Why Don't More People Love Audio?

I collect vintage watches, fine cigars, wine, Italian cars, houses, sailboats and WW II airplanes. Each of these hobbies gives me great pleasure and is a conversation starter for people I meet in business and socially. Someone once tried to sell me a very expensive Krell system, but I couldn't really understand how to justify the price and my wife hated it. In the end, I have Denon home theatre equipment built into a custom closet, B&W speakers and Bose cubes in every room for background music and entertaining. You guys seem to think this is garbage but it sounds great to me.

Mr Whitehead: You seem to have more money than sense. Let me guess -- Investment banking? Rolex Presidential? With diamonds, perhaps? If you weren't so smug and self satisfied, perhaps your education would be broader than rereading financial statements in between back issues of The Robb Report.

mark,

denon is fine for home-theatre; bose is fine for background music & entertaining. seriously.

however, sitting down & listening to music, not doing anything else, but actually *listening*, as if yude gone to a concert or club to hear live music, well, this is something totally different. while denon *does* make some hi-end audio equipment (hoover, on a-gon's classifieds, could surely set ewe up!), i'd hazard a guess that this is *not* what makes up yer home-theatre system. and, while i am not normally so blunt, to put it in your words, ya, h-t denon & bose *are* garbage for serious listening. don't take it personal, serious listening is obviously not what yure into - it's ok, not many people are... the equipment ya got prolly *is* great - for how it's being used.

regards, doug

ps - i hope ewe get enyoyment outta yer other hobbies, it's a shame to let nice stuff sit & not use it. cars, for example - i don't *collect* italian cars, italian cars are the only ones i own. they *all* get driven - as my commute is 45 miles each way, they get driven a *lot*... :>)

Just today I went to tweeter. A friend of mine works there. They had a Bose 30 lifestyle($3,000) hooked up in the ht room and also some other setups. I asked my friend scott to play them, a little A/B demo. Only cause another friend of mine has the Bose setup, his wife is an assistant manager for the Bose outlet in Kittery, Me. Before I bought my system his wife tried to get me into Bose, but I knew better. Well scott played the Bose in the ht setup, I was surprised "I said to scott" not bad. Scott smiled and switched over to other setup, B&K w/kef speakers. Wow what a difference, the bose was missing everything. Don't know how to explain it but the bose was missing lotssssss of information. No mids what so ever, sloppy, boxy, muddy, slow base. Sorry but bose really suck, baddddd...
Mark I'm sure your taste is very good in other areas, but do yourself a favor and find a different hobby or get some help on your system.

I think that one of the main problems is that people really don't expect a stereo system to sound realistic. I know people who think that "the stereo effect" - emphasis on the word "effect" means more bass. I beleive that most people want their stereo to sound like some bass - treble heavy stereotype that low quality manufacturers and retailers have imposed on these people. I find it frustrating at times that I cannot find any friends who either understand or care to understand what good audio is about - let alone find someone who already has good audio sensibilities.

As for Bose being good for entertaining, I agree that the only thing they do anywhere close to right is ambient sound in restaurants and public places, but many know about the fatigue - inducing nature of most Bose designs. It seems odd for Bose to have a mix of qualities like that. So really, Bose speakers are good for only one thing - to impress people in A-B demonstrations for short periods of time against similarly low quality speaker designs. I like how people come and brag to me how they witnessed this demonstration where the demonstrator shows a "large tower speaker" playing and then magically removes the false cabinet revealing a Bose cube. It just saddens me that marketing, again triumphs over truth.