Spanning across high school, college, grad school, and finally into professional life, I always subscribed to one or two audiophile magazines. Finally, sometime around 1993, Julian Hirsch at Stereo Review said something to the effect that all decent CD players and audio amplifiers are now effectively perfect, and while there is substantial variation between speakers it comes down to personal taste. (Strictly speaking of good components here, bubble-pack gear and boom cars and the like are another story.) At which point life was taking a particularly sudden turn and I just dropped the whole matter and was happy with the gear I had.
And that's mostly where things sit today. Oh, I've side-graded with newer components as things aged. Gave away the belt-drive-and-moving-coil turntable. In one mildly humorous episode, I thought my ears were going when in fact it was only some speaker cones beginning to crack with age. That was a welcome upgrade! But on the whole, my approach to audio is best summed up by the phrase "close enough."
Then this morning while reading through The SWLing Post blog, I stumbled onto Part-Time Audiophile. There's always been a fair amount of woo-woo surrounding the turntables-and-tubes crowd, but I have to say that I've missed at least some of it, and especially the music reviews. Take a moment from your busy day and go peruse the site. Particularly noteworthy is their 2019 buyer's guide. Will I dive back into this hobby and wallow to the degree I used to? Probably not. But it will be good to dip a toe in the pool from time to time.
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