Why are people always getting into pissing matches because they think what they have is better


Luckily I don't see it as much on here compared to other audio websites. I just find it so annoying I stop looking at the thread. There are just to many variables in audio to debate what is better than what. I guess it's just an ego thing that I don't want to take part in.

taters
This hobby has a three-tier hierarchy of audio gear that can be generalized for performance-wise as: low-fi, mid-fi, and hi-fi.
Price-wise, it generally follows in lockstep.

Okay ..... So what? At one time or another, most of us started in one or both of the low and mid arenas. Its all about the love of music AND the ethereal journey to OZ in this hobby.... It's enjoyment spans all three tiers equally - full stop - without any value judgements or any suggested "snobbery"  by the majority of the hobbyists.

The irritant IMO is that most  if not all, of these "pissing matches" are actually completely avoidable.

Invariably they start as just a dumb provocation by a small outrider fringe group,  who somehow seem aggressively compelled (emphasis added) to assert their own personal anecdotal bias and value judgement as fact. Then comes the invariable predictable defence response to that proverbial "tossing of the gauntlet".

Recent rehashed thread examples include inter alia:
- cheap kit can actually match or even trump quality-build kit; and 
- the hobbyists who choose to quietly reside in the upper-$$ tier are somehow the misguided and arrogant to boot.

Most of us old-timers disdain the very existence and f the  resulting  "pissing matches" [e.g another example -- the tiresome, irritating, repeated, and endless cable war threads].

This forum used to have a gentleman's honor code of conduct and posting subject matter --- it's high-time for a re-Genesis of the same .
Because they are insecure and, probably lonely. Mostly the former, I think.
it depresses me when a thread devolves into argument. Seems to happen on Audio Asylum a lot. Its usually the same few guys who know it all and say there is only one way. I am relatively new to high end audio and learn plenty from these threads and truly don't understand how people can take themselves so seriously and talk so loudly and definitively about something like audio that is so subjective. I simply stay away and don't respond to those folks. jet