Best/Worst Three Attributes of an Audio System (Besides the Sound Quality)

[Paul R]

A couple of the guys and I were jawing yesterday, and we would up having one of those uncontrollable laughter sessions. We all love Audio (among other hobbies) and yet, the things we like best, and like the least about audio systems (besides the techno-babble and sound quality) were all different. Wildly different and really amusing in some cases. I think it is safe to say we all have good to great sound quality, so try to think of other things. It can easily be the thing you use to tease or aggravate your wife, partner, or SO.

 

Thought it might be fun to try that here, so feel free. Here's my list - feel free to post yours. Comical comments welcome and even encouraged... the virtual bar is OPEN and the first round is on me...

 

Like The Most:

1. The brassy sound of horns in orchestras, bands, and studio sessions.

2. Cool remote controls, with Remote.app and JREMOTE, and the Apple TV Remote being my favorites.

3. Neat wall hangings used as acoustic room treatments

 

Like the Least:

1. Machined hunks of aircraft aluminum used as remote controls that double as self defense weapons

2. Uber-pretentious music, like the sample album from David Chesky. (Cr. Chesky's ...)

3. Interior decorators (especially the ones who want to put stitched designs on the speaker grills...)

 

Have fun.

 

-Paul

[souptin]

Best:

 

The smell of newly opened packaging, almost as addictive as fresh baking.

 

Mechanical parts (buttons, cd trays etc) that glide / flip / click with satisfying precision.

 

(As best described by Douglas Adams) The soft thunk of electrical power when an amp is switched on.

 

Worst:

 

Large, bright LEDs that never stop staring at you, Terminator-style.

 

Facias festooned with logos.

 

The ever growing army of remotes that sit there whispering amongst themselves and laughing at you because you've forgotten which remote controls what, why and how.

[Paul R]

I forgot about the LEDs.... I have a few WD disk drives that look like white eyed Cylons from the 70s... you are right, most annoying!

 

Also, neighbor kids with big noisy trucks!

[abqnmusa]

worst ...

Those devices used to raise the speaker cable off the floor to "improve" the sound.

cyro freezing your CD collection to "improve" the sound.

 

there is an Audiophool born every day

[brunk]

Best:

1) The feeling of complete satisfaction with an audio component where "it just makes sense and sounds so effortless"

2) JRemote!

3) An incredibly comfortable listening chair with a favorite drink

 

Worst:

1) Loud Thunderstorms and brown outs

2) Equipment that gives off loud clicks and screeches - aka Tweeter Killers

3) Audio deisingners' fascination with several/bright LEDs, like we are moths or something lol!

[Musicophile]

Best:

- The nice click of the relays when switching channels on the amp (sadly I only use one source)

- Having a gazillion tracks at my fingertip

- The experience you have when you just forget about the gear and only live the music

 

Worst:

- people who have hugely expensive Hifi systems but don't care about Music

- ugly remote controls that look like leftovers of a 1980's TV

- some of the completely unlistenable music on some of the audiophile compilation CDs

[DigiPete]

Best:

- The thrill of hearing the pluck of the acoustic bass of Niels Henning Ørsted Pedersen - the best bass player in the world

- Forgetting time and space totally immersed in surround music

- The ability to reproduce 50 years old music at sterling quality through carefully restored digital files

 

Worst:

- The ability to shake my neighbors bed at 20hz at 2 in the morning.

- The ability to make me stay up way past my bedtime

- The ability to make some people act superior because they have spent endless time and money on a system that, honestly, is a mediocre dinosaur that should be dumped for a better sounding much cheaper pure digital system.

[crisnee]

+ Quality construction.

+ Esoteric (looking) designs (none of which I can afford).

+ Amp doubles as nice cat heater.

 

- Cable, cord and power supply jungle.

- LED brightness wars.

- Remote control convention.

- Suicide/homicide contrivance (depends on which cable the cat chews through).

 

-Chris

[Old Listener]

Best:

 

+ It's great to listen to the best from every decade since recording took off.

+ I keep collecting the music I want from the 20s on and it all fits on my hard drive.

+ my music player software remembers everything in my collection so I don't have to.

 

Worst:

 

- I keep finding more music to buy.

 

Bill