I got hooked into this hobbie twenty years ago without the money to really play and a major conflict of priorities with three samll children to raise. After twenty years, I am back. I have a technical degree, and after thirty years in the heavy construction business, significant hearing loss. My technical degree causes serious bouts of doubt about the value of Power cords and burning in cables. Despite all of this, I find myself awed by the difference a change in speaker cables or IC's have made to my recently constructed system. I almost threw away o pair of IC's that solved a brittleness problem because I didn't give them sufficient time to burn in!! Perhaps it has more to do with my awsome respect for things that I can never truly understand such as the artist or musician's creative abilities. This does not mean that I can not appreciate the results, only that I can not create them.
Are Audiophiles Obsessive Nuts?
The following is from the website of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/select/0898/tube.html
Agree? Disagree? Why?
“High-end equipment is aimed at the most obsessive audiophiles, famed for worrying about small details which most people ignore or cannot even hear...
“The rise of high-end sales was influenced by the statements of subjective audio reviewers, whose nontechnical and rarely rigorous listening tests at times encouraged near-hysteria among magazine readers. A positive review in a powerful magazine such as Stereophile can trigger hundreds or even thousands of unit sales, and turn an unknown manufacturer into an instant success. A negative review can sink a small firm just as easily (and has done so)...
“Much of high-end is conducted in a gold-rush fashion, with companies advertising exotic connecting cables and acoustical treatment devices while making wild claims
about the supernatural results achieved. The result: negative comments from the professional engineering fraternity. Items have been published in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, in electronic-industry journals such as EE Times, and elsewhere that attack the methods and conclusions of the audiophiles...
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/select/0898/tube.html
Agree? Disagree? Why?
“High-end equipment is aimed at the most obsessive audiophiles, famed for worrying about small details which most people ignore or cannot even hear...
“The rise of high-end sales was influenced by the statements of subjective audio reviewers, whose nontechnical and rarely rigorous listening tests at times encouraged near-hysteria among magazine readers. A positive review in a powerful magazine such as Stereophile can trigger hundreds or even thousands of unit sales, and turn an unknown manufacturer into an instant success. A negative review can sink a small firm just as easily (and has done so)...
“Much of high-end is conducted in a gold-rush fashion, with companies advertising exotic connecting cables and acoustical treatment devices while making wild claims
about the supernatural results achieved. The result: negative comments from the professional engineering fraternity. Items have been published in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, in electronic-industry journals such as EE Times, and elsewhere that attack the methods and conclusions of the audiophiles...