10-24-2021 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree Romy the Cat Boston, MA Posts 10,155 Joined on 05-28-2004 Post #: 1 Post ID: 26440 Reply to: 26440 Think how a playback comes to your life.... "I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche

10-25-2021 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree N-set Gdansk, Poland Posts 617 Joined on 01-07-2006 Post #: 2 Post ID: 26441 Reply to: 26440 Resonating cavities Thank you very much Romy for sharing these beautiful thoughts! Resonates pretty much with my own experience. I've observed already quite some time ago that the bigger the tension, effort, in a sense of hard working through, and even anger while building/acquiring/setting up an audio element, the more unstable the results become. In many cases the tension or anger resulted not so much in a bad sound but altogether in some unexpected physical failures - something broke, started making noises etc etc, generating even more negative feelings. Then it costs me some additional, sometimes very very significant, effort, both physical (sth. has to be re-manufactured, replaced, corrected etc etc) and more importantly emotional, to "calm the things down" and try to release the tensions. Last example - I was buying some stupid TT mat from a vintage audio dealer in Hong Kong who turned out to be a complete jerk and hayseed, there was a lot of anger during the transaction. Correlated with that or not, the mat came with a load of difficult physical problems, which when finally ameliorated resulted in sound that was on one side very attractive but had that unpleasant something (HF problem but that is irrelevant what it was), drawing the attention and poisoning the fun. It took me another round of audio alchemy to finally make it sound very good but still not as outstanding as I have anticipated.  On the other hand things that came free of tensions (doesn't mean without hard work or cash though), with love, in a way gently and tentatively, have had more chance to make an spectacular impression. Like some of the listening thoughts or equipment that you share with sort of unconditional  love here and I have adopted for myself. This holistic aspect is also very interesting and I second experiencing it -- a solution that comes with love indeed tends to make more things work, also outside the audio, than just the narrow problem it was supposed to address. All of a sudden life becomes better and happier in different, unexpected areas. Cheers, Jarek STACORE

10-26-2021 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree anthony Posts 338 Joined on 08-18-2014 Post #: 3 Post ID: 26445 Reply to: 26440 Sage advice How things come into our lives can impact how we react to them over time, and playback is no different.   I was adamant that I did not want to fully develop a diy system from scratch because that could be too much learning and immersion in the "process" given the tremendous amount of time already required just to build the things myself, but in hindsight perhaps it was also a decision that allowed me to switch-off once complete.  Having a more or less complete prototype catalogued on this forum and with your help a great deal of trial and error and stress has been removed from the build.  Macondo/Melquiades has happened for me during a very happy time of my life with young children who saw me doing something constructive in my spare (and not so spare) time which has also spurred their own interests in using their hands.  As my playback has developed, my children have grown and remained interested and that is what I am fortunate to associate with my playback...family, happiness, contentment.