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Theory on Why There Aren't More Audiophile

Pancreas

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interesting post I found on Reddit

One question that I see come up a lot is: why aren't there more audiophiles? Why so many normies? I've thought a lot about this.

I think the answer is: For most people: music is enough and hearing music is easy. Really good sound is rare and untapped audiophile converts aren't hearing it. Why? Because you need ALL of the following:

  1. Properly engineered and built equipment. (side note: this does not necessarily mean expensive)
  2. Proper speaker positioning in #3.
  3. A good room: with good dimensions, well managed dispersion and absorption - not too much or too little. (or at least some room correction to overcome real world shortcomings, properly implemented)
  4. A good recording ...
  5. ... of a type of music that the listener enjoys.
  6. Played not too quietly and not too loudly.
  7. A good listener state of mind.
Now let's do some math with what happens in the real world with each item:

  1. Equipment: 99% of the world uses a single bluetooth speaker or mediocre headphones. They hear music. Done. So, we're at 1% already.
  2. Real world conditions often prevent optimal speaker positioning -- if a user even gives it any consideration to begin with. So, let's be generous and say 25% get this right.
  3. A good room. One might be lucky here, with bookshelves at the right locations, enough but not too many soft things, a high ceiling maybe, but more than likely not. You probably don't have an impossibly cool partner who is fine with acoustic panels and bass traps in the living room. Let's be generous and say 10% get this right.
  4. Good recordings. This is easy. But you have to know that such a thing exists and care enough to seek them out. I'll allow 100% because these are known.
  5. And a listener needs to like the music in the good recordings. Let's be super generous and assume that the listener thought this through. Let's give this one 100% also.
  6. Played not too quietly or too loudly. I'll be generous again and say 100% because ears and volume knobs are readily available.
  7. State of mind: I'll go with 25%. A person first must care, have an open mind, there can't be too many distractions, etc.
Now the math: .01 x .25 x .1 x 1 x 1 x 1 x .25 = .0000625

This means that the chance that anyone who is listening to "music" is hearing really good sound is 1 in 16,000 -- and remember, that's assuming a 100% probability that they're listing to a good recording of music that they like at a reasonable volume.

Where is a normie going to get good sound?

They're not, because they don't now it's a thing. But assuming they do...

Not at a show: the rooms, the music, the distractions, not to mention the intimidating prices, etc.

Maybe at a friend's house? ... If they have such a friend, who happens to have everything dialed in correctly. Possible, but not likely. FWIW: I'm a bit of a fanatic and even my setups aren't life-changing.

At a retailer? Possibly. At least in the Eastern US the economics are such that any retailer with a properly implemented room must sell very expensive equipment, which is a high bar for a non-audiophile to accept. Places with less expensive real estate and labor costs might offer some retail options.

So, there you go. Not pretty. For dragon-chasers only.
 
I can surmise it in a sentence: any serious hobby is eccentric by common social standards
 
It is the same reason more people drink cheap crappy beer vs good wines or good scotch.

Cheap beer and FM Radio quality music are good enough for most people. They just don't care enough about either to go to the extra effort and cost for better taste or sound.

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” - Thoreau

It isn't really a case of don't care. It is more of a case that they don't have time to care.
 
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The snobby attitude on many online forums and youtube videos has to be a turn off to many that are interested or at least curious.

Right now, I'm streaming a great playlist from Youtube Music with Chromecast from my phone to my Wiim Ultra with a pair of V3 Monos going to Sony SSC-S5 speakers and a Sony subwoofer. It sounds great to me, (even better than FM radio ;)) but I'm sure the folks on Audiogon and other audiophool forums would look down on it and say it was a terrible setup that sounds awful and is insufficiently resolving.

I could switch over to the Tidal app and get maybe 2% better sound, but why bother moving this great (to me) Youtube generated playlist to Tidal?

I saw some pretentious audiophool refer to the Eversolo DMP-A6 as a cheap plastic toy on the audiophile Reddit. People like that do not help our hobby or whatever we want to call it.
 
Music transcends poor playback.

Most of it is in your imagination anyway.

Sometimes "good enough" is just that.
 
"Now the math: .01 x .25 x .1 x 1 x 1 x 1 x .25 = .0000625" seems like THD value for most good performing dacs :)
 
This seems like facile reasoning. People don't have to climb to the top of the audiophile ladder, whatever that is. It's more like listening on a decent pair of speakers or having a 5.1 system to watch movies and TV or gasp concerts.
 
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