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Re: Hi Fi Fetishism

Tancred,

If you read down through all these messages there's a common thread here. We do it because we think it's fun and it's another hobby like model trains or owning a motorcycle.

But the bottom line is I think you're in the wrong forum for "audiophilia" and "audiophiles" in general. Here, most of us like to find and restore older equipment. Common threads are searching for bargains at thrift shops and garage sales and searching for data on restoration.

There is a much more practical approach to the hardware here. Very expensive cables and gadgets are in the minority. Most of us use $0.39/ft lamp cord for our speaker cables because we don't see the point of $20/ft magic cables. If you're restoring a 40 year old Fisher vacuum tube receiver yourself, you had better have a practical view of things, a working knowledge of electronics, and be handy with tools. That does not describe the typical "audiophile", nor do I personally want to be classified as such.

From my observations of "audiophiles" and those afflicted with "audiophilia nervosa" I see two basic conditions: insecurity and conspicuous consumption. These manifest themselves as a kind of "elitism". A "mine's bigger than yours is" kind of approach. A search for bragging rights. A belief that if it costs more it must be better. A belief which is callously exploited by the marketeers.

An example from another field comes to mind. My son used to run a Dodge Neon ACR in the Sports Car Club of America's Solo II slalom series. Although they were not in his class, he turned in better raw times than a Porsche Boxster. The Porsche owner was incensed and insisted he must be cheating (he wasn't)to beat his Porsche with a Neon. It simply was not in the realm of possibility to him that a Neon could beat him.

Similarly, it is not credible to an audiophile that my $1400 system, based on 35 year old speakers, could be better sounding than his $40,000 system. Yet, I can cite several examples and provide witnesses.

If you want the answers to your questions, you might find some hints here, but I really think you need to find a hotbed of real "audiophiles" and not the hangout for hobbyists you've addressed here.

Jerry

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