My wife and I love to listen to music together. I had friends passionate about music but none of us could afford systems worth anything when we were young in college. We all live far distances from each other and I was the only one who was interested in Audiophile pursuits. I exposed my dad and future wife to it at an AXPONA show and they thought it was pretty exciting. Eventually I got my system together and when my dad visits we listen for hours on end (he played classical piano for most of my life). Friends come over and they have fun listening as we talk and all are impressed.
Our neighbor asked if she could listen to a new song she really liked and it turned into a five hour party. I have odd days off and work long hours so it is hard to meet people who are audiophiles but that isn’t the pursuit, it’s to relax and decompress. I manage a lot of people in a social context and need my alone time to recharge.
Sometimes it is counter social too. My wife was picked up by some work friends for an out of town event and I forgot to put the blinds down and they saw my acoustically transparent 12x5’ 4K projector screen on and I was watching the Gold Cup soccer match. She walked out and they were all staring and each said something to the affect, “What the hell is that!, My husband is not allowed to come to your house!” They were serious too. . . Unfortunately one of the couples we have gone out with a couple of times and we really like. We shall see what happens.
What bothers me is that young people are not excited about music anymore. Unfortunately I didn’t have my system put together when my daughter was young and she is part of the earbud generation. We exposed her to a lot of music and she appreciates and is amazed at what I have now but there is no desire to pursue the hobby. The culture of discovering a new band in a store listening to albums doesn’t exist anymore. We spent hours doing those things, there are too many new technologies competing for people’s attention these days and most of them are immediately gratifying so playing the long game of assembling a system is a no go. I think people would be much happier if they could learn to appreciate the present then working to get the best selfie to be the next YouTube star. What happened to putting down the camera to enjoy the scene and revel in it? This is how I feel about listening to music. It’s an activity not a distraction but people have to be taught that.
What is crazy to me is that there aren’t any classes about these things in college, nor do they teach life lessons about how not to get burned by a doctor, landlord, pay back student loans, basic budgeting, and saving for retirement and few classes in music/art appreciation. Can you imagine having a music course and hearing the music on an fantastic system rather than some horrible PA speakers in the auditorium? I bet we’d see a lot more audiophiles. How do we make it more accessible and or expose more people to the hobby?
- Steve
