Why so many angry audiophiles?

Great thread!

Some individual's self-esteem is apparently based to a large extent upon the degree to which they can feel superior to others.Certain posters on these forums seem to repeatedly initiate or become embroiled in conflicts with others that are more about who is "right"/who knows "best", as opposed to who can offer the most help to others. 

I most appreciate and admire participants who are able to set aside their own preferences and address the needs of those asking for advice within the context of the OP's own preferences. This is the sort of response I've found most helpful. 

Fortunately, there are folks who are stellar at modelling such "good behavior". I'd suggest we'd all benefit if we more closely followed their example ! 




 

 

This is easy to sum up..

You got mad in those pants, now get glad in those pants..

A guy from the "The Big Easy", taught me that.. Darn good Mac equipment mechanic too.. Firetrucks.. RIP

Regards

@chrisoshea sounds like both the political parties here in the US.

Get most of these guys in person and I'm sure they are largely friendly and interested in talking audio and listening.

That's because most won't be honest in person and tell them how crap their system sounds and if they spent time and money learning how acoustics works and fixing it and not on audio jewelry that does little then maybe it would not sound like crap. Online we will :-)

@afisher,

"Anger is generated in a lot audiophiles when the reality is nowhere near the promise of buying this or that recommended by professional reviewers or chasing recommendations made by strangers without personal consequences on the internet.

It’s very easy to go down the rabbit hole in this hobby and finally coming up poorer and wiser."



Yes, with so much disappointing gear (up to 90%?) it can definitely be a frustrating business to get into.

Far too many rabbit holes to get lost in.



"I have found that buying an entire system that you can hear from the remaining good brick and mortar dealers eliminates a lot of the anger and frustration generated by the hit and miss buying of never heard components off the internet."



Yes that could be a great way to start off.


It’s probably not very practical for most of us here. Not when we might have become attached to some of our gear.

Another issue is cost. If I was to sell off my system I’d be struggling to get £3k for it. I don’t fancy my chances of assembling a more satisfying system with that budget. Maybe, maybe not.

And then there’s that age old problem of finding a dealer that stocks a sufficiently wide range of equipment to give plenty of scope to contrast and compare.

Good dealers here in the UK are very hard to find nowadays (esp outside London).

I personally like the retail chain Richer Sounds and that’s where I would go if I ever wanted to assemble a complete system from scratch again.

Their loudspeaker range includes some of the top models from Dali, Elac, Monitor Audio and Q Acoustics, which might be sufficient for 90% of audiophiles.