by E. A. Barbour

The Wikipedia fan gang and audiophiles are an amazingly similar cohort: man-children with no attention span and plenty of money (audiophiles) or spare time (Wikipedians). People complain about Wikipedia being a man’s world. Audiophilia is far, far worse, yet bears some disturbing similarities.

I know this well, after watching the “high-end audio” scene for 30 years. Audiophiles are unbelievably neurotic and demanding, basically like 13-year-olds with no attention spans and considerable money to spend on toys. The average American audiophile, and probably in all other countries as well, is a white or Asian male, over 40, a semi-successful professional (doctor, lawyer, investment banker etc), with a failing marriage (if he’s not gay, which many of them are) and a wobbling career. He seeks validation, not sound quality. Audiophilia is a disease of middle age, of what they used to call “male menopause” or “midlife crisis”.

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And such man-children demand the moon, while not actually being able to hear differences in cables or tube brands (which are usually undetectable anyway). They don’t want good sound, they want someone to stroke their massive egos. Manufacturers in it for the long haul end up hiring PR people who are able to deal with this kind of fool. It’s a specialist business in more ways than one. Little different from wine snobs, gourmets, or the collectors of vintage sports cars, in fact.

Audio nerds are easily swayed by insane magazine writers like the ever disgusting Harry Pearson, man-child princes who are pretentious, snobbish, arrogant, completely irrational, and unreasonable. And most important, know how to talk to other man-children. One has to parrot their egos back at them, and talk

…continue reading Audiophiles and Wikipediots: Nerds of a Feather?