better than a low quality system, and as long as you can appreciate that difference, you can enjoy being an audiophile.
I have a buddy that is 55 and had hearing loss due to being exposed to a loud noise in a confined space. He has to wear a hearing aid, and has had quite a bit of trouble with his hearing. He knows I'm an audiophile, but assumed he could no longer appreciate a good stereo so he didn't pay much attention to it, nor did he express any interest in hearing my system.
Then a friend asked for his help in picking out a stereo system for her husband. He went to a couple high-end stores and got all excited because even though he couldn't hear all the frequencies like he could before his hearing loss, he could still appreciate the difference between the various systems he previewed. In fact, he called me up to discuss the whole subject with the enthusiasm of someone that just made a great discovery. I think he might now buy a stereo of his own.
So I guess it's all relative. It may make no sense for him to buy a system like mine, but he now knows that he can hear that a cheap system sounds cheap and a better system sounds better. The main thing is to get people to enjoy their music at in whatever way they can.
And just to reinforce a point made by others, there's a big difference between hearing and listening. About 10 years go, an audiophile friend of mine taught me how to listen. I was shocked at how much I was missing until he pointed it out to me while doing some A/B comparisons of equipment. So while it's true that some people are just incapable of hearing certain frequencies of music, it's far more common that people with good hearing miss just as much because they don't know how to listen.
I have a buddy that is 55 and had hearing loss due to being exposed to a loud noise in a confined space. He has to wear a hearing aid, and has had quite a bit of trouble with his hearing. He knows I'm an audiophile, but assumed he could no longer appreciate a good stereo so he didn't pay much attention to it, nor did he express any interest in hearing my system.
Then a friend asked for his help in picking out a stereo system for her husband. He went to a couple high-end stores and got all excited because even though he couldn't hear all the frequencies like he could before his hearing loss, he could still appreciate the difference between the various systems he previewed. In fact, he called me up to discuss the whole subject with the enthusiasm of someone that just made a great discovery. I think he might now buy a stereo of his own.
So I guess it's all relative. It may make no sense for him to buy a system like mine, but he now knows that he can hear that a cheap system sounds cheap and a better system sounds better. The main thing is to get people to enjoy their music at in whatever way they can.
And just to reinforce a point made by others, there's a big difference between hearing and listening. About 10 years go, an audiophile friend of mine taught me how to listen. I was shocked at how much I was missing until he pointed it out to me while doing some A/B comparisons of equipment. So while it's true that some people are just incapable of hearing certain frequencies of music, it's far more common that people with good hearing miss just as much because they don't know how to listen.
