The Value Of Audio Quality

Let's say that I have a quality recording of some music. This music is on a Compact Disc, and the recording in studio to disc is very good. My disc player is connected to my amplifier with average/good RCA audio cables, and my amp is of decent quality. Again, the speaker wire is of good quality (thick - a proper guage of wire for home audio) and the wire leads us to the speakers. They are great speakers - three way, used but in great shape, solid punchy bass & crisp clear highs. Sadly, my speakers are in crappy places because my house is small, and I have to constantly fiddle with the EQ just to get a decent sound (that is unless I sit exactly between the speakers on the coffee table, 'cuase then it's like I have giant headphones on and stereo surround sound is all that exisist in the world - fun, but I don't like to sit on the coffee table for long).

I had everything right all the way up untill I reached the subject of speaker placement. This why I don't have a fancy high quality stereo. Most people screw up somewhere along the chain - crappy RCA cables, lousy CD audio to start with (becoming more of a problem with compressed audio files that are shared and downloaded to be uncompressed from 128 bps onto a CD), thin speaker cables or cables that are way too long, crappy amp, etc. With any of these steps existing at a subpar level your audio will never be what it should.

For my money (which isn't much), I go with decent quality gear and focus on a standard all across the board. This way I don't blow 2000 dollars on a tube amp just to have my music sound basically the same. Sure, if I could grab those 3000 dollar speakers to go with the amp maybe I'd do it, but like said already, I' m not gonna blow that kind of cash on a stereo when I do most of my listening on my bicycle through mediocre headphones. At least my discman has 'bassboost'... I use it to drown out loud engines around me.

This brings me to a final reflection for this post. More of a question actually...

"Where, when, how, and why do you listen to music?"

The answer to this question will help one figure out what one needs for their audio equipment, and hopefully help one to be more at peace with the gear one has.

Cameron