Why Don't More People Love Audio?


Can anyone explain why high end audio seems to be forever stuck as a cottage industry? Why do my rich friends who absolutely have to have the BEST of everything and wouldn't be caught dead without expensive clothes, watch, car, home, furniture etc. settle for cheap mass produced components stuck away in a closet somewhere? I can hardly afford to go out to dinner, but I wouldn't dream of spending any less on audio or music.
tuckermorleyfca6
Can you imagine the amount of time and hard work that audiophiles put into ,listening, tweaking, auditioning, selecting, upgrading, comparing and start all over again? If we had spent that much time trying to make money we all would be much richer than we are today! But, then, we would not know what audio gear to buy.

No regrets having spent all the time doing what I mentioned in my first paragraph. Its has made my life fun to live!

I have a few friends who are very rich and have come over to listen to my humble setup, they actually spent a lot more on their audio gear but not able to enjoy it. Money can buy good quality HIFI but but it cannot produce good sound on its own. Even after spending a lot of it you still need to put in your effort to make it sound right.

Its an art and science at the same time and not many people understand it well. I am still trying to understand it after spending good 30 years into this hobby.

Happy listening!
It's an art.. An art of perfection for many audiophiles. With art, not everyone's going to like it - nor have the ear for it.

Then again like many before me.. you can't take your (let's say $70k) audio system around to show-off. It's an internal thing, a natural state of high that people seek out (at all costs!)

Some people are more tuned towards other things/hobbies for their own motives. For me, I can't live without my high-end audiophile reproduction ability.. It's a choice. I'll no longer exist without music.
Either you love it or ya don't...different people's brains are wired differently. Those that emit endorphins while listening to 'beautiful' music become audiophiles. To others the TV does more for them....
The equation between high-end audio equipment and loving music is absurd. No more, no less. Many people love music, a good number even make music for a living, and don't give a fiddler's fart about high-end audio equipment. Many people with a mega bucks system wouldn't know a flatted fifth from a whole in the wall. Try again. Good day.
Because for one its a geek oriented hobby. To see grown men fretting over whether something is 99.99998% or 99.9999999% pure copper or imaging or room tuning or the thousands of tweaky overpriced doo-dads we get shoved down our throat is disturbing at worse and silly at the least. The average person wants to put on music enjoy it and get on with his life. I think we glom to much on the messenger and not enough on the message. Plus the prices in high end and even upper mid fi audio border on ridiculous. To have someone say that a $8,000 cable is a bargain must have our non audiophile friends going " hey not only is he audio geeky he's dumb if he believes that stuff." I know we all have been to a friends house where he or she spent so much time making sure the system was performing to its optimum for the listening session that by the time they were done it was time to go. Nothing wrong with making a bourbon and coke, kicking back, turning the music on and just emjoying the it. I really love audio and love good equipment. What I dont like is overblown prices and elitist audio geeks. In fact the tone of the original letter kinda harkens to that. "why arent there more non audio low lifes who have seen the light an become sacrosant and sanctamonious like us audiophiles" I think what it is there are a lot of more people that love music and could care less whether it was played on a $100,000 system or a car radio. Just think of the number of concerts you could go to for $100,000. The enjoyment should be the music not the equipment.