Why do many discussions about sonic performance disintegrate into technical discusions?

@david_ten   I believe you are missing the point!  The Greeks under Alexander sought to "uplift and civilize" the savages of the East by imposing the superior? Greek culture on Eastern societies.  That was the whole point of the Hellenistic Age.  Alexander's adoption of some of the trappings of Persian and Indian culture were an effort by him to alter his image as conqueror to affable civilizer.  🤔

Put simply Greek civilization was imposed upon the East.  The East's culture was seen as inferior by the Greeks...indeed the Greeks referred to them as "barbaroi" the origin of the English term, Barbarian.

I hear you!
Our hobby is not about solving problems like world peace, yet some people seem to take themselves really seriously, especially those who seem to need to "stroke themselves" for all the technical stuff they know about the equipment.  I don't see anything wrong with that.  If that approach makes you happy, go for it!

First, +1 to the responses by numerous posters which reflected balanced and/or pragmatic viewpoints.

Second, +1 to the comments by Wolf_Garcia objecting to the promulgation of gender-based stereotypes, even if the two posters he appeared to be responding to did not intend their comments to be taken that way.

Third, I find it ironic that the focus of this very thread, that was intended to deal with technical discussions in other threads that were deemed to be irrelevant or at most semi-relevant, has evolved to encompass discussions of ancient civilizations and even differences between the sexes. Not that I see anything wrong with that (and in fact I see nothing at all wrong with it), but it serves to illustrate that changes in the focus of a thread are often inevitable, whether one likes it or not.

Regards,
-- Al
   

@almarg   +1  Threads seem to veer off the path with increasing frequency.  Sometimes to the benefit and sometimes to the detriment of the discussion.

The Absolute Sound seems to have successfully turned ying/yang into the two sides of yet another dichotomy.