I think it’s completely overwhelming...

If its overwhelming, two things that would really help, more organization, less elitism.

I was born audiophile, but looking back, for all the time and money I put into it never really made much progress until I picked up a copy of Robert Harley’s The Complete Guide to High End Audio. Harley goes into each component in detail, explaining function and purpose in detail that includes the importance of power supplies and various circuits and subcomponents. Even though I had built a Dynaco ST400 years ago and knew a lot of this it really helped it gel in my mind. These all started to become real actual things not just words on a page.

If I had to pick one most valuable chapter it would be the one on audio terminology. Grain, glare, fatigue, imaging, focus, air, and dozens more- Harley discusses their meaning in such clear detail you will understand so well merely reading this chapter is guaranteed to improve your next listening session.

Another unwelcome roadblock is elitism. Elitism takes many forms. The obvious one is the retailer who exudes a haughty air of superiority and makes you feel as if its your duty to prove you are worth being granted the privilege of paying for, er I mean owning, er I mean even listening to his Precious. Or they show their elitism by setting themselves up as highly expert consultants- everyone else being all shills and touts. Some even show their elitism by acting as if they are so above it all they cannot even deign to take the subject seriously and so do nothing but joke about it.

I was at a time attack event a few years ago and there was this 18 year old girl (whom I’m sure had professional training / guidance) driving a stock, base model dodge neon around the track on 3 wheels faster than 60 year old rich guys in Porsche 911 Turbos. She’s an audiophile who just happened to get into racing instead. Just imagine what she could do with that Porsche 911 Turbo

Driving is such a great metaphor! One year for my birthday we rented a whole go-kart track. This was back when I was an active PCA Driving Instructor. Invited a bunch of friends. About half were PCA. We had a whole bunch of races over several hours. Everyone had a chance at all the karts.

At the end of the event they gave me a printout breaking down all the results on all the cars across all the races. The results were astounding!

Fastest lap time, there was a clear break. ALL the PCA people on top, followed by all the others. Male or female, didn’t matter. Even one kid, too young to drive but his PCA dad had taken him to events, taught him about threshold braking, turn-in, weight transfer, late apex line, all of it. Even that kid was faster than any of the others with no formal driver training.

The times were also broken down by kart, and race by race. The same clear break applied kart by kart. All the PCA drivers were faster in each and every kart. The fastest kart was never the fastest kart unless it had a trained driver in it.

All my life before joining PCA and getting proper driver instruction I was sure I was a really good driver. Absolutely sure of it. Only after about a year of instruction did it really sink in not only how clueless I was, but how much more I still had to learn. A full year. Think of it.

The difference is so vast.... when I started it was all I could do to drive in the Novice group and be stressed and sweating bullets while being passed by everyone. Two years later I took a student for a ride in the much faster Intermediate Run Group and without even trying was modulating and maintaining my spacing and my student remarked it was so smooth he could hardly believe it.

Any given track day there’s about 100-120 drivers. Call it 100. Out of those 100 there’s roughly 20 first-timers, another 20 Novice, maybe 30 Intermediate, 20 Advanced, and 10 Instructors. The classes break down as well. Only a few of the Instructors are really good.

Just like here they all talk to each other. Just like here they all pretend to know what they’re talking about. Just like here a few of them actually do.

Just like here one of the more common assumptions is its the equipment. Its the tires. Wheels. Springs. Bars, brakes and of course engine. Horsepower. My great epiphany came when I had a real good look at the car of a guy I just could not keep up with and scrutinized and quizzed him to death and finally had to admit to myself his car was slower than mine. He was faster only because he knew how to drive better.

Its like that here too. Only we don’t have a Novice run group. And everyone thinks they’re the Instructor.