I'm frustrated with people who don't ...


Sorry for a long post...
Recently I was at a 3-day meeting out of town for work. For an evening activity we had a cook out at a colleague's house. While there, we gathered around his deck and a small fire in the back yard. I found myself in a group of 6 guys discussing hobbies. I mentioned my love for audio and began to describe my system and music library. Almost instantly, I was "pounced" for believing that any "hi end" component is worth the money compared to anything else one can buy from Best Buy. "Digital is digital" one guy stated, "an $89 player is as good as anything else out there". I attempted to defend my position but in no way was I able to convince anyone. I told them the next time they're in town, I'd have them over to my place and let them hear the difference, but I know most will not acknowledge the quality of sound. Footnote: I've known these guys for 3-5 years and they are professional level headed guys, I wasn't bragging, I made no grand statements that my system is better than anything else, I just talked about my interest and brought it up when they asked me. The icing on the cake was their disbelief that my system can only play one CD at a time... "you don't have a carousel on your CDP?" Man, I was frustrated.
mijknarf
I've found that men like to joust about hobbies. It's usually good natured but they will run you through if you don't play the game correctly. To the fisherman that attacked your system you should have asked if the Orvis bamboo flyrod was any better than an old K-Mart graphite. To the motorhead you should have said that a camshaft is a camshaft or all tires rotate, etc. Golf? Ping vs. McGreggor. Guitars? Gibson/Fender/Martin, etc. vs. Alvalrez or such. Photography? Nikon vs. Pentax. When in a group of men around a campfire whoever is most glib wins. Still, I share your frustration that some people just don't get it.
Lugnut, You got it wrong, its Nikon v Canon, and Canon sucks! And I like jug wine, that stuff with corks in the bottles is a huge waste of money. :-)
One of the problems with our hobby is that quality is so tough to measure. It's easier to talk about the time to get from 0-60 mph or how many pixels your digital camera has. Lugnut is right that there are other hobbies like this (you spent how much on that reel?). It is frustrating and I normally respond that I enjoy it and love music. Generally, folks don't begin to get it until they really listen to a good system. Even then, if it's not a priority for them, they'll think I'm nuts. That's OK. I welcome the diversion from focusing on the real reasons for my insanity ;-)
So . . . Mijknarf, are you ready to admit that LP's sound better than CD's? (LOL)
--Neil
Well, Don't be...
It's realy easy to find a good CD-player among above 1k ones but very hard to find in low-hundreds range and even among carousels. Some of cheap Best Buy ones will sound like crap but some of them do deserve attention...