How "Tribal" are we?
So after several noted books about human "tribalism" have come out, identifying the tribe(s) you belong to has become all the rage, I thought it might be interesting to discuss how tribal we as self identified audiophiles have become. Originally aimed at corporate organizations, the concept has branched out to include societal groups that either we identify with or others do it for us. The political applications are obvious....but it got me thinking about tribalism in the audiophile world. It wouldn't be a tough intellectual exercise for us to readily recognize the existence of the tribal mentality in our chosen hobby.
Tubes or solid state, bipolar or mosfets, stock or designer fuses, wire (wow think of all the "sub-tribes"), moving coil or moving magnet, electrostatic or moving coil speakers and lest we not mention analog or digital, to condition power or not, etcetera.
After participating in many threads here, it does seem that many of us if not all, to some extent, identify with members of these and other tribes within audiodom.
Honestly, what made me connect tribalism to audio is the controversy? over Tekton speakers and whether or not those identifying with that tribe are real audiophiles or just pretenders because "speakers that inexpensive can't be up to our audiophile standards" (say that out loud with your best Thurston Howell III accent!)
I've never heard any Tekton model but I'm not going to exclude them from audiophilia out of hand. I for one, would love to listen through a pair of Double Impacts to see what designer Eric Alexander has been able to bring to market at such a modest price. If they are as good as many owners have attested to here then, as Joe Walsh would say, "Welcome to the Club"!
Back to the overarching topic: tribalism. Picking on myself, I would belong to the moving coil speaker tribe, the modification tribe, and moving coil cartridge tribe as well as the Vandersteen tribe. I think there is something to be said of this communitarian identity that we humans like to adopt for ourselves and others.
One last thought; when does a tribe remain a tribe and when does it cross the line to become a gang?
