Robert Brook runs a blog called The Broken Record, with a subtitle explaining that the aim of his blog is to serve as:
A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE
We know of none better, outside of our own humble attempt to enlighten that portion of the audiophile community who love records and are looking to understand them and reproduce them better.
Here is Robert’s latest posting. I changed the title a bit from his, since the dictionary definition of the term mischief-making implies “deliberately creating trouble for other people,” and it is not quite right that the purveyors of these products are in any way purposely going about screwing up the sound of perfectly good stereos.
The way I see it, these products are designed to do something positive for some stereos under some conditions when playing some recordings for audiophiles who prize some qualities more than others.
Knowing what these kinds of things are doing, on what kinds of stereos, under what operating conditions, when playing what specific recordings, for what sound qualities a particular audiophile might be listening for, is more than the work of a lifetime. It is, in fact, impossible.
After reading Robert’s story, I was inspired to write a long piece detailing my own lessons learned as I first embraced, then rejected, one tweak or piece of gear after another, starting in 1975 or thereabouts. (Many such stories are chronicled here. The picture of me you see was taken in the late-70s. I was in an audio cult at the time, but, of course, like today’s similarly-situated audiophiles, I had no way of knowing it.)
I am still working on the commentary mentioned above, but I expect it should be ready before long. The short version goes like this:
Dramatic limitations and massive amounts of colorations are endemic to home audio systems.
The only way to get rid of them is by doing the unimaginably difficult work it takes to learn how to identify them and then figure out ways to root them out.
This, in my experience, is a process that will rarely be accomplished, even by the truly dedicated. It unfolds slowly, over the course of decades, and only for a very small percentage of audiophiles. Most will simply give up at some point and choose to enjoy whatever sound quality they have managed to achieve up to that time. To attempt to go further feels like banging your head against a wall.
To push on in this devilishly difficult hobby we have chosen for ourselves is for the few, not the many.
(It helped that we got paid to do it. An undiagnosed but all-too-real obsessive personality disorder also played a part, as did certain records that I fell in love with a long time ago.)
The completed post can be found here.