If I were a woman reading the comments in this thread, I wouldn't deign to offer input - I'd be horrendously offended. As a man engaged in this hobby, I am offended and embarrassed by the comments made.
This thread started with what struck me as a reasonable question seeking understanding. What followed would surely shut down any dialog with the knowledgable women who ocassionally do post here.
In my experience, many women care about good sound and can tell in about 3 seconds whether a system is worth wasting any more time on. Most of these same women are willing to spend reasonable (and unreasonable) sums for a system that sounds very good or for a piece of gear that materially improves the sound. But, most also have reached the sane conclusion that no system will ever sound as good as live music and being in a perpetual state of anxiety over this issue (as are many of us men in this hobby) is a waste of good energy that can be used more beneficially elsewhere.
I am fortunate to have lived with one such woman for over 30 years. Her tolerance for " angst'ing " over hardware is minimal, but ask her to listen and offer an opinion and she'll absolutely "nail" the differences between one system and another, or one peice of gear and another, in under 2 minutes. And, if the difference means a more complete or more truthful recreation of the music, she'll support making the investment to accomplish that. But her patience with all this hardware comparison gets exhausted in about 45 minutes (which is about the time it takes me to finally begin to understand what she heard in those first 2 minutes).
Sorry if I've offended anyone who has posted here, but I really believe that men who engage in this hobby need to significantly "clean up our act" if we ever wish to include more women in the discussions that occur here and elsewhere related to audio.
This thread started with what struck me as a reasonable question seeking understanding. What followed would surely shut down any dialog with the knowledgable women who ocassionally do post here.
In my experience, many women care about good sound and can tell in about 3 seconds whether a system is worth wasting any more time on. Most of these same women are willing to spend reasonable (and unreasonable) sums for a system that sounds very good or for a piece of gear that materially improves the sound. But, most also have reached the sane conclusion that no system will ever sound as good as live music and being in a perpetual state of anxiety over this issue (as are many of us men in this hobby) is a waste of good energy that can be used more beneficially elsewhere.
I am fortunate to have lived with one such woman for over 30 years. Her tolerance for " angst'ing " over hardware is minimal, but ask her to listen and offer an opinion and she'll absolutely "nail" the differences between one system and another, or one peice of gear and another, in under 2 minutes. And, if the difference means a more complete or more truthful recreation of the music, she'll support making the investment to accomplish that. But her patience with all this hardware comparison gets exhausted in about 45 minutes (which is about the time it takes me to finally begin to understand what she heard in those first 2 minutes).
Sorry if I've offended anyone who has posted here, but I really believe that men who engage in this hobby need to significantly "clean up our act" if we ever wish to include more women in the discussions that occur here and elsewhere related to audio.