Why do almost all women today hate home audio?



Why do almost all (99%) of women never seriously, sit, and listen to home audio through even one album?

I knew many, many women that listened, and had there own stereos, in the late 60's and 70's.

They even had big record collections, and some even had real-to-real tape recorders.

Why did they disappear?

What changed?

don_c55

@tylermunns--There is so much I'm interested in; audio preservation and digital standards, film preservation and ephemera; I just finished helping out somebody at UCLA on the history of music for early TV; the law stuff gives me certain advantages only because I did a lot of historic due diligence on big music catalogs, early photography, ancient manuscripts, pulp magazines, film, etc. One area that fascinates is the taxonomies for AI-- aside from the legal issues of "ingestion."

The audio archivists are very much like audiophile historian/archeologists. I did a piece some years ago about visiting the Packard Campus in Culpeper, which is the intake facility of the Library of Congress. Those guys had dream jobs--we sat in with an engineer who was reconstructing the Les Paul overdubs made direct to disc (before Les had access to a tape machine). He'd cut a track on a homemade lathe, then play it back on a phonograph while playing an overdub on a fresh lacquer. This stuff was eventually released commercially as two songs, but the discs to make them filled 1/2 a library cart. The engineer was figuring out which disc came before another. Of course, they had all the cool toys, as well as a sort of museum of stuff from the beginning of recorded sound. 

I guess this would complement what I did as a lawyer- but I stopped the actual practice of law, as such. (Still keep my license active in NY but what I would be doing is expert work or consulting, but not acting as a legal beagle as such). We'll see.....

Thanks for asking. 

Yeah…digging into the history of early TV music and uncovering the actual, physical results of embryonic overdubbing…good gigs, to put it mildly! 👍

Women were never that interested in audio. Back in the day they had systems because that was the only way to hear music and radio beyond a tinny transistor radio. And entertainment was a choice between three TV stations, a few radio stations and records. The expansion of entertainment sources (cable, internet, digital video)) and portability (Walkman ...> MP3 player ...> cell phone) killed off what was left of women's interest in home systems beyond a bluetooth speaker. Men will follow this trend making audio "systems" even more of a niche. Everything will source from a phone or smart home device. Speakers will either be integrated or the preamp/amp will become a blackbox computer totally controlled by your phone or iPad, making audio electronics a commodity. This digital transformation has already happened to guitar amplifiers. All my guitar "amplifiers" are basically computers now. Audiophiles are slightly more stubborn than guitarists. Plus indisputable blind and null tests are easier to perform with guitar equipment, so it will take a little longer for audio to morph. Then look for an Audiogon thread titled "Why do almost all men today hate home audio?"

I think the main reason for women not being into high quality audio is an asset allocation issue, not to mention gender bias.  In my youth young men my age had two things they spent their disposable income on, cars and stereo.

 

It was my experience women loved music and enjoyed listening, but did not prioritize gear.  Women turned me onto Jethro Tull and Steve Miller in the early 70s.

When shopping for gear with my wife when we bought our first house together, she was good if I wanted the big Maggies (20.1), but I did not want to go that strong dollar wise.  We both have loved our 3.6 Maggies for almost 20 years now.

One thing I have noticed is that for whatever reason, more men like to sit alone and listen to music and design critical listening situations that arecealy not designed for group listening. 
 

Given the similarity to the car hobby (I am also into cars, have owned 4 Austin Healeys in my past, not to mention Mercedes) I just think it is asset allocation by gender that is cultural.

 

 

 

Back in the days when there were bookstores you could go to the men's magazine section and compare it to the women's magazine section.  Men and Women don't have remotely similar interests, generally speaking.  Of course audio always has been and always will be very male.  There could've been an exception in apparent interest when audio stuff was a mainstream status symbol but those days are long gone.  It's niche now and the ladies aren't interested.