Are you an apologetic audiophile?

[anarchist]

"Does that help?"

Yup. Thanks for the reply, Robert.

But another question before Max becomes livid for turning his Topic into a hardwood flooring thread.

"I therefore need to borrow no stuff as I choose prefinished, 5/8 inch engineered floors which are glued together and then floated over the existing floor. (I have all the requisite saws, drills, hammers, etc.) These type of floors are especially suited to installation below grade, in bathrooms and other "wet" areas where solid hardwood is not acceptable."

I would suppose this is a higher quality material than the standard Pergo, which is more or less MDF with pictures of wood on them, and will break down quick with water damage.

It must be some sort of composite material to stand up to water damage, like some sort combination of wood and plastic composite?

Hi Mike,

As you mentioned Pergo is merely crap with pictures of wood. Engineered floors are substantially different and even within the engineered flooring there is substantial variation. Basically, they are gluing multiple layers of wood together while orienting the wood in different directions to minimize contraction and expansion. Some manufactures use 3 layers while others use as many as 7 layers. Depending on the quality of your engineered flooring, you will be able to sand and refinish it from 0 to 3 or more times. There are really cheap engineered floors which are only 3/8 in thick with less than 1mm of sandable finish and offer little advantage over Pergo other than you can say it is real.

If any of these floors are submerged in water or exposed for a substantial time to standing water, they will fail. How quickly they do depends on the quality but they all surpass that of solid hardwood.

I dig oaks, cherries, mahogany, and rosewood.

Hi Max, I apologize as well but know you like "living" threads. Where else can you debate being an audiophile and discuss the merits of flooring materials in the same thread?

[3dzapper]

Which type of washing machine goes best with engineered flooring?

I see no need to apologize.

[mike stehr]

Natural cherry looks cool, but it is as soft as lead. You look at it wrong, it will dent. Brazillian cherry looks cool, but you gotta be into red. I don't think it's a cherry wood however, it's some sort of south american hardwood. It's a rather hardwood, like hickory. The sawdust is like pink chalk, and stains like hell.

I think Micheal Colter has some Brazillian cherry in one of his rooms, if I recall.

"I have seen reactions all over the net to the ACA video. Almost entirely I see comments like "Makes me feel normal", or, "Look what those loonies have spent." "

What's a normal audiophile? The ACA boys may or may not have some pretty hefty sums into their gear. But in the world scale audio foodchain, there is probably a few out there with even larger sums tied up into their systems. Say some chap has a million+ tied up into his system. Would it make the ACA boys feel normal?

Would you folks think he is a loon because of his million+ dollar system?

I live near Spokane, WA.

A all american cow town where most of the folks think Hi-Fi is a home theater in a box. There is a few audio enthusiasts, a few....most friends places I've been have boomboxes. Most homes I've worked in or visited over the years have either boomboxes, or a 200 dollar HTIB with a 1000 dollar plasma TV.

Or one of those gay custom inwall and ceiling installs from a local contractor, which proudly displays Bose on their work vans. Sounds that remind me of being at the grocery store......And of course there is no shortage of junk car stereo bass sine wave generators.

Even with my low income, these people would think I'm a lunatic for what I have tied up into my home system. Like you, I spend what I can budget or trade to try get farther down that path to audio nirvana. I would like to say I spent my money wisely. I did sometimes, and sometimes I didn't. So I can't say spent my money wisely.

It's a personal hobby, it keeps me out of trouble. And it's nice to have everything dialed-in, park on the couch, and vegetate to the music. It's relaxing, and can kill stress. Though when stressed, I tend to fire up some Exodus or something and wind 'er up! GRRR!

It is interesting how the enthusiasts of model trains aren't dismissed as crazy when they dump big cash into the layouts. Even PBS has a television show for model trains and layouts.

I seen the one setup in Germany on that train show. Geez, wotta layout. The place had a carnival, I think it even had a casino. The little Semi-trucks had little brains, and could figure out where to go....little cameras mounted inside the model engines....on and on.....

Even some have the hobby for collecting old Western Electric gear. Imagine the cash tied up into this stuff.

If the hobby keeps you happy and sane, who cares? As long as one isn't in the soup line over it....

http://www.audioanthology.com/systems.htm

[Parrot]

Another great post, Mike.

I gotta say, the speakers in that link you included make even the Jubilees look almost passable.