Most women are not interested in audiophile gear because they are not interested, period.
If women were interested in audio but didn't like the way men do audio, they could get together with other women and talk about audio or listen to music. There is no one keeping them from enjoying better audio.
Women (non-audiophile) don't have any choice in the audio world. Non-a'phile (men & women) can't hear un-natural sound of hi-fi audio and all audio system in the world sound un-natural and veiled. Listening un-natural sounds is painful to non-a'philes' ears. Alex/Wavetouch audio
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@rok2id,
’Maybe, just maybe, women are too intelligent to buy into, what a person has to buy into, in order to be considered an ’audiophile’.’
Women usually have a different and more complex relationship with their biology than men do. Hence men tend to indulge in flights of fantasy rather more than women who get regular periodic reminders of reality.
Whether this is a good or a bad thing can depend upon one’s outlook or the use this indulging is being out to.
Can you imagine a woman stressing over cable differences? Or getting into a debate over amplifier topology?
There has been a very clever economically fuelled movement over the past 70 years to get women to behave as if they were men.
Thankfully, for both sexes, it can never fully succeed. |
@rok2id
I think you mean women are less gullible. Intelligence is not a huge factor. Many smart people are gullible.
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Why are there a disproportional number of male audiophiles?
Maybe, just maybe, women are too intelligent to buy into, what a person has to buy into, in order to be considered an 'audiophile'. examples: hearing wire and fuses. Claiming LPs are superior to CDs, claiming every amp in creation has it's own distinct sound, directional arrows on interconnects etc...... Cheers |
Girls, girls. You're both pretty. |
It is the other way around...
The 2 hemisphere of the brain play their part in all activities, be it music, maths or poetical tought and critical thougth... But one of the hemisphere can be dominating in each one of us, never mind the field....But we need the 2 at all times....
If not, we will loose what we called "reason"...Reason is not rationalism or exclusively some critical thought process located in the left hemisphere... If you think about the concept of "reason" think about sanity first then some balance must exist between the 2 hemispheres...
The poet William Blake is one of the most profound critic of his time, he was a very astute observer of industrialization and his link with technology and science...And he is a poet...
The mathematician Cantor singlehandly founded modern mathematic with a mystical vision....And he is a mathematician...
We can see the function played by the 2 hemispheres in each one of these 2 geniuses; in each one of them one hemisphere is the " inspiration" for a field where usually it is the antagonist hemisphere that is dominating....
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This has been said differently, but music, mathematics and critical thought are all processed in the same part of the brain (it is said that listening to Mozart for 30 minutes before a math test will make you do better unless you would already be 100%). These are all male related likes (yes, there are always exceptions) so I think that our biology plays a part as others here do. |
« I became a cosmetic seller and a successful audiophile because i am too short to play chess»-Groucho Marx |
Most of those drivers are a couple bucks bought once.
Fashion and cosmetics are regular ongoing purchases. Way way bigger. It's not even close.
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When someone wrote that the fashion and cosmetics industry dwarfs audio, I do not believe he was considering all of audio. How many actual audio drivers do you each own? I have several in my cars, a few portables, 10 in my main stereo system, six in my garage, two in my phones, some in my televisions, and computers, six in my bedroom, etc. I know I hoard, but I quit counting at 50. My boy, who is not at all into audiofoolerey, has 6 in his car, as many in his truck, one in his phone, six or eight in his stereo and who knows how many in his in wall home theater. Of course, the writer is spot on, when only considering our mutual hobby of self indulgent ear-brain tickling and massage.
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@danvignau ,
"And, since it was mentioned, how much money do women spend on things to make them pretty, i.e.shoe comment?"
As long as we remain human, physical attractiveness will remain important.
It always did for many women, but now some men are feeling that pressure too.
The cosmetics/fashion/health industry probably dwarfs the audio one by a factor of millions. |
Who cares? If you love audio then great...your not gonna convert anyone unless their young and open to the experience! |
@emrofsemanon - I would bet against you. Probably much lower % - median is probably $50-75K. Demographics of audiophiles are older, many retired or semi-retired with time on their hands to play around and experiment with stereo equipment. Younger (below 50) % of audiophiles is probably very low.
Mid-upper income people are probably working and don't have much time - they may spend a lot as part of an entertainment room or home theater but never used the term tonearm in their life.
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I wonder how many of us followed our same sex parent into our hobbies, thirst for technical knowledge, and magazines to read. How much does a male vs female school curriculum influence our lust for science and solutions? And, since it was mentioned, how much money do women spend on things to make them pretty, i.e.shoe comment?
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@Tony1954 Could it be as simple as people who are more interested in things than in people become engineers? There are more male engineers than female. Interest in people vs. interest in things. |
Using a very narrow definition of audiophile perhaps. From what I can tell, many are fixed income :-)
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i wonder what % of audiophiles are 6+ figure income? my guess is at least 75%. |
@glupson Intelligence is overrated. Didn’t help me much, for all I can figure out
glupson you are on a roll tonight!!! remember that old sitcom sanford and son, redd foxx would call his son ’hey, you dummae’?? ... lol my old friends still call me ’dummae’ but i have no idea why, just can’t figure it out... but i am happy! :) |
Thanks focusd....One of the best first post i read here...
For easy reading on statistic and the illusory logic induced by Bell curves superficial analysis the many books of the serious but funny Nassim Nicholas Taleb.... |
drbarney193 posts11-28-2020 11:10amNeuro-scientists are still researching cognitive differences XY vs XX causes in the brain. So far, there is great overlap in any Gaussian bell curves of what they quantify. This makes a concept of gender too weak for me to ascribe this difference in interest in audio equipment to genetic differences between men and women. I think it is caused by environmental differences in what roles are assigned to males and females and these roles are purely arbitrary. Many women are engineers notwithstanding gender expectations. The same could happen to audio given the right social environmental conditions.
Audiophiles are, by definition, on the extreme end of any bell curve. That two bell curves have 'great overlap' in no way indicates there will be a similar number of observations at the extremes or tails of the bell curves. Take something we're all intuitively familiar with--height. Men are, obviously, taller than women on average. But there is also, obviously, great overlap between the bell curves. It is not at all unusual to find a woman who is taller than a man. It is completely unremarkable. But what about at the extremes? Compare the number of 7' or taller males to the number of 7' or taller females. A quick internet search indicates there might be roughly 70 men in the US 7' or taller alive today...and that there might be only 1 female in the US this tall. The specifics of this example are not important...it is the point that 'overlapping' bell curves are in no way a good indicator of what's going on at the extremes. That is the nature of bell curves. I think about this often as I am in an industry dominated by males (perhaps similar to many audiophiles). An important takeaway of bell curves is that they are often great at describing populations of data, but useless for describing an individual observation. So while men dominate--by numbers--my profession, I always remain cognizant that this in no way should prejudice your professional opinion of the woman or man walking through the door for an interview, etc. Audiophiles are, in some ways, 7' tall people. Yes there are women audiophiles, just as there are 7' tall women. And, just like 7' tall people in general, audiophiles are rare (although obviously nowhere near as rare as my extreme height example). Yes it is nature not nurture. No it is not because females are in some way being treated differently or not being encouraged in the same way as young people. Let's just stop trying to make everyone the same. I can remember disassembling a speaker down to the voice coil for the first time. I was so incredibly curious where the sound was coming from. We had a broken stereo and I begged my parents to let me 'look at it' as I would say. I was probably 5 years old. My father (or mother) had absolutely no interest in any of it. Nobody encouraged me, I just was innately, incredibly fascinated by it. Other people are fascinated by other things...and that is OK. |
Intelligence is overrated. Didn’t help me much, for all I can figure out. |
@audio2design,
'More accurate would be there is brain activity before we are able to communicate an intention.'
Ah yes, the greatest mystery bequeathed by Doctor Freud.
The workings of the unconscious mind.
Who will unravel it first?
The race is indeed on.
The marketeers with their endless thirst for profits via ever increasing consumer control versus the research scientists with their FMRI machines, often funded by err hang on, the marketeers??
Consumers of the world unite, stop the steal. |
@gg987@gg987 I think women have traditionally not been audiophiles because they had no one to show them the way and excite them about it .Interesting! I know three women audiophiles, one of whom is my mother in law. She developed an interest -- similarly to what you wrote -- years ago when I was auditioning various pairs of speakers; I was then looking for an additional pair of speakers and we began auditioning together; to make a long story short, I explained as much as I could about electronics, compatibility and circuits, and sound reproduction. We embarked on a speakers evaluation marathon, full time, even down to positioning speakers, amplification characteristics, and speakers evaluation sheets! OTOH, her daughter (i.e. my wife) loves music but isn’t even interested in firing up the system, let alone audiophilia of any sort... |
More accurate would be there is brain activity before we are able to communicate an intention. Your formulation is more accurately formulated indeed.... :) Libet himself would say it your way.... Sometimes it is difficult to resume a controversy in 6 words.... But most people after his experiment interpret it like a proof of the non existence of free will....Not Libet himself for sure....I wrote the distorted intrerpretation to illustrate my riddle about consciousness and the general opinion about Libet at the time.... :) But my riddle takes the sea anyway..... « Dont you know that you are a robot? For sure but i am also the programmer... »-Groucho Marx |
This is not what his experiments showed or at least a distorted interpretation. More accurate would be there is brain activity before we are able to communicate an intention. If that is a "discovery", I hate to see the rest of the work. « Your brain know milliseconds in advance what your conscious I will do
next»- Benjamin Libet neurologist after his well known experiment... https://wmpeople.wm.edu/asset/index/cvance/libet |
...I see I haven't missed much while 'away'....*G*
Next topic: The color of the sky; is it 'blue' enough for you?
🤷♂️🤦♂️ |
Are you sure about that? Have you tried hanging out with those above 120 and below 80? I said means "little" not means nothing.... No need for IQ test at all to feel and know these large differences....i advised students about reading in all fields for 35 years.... :) But true intelligence in life is not IQ related....It is consciousness related.... What is IQ ? Pattern solving, thats almost all it is.... Then do you think the A.I. that just solved the protein folding problem is intelligent? Wolfram think that but perhaps his IQ is not all there is about intelligence...And no need to test to see that his score exceed 140.... :) Beware, any machine can now discuss with us, hiding his indefinite memory to us, without being recognized on the spot....🐵 True intelligence for me is linked to the capacity to feel and perceive the living interconnectedness of all that exist.... Spiritual and moral experiences has nothing to do with IQ.... We live on 2 plane simultaneously, machine dont.....Consciousness for me is the working relation between 2 simultaneously living planes of experience...Think about your dreams for example or about your innate moral imagination.... «For sure the one who said "I" is another one» -Mark Twain reading Rimbaud « 2 planes of existence? Yes, the time perceived and the imperceptible one...»- Myself reading Dostoievsky "the dream of a ridiculous man" one of the cleverest book ever written.... « Your brain know milliseconds in advance what your conscious I will do next»- Benjamin Libet neurologist after his well known experiment... My citation of Libet is a riddle....😊 |
IQ measures the ability to recognize patterns. That helps with solving problems.
That can certainly contribute to one’s career success, but it is only component, and may be the smallest part.
Some think of this as book smart. But that’s not right. Some bookworms may not have a high IQ,but very high determination, which is another contributor to success. Psychologists call it grit, and it may be the biggest contributor.
Also, EQ, emotional intelligence is a significant part of success as well. That measures maturity and how to navigate situations socially, kind of like “how to win friends and influence people”.
Get someone with high scores in all 3 and I would bet they will achieve their goals.it could be fame, fortune, or whatever their definition of happiness is. |
@mahgister,
"IQ means little anyway....."
Are you sure about that? Have you tried hanging out with those above 120 and below 80?
I find through my interactions with some people that I’m constantly learning, and that with some others I’m caretaking.
Is it also just a statistical anomaly that people with higher IQs tend to be more successful in their chosen endeavours?
Intelligence matters, doesn’t it?
Who wants to deny that?
IQ tests are not the complete picture, no one would say that, but after over a century of refinement, they’re probably a good an indicator of it as we have right now.
Again, let’s ask why we do feel this need to homogenise differences?
I am not you, you are not me, but we can try, if we want, to cross that distance through communication, mutual respect and honesty.
Can’t we?
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I do the same thing with Beatle's music :-)
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it has been my long-term observation, that women who are really into music, seem to have some kind of cognitive compensator that fills in the missing bits/corrects the imbalances when listening to most consumer-grade gear, hence they lack the driving need for actual high-end equipment. |
And yes, quantum mechanics shows that matter really does conform to statistical probabilities. What do you do with the reduction of the waves probabilities? is it "matter" that operate it? Complex design is not synonymus with religion my dear.... But it is more simple to drown the fish this way is not it? Ok i will not derail the thread no more.... :) |
My wife isn’t an "audiophile", but I trust her ears to help me make component purchasing decisions. She listens to 4 or 5 of her favorite songs every time I've brought a new component home to audition. She provides me feedback on her thoughts using non-audiophile terms and I always take her advice. |
A unitary measurement does not a statistic make ...
And yes, quantum mechanics shows that matter really does conform to statistical probabilities.
Oh here we go. Start out with differences in men and women, and let's find a way to insert what is effectively religion into the discussion.
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A crowd conform to statistics, individuals not so...
Numbers are not only a human construct but reflect something that is not a cultural human construct...an objective discovery is not an invention ...
At his beginning and at his end matter dont conform to statistics no more...Matter is not only a crowd but also a qualitative geometry....
Funny thing is statistic apply to crowds, and to nothing else.....
If you think that ribosomic machines are the results of chance yes indeed life is only the results of statistic....Then indeed....Your life is simple but it seems we dont live in the same universe....
:) |
Funny thing is, most of life obeys statistical distributions very well, from IQ, to infectious disease transmission, to tardiness. Prime numbers are a mathematical construct, not a physical system. At the most discrete levels, physics becomes statistics, not equations.
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https://www.wired.com/2016/03/mathematicians-discovered-prime-conspiracy/ With the same IQ you can be sceptic or gullible in some activities or aspect of life, in particular or in general....Personality traits or personal history is not linked to measured intelligence.... Intelligence or stupidity is not linked to a hobby, even to the audiophile hobby, and being an engineer is not a warrenty against gullibility in audio at all because audio is a complex phenomenon linked to many different sciences and dimensions that may exceed the limit of expertise of a particular engineer... This is very simple evidence.... IQ means little anyway.....And i dont think that men and women can be distinguished by different location on a Bell curve of IQ distribution.... Universe dont comply to statistical laws anyway even the thermodynamical one because universe is not only allegedly "dead" matter like we know it.....Prime numbers distribution and galaxies ignore them at the end...Life ultimately dont obey statistic and cannot be reduced to statistic.... For example we use statistic to study prime numbers distribution because we are ignorant of the ultimate reason behind their distribution....Recent work in this field explode the powerful statistical method in his capacity to explain their distribution....It seems that prime numbers had biases like life had bias..... All that are in the sky then are not only rain or light.... 😊 |
You quoted it as fact. How was it studied or measured, (gullibility and overestimating one’s ability) to lead to those conclusions? Sounds anecdotal to me. |
Average IQ is very similar, I think it may be a touch higher for volume. There are far fewer women at the ends of the curve. So while there are fewer women at the upper peaks of intelligence, there are also few women at the very bottom end as well. Less genetic variance.
I don't think overestimating ability would be that hard to measure. Gullibility either.
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I am shocked that they separate women into separate chess tournaments @cd318.
So @audio2design, are you saying the average IQ of a man is higher, but the median is higher for a woman? Interesting.... Thanks for the facts, although some of them would seem hard to measure....gullibility, overestimate their ability...?Be careful with some statistics and how surveys are worded. Many times they are designed with the end result in mind to prove some thesis.
Of course there are biological differences that cause physical, mental and emotional capabilities to vary. Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, right? Never read the book...but I can guess what is says.
Why does it bother journalists that women don't have as many highly rated chess players? Maybe they don't like it as much and don't play.
I don't think my wife has ever stepped foot in a stereo store. But, I am sure some women like them. I can't recall a stereo saleswoman though. |
This can be a really divisive subject. Political too.
I remember when I used to play competitive chess, someone would ask why aren't there more women GMs and why isn't there a woman world champion? etc.
Some still do.
It seems to bother a few journalists that the top 100, maybe even top 1000 chess geeks are mostly comprised of men. It all got so thorny that FIDE had to ensure there are now 2 different world championships, the women's world championship, and the open world championship.
Once again, you might want to ask, why can't we be different? Why is there this need for some to want to homogenise clear biological differences?
Thankfully this lunacy doesn't yet extend to combat sports or track and field.
I've nothing against encouraging more women to participate in this mainly male hobby. Their company would surely be welcomed, especially to ease the pressure cooker intensity at some of these testosterone fuelled audio shows.
However in my experience hardly any of them have shown much interest. To push further usually just means digging a bigger hole.
Even the ones who do go, often reluctant wives and girlfriends, seem to act as if they wished they were somewhere else.
How strange? It's almost as if they were somehow different, and had different interests.
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There are more smart women, based on percentage over 100 IQ than men. On the other hand, there are far more very smart men based on IQ. Men are far more likely to suffer from personality disorders. Men are more gullible. Men are more likely to overestimate their abilities. The gullible nature and the tendency to overestimate abilities often go hand in hand. Women tend to be more conformist and work to fit in. Men tend to want to stand out.
These are all verifiable from scientific evidence. These traits are all statistical, and can only be used to describe groups as a whole, not individuals.
Draw your own conclusions on how these relate to audiophiles.
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@dave_b - are you trolling for a date? Why do you say something so general demographically? Maybe that's your experience or in your family, or whatever. Then you compound the comment by saying the "better" ones are smarter! As they say say on ESPN, "Come on man"! The women that are book smarter or have more common sense aren't better women. There are lots of other attributes to consider, and it is very subjective.
Women are less inclined to go into STEM - that doesn't make them dumber or men smarter, and some women live to shop for frivolous things (like their equivalences of stereo equipment) and others are very careful with what they spend and in making decisions in general.
@tk21 - you have never seen a woman strut? What planet are you on?
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Women are smarter and more practical. At least the good ones are, and if they love you they let you indulge in your hobby! Just got my new B&W 802D3’s...waiting for new cables and amp 😊 |
A hobby like hifi can be a good way to show off technical knowledge.
Peacock strutting definitely is a guy thing. |
"You are fit to burst at being caught out with your divisive and pathetic attempt at virtue signaling." Was this an attempt at philosophy, or at poetry? |
@sokogear -- when I close my eyes, the music sounds more intense for sure, and the food does as well. Is there something to be gained, experientially, in having a combinatory experience with, say both sight+taste? Or to put it in more organic terms (from a male hetero point of view) it's how she looks-and-smells that combine to make her my lovely one.
I think this is a dividing point for some when it comes to the aesthetics of many things -- namely, that there's either a combinatory effect in the initial experience which includes more than one sense OR there's an overall experience that is overall better with both. |
@tony1954,
After reading some of the replies, perhaps the title of your thread should be Audiophile Personality Disorders as some are certainly evident here. Curiously, men are far more prone to personality disorders as well.
I was talking to a teen aged nephew yesterday who has discovered "explosives", which reminded me of my child hood. Many boys who grew up in the country, probably some in the city, will at some point discover "blowing things up". It is not a fascination with destruction but a curiosity surrounding "what if". My wife, sister, and daughter all confirmed that the concept of going somewhere, and "blowing something up" simply never occurred to them. Is that nature or nurture? Odds are a little of both, and odds are that is also true to audiophiles.
I don't have a lot more to add other than some people sound like they need a hug, and some perspective. Your responses to this thread are not emotionally healthy.
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Unlike you, I don't mind people disagreeing with me. Yes you do. You are fit to burst at being caught out with your divisive and pathetic attempt at virtue signaling. |
I wouldn't have used the word polarizing Tony. You're doing market analysis. The demographics exist. |
