At what age do you stop upgrading?
It's a fact of life (physiology) that our hearing decreases with age, specifically the high end. If you've worked in a noisy environment or been exposed to loud music too much (e.g., playing in a rock band), the decline happens even sooner. So I'm curious if anyone here is old enough to decide it's pointless to keep upgrading one's system to something "better."
I'm 71 and have a pair of original Monitor 7Bs from the early 80s. It's been suggested that I should rebuild the crossovers but I'm wondering if I should bother. I don't do any "serious" listening. I listen to classical as background music (on CD or streaming from Pandora) while reading a book or rock/jazz if reading a newspaper or magazine or surfing the web. I rarely put something on just to listen and not do anything else. I have an old test record from Stereo Review and that last time I played it, probably 5 years ago, the frequency sweep test tone disappeared at about 11k hz.
Hanging out here can be bad for ones wallet. It makes me want to rebuild my crossovers (at least) and get a "better" receiver to replace my 45wpc Yamaha. Then I wonder if I'll be able to hear the difference.
Anyway, the original question from the thread title is open for discussion!
I'm 71 and have a pair of original Monitor 7Bs from the early 80s. It's been suggested that I should rebuild the crossovers but I'm wondering if I should bother. I don't do any "serious" listening. I listen to classical as background music (on CD or streaming from Pandora) while reading a book or rock/jazz if reading a newspaper or magazine or surfing the web. I rarely put something on just to listen and not do anything else. I have an old test record from Stereo Review and that last time I played it, probably 5 years ago, the frequency sweep test tone disappeared at about 11k hz.
Hanging out here can be bad for ones wallet. It makes me want to rebuild my crossovers (at least) and get a "better" receiver to replace my 45wpc Yamaha. Then I wonder if I'll be able to hear the difference.
Anyway, the original question from the thread title is open for discussion!
Comments
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In a room with no serious listening but just music for background while doing other things, I would suggest focusing on how to maximize what is streamed. Meaning the source material in terms of quantity and quality and how easy it is to access and browse or make playlists through an application. Speakers and amp are not all that important in that case.
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Death?- Not Tom ::::::: Any system can play Diana Krall. Only the best can play Limp Bizkit.
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Until Death do we part! I have a friend with 60% loss and another with 80% in one ear hearing loss and they can hear and feel the upgrades i have done .Thank you Vr3 , The Abbot rocks all my polks now.
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71 does sound about right if at 71 you aren't hearing any improvement. Just as with hearing your sense of taste diminishes with age too. I suppose everyone is different but I know that if I live long enough that I will be in line at Hometown Buffet because it won't make any sense to spend money on something that tastes good. Youth is most certainly wasted on the young.
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afterburnt wrote: »Just as with hearing your sense of taste diminishes with age too.
My taste buds are hanging in there. Spent $100 on dinner last night for me and my better half and it was "darn well worth it."
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afterburnt wrote: »Just as with hearing your sense of taste diminishes with age too.
My taste buds are hanging in there. Spent $100 on dinner last night for me and my better half and it was "darn well worth it."
You said a mouthful brother! Live it up while you can. After that, you can get a boom box and eat at the buffet. -
I suspect every person is different in regard to upgrading. I’m 70 and still hear good enough to throughly enjoy my stereo. In fact, I am currently considering upgrading my speakers to the Magico S7 at $50K, or maybe the M3.Lumin X1 file player, Westminster Labs interconnect cable
Sony XA-5400ES SACD; Pass XP-22 pre; X600.5 amps
Magico S5 MKII Mcast Rose speakers; SPOD spikes
Shunyata Triton v3/Typhon QR on source, Denali 2000 (2) on amps
Shunyata Sigma XLR analog ICs, Sigma speaker cables
Shunyata Sigma HC (2), Sigma Analog, Sigma Digital, Z Anaconda (3) power cables
Mapleshade Samson V.3 four shelf solid maple rack, Micropoint brass footers
Three 20 amp circuits. -
Until someone upgrades your casket.Amplifiers: Norma IPA 140, MasterSound Compact 845, Ayre v6xe, Consonance Cyber 800
Preamp: deHavilland Ultraverve 3
Dac: Sonnet Morpheus 2, Musical Paradise mp-d2 mkIII
Transport: Jay's Audio CDT2 mk2, Lumin U1 mini
Speakers: Rosso Fiorentino Volterra II
Speaker Cables: Crystal Clear Magnum Opus 2, Organic Audio Organic Reference 2
Interconnects: Crystal Clear Magnum Opus 2, Argento Organic Reference 2, Argento Organic 2
Power Cables: Argento Organic Reference, Synergistic Research Foundation 10 and 12 ga.
Digital cables: Crystal Clear Magnum Opus 2 bnc, Tellurium Q aes, Silnote Audio Poseidon Signature 2 bnc
Puritan PSM156 -
I disabled signatures.
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Depends. No literally when you're wearing Depends and you family sticks your a$$ in the bedsore inn.Gustard X26 Pro DAC
Belles 21A Pre modded with Mundorf Supreme caps
B&K M200 Sonata monoblocks refreshed and upgraded
Polk SDA 1C's modded / 1000Va Dreadnaught
Wireworld Silver Eclipse IC's and speaker cables
Harman Kardon T65C w/Grado Gold. (Don't laugh. It sounds great!)
There is about a 5% genetic difference between apes and men …but that difference is the difference between throwing your own poo when you are annoyed …and Einstein, Shakespeare and Miss January. by Dr. Sardonicus -
afterburnt wrote: »Just as with hearing your sense of taste diminishes with age too.
My taste buds are hanging in there. Spent $100 on dinner last night for me and my better half and it was "darn well worth it."
I have a friend who’s a Vietnam Vet, has hearing aids in both ears, and he’s about your age - he just did a bunch of upgrades and loves it! I suggest you consider serious listening. 😎 7B caps and resistors won’t break the proverbial bank. Give them a birthday refresh after serving you faithfully for nearly forty years. They are wonderful speakers. What is this 45 watt Yamaha receiver? Does it start with “CR-“ ? If so, that “45 watts” means a heck of a lot more than the equivalent nowadays. -
I'll never stop.Dan
My personal quest is to save to world of bad audio, one thread at a time. -
I'm 69 and can still hear the difference in sound when I have upgraded. I also wear hearing aids in both ears (I have a music setting programmed on them).Yamaha RX-A2070, Musical Fidelity M6si integrated amp, Benchmark Dac1, Bluesound NODE 2i, Audiolab 6000CDT CD Transport, Parasound Zphono USB Phono Preamp, Fluance RT85, Ortofon 2M Bronze, Polk L600's, L400, L900's, RC80i's, SVS 3000 Micro, Audioquest Interconnects and Digital Cables, Nordost Silver Shadow Digital Cable, Cullen Gold and Crossover Series Power Cables, Douglas Connection Alpha 12AWG OCC Speaker Cables, Douglas Connection Alpha Analog Interconnect Cables, Douglas Connection Alpha 11 OCC Custom Power Cable, Signal Power Cable, Furman PL-8C 15 Power Conditioner, Sony 65" 900F, Sony UBP-X700, Fios, Apple TV 4K, Audioquest Chocolate HDMI Cables.
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I’m never upgrading ever again.
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Famous last words.
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I'm 69 and can still hear the difference in sound when I have upgraded. I also wear hearing aids in both ears (I have a music setting programmed on them).
Def Leppard or Dean Martin
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I suggest you consider serious listening. 😎 7B caps and resistors won’t break the proverbial bank. Give them a birthday refresh after serving you faithfully for nearly forty years. They are wonderful speakers. What is this 45 watt Yamaha receiver? Does it start with “CR-“ ? If so, that “45 watts” means a heck of a lot more than the equivalent nowadays.
RX-360. I'm going to do the cap/resistor upgrade. Already have them in my Parts-Express shopping cart. I haven't soldered anything for quite a while (used to build tube guitar amps), so it should be fun.
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As long as I am in control I dare you to try to stop me!2 Channel Rosso Fiorentino Volterra II, 2 REL Carbon Limited, Norma Revo IPA-140B, Lumin U2 Mini, VPI Prime w/SoundSmith Zephyr MIMC, Modwright PH 150, Denon DP-59l w/Denon DL-301MKII, WAY Silver 3 Ana+ Speaker Cables, WAY Silver 4+ Interconnect Cables, AudioQuest Niagara 7000 w/Dragon and Hurricane Power Cables
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@VR3 got it right.Family Room, Innuos Statement streamer (Roon Core) with Morrow Audio USB cable to McIntosh MC 2700 pre with DC2 Digital Audio Module; AQ Sky XLRs to CAT 600.2 dualmono amp, Morrow Elite Speaker Cables to NOLA Baby Grand Reference Gold 3 speakers. Power source for all components: Silver Circle Audio Pure Power One with dedicated 20 amp circuit to main panel.
Exercise Room, Innuos Streamer via Cat 6 cable connection to PS Audio PerfectWave MkII DAC w/Bridge II, AQ King Cobra RCAs to Perreaux PMF3150 amp (fully restored and upgraded by Jeffrey Jackson, Precision Audio Labs), Supra Rondo 4x2.5 Speaker Cables to SDA 1Cs (Vr3 Mods Xovers and other mods.), Dreadnaught with Supra Rondo 4x2.5 interconnect cables by Vr3 Mods. Power for each component from dedicated 20 amp circuit to main panel, except Innuos Statement powered from Silver Circle Audio Pure Power One. -
I think you stop upgrading when it stops being fun.Analog: MoFi MasterTracker > MoFi UltraDeck > Sutherland 20/20
Digital: Cambridge CXC / Streaming > Cambridge CXN v2
MastersounD Dueventi > Rosso Fiorentino Certaldo or Arcam rHead > Hifiman HE4XX
Discogs -
When you run out of money....
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I think (based on what others have said) that you will find that there are many sonic improvements to the re-cap besides the high-end. Bass should be tighter, mids cleaner, just better overall. So, I don't think that your hearing limits should matter all that much...Living Room 2.2: Usher BE-718 "tiny dancers"; Dual DIY Dayton audio RSS210HF-4 Subs with Dayton SPA-250 amps; Arcam SA30; Musical Fidelity A308; Sony UBP-x1000es
Game Room 5.1.4: Denon AVR-X4200w; Sony UBP-x700; Definitive Technology Power Monitor 900 mains, CLR-3000 center, StudioMonitor 350 surrounds, ProMonitor 800 atmos x4; Sub - Monoprice Monolith 15in THX Ultra
Bedroom 2.1 Harmon Kardon HK3490; Bluesounds Node N130; Polk RT25i; ACI Titan Subwoofer -
When they pull my cold dead fingers off the tube stash
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afterburnt wrote: »Just as with hearing your sense of taste diminishes with age too.
My taste buds are hanging in there. Spent $100 on dinner last night for me and my better half and it was "darn well worth it."
That's a lot of Taco Bell -
Guess I will stop when I'm dead....--Gary--
Onkyo Integra M504, Bottlehead Foreplay III, Denon SACD, Thiel CS2.3, NHT VT-2, VT-3 and Evolution T6, Infinity RSIIIa, SDA1C and a few dozen other speakers around the house I change in and out. -
yup. I thought somebody said “when you run out of money.” I press pause.displayname wrote: »I think you stop upgrading when it stops being fun.
A wordy addition to the “...what other have said” mantra.I think (based on what others have said) that you will find that there are many sonic improvements to the re-cap besides the high-end. Bass should be tighter, mids cleaner, just better overall. So, I don't think that your hearing limits should matter all that much...
Back in the mid ‘80s I did car audio for a high-end home audio store. In the course of my car’s system development, I, temporarily, used a plate speaker’s tweeter*. Because I wasn’t certain of how rugged the tweeters were, I included the company provided filter, a single cap, in line as added protection. This upped the 2nd order electronic filtering feeding the tweeter amp to 3rd order overall.
When their* replacements were in the mail, I decided “So what if I blow them ” and yanked the caps. I immediately stopped blaming the tweeter for sharp, edgy upper mids. The same holds true for the RTi/RTi A** series speaker**. You will find many threads, including one of mine, “complaining about their** mids & top end. Too many threads are heavily laden w/ all kinds of external “fixes,” occasionally pricy.
A few members solved THE problem, either paid another (VR3) or did the XO upgrades themselves, raving about SQ improvements, particularly imaging. Side note: I eliminated all the component choice and opinionated variables by going electronic. I will quickly and emphatically admit bi-amping and tri-amping is a nightmarish, patience-testing exercise for those who has never attempted the same.
So have faith - recapping and any rewiring***, etc will be worth the trouble. Too bad a comparison of your work against Infinity’s seems unlikely.
***my self-imposed dogma
TonySamsung 60" UN60ES6100 LED, Outlaw Audio 976 Pre/Pro Samsung BDP, Amazon Firestick, Phillips CD Changer Canare 14 ga - LCR tweeters inside*; Ctr Ch outside BJC 10 ga: LCR mids “Foamed & Plugged**”, inside* & out
8 ga Powerline: LR woofers, inside* & out
*soldered **Rob the Man (Xschop) LR: Tri-amped RTi A7 w/Rotels. Woofers - 980BX; Tweets & Mids - 981, connected w/Monoprice Premiere ICs
Ctr Ch: Rotel RB981 -> Bi-amped CSi A6 Surrounds: Premiere ICs ->Rotel 981 -> AR 12 ga -> RTi A3. 5 Subs: Sunfire True SW Signature -> LFE & Ctr Ch; 4 Audio Pro Evidence @ the “Corners”. Power Conditioning & Distribution: 4 dedicated 20A feeds; APC H15; 5 Furman Miniport 20s -
Man I hope I have another 37 years of this hobby.
I prefer not to use the term upgrading... maybe more like exploring.Magico M2, JL113v2x2, EMM, ARC Ref 10 Line, ARC Ref 10 Phono, VPIx2, Lyra Etna, Airtight Opus1, Boulder, AQ Wel&Wild, SRA Scuttle Rack, BlueSound+LPS, Thorens 124DD+124SPU, Sennheiser, Metaxas R2R -
No doubt since your fish food budget keeps climbing, and you'll have college tuition and weddings to pay for someday.joecoulson wrote: »I’m never upgrading ever again.
I would say it stops when another expensive hobby takes its place with time and money, but some of you guys have proven that thinking wrong with hot rods and timepieces in addition to audio."This may not matter to you, but it does to me for various reasons, many of them illogical or irrational, but the vinyl hobby is not really logical or rational..." - member on Vinyl Engine
"Sometimes I do what I want to do. The rest of the time, I do what I have to." - Cicero, in Gladiator
Regarding collectibles: "It's not who gets it. It's who gets stuck with it." - Jimmy Fallon -
haven't reached "that age" yet (to my wife's chagrin). Indeed, she and our children are increasingly asking me to please prepare some sort of inventory for... well... you know...
