How Has Your Finely Tuned Audiophile Dexterity Helped You in Your "Other" Life?

Taking someone from a position of ambivalence to being wildly enthusiastic about quality sound reproduction is a pretty steep gradient for anyone. Small, precise steps may be the solution.

I’m attaching to link to what I used as a training exercise for my guys to demonstrate quite simply what their job is as an "audio consultant." I’ll not attempt to add context here. Hopefully, the clip will speak for itself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dLRXxC40B0&t=8s

I’ve found the "perfect storm" for those most likely to migrate into "audiophile territory" requires 2 components. 1) a profound interest and appreciation for music, and 2) a sense of "play" where they are highly interested in things to mess around and experiment with. The combination of these 2 produces the lifetime of musical enjoyment and presents infinite possibilities to elevate the listening experience to another level thru experimentation, research, etc.

I’ve seen "the light come on" when demonstrating real high fidelity sound to customers for the first time. Their ears were opened. And, so were their wallets. The hardest "nut to crack" for me were trained musicians with enormous investments in their musical pedigrees and equipment ($30k cello, $8k bow comes to mind). I just couldn’t move these guys off of the "lower mid-fi" category into to decent gear. It was probably me.

I remember many years ago a man came in looking for speakers, accompanied by his 8-year-old son. As the music started, the 8-year-old began "coaching" his dad on what to listen for. When that 8-year-old reached 18 years of age, I hired him on the spot and never looked back. He is still currently working full time in the business I founded (and sold). And, having fun. Some people just gravitate towards high quality audio the elements required to achieve it. Some people don’t.

For me it is a chicken and egg thing.

I love very complex highly ambiguous problems where just getting your feet on the ground and bearings are hard. I love and thrive in this environment. So high end audio, and my job as electro-mechanical engineer (with the objective of being an inventor), scientist given only a goal and no guidance what so ever, and a corporate executive given massive global projects to do things that no one had done before, for me were all things I loved.

My experience with high end audio… establishing goals, separating the bs from reality, experimenting… the same as what I did professionally… so clearly my audio experiences helped with work and visa versa.

The really funny thing is for decades, completely by accident I ended up working in companies that are primary sources of high end subcomponents for high end audio… Burr-Brown Corp and Texas Instruments. So all wrapped together for me.

I have a couple of friends who have had very successful careers as Classical musicians, who could well afford high end gear, and who are perfectly happy with dreck.  They tell me that their brains probably fill in the missing stuff.  So no, @waytoomuchstuff , it isn’t you.

It sounds like we have the same experiences, @tomcarr .  It’s nice to have a site such as this to virtually meet fellow enthusiasts.

Yes it does, @mahler123 . This is an isolating hobby. I'm also grateful to have this site.