the law of diminishing returns...

...or just spending money for the sake of it.

When I was around 17 or 18, I got into hi-fi.  So at that time (early 1980s) it was all about vinyl, turntables, amplifiers and speakers.  Now, I had a reasonably decent hi-fi system courtesy of a Christmas / 18th birthday present from my parents made by a company called Marantz.

I'd never heard of them, so thinking my parents had just bought any old piece of tat I bought a hi-fi magazine to discover that the system really was a very highly regarded one.  It wasn't that expensive, but compared to the music centre we had it was a massive improvement.

But buying that magazine was a huge mistake.  Not only because it cost me my week's pocket money, but also because it opened my eyes to a world that I had no idea existed.  One of eye-wateringly expensive equipment, and one where I was told that unless I spent immense sums of money on something as trivial to my mind as a length of speaker cable, I was not worthy of spinning my records.

Of course, I couldn't spend the sums of money they insisted I must in order to distinguish between a cymbal being struck with a wooden or nylon tipped drumstick and neither did I want to.  I quickly associated the term audiophile with someone locked in a basement frantically trying to hear the ant that allegedly crawled across the studio during the recording of Led Zeppelin IV!

One didn't, but you get the picture.

No, I was happy with my system.  It delivered all I wanted which back then was volume!  And clarity of course.  To get anything slightly better would involve spending thousands; and what difference does an infinite amount of near impossible to hear detail make to your enjoyment of a song?

I know what I'd rather have!!

Of course, I'm not criticising or poking fun at people who want to spend their money that way, it's just not for me.  Then, as now, I'd rather spend my money on buying records rather than upgrading my turntable's stylus.

Nowadays, in the world of perfect digital sound and streaming lossless v lossy tracks from the internet, talk in the audiophile community still surrounds the physical equipment like cables and speakers, etc. but now also encompasses the quality of the website or streaming service that you get your music from.

I still enjoy listening to my music on vinyl.  Sound quality wise, with the equipment I have at least, it's inferior to CD or streaming even (as long as it's lossless you understand), but I've never forgotten that what really matters is the music and how it makes you feel.  Not whether you can hear the sound engineer's syncopated breathing in the background!

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In this week's unmissable tech related video, you can marvel at the differences between the three macro lenses in my ownership.  Honestly, I really don't know how you can stand the excitement of it all...