We’re living in a tough world. I read the morning news and sometimes feel a little sick inside, appalled at our bottomless capacity for harming each other. But I’m usually reading the news on a iPad, a device that has given me no amount of pleasure and usefulness in return for its purchase price. Electronic gear in all its variety represents a bright spot in today’s world. Modern technology might have contributed to any number of modern horrors—nonstop electronic surveillance, terrorist networks, nuclear weaponry, Fox News—but it has also offered delightful doodads like iPods and iPads and laptop computers and cell phones and video games and DVDs and home-based recording and digital pianos and e-books.
I feel the same way about audio gear. It gives a lot of pleasure at its various price points, including inexpensive entry-level stuff. An iPod with white earbuds just might thrill the daylights out of a kid for whom that’s a first grown-up player. Over time our tastes tend to morph and what satisfied at one time just might not at another. Although it doesn’t necessarily follow that our adult tastes are bound to be more expensive than our younger interests, as a rule most of us become more discerning, more appreciative of subtle distinctions. And that discernment typically comes with a price tag attached.
It’s all for the best that I was obliged to work my way up the audio food chain slowly, gradually, and only in fits and spurts. I would sail along for years, and then I would be hit with the upgrade itch, followed by another patch of smooth waters. Typically I didn’t upgrade out of dissatisfaction, per se—although I can point to some notable exceptions along those lines—but just out of a desire to find out what was over there, beyond the next hill.
Imagination and conceptualization also played a part in the process. I had to reach a point at which I could imagine myself owning a particular level of audio gear. For example, for years I considered the B&W 800-series “Nautilus” speakers utterly beyond my reach financially. But then one fine day it occurred to me that while my income had changed, my conception of affordability had not. I could indeed afford B&W 800s. With that I streaked over to the audio store. I still exercised some of the old caution and limited my initial purchase to the most affordable of the 800s—the 805s model. They are still with me (now they grace my home office) and have provided me with no end of pleasure.
But having speakers like the 805s raised the barre for me conceptually. I started thinking bigger. That led to 803D models, the wonderful Fasolt & Fafner who enhance my living room. Over time I allowed my level of expectation to rise yet again, and that led to my acquisition of a headphone rig that would make the angels themselves weep. I went straight to the top and didn’t look down once.
Along the way we develop certain tastes and preferences. I am inclined towards products that combine naturalness with warmth, the sort of audio that has required plenty of trial-and-error, tuning and listening and readjusting and evaluating by folks with good taste and highly trained ears. I’m a sucker for classy construction and world-class build quality. There are those who say that such issues are secondary to sound quality, and maybe they’re right. But I like buying from a company that backs up its products with a 20-year warranty (Bryston) or that keeps precise frequency response charts of each headphone driver on file (Sennheiser) so they can give me a perfectly matched replacement should the need arise. It’s a bit like Apple’s machined aluminum cases for the Mac Book Pro series; maybe the computer would work just as well with molded plastic cases, but that aluminum adds not only durability but a hefty dose of class. Maybe the woodworking on a B&W 803D doesn’t have to be so flawlessly exquisite—but I’m glad that it is. I have no doubt that all those so-called frills add to the price tag. Ditto Sennheiser’s enlightened employment policies and benefits; how much of the HD 800’s $1400 retail price pays for those highly-trained folks who hand-assemble, test, and tune each headphone? Maybe the HD 800s could be made by cheap factory labor somewhere and sell for $400. But then they wouldn’t be HD 800s; they’d be second-class knockoffs of a sui generis product.
None of this means that I can’t listen to music via my iPod powering a pair of decent but not great headphones. I’m fine with that. But I know what’s possible, or to be precise, what is possible for me given my current level of discernment and pocketbook. As long as I remain grounded in the reason behind it all—my near-insatiable love for music—I’ll be safe from the dreaded disease of audiophilia nervosa, that state of being forever dissatisfied, forever seeking. Keep the music front and center, and all else will fall into line.