Are we music lovers or gear lovers?

I've seen people ask why people who love music don't get more excited about equipment! Here are my thoughts on why I don't post about music on this board:

1. I've always thought of this forum as one for audio gear more than music and treated it as such. Maybe that's just a self-fullfiling prophecy. I guess I think about it like this (and I'm exaggerating my point): I care deeply about my family, and I'm sure everyone else here cares about theirs too, but we're here to talk gear.

2. If I want to talk about music, I can always call up a friend. None of those guys care about audio equipment or even "remastered" versions of an album, and I've learned better than to preach the church of audio gear to them. I check in here to find others who care about these things.

3. A bulletin board can be a good resource for information about gear. It's not as a good resource for information about music. People can communicate about what cables are better in a way that they can't do about music. Think about how much more stock you take in a stranger advising you that cable X will sound better than what you currently have or that the DCC version of a recording sounds better than the regular CD version, versus that stranger advising you that if you like Billie Holiday, you'll love Diana Krall.

4. People discuss music on a bulletin boards in a different way than they do on the outside. With friends: hey check this new band I found ... wow, that's good stuff. On a board: who are the top five most influential female acts of the '60s? It's just a different type of exchange about music; personally, I'm not intersted in the latter style.

5. I just saw some live music tonight. Great fun and great band, but I don't feel a need to get other's opinions on it. If I hear a new tube amp at the store tomorrow, I'm more likely to want to hear other people's opinions on it and would post here.

We're both. Audiogon principally provides a place to buy and sell hardware and some software. It also provides (luckily for us) a forum where we can exchange information that may be useful in creating our own collections of hardware and software. On the 'new today' list today there were 261 classifieds for gear and 32 for music. Obviously the members of the Audiogon communitiy principally use this site for gear and discussion of gear. Personnally, I turn to Amazon for software since I can navigate their extensive database of classical music (all that I buy and always CDs) and read both editors' and buyers' reviews of specific CDs as well as listen to excerpts. And you can buy either new or used software on Amazon. The combination works for me.

FYI, AA has a music forum. Check it out here:

http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/music/bbs.html

It seems to me that the love of music for most people is assumed. It is the means of arriving at the music which is debated. I would guess most of the AudiogoNers were happily listening to music before they knew anything about HiFi. I still have albums I listened to on my integrated Readers Digest (yes, readers digest) system back in the 70's. I had no idea the music could sound so much better. As with all hobbies there are people who have the money to spend on what ever they want but most of us are working stiffs who skimp and save to buy the best they can afford or justify. They do it because it adds to the enjoyment of the music, but there are also the times when we temporarily lose focus. Then we come back to reality and back to the music.
Listening to equipment will never satisfy a person, but like Shakespear said: "music tames the savage beast," or as the Bible indicated 'soothes the tormented soul.'
Happy listening!

Music is the excuse to upgrade you gear. Audio is an ends vs means reversal of cosmic proportions. My credo, often repeated, is : set yourslef a budget, buy the best gear you can within that budget, only upgrade when you believe (after careful evaluation) that an upgrade provides an appreciable benefit and not just relief from the itch to change something, spend your money on records and sit down to some tunes. Many think that I just don't get it when it comes to "high-end". I, on the other hand, like you seem to have observed, think that audiophiles are looking into the wrong end of the telescope. Good day.