francisco sell for about 80% more than in Alameda, and in the city of Palo Alto, lot value for a house like the one across the street from me is about $2,500,000. In Palo Alto they buy a house and just tear it down and put up something new. People who "work for a living" in a country where the idea of raising the minimum wage to $15/hour has people screaming doom and gloom, have no chance to buy a little bungalow like the one across the street from me. $900k means at minimum a $180,000 down payment and monthly payments around $3500 or so with taxes and insurance. Even guys who make $60/hour couldn't afford a home like that. Your typical 2500 sq ft, 3 bedroom, 2 bath home sells for about $1,300,000 here.

You're right about priorities. I drive a $2000 car and have about $8500 invested in my sound system. It's not a cheap rig, but certainly not sky-the-limit either. My wife's violins and bows are collectively insured for about $100,000.

 

[Jeffery]

When I first saw your post, it didn't make sense to me because the title of the post starts off with the word "A". Later I realized the "A word" was "Audiophile". Uh-oh...


...The word "Audiophile" has a lot of feelings associated with it, many negative. For me it's about the love of music and always wanting to hear it a little better if I can.

That's the standard usage.

For some the word "Audiophile" means very, very expensive gear, cables, tweaks, and a generally anal-retentive approach to home sound systems.

That's what many here feel it means.

I prefer my definition.

Me too.

 

[ACHiPo]

Rusty, I'll reach out to you. I've been working on something similar with a couple neighbors in Pleasanton, one of which was a member of BAAS. I belong to SFAS, but have yet to make it to a meeting. I saw pics from the Burning Amp meet and it looked like a hoot.

 

[labios]

I joined the group. Thanks