The AI pioneer, cognitive psychologist, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Herbert Simon is known for an insight that is crucially relevant to sufferers from audiophilia nervosa. Captured in the coinage “satisficing” (a synthesis of “satisfy” and “suffice”), he insists on a version of the cliché “The Best is the enemy of the Good.” For most decisions, people just can’t hope to wade through the overwhelming number of choices available to them in modern consumer societies—by one estimate, consumer options in modern economies exceed those of preindustrial societies by a factor of 100 million! This phenomenon is visible everywhere, and nowhere more conpicuously than in the audio equipment market.
This sort of superabundance, multiplied by social media, in everything from toilet paper to dating choices, creates a kind of self-perpetuating anxiety that one could do better. As a result, as an opinion piece in today’s NYTimes puts it, “Maximizers tend to be less satisfied with their decisions and their lives. They are typically less happy, more prone to regret and more likely to compare themselves endlessly with others.” Sound familiar? Searching for the best can often just be the wrong goal; the certainty that something better must be out there robs the present experience of its value. We neglect our love of the music because of some perceived imperfection in our technologies of reproduction.
Am I only speaking for myself? “The absolute sound” should not be the goal. It’s not only unreachable for so many reasons—more to the point, it’s a trap that seduces us with shiny and expensive distractions. Satisficing is not settling. Rather, it’s a matter of remembering that the technology is a tool, a means to an end, not an end in itself.
