Why Don't More People Love Audio?

Audiophile has a lot of baggage. I prefer music lover. Except some audiophile is likely to dissect what even that means to bits. You just can't win. Better off just listening than talking about it maybe. 😖

It's a cottage industry largely because it portrays the image of being expensive and inclusive while the reality is any smart guy who knows what todo can put together a top notch sounding system for not much. Know how is the key ingredient, not money.

Mapman you are correct, it is experience/know how.

Face it, one, you have to have more of a love for music than most AND you MUST have more than a bit of OC behavior in your personality.
Perfectionist might sound better but same difference.

Biggest difference among audiophiles themselves is some compete with others, some with their own inner scale.
No judgements implied(really).

I think there are multiple types of audiophiles. Certainly when I first got into music reproduction and later into stereo, I was more of a poor guy who loved jazz and much classical music. In undergraduate school in Chicago with WFMT being a local station, I had great classical music. I could go to several jazz clubs when I had any money. I would have to say that I was mainly a music lover. But going to graduate school and remaining poor changed that. I had to gain my own sources for good music, namely records and had to get components that were cheap, I built Heathkits and Dyna units. When money came more ample, I sought better gear.

One day walking past an audio store, I heard wonderous music and went in. There I heard the Infinity ServoStatics driven by ARC tube equipment. I bought no part of my system because of looks and I lived with the Servos for five years. I even sought the ServoStatic 1As and once got close to buying them, but that is not my story now.

Clearly I was on a quest for realism. This got to be very troublesome when I taught on Long Island and earlier at UCLA. All sorts of exotic equipment was around. But I really didn't get ahead in my quest. Music was serving an important role at that time as I worked toward tenure. I was a music lover audiophile. But I sought a full frequency response for playing symphonic reproduction. I also learned to again love tube sound.

Then perhaps four or five years ago, I heard examples of good music where the performance sounded real! I think once you have experienced this, a music lover realizes that he or she can experience great performances. This has become an abiding interest of mine.

So I think there are three types of audiophiles. Stage I is loving music and replacing hearing it live with cheap audio equipment. Stage II is loving music that is well reproduced. And Stage III is great reproduction and realism.