Rockwell: audiophile term "just like a pedophile"

There's truth in his statements. The problem is he paints with much too broad a brush. And he does so with smug arrogance which is unflattering.

He's clearly suggesting those obsessed with audio gear are driven by impulse much the same way as pedophiles apparently are, and hence the appropriate audio'phile' label. Similar to the driving force behind a fetish and therefore, perversion. Not to be confused with a love for music. And so, we should not be fooled by self-proclaiming audiophiles who also claim to love music since the terms are counter intuitive. He's saying you can't be both a lover of music and an audiophile because the gear will take precedent over the music. You won't be able to enjoy the music because the the gear will get in the way. Forest for the trees analogy. He clearly has never had a hobby. It may not be as true today anymore but I'm sure stamp collectors in the past didn't develop a complex at the prospect of mailing off a letter.

Who really cares?

Honestly, I recall reading his site a while back and finding him to be pretty knowledgeable about cameras and photography.

Didn't take as much notice of any audio comments though I think there were some.

Photography and audio are always interesting areas to compare. We use eyes for one and ears for the other. People seem pretty confident and generally more in agreement usually about the quality of what we see, but less so about what we hear. That uncertainty opens up a lot of cans of worms in trying to quantify good sound versus good photography. Sound quality seems to be a more ubiquitous thing. Of course there are Canon and Nikon fanboys that can't see eye to eye as well. So its a very interesting thing.

Not sure I see a need for comparison to a pedophile though. Is that a moral judgement? Sure, there is a lot of shady things that go on in the twilight zone of high end audio. SOme probably not on the up-and-up. But hopefully that's the exception still and not the norm. Who knows?

Ebm-You nailed it(this time). My disappointment comes from some members that agree or justify this a**clowns analogy!