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its all about the music,no way hose

is it really?

i posted a thread a few weeks ago asking why everybody got into high end gear & some of the responses got me thinking about this.

ok heres the deal,i constantly read the phrase"its all about the music" but is it really,i dont believe so,in a hobby where enthusiasts change gear as often as their socks i find that statement real hard to believe allmost like a herion addict claiming back pain is why he shoots up that crud.

ive seen guys spend upwards of $10,000 xtra for a special finish on their speakers,is that all about the music,how about paying high dollar for the same paint used to paint ferrari sports cars is that all about the music or how about the whole WAF deal where guys claim they are selling due to the wife not liking the way somthing looks no matter how good it sounds.

ive picked up alot of gear in person & ive seen where guys have $50,000 rigs but thier music collection is less than 50 discs or albums now that cant be all about the music.

just once i'd love to hear somthing honest like im in this hobby beacuse i love the gear,the way i see it is that this hobby is no different from say a guy collecting guns or sports cars or even motor cycles(my other hobby) or rare coins so why the big deal admitting it.

dont get me wrong i listen alot & since i dont watch television ever i listen more than most but its never been all about the music with me & it never will be,with me its about having fun with trying out different peices of gear & pride of ownership or even scoring on a very rare peice,sure, listening to music on a rig that produces music on a level that 99% of the population will never hear is a good thing but i find it very hard to believe thats the reason for most guys being in this hobby.

whats your thoughts?

mike.
bigjoe
timrhu
2,779 posts
 
Of course it's about both. As you look through the systems here on Audiogon you see rooms filled with CDs, LPs and tapes. Most of these folks, including myself, have inordinately large music collections which retailed for quite a bit more than the gear went for. When my kids bring their friends over, their friends are freaked by my music collection and barely notice the gear.
It wouldn't be worthwhile for me if not for the music.
violaguy
21 posts
 

This post is a lot more complicated than meets the eye (ear?)...

To questions similar to, 'why do you keep doing what you do—what keeps you going?' three suberb classical artists responded:

Nathan Milstein: because I love the violin
Anton Rubinstein: because I love the sound of the piano
Marilyn Horne: because I love the sound of my voice

Why not 'because I love Bach, because I love Chopin' or 'I love music'?

If it were all about the music, then maybe a cheap radio/ghetto blaster/discman would suffice...unless of course, music AND sound are what matter.

Just my two cents...
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
my rig costs less than a quarter of my music collection.

btw anyone's any info on the Sakamoto's new werk? plz share...
kthomas
911 posts
 
Well, turn it around - if there was no music, I certainly wouldn't buy the gear.

I don't know if I've ever said it was exclusively about the music, but I think the point that others have made that I listen to music regularly, both on a nice system at home, but also on the car stereo, on cheap systems at friends houses, etc., reinforces that the music is at least the key point.

I also know that my conversations with others about music are somewhere between 10X and 100X more common than my conversations with others about audio gear.

So, I think "it's all about the music" is usually not meant to be absolute, but is just a short-hand for "I love music".
guidocorona
4,298 posts
 
It is about a lot of things: it's the love of music, it's the love of equipment, it's the beauty of sound, it's the daydreams about the unachievable, it's the comradery with all of you even when we throw barbs at one another, it is the obsessive compulsion of participating to outwardly pointless discussions on Agon, it's the discovery of the voice of Glenn Gould singing along on his recording of the Goldberg Variations which I have owned for over two decades, it's the very magic of it all. Can you find a better hobby?
And yes, I too largely and happily ignore the TV thanks to Audiophilia Nervosa.
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