Am I My Own Worst Enemy?

by James Leahy

I get customers all the time getting themselves so confused over equipment purchases because they have such poor audio memories. They end up listening to a dozen different components and at the end of the day they do not know their left from their right and more importantly are no closer to improving their system. I call this condition 'analysis paralysis'.

Now I am not talking about auditioning audio products at different dealers but even when I have given them an in home demo in their own listening room! Don't laugh, I am serious. One would think that by just changing one component at a time, this would make it blatantly obvious as to the direction the change was making. Yes? No.

Would you believe, I have been asked to set-up demo's on the fly (being able to switch between two or more components in real time) because some customers are so un-tuned to the specifics of their own systems that they have been listening to for years that they cannot tell the difference between two components? Either better, worse or the same. I tell them if the perceived difference is so hard for them to pick, they are wasting their time and money upgrading. It should be a real recognized difference that does not require nit picking or double blind tests for them to know which component is superior.

The answer to this conundrum is to do more long term intense listening to your system and less review reading on new products. Only by knowing your system's deficiencies intimately can you proceed to rectify them. I have met many the 'audiophile' that buys purely on name and reputation rather than sound quality & performance purely because they have never learned to master this most basic of skills. Subsequently their mismatched systems never fail to reflect their lack of precision. Either that or they live by the saying, "Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear". Even when it is their own ears hearing the information first hand!