By Paul McGowan From PS Audio

I am a wholesale swap kind of guy. If something isn’t performing the way I want I’d sooner move it along and get another. Out with the old and in with the new!

But I admire (to the point of envy) those with more patience and kindness towards the ill-fitting. Of all the lofty goals I have set for myself, learning patience and connecting with the satisfaction of spending more time with things would rank pretty high.

The lame story I tell myself is that I have neither the time nor the patience to bring something back from the discarded.

The truth is more likely closer to a combination of lazy and inability. One has to know enough about how things are supposed to perform before they can be properly judged. I am not that good at burrowing deep into the inner workings of new things that don’t interest me.

I am more comfortable with the macro rather than the micro.

There are those like me who wholesale swap equipment after a fortnight of play while others spend months getting to the core of what the products are all about. Everything has value. Sometimes it takes work and patience to ferret it out.

After 45 years of wholesale swapping to build great systems, I might qualify as a Macro Maven—one who makes quick judgments to swap building blocks to get the sound I want. Micro Mavens have focused deeply on the specific plus and minus characteristics of the pieces that make up systems.

I suppose we need both but I also recognize it’s valuable to label yourself honestly.

Micro or Macro Maven?

For more on this story go to; https://www.psaudio.com/pauls-posts/micro-or-macro-maven/