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Do you agree with John Atkinson (and me)?

 

Point 1: In the recent thread entitled ’How much is too much to spend on a system?’, I contributed this comment: "The hi-fi shouldn’t be worth more than one’s music library." I said that half-jokingly, a wisecrack that I knew might be disagreed with.

Point 2: In the 1990’s I became a regular customer at the Tower Records Classical Music Annex store in Sherman Oaks, California. The store manager knew a LOT about Classical music, but also made no secret of his distain for audiophiles, whom he viewed as caring more about the sound quality of recordings than their musical quality.

Point 3: In the early days of The Absolute Sound magazine, the writers occasionally mocked audiophiles who had a serious high end system, but whose record collections merely consisted of a small number of "demo" discs. Those audiophiles collect records that make their systems sound good, rather than assemble a system that makes their records sound good.

 

I make the above points as a preamble to the following:

In the past few months I have fallen behind in my reading of the monthly issues of Stereophile that arrive in my mailbox. Yesterday I finally got around to reading the editorial in the January issue, written by John Atkinson (filling in for current editor Jim Austin, who is recuperating from surgery, I believe). The final two paragraphs of the editorial read as follows:

 

"Back in the day, I did an analysis of Stereophile reviewers’ systems. The common factor was that all the reviewers’ collections of LPs and CDs cost a lot more than their systems. The same is true of me, even in these days of streaming."

"Isn’t that the way it should be for all music-loving audiophiles?"

 

Well, is it?

 

bdp24

Showing 3 responses by sns

sns
3,561 posts
 

I have over 3k vinyl, over 3.5k cd's, doubt there was much time when my physical media outlay exceeded my system. I purchased most physical media 80's-90's, between record shows, sales and purchases at used record stores I rarely paid retail. I was regularly purchasing vinyl for as cheap as $3 a pop, highest priced generally around $15, cd's perhaps same on average cost per cd.  I'm mainly streaming today, moving in on 10K albums in my library, cd's ripped to NAS.

sns
3,561 posts
 

Judging people based on the value of their music collections is a rather appalling prospect. Perhaps some skrimp and save just to have a mid grade audio system, not much left over for vinyl and cd acquisitions. These people don't have enough disposable income to continue to acquire more equipment or hard copy, system and music values are static. This just one example of making bad value judgements. Judging people by comparing values of equipment/music collections no matter the level of expenditure is pointless. Personally, I've never made any value judgements as to what media people use to listen to music or the amount of their expenditures on equipment or music. This may say something about the size of their bank accounts, but as to any readings of principles, ethos, etc, total nonsense.

sns
3,561 posts
 

Typical stereotype of audiophile is one who cares more about the equipment than music, and this proven by the value of their music collection vs equipment? Not saying this could be true in some cases, but what about the snobs I see proudly displaying their latest $1k or whatever rare box set or album, and then walls and walls of this proudly displayed behind them. Are these truly music lovers or are they simply like the collector of equipment who does likewise? Trying to generalize about this value differential simply doesn't likely apply to vast majority of audiophiles, at least audiophiles who got into this hobby/obsession to hear the music they love played with highest resolution/transparency.

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