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Snobbery in Hi-Fi. Why are people so stupid and turn their noses up at gear costing much less which is just as good?

PristineSound said:
If you ask me, the Honda S2000 is family heirloom grade. Relatively affordable too.

I've been sitting on the fence if I should buy one or not since now it is starting to become a collectable so the value will only go up, but I don't have the garage space and I will eventually need to buy a new daily driver in few more years when my wife gives her car to my teenage son.

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By the time you factor in total cost of ownership, inflation, opportunity cost, and the fickle nature of the resale market, cars are money pits. Even if your teenaged son thinks it's cool today, he may feel differently when he actually inherits it. And typical car loans these days: "Predatory" seems too mild a term.
 
JeffS7444 said:
By the time you factor in total cost of ownership, inflation, opportunity cost, and the fickle nature of the resale market, cars are money pits. Even if your teenaged son thinks it's cool today, he may feel differently when he actually inherits it. And typical car loans these days: "Predatory" seems too mild a term.
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I agree. You would only buy something like that if you truly want it as a connoisseur. I think the resale value is only an icing on the cake.

But, nevertheless, I just have too hard of a time to buy any kind of car, knowing that either a) the value will depreciate or 2) it can almost never appreciate as if the money were to be invested in the S&P500, assuming it's a collectible.
 
PristineSound said:
That is a philosophical life decision.
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True, but other choices could have brought me stronger financial results, but in the end money ain't everything. I had a hell of a good time going down "darker" paths over the last 75 years. LOL

PristineSound said:
I think anyone buying anything of luxury will always get some level of self-enjoyment out of it. Some of them also buy it for status and symbol, even perhaps as their primary reason. While the rest just don't care what others think of them, for they are gluttonous, lusty and indulgent people (not necessarily a bad thing).
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I've never had enough money to purchase anything simply for it's luxury equation, either personal or as status with others. With cars, in my youth it was first any clunker I could afford, later how fast it was became a part of it, but still always a minor one since the budget demanded it. I currently drive a mint 20 year old pickup and short of a catastrophe it will take me to my grave.
With audio, I'm as close to a hard core objectivist as you can get, I guess. I spend as much as I can possibly afford to get the gear that offers the best measured sound quality available. That is again within my personal budget and using my own personal bias on balancing that which parts are most important to me.

PristineSound said:
With some limited exceptions such as letting my 15 year old buy a box of cracker jack for breakfast.
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What's wrong with Cracker Jack for breakfast ? ;)
 
Sal1950 said:
True, but other choices could have brought me stronger financial results, but in the end money ain't everything.
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That Nigerian doctor? I spoke to him for over an hour as I took him from system to system and room to toom putting together his dream system together. I learned that his family was from some remote villages in Nigeria, he had 1 brother and 2 sisters. His dad worked in facilities at a local hospital (that's how he got interested in medicine), his mom was a street vendor at an open bazaar, very very humble background. The cost of the one way plane ticket to America, would have been enough to feed one person very well for half an year. His dad borrowed money from the doctors who worked at the hospital, the doctors made him promised that he will work hard and be a doctor one day and make his village proud.

With $30/week food budget, it afforded him a bagel with cream cheese for lunch and McDonald's $1 menu for dinner. Because he loves the cinema so much and couldn't afford to watch movies, he would work at a cinema in the evenings when the library close, since he doesn't have the books at home anyway. (Which is why his first major purchase for himself was a home theater system.)

After he graduated and started working as a resident doctor, and resident doctors don't make good money, he would send money back home so that his family can send his brother to medical school in Germany. It was a daily grind for many many years.

Frankly, I don't think he did it for the money.

I think he did it because he had to, he had to make his village proud, he had to pay back the money his parents borrowed, he had to help send his brother to medical school.
 
I think this article sums up the whole status/belief problem well (see the paragraph on Canada Goose jackets, for instance, but RTWT)

 
ahofer said:
I think this article sums up the whole status/belief problem well (see the paragraph on Canada Goose jackets, for instance, but RTWT)

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Here is a ChatGPT summary for those who find it TL;DR:

The article argues that many educated elites use certain social beliefs as status symbols, similar to how wealth or luxury goods once signaled prestige. Instead of displaying status through money, they signal it through opinions that reflect cultural sophistication or moral positioning. These beliefs—such as downplaying traditional institutions or favoring more permissive social policies—often carry little personal risk for those who hold them because their own lives remain stable and insulated. However, when these ideas spread more broadly, they can have negative consequences, particularly for less advantaged communities that rely more heavily on those institutions. This creates a gap between what elites publicly promote and what they privately practice. In this sense, the beliefs function both as social signals of status and as ideas with uneven real-world impacts. The author’s core point is that these “status-signaling” beliefs can unintentionally contribute to social problems when adopted widely.

I'm not sure how this article relates to buying luxury goods.

But I can say this: I grew up poor (Relatively poor that is. I mean, how poor is poor in America compared to the remote corners of the world right?) and amongst all the poor folks in my social circle, material things were indeed used to impress others. This idea was promoted through pop culture, Hip Hop and Rock music videos of that era as well. However, as I grow older and benefitted from social mobility, I noticed the people in my social circle consume luxury goods not for status but for self-enjoyment. I hate to say this, but I think I am allowed as I grew up poor: my experience is that within the less privileged and poor communities, luxury good is more often used as a display of status symbol and within the privileged and richer communities, luxury goods are more of a vehicle for self-enjoyment.
 
Platypus20 said:
Three separate 2 channel systems
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Dang, poor me using 5 30 year old Adcoms. :(

PristineSound said:
However, as I grow older and benefitted from social mobility, I noticed the people in my social circle consume luxury goods not for status but for self-enjoyment.
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OTOH I so often witness "poorer" folks purchasing/leasing cars way above their income level and making unwise sacrifices at home to drive that "statement" car. :mad:
 
Westsounds said:
I know, it's completely insane. It goes well beyond 'good sound' and well designed equipment into the psychological realm. But it's an illness as well I feel. And to put a derogatory label on it's just pure snobbery. There really is no need of it. It often becomes this P***ing contest and a fools glory.
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So you drive a base model Toyota with minimal add-ons because it's a perfectly fine and suitable car that gets you where you need to go, just like a fancy car would?
 
TehMowat said:
So you drive a base model Toyota with minimal add-ons because it's a perfectly fine and suitable car that gets you where you need to go, just like a fancy car would?
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If I had a nickel...
 
Sal1950 said:
OTOH I so often witness "poorer" folks purchasing/leasing cars way above their income level and making unwise sacrifices at home to drive that "statement" car. :mad:
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I saw this all the time growing up in the "hood." One of my brother's friend that he grew up with, brought a Honda S2000 with the money he was going to use to pay for his college tuition, 4 weeks later he crashed the car, totaled.
 
PristineSound said:
Here is a ChatGPT summary for those who find it TL;DR:
...
Instead of displaying status through money, they signal it through opinions that reflect cultural sophistication or moral positioning.
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Not directing this at anyone in particular but I wonder if this extends to notions about what people "should" have. It got me thinking of Henry David Thoreau and Walden: It's my understanding that, during his life-experiment, his cabin in the (second growth) woods wasn't far from a well-used thoroughfare, that he frequently entertained guests, and was within walking distance from the town of Concord, his mother's house and a good hot meal. I don't think he was wrong in observing how traditional trappings of success could be burdensome, but I think the pared-back lifestyle is most appealing when it's a choice, and not imposed upon a person.

In his introduction to Made in Russia: Unsung Icons of Soviet Design (2012, Rizzoli International Publications, ISBN-13 978-0-8478-3605-5) Michael Idov noted:
If anything, Soviet consumer goods were the ultimate advertisements for consumerism: Against this ocean of gray, any items made with a modicum of care, the tiniest of formalist flourishes, immediately shone out like a beacon. A Firmenny (brand name) cigarette lighter, an importny (imported) shopping bag - no object was too mundane to crave if it was made well. To live in the Soviet Union was not to be ignorant of good design. It was to be obsessively, erotically hyperaware of it.
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JeffS7444 said:
Not directing this at anyone in particular but I wonder if this extends to notions about what people "should" have. It got me thinking of Henry David Thoreau and Walden: It's my understanding that, during his life-experiment, his cabin in the (second growth) woods wasn't far from a well-used thoroughfare, that he frequently entertained guests, and was within walking distance from the town of Concord, his mother's house and a good hot meal. I don't think he was wrong in observing how traditional trappings of success could be burdensome, but I think the pared-back lifestyle is most appealing when it's a choice, and not imposed upon a person.

In his introduction to Made in Russia: Unsung Icons of Soviet Design (2012, Rizzoli International Publications, ISBN-13 978-0-8478-3605-5) Michael Idov noted:
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Apple’s early, under-rated and very fun series Dickinson included an amusing send-up of Thoreau’s Walden scenario, including all those things.

The Soviet design book looks quite interesting.
 
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