@nonoise - 👍
How rare is an audiophile
I’ve been extremely busy lately and not had a chance to sit back and listen to music on my system for a few weeks. I’ve streamed my favorite music in the car and on a small JBL Flip-4 portable speaker; which by the way “punches way above its size class.” I continued to enjoy music whenever, wherever, and however i can during this “dry spell.”
So now its 5 am Sunday morning. I know i’ll be spending most of the day listening on the JBL when my wife and I drive out to a lake house we bought recently and are furnishing and getting ready for 4 generations to enjoy lake life this summer and for years to come.
I’ve let my system warm up and hit play on my CD player. I now find myself in total bliss listening to Chris Standing’s newest CD “The Lovers Re-mix Collection.” The effect of the quality of the sound of the music my wife and i are enjoying right now with a cup of coffee is hard to explain, but it brought literal tears of joy.
I started thinking, how many people are like us? What % of the population are audiophiles (whatever your definition of an audiophile is)?
I know the answer is heavily dependent on which country you live in. I live in the US along with ~332,000,000 fellow citizens (please, lets not get political on the meaning of population or citizen).
Are we the 0.1%ers? Are there ~332,000 audiophiles in the US?
i’d be interested in what others think about how rare our species is.
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Ah yes...the old days of sexism and misogyny...spoken here by Real Men who seemingly don't know any women and don't have daughters...yeah...those were the days! Put on your bowler hat and go to the club...and, by the way, enjoying music through a great system you or Goodwin's might have designed is a solitary activity almost by definition, and if you need others to pal around with while you polish your (volume) knobs you're gonna be disappointed frequently...get used to people generally not caring about your self indulgent hobby and you'll likely be happier. Join a book club or a biker gang. |
I’d just like to say that the gals who tolerate us boys and our hobbies are the nicest, most patient, loving and accommodating people in the world. I’ve seen this across mulitple spectrums/hobbies. They are the best of the best. Here I am, talking to my gear head buddies about the time I broke the clutch cable on my Corvair at the dragstrip (when I was 18), and only had one tool with me -- a pair of Vicegrips -- clamped it down on the cable, make 3 more passes, and drove the car home. The number of times my loving wife has sat patiently thru this story would take all my fingers and toes (in @asvjerry ’s case 19!) to count. This is in addition to sitting there, nodding her hear during conversations about air gap flux density, room nodes, and the highly energetic 104th demo of Fourplay’s Between the Sheets on my system. She, and my car buddy's companions, are the best!! |
In my teens and through my 20s, my circle of friends and wider social circle were all crazy about music; it was everything to us. We horded/collected music, always looking for new music to wow us. We all also played in bands and/or were singer songwriters with studio experience, but apart from myself, not one of them ever journeyed down the audiophile rabbit hole, or seemed remotely interested in the pursuit. I only ever met one guy who was on the audiophile journey, who was a friend of a friend of a friend, who was a complete Naim/Linn head. Since those heady days of the early1990's through early 2000's, I haven't met any other people interested in the hobby, whether colleagues, later friends, anyone - apart from the guys in my local dealership 😂, but that's a given. Im in the UK, but I feel we're a rare breed. I did meet one guy who bought a piece of gear from me and collected from my home, but I never met or heard from him again (which is good, as I hope he's enjoying the DAC I sold him 😊) |
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