Why Don't More People Love Audio?

My personal feeling is.....there are not to many people loves audio( high end) because they were not expose to it.We kind of keep the good stuff within our community. If we look at the ads, it is only going in our own small world. Nobody did try to go out there and expose it and worst than that common people felt that going to a high end audio store is worst than going to a car dealer. We as audiophile needs to spread these hobby. Let us go out there and explain to our freinds that having a good equipments will really make the difference.
I know a guy that recently bought a lexus... He asked me if a Mark Levinson car stereo is better than the ones you can buy from the regular electronics store.I said to him. Go listen to it with me and I will let you know. Thanks.

Because the more revealing the hardware the less enjoyable the software. Since I have become involved in this hobby, 90% of my CD's are unlistenable. So now I sit in the dark and listen to Tubular Bells. !@#$%

Joekras, got to love'ya. Short, to the point. The undoing of this hobby lies in its very goal! As someone once put it, audiophiles upgrade their hardware until they can prove that all software is excrement. At least you have Tubular Bells. Maybe another thread could be started, something like: "How many recordings do you have that still remain enjoyable after your last upgrade". Whoever can honestly answer 0, should win the "Great Golden Ear Award" and retire to Arizona. Why so few people becoming audiophiles? Most people have lives to live and don't really enjoy obssessing over trivialities.

Will,
You hit the nail on the head. Audiophiles should do less overt projection of their sound systems and more subdued nuturing and education. My experience is to let my system do all the work. When my non-audiophile friends and family come over, I ask them to bring any new music they have purchased so I can experience their musical taste. This also broadens my musical exposure since I seldom listen to the radio. I'm a Jazz & Blues type of guy.

I don't talk about the cost or the time it took to get my system to its current state. What I do is ask them what exactly it is they like about the sound and then find out if they are interested in changing what they have. I ask their forcasted budget and then look for a good initial start-up system to match their current musical interest. A system that I could enjoy listening to when I visited them. Over the past 20+ years I have converted a couple of dozen Bose-slanted people to much better system (my % is about 80%).

Some of those people have gone on to the perverbial quest for "that perfect sound" and the others have been content with what I helped them purhase initially. One of my Uncles still has the Ohm F/Phase Linear 400/Conrad Johnson Pre/Denon TT & MMC we picked up many years ago and when I visit him it still sounds fantastic.

What I have learned to do is softly persuade those people who have asked for assistence towards the highend gear. Oh by the way, one of my nephews has surpassed me in the system he currently has. Oh to be young, single and wealthy.

I think that sometimes people are also intimidated by the good systems they hear / see. They recognize the quality of what they're listening to, but believe that to get much better sound that the boom box they have, they're going to fall prey to spending thousands more than they want to. I find myself constantly reassuring my friends who are kind of interested that they don't have to spend what I spent or become as fascinated by it as I have to get much better sound. I was out looking at big-screen TVs with one such friend and went into the speaker demo room. They had selectable CDs and speakers to choose from, so I put on Diana Krall's latest over some inexpensive speakers - it still blew him away, but it seemed achievable so I think it's more likely to stick. We moved down a couple rooms (up in price) and played the same song and he heard an even (much) better rendition, so I think he began to see that you don't have to spend a fortune, but that the more you spend, the better it gets. The key is to demonstrate that you can get a lot better sound for an amount of money that pales in comparison to what people spend on many other things, and that it can be simpler than the huge stacks many of us have built.

I find it amazing, too, how many people don't find music to be an important component in their life. Many were fanatics when they were young and have lost all zeal - I don't understand why. -Kirk