Hi-fi: An obsession, or just clean fun?

By John Groom

April 2004

Psychobabble is a column to explore the twilight zone of hi-fi. That strange place where the improbable meets the impossible, the fussy meets the obsessional, and the physical meets the psychological.

It was a difficult moment in counseling when the earnest young man asked me if I thought he was obsessional. It was particularly challenging, as the example he gave was that he was upset with his cleaning lady for moving his speakers 10mm to the right.

I had to be straight up with the client and acknowledge that I might not be the best clinician for him. Earlier in the year I had got very tight-lipped with my cleaner when I found that she had switched off the Naim power supplies (they take a couple of weeks to come back "on song"). Juliet suggested I was over reacting when I mumbled some thing about bringing back capital punishment.

My client left soon after. I had to assume that me sharing my hi-fi obsession with him had either been wonderfully therapeutic or he agreed that we were both nuts and found some better help. [Client details have been changed to protect the innocent]

Today, I don't think that I am much clearer on the issue. Last week I bought a cute little 'ghetto-blaster' for the bedroom. Not only did it need a remote control (so that you don't have to get out of bed to switch it off) it had to look pretty and have a bass boost for low volume levels. I thought I was doing well when I applied these criteria, with only a cursory check of the clean and slightly forward sound.

However when I got it home I found myself experimenting first with placement, then with which way the mains cord sounded best, trialing different clean mains sockets, and eventually voiding the products warranty by wiping the CD lens with a cotton bud coated in cleaning fluid. All of these actions made a clear improvement to a $159 product!

I justify my fiddling by saying how much greater pleasure I now get from the sound. I also, somewhat defensively, add that Juliet can also hear and appreciate the difference.

These two arguments are of course complete nonsense. I have been fiddling with equipment for around 30 years and I am probably for example one of the few people who have rewired a mantle radio with Monster Cable just to see what it sounded like (a great improvement). I suspect that while the hobby has helped me refine my ear for sound, it has also left me a lot more critical.

When I owned a Mazda MX5 I had the air intake modified and the computer re-jigged to squeeze a bit more performance out of it. The car went so fast I was concerned about how stable it might be on the tight corners. But I just couldn't leave the thing alone, and I think the same process applies to hi-fi.

The second argument involving Juliet is a dangerous one. It could simply be that I have taken her into my own craziness (she does have to live with me after all).

When I am working with people who have alcohol problems I hear myself say 'it is not how much you drink, but the part that drinking plays in your life.' I suspect the same may be true for our hobby.

At worst I have seen hi-fi take time, energy and money that could have better gone into family and relationships. At best I have had decades of fun, met some amazing people and learnt a little about writing.

As a footnote I didn't fire my Naim-switching cleaner, but I did buy her a long handled feather duster and suggested where, how and when it could be used. She left a month later.

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John Groom is a psychologist working in private practice on Auckland's North Shore. John has over three decades experience in both hi-fi and psychology.