Disappointing Evening


I had some dinner guest's over last evening. I had my main system warming up just in case there was some interest from them in audio. I have a second system that was playing when they arrived. It's a Bang & Olufsen BeoSound 9000 that my inlaws gave me a few years back. Well soon enough a couple of them were commenting about the good music, so I asked if they would like to hear my pride and joy system, mostly all tube gear that (IMO) looks pretty cool with all the tubes lit up and sounds way better than the B&O stuff. No interest at all in the tube system and they hovered around the B&O loving the way the glass door opened and the arm moved to each CD. Boy was I insulted, all the time, money and energy I have in my tube system!
markpao

Showing 5 responses by cyclonicman

Don't be disappointed, you're time and energy was invested for your pleasure. Serious music listeners would have recognized the difference in sound quality of your tube system. It's not your fault that these particular folks have a limited sense of discernment and probably do not do serious listening. You know the old saying, you can bring the horse to the water, but you can't make it drink.
Mrtennis your points are valid but if am confused it is only because the guests did remark about the "good music" from the B&O system. This led me to believe that they were interested and appreciate good sound quality. Perhaps I am mistaken and they were referring to the musical piece itself as "good music" and not the system. The post is really not about my perception and I am not putting anyone down. My intention was to uplift the poster, Mark, because he felt insulted and disappointed and I have been there myself. Perhaps maybe his guests weren't interested as you say. I may be wrong, but I tend to think that like myself, Mark also read into their comments that they were interested in high quality audio. He sounds like a gracious host and tried to turn them on to a higher quality tube system that he probably has taken a lot of time and effort to put together. What's the result?, sounds like his efforts were not appreciated and quietly rebuffed. It doesn't sound to me like Mark was beating his guests over the head with this. I understand what you are saying and it seems to me like you are a person that sees both sides of the coin. The truth is that neither you or I were there so based on the post, I am siding with Mark. It just seems to me that interested or not, it really doesn't take that much effort to be polite.
For so long now, we have all been reading articles about the death of audio as a hobby. We have to save the hobby! We have to find a way to get our younger listeners to appreciate a high end setup. We have to expose other people to the hobby! Exactly how is that done? If nobody cares then it's inevitable, the hobby will die!! It seems to me that many posters on this thread have found a way to avoid even attempting to do this because maybe they got the shaft like Mark. I say that people do care, otherwise this hobby would have died a long time ago. Turning someone on to music played on High End equipment is an act of sharing and spiritualism. It's not always a case of wanting to impress anyone with your equipment, it can be that you just want to turn on a friend/stranger/music lover/by presenting them with an opportunity for a better musical experience.
We live in a material world, that doesn't mean it's bad. It's for us to enjoy and it's truly what you make it, good or bad. As Lrsky has stated, we are all human and with that comes a lot of shortcomings. Pretending that we are above it all is not spirituality, but pretense. One man believes that he is sharing, while another perceives that he is trying to impress.