WHY IS THERE SO MUCH HATE FOR THE HIGH END GEAR ON AUDIO GEAR?

+1 noromance

+1 calvinj OP

I believe the manufacturers are big blame with the Huge increase in pricing products. Get rich and price it to wealthy people. Audio done correct is knowing how to combine gear to get its best out of your system. Not that different from Auto business .Lots of HIP and less deliver in terms of the goods delivered.

I have noticed the vitriol as well (I think we all have).

It started around 2010 (or 2012 if you go to the Steve Hoffman forums). I can see exactly when the threads began being nasty (mid 2012). From what I can see, before I left that forum over this very subject (hatefulness) , the majority of members there have very modest equipment, and have never heard the truly High End equipment. (Or they heard it, and it was set up badly, but, since it was at a dealers, it MUST have been set up right, and the sound was just crappy and not worth the price!)

I was an audiophile back in the early 80s, and it was a "Golden Age" of sorts, with astounding advances in equipment. And prices were not stratospheric, either.

But more than just the equipment itself, I’ve also come to realize that most of the people commenting on forums have never been to a symphonic or jazz concert back at a time when they did not use microphones for every instrument/performance. And 48 track for recording (and we can thank the Beatles for that! (and I love the Beatles!)). So, they have no idea how music sounds in real life without a zillion microphones blasting at them thru a mediocre system that doesn’t reproduce the dynamic nuances, which are the very essence of life music (acoustic, I repeat) and not miked. I have asked, time and again, if they go to acoustic music concerts. I can't recall a single response being "yes" when I asked that. They have no experience with live, unamplified music.

On top of that, most of these people also do do not trust their ears, but how could they if they do not know what "the real thing" sounds like? It also does not occur to the people on forums in 2023 that the goal - back then - of audiophile designers (for the most part) was: trying to design equipment that could sound as "real" as possible (with all of the dynamic/steadystate/transient pluck/imaging and soundstaging attributes one would hear live) , and that meant acoustic instruments. Since most people don’t listen to that (and never did), how can they be expected to recognize what is objective reality (the actual sound of an instrument - or voice) in person? They believe in what "sounds good to me" and not what is objectively closer to a recording of a properly recorded instrument/voice/performance. They just can’t relate. So they sneer and bash instead. I would imagine that that same sentiment applies to other areas of their life, as well. Seems a rather miserable way to live life, but it’s their life.

I concur with your post speaking about people with no knowledge of high end gear and no musical knowledge or education in classical and jazz who bashed and insulted calling people snobs ...

But you forgot , between the fewer completely informed and the mass of ignorant , the crowd of the partially informed, even with high end products , gear fetichist in some way, with no knowledge about acoustics and system working embeddings electrical and mechanical controls, braggingt about their favorite costlier piece of gear ... Acoustics with an (s) is not simple room acoustic by the way ...

Psycho-acoustics rule the gear not the reverse...And not price tag ....

I have noticed the vitriol as well (I think we all have).

It started around 2010 (or 2012 if you go to the Steve Hoffman forums). I can see exactly when the threads began being nasty (mid 2012). From what I can see, before I left that forum over this very subject (hatefulness) , the majority of members there have very modest equipment, and have never heard the truly High End equipment. (Or they heard it, and it was set up badly, but, since it was at a dealers, it MUST have been set up right, and the sound was just crappy and not worth the price!)

I was an audiophile back in the early 80s, and it was a "Golden Age" of sorts, with astounding advances in equipment. And prices were not stratospheric, either.

But more than just the equipment itself, I’ve also come to realize that most of the people commenting on forums have never been to a symphonic or jazz concert back at a time when they did not use microphones for every instrument/performance. And 48 track for recording (and we can thank the Beatles for that! (and I love the Beatles!)). So, they have no idea how music sounds in real life without a zillion microphones blasting at them thru a mediocre system that doesn’t reproduce the dynamic nuances, which are the very essence of life music (acoustic, I repeat) and not miked. I have asked, time and again, if they go to acoustic music concerts. I can’t recall a single response being "yes" when I asked that. They have no experience with live, unamplified music.

 

On top of that, most of these people also do do not trust their ears, but how could they if they do not know what "the real thing" sounds like? It also does not occur to the people on forums in 2023 that the goal - back then - of audiophile designers (for the most part) was: trying to design equipment that could sound as "real" as possible (with all of the dynamic/steadystate/transient pluck/imaging and soundstaging attributes one would hear live) , and that meant acoustic instruments. Since most people don’t listen to that (and never did), how can they be expected to recognize what is objective reality (the actual sound of an instrument - or voice) in person? They believe in what "sounds good to me" and not what is objectively closer to a recording of a properly recorded instrument/voice/performance. They just can’t relate. So they sneer and bash instead. I would imagine that that same sentiment applies to other areas of their life, as well. Seems a rather miserable way to live life, but it’s their life.