Old White People are Responsible for Where the Audiophile Industry is Today

Humor is one of the best forms of rebuke. Can't we have a laugh?

 

I literally almost spit out my Spanish Grenache........................................ hilarious

 

I'm not old, white, male, or wealthy (I'm a student). Please don't assume things about someone's identity just because they don't understand or disagree with something. I can't say that I've ever felt excluded or overlooked, least of all by the occasional elderly person lamenting over "kids these days." There are tons of budget-friendly options out there in just about every category. Maybe you're right about the headphone hobby being a different ballgame. I would say I'm more puzzled than offended by this article. Maybe you're right about the headphone hobby being a different ballgame, because from what I've seen this depiction is pretty off-base.

 

Let me be serious for a moment. Not "rant" serious, just remorseful seriousness.

Some people think that life is better if they own cool stuff. While never affluent, I used to fall into that category. Now I think that people that are important to you make life better. Music also makes life better.

I regret spending too much time and money on audio gear and neglecting my family. It didn't make my life better. It made it worse.Now that I look after my wife and children, my wife and children look after me. They don't resent me my hobby. I consider myself truly fortunate.Regardless of your age, culture, ethnicity, demographic, income etc etc etc, make sure your affairs are in order before spending time and money on things that, ultimately, don't matter.

"Truth is, I THOUGHT it mattered. I thought that MUSIC mattered. But does it bollocks? Not compared to how people matter."



If you haven't seen this movie "Brassed Off" watch it. Watch all of it. The context makes this quotation extremely meaningful.

My life experiences give meaning to the position I hold on audiophile spending. Don't let me tell you what you should and shouldn't do with your resources.

 

Koloth, post: 16951, member: 160"

There seem to be a lot of asians very interested in hifi audio.
EXACTLY, where do you think 80% of Rowland, Boulder, and Edge sales come from ? They told us, it' s not the US.

I don't see how you could misunderstand this or be offended by this? Clearly this is simply a function of wealth and culture.

What bothers me is the pic of Darko and Guttenberg as part of the 1%. In audiophile land a lot of the 1% don't even go to audio shows. And they certainly don't own the level of equipment that those two guys have. Take Darkos speaker collection, (some may be on long term loan= code for freebie), most 99% who are really into audio, can have that in a heartbeat.

What the writer points out though is that all the lamenting about the death of hifi (and headphones are notably except from this usually) MIGHT have something to do with 1.) high prices and 2.) an image problem. I know a lot of people who have much more disposable income than me, and they listen with shitty apple earbuds. Might the image of 'the audiophile' be part of the reason why?

High prices, WTF.............. the lemming, "gotta have device" that is worldwide is the freaking iPhone. It sounds so much better than what I had growing up and even with Beats cans is formidable compared to it's mobile predecessors, back in the day.

I don't think thats an outrageous idea at all. The writer then continues to argue that we might change that image by being more openminded towards low-cost, entry-level gear, thereby gradually increasing the diversity of the audiophile community and solving the image problem. Because we do know one thing: Pretty much everybody, every gender, every ethnicity, every religion - they all like music. And an elitist, snobbish attitude of old rich people at highend-shows where you can barely find a product under 5000$ is certainly not the way to expand the hifi demographic. Once again - dont see whats wrong about that.

See this is where you and Darko have a distorted view of hifi shows! I have been to EVERY RMAF and other shows. Trust me, the mere appearance of unobtainably priced audio gear does not mean the vast majority of audiophiles fall prey to the notion that you have to spend tons to get good sound. Is it an intimidating view of the audiophile world? Yes, but no more than an auto show where $300k Bentley's sit next to Kias.

I can find lots of products under $5k. In fact my system does not have one piece that is $5k. And from what I hear at shows, I have a really good sounding system.

What's more is this forum. Not many here are swayed by price, we use our ears. And there is lots of great stuff out there that is not too expensive. Schiit, Senn and many others.

TL: DR:
1.) Yes, if you can spend thousands of dollars on hifi equipment you ARE privileged. No and's, if's or but's about it.

No more so than the person that has a classic car in the garage as his weekend hobby, and I can guarantee you most of these folks are not in the 1%

2.) Yes, if you're an audiophile there's a high probability you're a white dude with a decent amount of disposable income. Thats just a sociological fact.

WTF, where are you pulling this shit from? Facts? Racist isn't it?

3.) Perhaps the economic fact that hifi-audio isnt selling as it used to can be PARTLY explained by an image problem relating to 1 and 2.

No, it's called changing times. Blame the internet, not white guys with lots of cash

4.) We should try to change that - for the betterment of the entire industry - by being less snobbish towards entry-level gear.

Many audiophile like helping new people get into audio and do not display a snobbish attitude at all. Quite the opposite, many including many here are quite helpful. Sounds like the snobbish attitude might be something one might be reading into an article.

Note: None of this applies especially well to headphone-audio. The author of the article writes about speakers and turntables. Have you been to a speaker show recently? Its f'ing retarded how that market has degenerated.

WTF are you talking about, retarded in what sense? Yes, there are ridiculously priced examples, but there are equally fantastic values like the Vanatoos for $500 a pair with amps for "redacted" sake.

In the context of the total audiophile cosmos the headphone world is in my estimation actually the most diverse, the most reasonable and the least snobbish. Its also the least expensive and has the greatest amount of young and non-white people.

So dont get all offended.

I am because the author of the article and the title of the thread are way off base.

My god...

Yes? Now you can get offended.......................

 

You misunderstand. This is simple statistics. My experience in this hobby tells me that over 90% of people into hifi equipment are male. Now if I encounter a person knowing nothing except that this person is into hifi equipment, (given appropriate sample size of my experience) its a very reasonable inductive assumption that this person is male. If I'm on a hifi forum I assume the people I'm talking to are male. I know that not all of them are. But I'm right far more than I'm wrong. About 90% in fact. The same goes for age, wealth etc. (to lesser degrees than the gender thing, but the principle is the same).

You misunderstand. I specifically said that I did not believe there was any institutional or even interpersonal exlusion going on in hifi. In my experience people in hifi are mostly open to all comers - if they bring money that is. The talk about the importance of image is precisely because there is NO EXLUSION going on. How then to explain the sociological fact that most people are male, white and middle-to-upper-class? Clearly everyone enjoys listenting to music, so thats not it. What then? Pricing for sure. But maybe also image.

I do think the headphone-world is quite different from the rest of the hifi business. And reading the original article I believe you'll find him talking about turntables and speakers, not headphones.
Headphones are well suited for people who 1.) dont have loads of money, 2.) dont have big rooms, 3.) have neighbors/family members etc closeby. These are young people. Headphones are also marketed predominantly to young people: Its cool to spend money on headphones evne if you're an 18 year old mexican girl with very little disposable income. There may be other reasons. But the headphone market certainly follows its own logic compared to speakers, turntables etc.

 

Fair enough, it seems that we just have very different experiences. On my first comment you've quoted though, I was addressing your statement: "And I wonder how many of the people reacting so offended in this thread are middle-to-upper-class white guys showing a kneejerk reaction." That kind of rubbed me the wrong way, this is probably the last place I would have expected to encounter identity politics. That, coupled with the demand that people feel or note feel a certain way about something--again, I'm reminded of less pleasant spaces of the internet.

 

Well uhm... thats why I made the notable exception of asians and arabs? I dont have precise numbers obviously, but I assume especially the higher priced gear is mostly sold to china, russia and saudi arabia. Jeff Rowland certainly isnt building amplifiers for an american or german middle class family That much the price sticker tells you...

I dont know those gentlemen. I've never talked about those gentlemen. I dont care about those gentlemen. If you believe the author of the original article misrepresented two individuals, feel free to be offended about that.

I'm not sure what this is an answer to... Yes, technology has progressed. Sennheiser also has not put out an upgrage to their 1997 HD600 - a great value at a reasonable price, in 18 years. Instead their flagship now costs either 1500 or 55000$. The HD600 was built for middle-class enthusiasts. The HD800 is not built for middle-class enthusiasts. I've written about this before: If you want to understand the market, just let the manufacturers do the work for you. They have market research departments full of educated people trying to figure out where the money is. And they have figured out that its better to build really expensive shit for comparatively few people rather than really great-value products for lots of people.

What are you talking about...? You seem to get very defensive here... 1.) I never said one couldnt find good products under 5000$. My system consists of such components. I said at hifi shows where kilobuck amplifiers and speakers reign its rare to find these components. If you're trying to tell me that you've been to Audio shows where more than 50% of the rooms exhibited primarily (not in a corner hidden, but THE EXHIBIT) equipment under 5000$ and where a sizeable portion of the audience was female and non-white, then truly, yes, you have made very different experiences then I.

Again, not sure what you're talking about here? I never spoke about 1%-ers. I spoke about middle-class-and-upwards. There's a pretty big f'ing difference (unless you're talking global averages, but who even thinks about that, right?). Also, yeah, a person with a classic car in his garage for the weekends is certainly quite f'ing privileged? thats not a good counter-point at all...

No, its really not. You dont seem to understand that concept. Also, I explained above how inductive reasoning combined with statistical information can lead to very reasonable assumptions about gender, ethnicity, wealth etc. If I assume that a diehard Merle Haggard fan is probably white and from the southern United States I'm not proven to be unreasonable or racist when you produce a chinese woman who loves his music.

The rest of your statements basically ignored my assessment of the headphone-market being significantly different from the speaker or turntable market, so I wont even respond...

 

You're right. That was basically a throwaway-line intended to rattle some cages. Sorry if that offended you
I was a little aggravated to see the intense group-think in the first page of this thread, thats why I wrote that

 

@Koloth

whoa, it is obvious you never even read the article that is the subject of this post. There you might find a little picture of white dudes with names......and you might find a reference to the 99% and hence 1%.

Respectfully disagree with your world view

Nighty Nite.........................

 

I don't think this thread is going anywhere. Purrin? The Alchemist? Where are you? Lock it down, man.

 

I think you've read the original article just as poorly as my posts. Here's what he says about 1%ers: "we are the 1%-ers of the sound world; that 99% of people don’t see better sound as a priority; that the 99% can’t (or won’t) afford most of the equipment involved; or that they haven’t been exposed to such hardware? Also that 99% of the world have never heard of Diana Krall or Chris Jones, let alone listen to them."

Clearly he's not talking about the economic 1% - and neither was I. Although if you take a global average almost every audio-1%er will be an economic 1%er. If you take a national average that changes.

Really dude, I know this is the internet and who cares about forums etc. But work on your reading comprehension.
I also dont know what 'world view' you would even disagree with?

Oh well, the substance of your response was about what I expected...

 

Is it really worth arguing about this?

 

You are correct, I am wrong

 

People here take things WAY too seriously. @velvetx clearly shared this article so we can all have a laugh. Some of us are incapable of humour I suppose.

 

I'm not convinced that you're not being sarcastic, but I'll still apologize for being rather dick-ish.
I have a tendency to get into heated arguments on the internet - and I dont shy away from getting a little uncivilized sometimes... I fear this graphic describes me all too well:

 

What the f**k is going on here, how did Tumblr get into my SBAF?