Audiophile arrogance
Has anyone else noticed the arrogance of audiophiles? Pretty often you will see someone happy with their cheaper setup and it's always someone else telling them that they upgraded to something else, suggesting that their way is much better. It's almost like they're trying to justify the price of their setup to themselves. I had originally wrote this post because of my own actions, I de-foamed my IEM thinking that it would sound better because I knew better than samsung/sony/sennheiser and I could jailbreak/unlock the "secret" sound that it was dampening, although you'd never see me soldering a resistor or trying different cables to a scarlet 2i2. This interest shows that sound matters to a lot of people but in different ways: but arrogance is a primary factor in many of the people interested.
Posted Aug 24, 2019, 11:01 AM UTC
That’s true of most hobbies, niche or otherwise, especially those broadcast in communities such as these. Debates revolve around confirmation bias, post-purchase rationalization and FOMO.
Precisely, this has nothing to do with audiophilia. It's just how many people function.
Yep, came here to say this. I’m pretty active with the cycling community and used to be more so in the watch community. It’s exactly the same there. At day’s end, enjoy what you enjoy.
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I’m not saying there aren’t valid preferences. I’m talking about 105 vs Dura Ace, Shimano vs Campy, etc. I also see a lot of downplaying achievements.
In fact, the only community I’ve ever been involved in that didn’t have much in the way of elitism is mountain biking.
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Photography forums/subs can be just as nitpicky; guitar, as elitist; bodybuilding, pseudoscience-driven.
The amount and vehemence of subjective argumentation is directly proportional to income and inversely proportional to the hobby’s being mainstream.
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Photography has endless discussions about the quality of out-of-focus areas (bokeh) and microcontrast, guitar forums have heated debates over paper-in-oil low-pass capacitors and star grounding, bodybuilding has wars over PWO anabolic windows and creatine formulations.
The deeper you go into subcultures, the more detailed the arguments get. I’m sure coffee aficionados and horology connoisseurs are equally fastidious about their passions.