Do you think audiophiles are the most gullible hobbyists

I think there is some truth in that, music is among the most powerful of human triggers.
Nobody ever spent a grand for a new book cover that would make Shakespeare better .

There are more suckers in the USA than others places for a simple reason.
 We are so brainwashed from cradle to grave  that reality just does not register with us .

jafreeman, in the most macro terms I can think of offhand, Americans will tolerate massive corruption , poverty conditions not seen in other developed countries , elections stolen for all to see, endless wars and virtually anything else with a shrug of the shoulders as they have internalized this is always the best country in the world no matter what .
This is not reality .
What you describe is the madness coming from the cognitive-dissonance
created from not being happy as you should be in the best of all possible worlds.
Consumerism is a drug for this as the social psychologists working for marketers are well aware . Most of country music is written by them .

andrew9405, I see you got an A in Logic 101 and 102 !

Map, there are a lot of those studies around , Swiss one  is skewed towards money.
The best ones , the ones that consider EVERY aspect of human life 
 rank the USA somewhere in the mid-20's which strikes me as about right .
Of all developed countries US is best place for the rich and greedy, worse place for the poor and needy .

Well Swiss are worlds oldest democracy and unlike USA  results are honest and strickly one-man , one vote  .
Of course USA is a Republic NOT a democracy and here one vote in a swing state is worth a hundred in a non-swing state .
Swiss sure are backward .

taters, Sounds about right to me, I've seen a dozen or so well done studies in last decade that show the USA in the 20's .

I believe what geoff said, but my hunch his cable provider is based on Mars .

Tarp38, what you say is so and is in the culture  of all the loosely
Germanic cultures both in German speaking countries and Scandinavian countries .
BUT , the reason is friendship is treated FAR more serious in these lands and holds many more obligations .
As a  Finnish friend of mine said, "Americans are warm on the outside and cold on the inside , Finns the opposite " .
From my years living in Germany I think he was spot on.
In general, what we consider a close friend would be thought of as an acquaintance .Took me 4-5 years to get used to but in the end I think it makes for a deeper life .