Food for thought for all us audiophiles

Although there is clearly SOME validity to what's being said, I'm still left to wonder: If there's such a tendency for "convergence" among audiophiles' opinions, then why do so many people argue vehemently for diametrically opposed viewpoints on this site and many others? That phenomenon would seem to "diverge" from the convergence assertion of the article.

The only "convergence" I can discern is that most audiophiles believe that some things sound better than others. That "convergence" starts to disappear when the discussion turns to "what" sounds better and "why". If there's someone out there that thinks all audiophiles agree, they've got a screw loose!
As we all know, audiophile opinions are quite diverse!

Mdhoover. Great point. Seems like folks here can't agree on anything.

So the point is we are just fooling ourselves when we spend a lot of money on audio gear. Or maybe it's that we are wasting money. Well what business is it of anyone else how one spends their own money? What should we buy instead? Who decides what's appropriate for me? My guess is there is no shortage of people who will volunteer for the thankless job of dictating your life in the name of "fairness".

After all, the article borrows from the "Journal of ABNORMAL and Social Psychology". Yup, that explains our inability to live in the real world where the Wilsons and Boses are equally special.

To borrow from the article: there are two camps of audiophiles - those who are subjective and want to understand why there are (or are not) differences in audio components, and those who are envious of audiophiles who can afford the seven grand speaker cables. It's that simple IMO.

I guess cognitive dissonance would not apply if you are actually cost conscious. There are many times I want the cheaper, more reliable, lighter gear to sound better but just can't talk myself into keeping the cheaper, inferior sounding equip.. (Unless I subconsciously think that expensive gear are better.) LOL