Disappointing Evening

hi cyclonicman:

please don't confuse lack of interest with lack of discernment. a person can detect a difference between quality of things, without being interested.

its a matter of priorities. where the priority is high, one will be more dilligent, where priority or interest is low, one may be more superficial in one's evaluation or not be concerned of the difference.

the fact the sound is not important to mnay people or the fact that the size, clarity, or color of a video image is of little concern, where someone would be content to view a movie on a less than clear or lifelike color image does not imply a deficit in intelligence or dicsrnment, but is rather an expresion of taste or lack thereof.

this aapplies to food as well, wher someone is content to eat a hamburger and does not desire a more expensive cut of meat.

the more expensive steak, e.g, is easily recognizable but someone may not care to eat it.

in general, one who does not strive for the best is not always ignorant of what the best is.

Mrtennis your points are valid but if am confused it is only because the guests did remark about the "good music" from the B&O system. This led me to believe that they were interested and appreciate good sound quality. Perhaps I am mistaken and they were referring to the musical piece itself as "good music" and not the system. The post is really not about my perception and I am not putting anyone down. My intention was to uplift the poster, Mark, because he felt insulted and disappointed and I have been there myself. Perhaps maybe his guests weren't interested as you say. I may be wrong, but I tend to think that like myself, Mark also read into their comments that they were interested in high quality audio. He sounds like a gracious host and tried to turn them on to a higher quality tube system that he probably has taken a lot of time and effort to put together. What's the result?, sounds like his efforts were not appreciated and quietly rebuffed. It doesn't sound to me like Mark was beating his guests over the head with this. I understand what you are saying and it seems to me like you are a person that sees both sides of the coin. The truth is that neither you or I were there so based on the post, I am siding with Mark. It just seems to me that interested or not, it really doesn't take that much effort to be polite.

The only people interested in how good your high end Hifi sounds are people with high end Hifi's.

I think every audiophile has had this experience. It's one of the reasons I scoff when bloggers or hifi mag writers talk about rejuvenating the hobby by exposing people to great systems. I had this exact debate with Robert Harley via email. He is convinced that people can be converted to high end audiophiles by simple exposure to a good system. Not true and anyone that has demoed their great system for the unwashed masses knows this is a fallacy. Appreciating a good hifi is a skill that must be learned over time. It probably also requires certain brain chemistry/characteristics.

People just don't even know what they are hearing, and they typically don't care. Only once have I had the experience where my friend was blown away by my system and in that case he was a former music student and concert pianist and a genuine music lover. He "got it" from day one. Everyone else does not get it. My wife must be dragged in kicking and screaming to listen to one song.

But I don't blame people for this lack of appreciation. There are lots of hobbies I don't appreciate.

It is a shame and I empathize with the OP. Most of use would love to share our pride and joy systems with people that would enjoy them.

That's one thing that's great about the internet, but unfortunately we cannot hear other's systems, only see them.

again, don't sell people short. they may be able to distinguish good from bad sound, but they probably don't care. and as i said that aplies to other material things.