First, I should start by saying that I am not trying to start some war, but am frustrated/confused by the hostility I see on some forums. I am posting this here, as I believe that there will actually be a thoughtful discussion that won't devolve into a war of insults.
A little about me. I am a 40 something that has been enthralled with audio since I was 10. My dad was a musician who trained in Opera. His entertaining partner a composer who was married to a classical pianist. I spent a lot of time as a child sitting next to a 1912 Chickering concert grand, probably why my litmus test for speakers is how a piano sounds. I am in the middle of the objective/subjective beliefs. I believe that measurements tell us a great deal about how equipment sounds, but also that we have not yet been able to quantify and correlate everything we hear. I also believe that cables can make a minor difference in sound, but not due to any magical properties, but basic differences in LCR (I swear that I hear a difference between Kimber 4VS and Wireworld Helicon 16, with the Helicon being slightly smoother (rolled off) on the top end). I also believe that the listening room and speakers are by far the largest determinate in how a system sounds and 95+ percent of what makes a system sound good is speaker/room matching.
Finally, I try to be honest in my own biases. I believe that most of us have preferences that deviate from a "flat wire with gain". In my case, I am very sensitive to high frequencies (I was close to a loud explosion as a child that left me with permanent tinnitus that is getting worse as I get older). Combine that sensitivity with with my preference for rock, which can vary from well mixed to horrible, and I prefer equipment that is on the warm syrupy side of things, which I know is not the most "accurate" but gives me the most listening pleasure. Give me a pair of speakers with a nice little midbass hump and slightly rolled off high end any day of the week.
Having gotten that out of the way, I constantly watch threads on forums devolve into flat out personal attacks (i.e. this is the best amplifier in the world and if you don't like it you are deaf and stupid). In regard to this forum and Amir, on other forums I saw negative comments (and after looking further, downright nasty and extremely hostile personal attacks) which of course made me come and look here. Ironically what I saw here was a lot more tolerance and intellectual discourse than in many other places (AVS Forums seems to be the other forum where they still stay civil).
I think a lot of what bothers me is time and time again seeing a new person coming in and looking for guidance and three posts later it has devolved into a war not involving the original poster's question that then goes on for another 50-100 posts. This bothers me in large parts as with companies like Massdrop, Schiit (I know there is a less than pleasant history with Amir and Schiit), Emotiva, Tekton, and a myrad of others, there is finally a resurgence in affordable, good audio equipment and an opportunity to grow the audio community with young people instead of a bunch of old guys bitching.
So trying to focus in on what bothers me (and this seems to go beyond just audio groups):
1) What happened to being civil to each other?
2) Why has audio become a personal religion rather than a fun hobby?
3) Why can people not be intellectually honest with themselves (i.e. I know it measures like shit, but I like the way it sounds)?
4) When did people become unable to separate personal preferences from fact?
Again, sorry to the extent I am rambling, but this is something that just constantly sits there in the back of my mind.
Cary
