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| SKEPTIC GUY |
There are some pieces of gear that are not as good as others, then again, there are pieces that the Hive-Mind curses which offer plenty of great performance and value. In the 1970s when I was really getting into multitrack production the only affordable game was Tascam. I knew about Neve and MCI but single pieces by those brands cost as much as my parents house. The HIve-Mind said those affordable Tascam pieces were garbage, awful trash, don't buy that and you're cursed forever if you do. How many hit songs were written using a Teac 3340 4-track reel to reel? A LOT! How many recordings started on Tascam 4-track cassette decks and went on to be big hits...also A LOT! I'm no Bruce Springsteen fan but he even included Portastudio tracks on a hit album.
If you can't find meaningful data online then you'll need to seek out actual hardware in person and learn how to evaluate the performance for yourself. To make that happen you need to educate your ears with what sounds good TO YOU (because YOU are the one making the purchase and the one who will be using whatever it is you're buying).
In time the Hive-Mind often turns around and goes the other way...after rejecting something HARD for a while, it finally becomes acceptable. Peavey was this way when they started. The Hive-Mind hated them for many years but finally they were accepted (after lots of BIG bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd endorsed Peavey products). Many brands start in the low price arena and then the price goes up as they're accepted and purchased more.
BUYING TIPS
Buy things that have resale value, that way if you decide a piece sucks you have an avenue open to dispose of it. Many popular items that are budget low priced pieces retain and have excellent resale prices due to their popularity.
Learn (or at least research) how eBay and Reverb.com work (because love em or hate em, they're your fastest path to turning a piece of gear back into cash). While you're learning how resale works learn how to package items well so your customer will be happy and receive undamaged goods.
Buy things which are repairable or so low priced you don't care if you're forced to throw something away.
Learn to listen. To do this all you need is a relatively flat response set of headphones, a reliable (not exotic) headphone amp to plug them into and a wide variety of material to listen to.
Listen to WAV or other non-compressed formats. Compression (which YouTube uses on everything) masks certain attributes and changes the way things sound. This is why it's important during ear training to listen to pure high quality recorded files. Listening to a CD played on a good CD-player with good headphones can deliver a fuller and better sound than any compressed format.
We spent weeks evaluating several top headphone models which led us to a low priced set which delivers stunning good sound, relatively flat response plus a comparatively low purchase price (could great sound REALLY be this affordable?). While our favorite set of cans requires a pricey headphone amp (due to the weird impedance of the ear pieces), the overall budget winner deliver excellent loudness from stock headphone amps. This means you can take your $100 headphones with you in your pocket and listen to gear in stores that has headphone outputs.
EPILOGUE
I could go on and on about this. Back in 1991 at AES in NYC Rupert Neve told me "get yourself a good set of speakers" and that was solid advice I've cherished. I always knew that how things sounded to me was the most important but having someone of his stature provide guidance was pure audio treasure.
My advice from all this is get some good headphones, get some good content that you are certain represents good sound and learn what the attributes are that make it sound good. Listen beyond lyrics and singer and whether you like the song or not, listen to the tone. Listen to the cymbals, listen to the timbre of the kick drum, listen to the clarity (or lack there of). Listen to the dynamics, the loud, the soft and the all important midrange frequencies. Study frequency response. Learn what it is and why it matters. Learn the human range of vocals (it's not as wide as you might think).
Probably the most important thing is focus on YOUR creativity because without interesting content nobody will listen to what you put out regardless of what gear you use.
Thanks for reading High on Technology, Good Music To You!
©September 2, 2026 by Mark King, it is NOT ok to copy or quote without written permission from the author. Contact us for permission, we're happy to help. Have a great day.
originally published Sept 9, 2026
