I remember as a child, an old tube-powered radio with four black knobs on the front that sat downstairs in a corner.  I used to play around with it, but the reception was pretty poor.  I knew that vacuum tubes were pretty old technology and not present in my father’s expensive Luxman amplifier.  Amazing now to think that old tubes are prized by audiophiles for the beautiful way in which they amplify sound.

I’m listening now to the Jeff Buckley Grace EP collection through around $1000 of “head-fi” - that is, headphone hi-fi gear.  It would be $2000 but for the headphones being second-hand and the amp, a high quality dual mono unit being made in, (gasp!) China.  Is nothing sacred, an audiophile might wonder?  What head-fi, and probably more specifically, the head-fi.org forums have opened people up to is the hi-fi experience, without the serious damage to one’s wallet that must be done to reproduce the feeling of live music in one’s living room.  Head-fi’ers, like myself, often listen to music while working in front of their computers or in bed.  They live in apartments where the neighbours won’t tolerate loud noises, own iPods and the idea of, even more amazing, their hi-fi is often capable of being fully portable without a sacrifice in sound quality.  

From the head-fi.org forums, the set-up of HiFlight77: An “iMod” iPod, internal capacitors bypassed, connected to two amplifiers via a special dock containing high-quality audio-grade capacitors. The tiny amp on the left is a “Pico” and the silver amplifier is a “Lisa III”. The cabling is all purpose made high quality copper/silver.

What’s more, the forums a thriving community, supported a number of manufacturers, raging from large headphone manufacturers down to one-man shops that do everything from build headphone amplifiers to re-cable headphones for better sound.  Their customers buy and sell gear between each other almost constantly, with individual items often having a history of people on the forums through who’s hands they have passed.  This experimentation allows members to try out a lot of gear without a lot of expense until they find their ideal set-up, as well as allowing them to offer advice to others from experience.

Like cars and computers, there’s much tweaking and experimenting possible. Owners of tube amps do what is known as “tube rolling” - that is, swapping sets of tubes from different manufacturers to experiment with the sound. Sufficient quality equipment will show up the difference not just between tubes, but even interconnect cables and, much to the surprise of many, even the power cables used.

“But wait!” I hear you ask, “What about the sound?” Oh, it’s fantastic! I’ve gone and re-ripped my CD collection in a lossless format (no mp3’s for me any more!) and have been rediscovering just how good some music really is. Really, the question should be “What about the music?” as what it comes down to is the enjoyment of listening. Quite admittedly, many people feel satisfied with just their iPod and basic earphones or their car stereo and hi-fi listening can be an acquired taste. I read at least one tale of a head-fi addict who brought his friends over to listen to his latest rig and they were not impressed at all, declaring their basic iPod headphones as sounding better. Each to their own I suppose. Most music these days is mastered these days with equalisation settings most suited for CDs, radio or iPods which isn’t necessarily suitable for hi-fidelity playback. One of the downsides of using hi-fi to play music is you start not just pondering the bad aspects of bits of your gear, but start to dislike bad recordings of even music you previously loved.

So do I regret spending on head-fi gear? Not at all. My father introduced me to good hi-fi and I’ve wanted a great set-up ever since. Now, instead of having to wait for many years of saving, I can have great sound for a fraction of the cost, and even take it with me when I travel. For everyone else, even if they they are just interested in spending a few dollars on something better than their iPod headphones, that’s ok too. Someone will be around who’s listened.