Just wondering. Music is supposed to soothe the soul. If you are in reasonably good health for your age, have a good system and good music to play on it you have it pretty good it seems to me. These are blessings! Be thankful for what you got?
What always gets me is dealing with sellers on a piece of equipment. You contact them, ask a couple questions and it seems the majority are very stand-off-ish. They hardly give you the time of day. Or they give you short curt answers. I think wait, you’re trying to sell a piece of gear, don’t you think you could be a little bit engaging when you have an interested buyer? Maybe it’s because I am in sales and know how to treat customers. It just amazes me how people are such prudes when selling an item. If nothing more it's an opportunity to meet someone else with common interests. How did we become so disingenuous?
"Anger is generated in a lot audiophiles when the reality is nowhere near the promise of buying this or that recommended by professional reviewers or chasing recommendations made by strangers without personal consequences on the internet.
It’s very easy to go down the rabbit hole in this hobby and finally coming up poorer and wiser."
Yes, with so much disappointing gear (up to 90%?) it can definitely be a frustrating business to get into.
Far too many rabbit holes to get lost in.
"I have found that buying an entire system that you can hear from the remaining good brick and mortar dealers eliminates a lot of the anger and frustration generated by the hit and miss buying of never heard components off the internet."
Yes that could be a great way to start off.
It’s probably not very practical for most of us here. Not when we might have become attached to some of our gear.
Another issue is cost. If I was to sell off my system I’d be struggling to get £3k for it. I don’t fancy my chances of assembling a more satisfying system with that budget. Maybe, maybe not.
And then there’s that age old problem of finding a dealer that stocks a sufficiently wide range of equipment to give plenty of scope to contrast and compare.
Good dealers here in the UK are very hard to find nowadays (esp outside London).
I personally like the retail chain Richer Sounds and that’s where I would go if I ever wanted to assemble a complete system from scratch again.
Their loudspeaker range includes some of the top models from Dali, Elac, Monitor Audio and Q Acoustics, which might be sufficient for 90% of audiophiles.
Get most of these guys in person and I'm sure they are largely friendly and interested in talking audio and listening.
That's because most won't be honest in person and tell them how crap their system sounds and if they spent time and money learning how acoustics works and fixing it and not on audio jewelry that does little then maybe it would not sound like crap. Online we will :-)
Some individual's self-esteem is apparently based to a large extent upon the degree to which they can feel superior to others.Certain posters on these forums seem to repeatedly initiate or become embroiled in conflicts with others that are more about who is "right"/who knows "best", as opposed to who can offer the most help to others.
I most appreciate and admire participants who are able to set aside their own preferences and address the needs of those asking for advice within the context of the OP's own preferences. This is the sort of response I've found most helpful.
Fortunately, there are folks who are stellar at modelling such "good behavior". I'd suggest we'd all benefit if we more closely followed their example !
Honestly I think the whole premise of audiophiles being angry is overblown and internet specific. Get most of these guys in person and I'm sure they are largely friendly and interested in talking audio and listening. Online is obviously a different story.
Anger is generated in a lot audiophiles when the reality is nowhere near the promise of buying this or that recommended by professional reviewers or chasing recommendations made by strangers without personal consequences on the internet. It’s very easy to go down the rabbit hole in this hobby and finally coming up poorer and wiser. I have found that buying an entire system that you can hear from the remaining good brick and mortar dealers eliminates a lot of the anger and frustration generated by the hit and miss buying of never heard components off the internet.
This is not common to audio forums only (same goes for computer forums, gaming forums, car forums, etc). These type of discussions are much easier and can be very amicable in person. Online, the human element is removed. You are arguing with a computer. Things can get misunderstood, go south, etc. It's not the people, it is the communication interface.
Remember “It’s a Wonderful Life”? People didn’t acknowledge Jimmy Stewart every time he had a positive effect on them. But it still all added up in the end. Jimmy even got a little riled up on occasion. Just saying. Everyone should always stick up for what’s right and wrong but always try to be civil and respectful about it. “A little love and affection in everything you do makes the world a better place with or without you”.
"Has anyone here clearly and profoundly won a toxic argument whereby the opposing party simply acquiesced, admitted fault and gave thanks for pointing out their complete lack of understanding and pillock-like nature?"
Me neither.
Although I am sometimes surprised to find, usually many months later, that my opponent might then be espousing quite different statements from those previously.
The reverse also happens. Certain opinions I was ridiculing about the pandemic back in March 2020 don’t seem quite so conspiratorial now.
These often cherished self beliefs are not things we are likely to change in the course of an argument are they? However they can eventually give in to contradictory opinion if given long enough.
This is why propaganda is so effective.
@mahgister,
"But the anonymity of these forums make people resembling more to their own dark shadow than to their real self...(C.G.Jung)"
Or maybe the shadow is their real self? The one they themselves may not even be aware of?
Don’t long term married partners sometimes tell each other things like ’I know you better than you do!’?
i would agree with levy03 that the general trend towards angry/rude/nasty discourse is widespread, not just in the audiophile online forum world, but everywhere online and also in more traditional media like tv/cable tv where the ’echo chamber’ effect of outlets promoting themselves and grabbing viewers by making everything more intense and incendiary
couple that with many in society struggling and unhappy with their lives and living conditions, the anger is easy to express, especially in anonymous forums
then on top of that, we have societal leaders, politicians etc etc also breaking norms of decency and classy/intellectually honest discourse, taking advantage of the pent up anger and frustration of many
clear cause and effect here, and unfortunately it is all quite corrosive
Has anyone here clearly and profoundly won a toxic argument whereby the opposing party simply acquiesced, admitted fault and gave thanks for pointing out their complete lack of understanding and pillock-like nature?
Not in my universe.......yours? Not in the cards. The self-belief system most humans cling to is akin to “The Borg”.
I am able to admit my own wrong or errors...Thanks God!
Any honest people can do and wanted to do it...
But the anonymity of these forums make people resembling more to their own dark shadow than to their real self...(C.G.Jung) Then they all act like "Borg" in their sucking it all strategy....
I myself particularly enjoy the company of mathematicians( dont mix these up with any scientism) and of mystics ( dont mix these up with religious people), in the pursuit of absolute truth they never lied by definition...
«What rubbish noise! Only dogs and trees never lied and my late mother»-Groucho Marx
Has anyone here clearly and profoundly won a toxic argument whereby the opposing party simply acquiesced, admitted fault and gave thanks for pointing out their complete lack of understanding and pillock-like nature?
Not in my universe.......yours? Not in the cards. The self-belief system most humans cling to is akin to “The Borg”.
I enjoy where I live, what I eat, where I travel to, the concerts I attend and Bridger the Wonder lab. All in a world bereft of social media. Spin that in a negative way, I dare you.
was just discussing this with a couple of good friends. wish it was just the hifi crowd. angry people everywhere now-a-days. i have several long term hobbies and can say the same about them all. have been into watches, cars, knives, pens, coins, guns and hifi for 25+ years . have seen anger become more prevalent in all of the above regarding online discussion and debate. seems sharing opinions and debating has become more of a blood sport for many.
i blame the inter-web in general. 95% BS if not more imho. no wonder so many people get twisted sideways with the near constant exposer to the bull poo poo. very glad i've never joined any social media like FB, twitter, grams, chats. etc. just a handful of forums/one for each interest is all i can bare. some days even that is too much. do get a good chuckle outta some of the nonsense but try to hide my amusement most of the time =).
"ya can't carpet the world, so put on a pair of comfy slippers instead".
@edcyn....The drawback of employing felines to to do your IC's is that as a whole, they see cables as merely very long shoelaces (complete with the 'hard ends'). And the inability to read poses a somewhat larger problem....
Without knowing it, @glupson summarized the answer to this thread by doing nothing other than quoting the same person, three times in one post from another thread ...
"Anger is a rational response to current events, and to the failures of others to recognise them for what they are. One half of our nation has been lied to by the media they consume, and had their worst impulses cultivated by those that see political advantage in greed, divisiveness, and xenophobia. The other half recoils in horror at the base venality, and anger at the incompetence and injustice."
Absolutely! And we all know what happens to repressed anger, don’t we?
The problem is that some get stuck in an anger loop where nothing, no victory, big or small, can break what may have become habitual.
All those who have been hating on one certain individual for the past 4/5 years may soon need to look elsewhere to vent their seemingly endless vitriol.
[I can't even say his name for fear of inciting an attack of further irrational apoplexy amongst some of us here.]
Recent events have generally helped no one other than billionaire globalists and billionaire global pharmaceuticals. It’s certainly been a great year for the likes of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk! Things seem to be going pretty well according to plan in the people’s Republic of China.
Many of us are still trying to follow the official line handed down to us by our elected representatives, desperately hoping for a return to something like normal. Hoping to soon put the past year down as a bad memory. A black mark in our history.
The rest of us try to find ways to adapt to what is now being called the new normal having lost all credence in the perennially uncommital words of self serving politicians.
This is why we all still look for pleasure in music and the arts. This is why we all still value high performance audio equipment.
It can be a serious business at times but going by what’s happening on other forums, websites, Twitter etc I still like to believe, comparatively speaking, that we are a bunch of well mannered and civil individuals.
@sbank,
because Yoko Ono. because "perfect sound forever". because mp3. because compression. because internet throttling. because I can’t browse local record stores during pandemic.
All those things too, although 320kbps is far from bad.
What has been cemented through all of this is that the lens people see things through is so powerful and logic is mostly personal perspective. What gets to me though is that some of the same people who believe in religious and political fantasy try to ruin enjoyment of the hobbyists fantasies of cables, amps, cd players, etc. In this day and age, the x's and o's are in the eye of the beholder.
Should we start a new thread of audiophile gripes?
Why do power amps have to weight so much? Why do audio components depreciate the moment you drive them off the lot? Why is there never enough room behind the rack (a) to fit your head in there to see what you're doing; (b) to dress all your cables properly.
because Yoko Ono. because "perfect sound forever". because mp3. because compression. because internet throttling. because I can't browse local record stores during pandemic.
"It’s the same people arguing over the same things over and over. I’ve literally left threads and come back 6 months later and yep: the same people arguing and saying the same things. Audiophile fuses, MQA or Tekton speakers anyone?"
These things take time. The analogue (vinyl) - digital debate is only a mere 4 decades old. The cable debates are of a similar age. Early days.
You know with money and vested interests involved, audio can start to look like a microcosm of politics itself.
Remember that Zappa quote about government?
"Politics is the entertainment division of the military industrial complex."
I'm certainly with Frank on that one, especially if he meant to include the banks and the pharmaceuticals!
It’s the same people arguing over the same things over and over. I’ve literally left threads and come back 6 months later and yep: the same people arguing and saying the same things. Audiophile fuses, MQA or Tekton speakers anyone?
Well, it is pretty annoying (just kidding) when people still think ‘audiophile’ only means: Listening to music. In my opinion this is not what the hobby is about. It is about getting our system to sound as good as we can. And yes, these discussions can get very passionate 😀 Here is my opinion on what an audiophile is: https://youtu.be/Xet2qXuFboE
+1, AZbob.....I chalk the change in attitudes in the thread to the inhabitants dredging up their responses to Covid, the changes in the government, the hostility of the Capitol mob, the fears of where the nation is heading in response to all of the previous....
The earth seems to be moving beneath our feet and we don’t know where to tread and how to keep a balance in our lives.
The glass half-full or half-empty doesn’t seem to matter if the glass appears to be breaking...
Simple ’faith in the System’ and ’keeping on keeping on’ starts to look pointless and fruitless when nothing appears to be on track anymore.
Here’s a thought to contemplate from a resident cynical realist: The American Dream needs to be refocused. The Nation of Immigrants needs to grow up and accept itself. We, The People, need to pay F’n attention and stop acting like it’s all for Your benefit alone. It’s not, nor ought to be. Your taxes Are Not all that high; go look at those in Europe. Large corporations have been hollowing us out and acting like we should congratulate them for doing so. Vote, idiot. If you think it’s pointless, you’re making it so. Educate yourself about that person who wants to make the decisions that will make or break you, your neighbor, your city, your state, Your Country. Stay home, and I’ll decide for you. If that doesn’t freak you out, You’re Numb and have no right to complain about ANYTHING. We spend more on pizza per capita then on a space program. There’s a cloud of space trash about the planet that will soon make launching anything a crap shoot. Forget Mars. Forget about a weather satellite for that matter. A Tesla can outrun a Ferrari that it outweighs. Take a clue from that, and dump that Porsche.
Every time y’all -------about cables, fuses, and that you just spent more $ on a new cart makes me either laugh or wonder just what is really valuable and important in your life.
And yet, some of you think I’m just some sort of weird troll. Well.....I’m weird enough to not be like YOU.
To borrow a line from Frank Zappa, from awhile back: "I’m not black, but sometimes I wish I wasn’t white. Have a good day.
What an outstanding post. Reading thru pg1 and getting warm and fuzzy thoughts up until the bottom of the page where where 'sojourn98' comments on audiophiles ensconced in their nice houses with their 5K systems. Then it happened, 'inna' had to smugly state 5K only buys a few good cables. That's how it starts...Forgetting that "One mans' floor is another mans' ceiling" (it's an old saying and not PC)((REALLY sick of that term too)). But I digress, seems 'inna' possesses an acute case of small mans' syndrome (see floor/ceiling metaphor above). Mom always said "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all". It makes you look petty, not the least bit superior.
we kinda all know this, but it is nice to see it laid out so clearly and we are reminded of how quality posts enhance the value of the conversation and the forum overall
applies for handling disagreements outside of online forums also
I am not sure there is any connection between "audiophile" and "music."
Unfortunately there is a tendency among us to take things too seriously.
Every single show I've been to (plus a few demos) have had an over intense atmosphere prevalent. Sometimes even the demonstrators/designers/dealers get caught up in it.
Usually the visitors are a group of taciturn, serious looking men trying to focus upon the sound with great intensity.
It's often feels more like we're auditioning the performers rather than enjoying the performance. I'm usually exhausted towards 5 o'clock on such occasions.
With such high prices and livelihoods at stake it's hardly surprising that there are some strong feelings on display.
Money always tends to do that, but the events of the past year will have done little to lower blood pressures either.
Don't believe me? Well how about putting some money on the outcome of some hitherto uninteresting sporting contest and then watch how quickly it becomes an object of temporal obsession.
Fancy a snail race anyone? No? How about the outcome of certain vaccine delivery programs?
This was posted in another thread. Had to share it here. Everyone should read it and can probably learn some things regarding anger and how to have more effective discourse with others.
@cal3713 Bravo! Well Said. I agree with you whole heatedly. The only trouble is the people you are talking about won't read your post, ignore it or just flat won't understand it.
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