I’m lucky to live in an area with a very active audio club, despite the small-town atmosphere and laid-back lifestyle (California Central Coast). I think there must be about 50 regular members of our club, several of them very well-heeled with world class systems (and listening rooms), many others with deep DIY and engineering knowledge and experience. One of my best friends used to own the premiere audio store in the area and wrote regular reviews for Stereophile. I met another friend when I bought some equipment from him; he’s not even a club member, but has a great rig.
And yet, I basically never get together with any of these folks for the purpose of listening to our systems. One of them did recently want to hear a recording he’d made in the late ‘90s that he was remastering; his system is far better than mine, but he wanted to hear his music on friends’ systems in order to better understand what needed to be tweaked. Obviously, that was an exceptional circumstance, and even then, I don’t think we spent more than about 30 minutes really listening to the music.
Contrary to what you’d expect, even club meetings are not primarily about listening to the system or to the music, IMO. But maybe this isn’t so surprising after all. Club meetings are really like parties, with lots of people milling about, drinks in their hands, and talking. You can’t talk and listen critically to music at the same time.
On yet another hand, however—about 20 years ago, I had a best friend here who I regularly got together with to get high and listen to music. He hosted a couple of radio shows on the local NPR station, and was the most encyclopedically knowledgeable person about all types of music that I’ve ever known. Knowledgeable, and “talented” in an intuitive way; we’d be listening to, say, something from Schubert and I’d blurt out: “Wait; that sounds like something familiar….” And he’d immediately pick up the vibe and respond by naming what it was I’d recognized: “Yeah, that’s ‘A Day in the Life’ by the Beatles.” His recall for melodies and his ability to see musical affiliations was awesome. But note: our conversations were about music, not equipment. His listening space was a crappy apartment, and he regarded the kit as a fungible tool.
It's natural to want to share ones loves and enthusiasms with like-minded friends; most pleasures are enhanced by being shared. And yet, listening to music is a very solitary thing (it happens inside one’s head) and requires long stretches of non-interaction with others (as I wrote above, you can’t talk and listen critically to music at the same time). Now, making music is a very different matter! Making music together is a wonderfully social activity.
