Acceptanceis important to most of us.
To have our work accepted means much. To have our decisions validated by others we respect makes us feel good: confident in our choices. It’s one reason we’re happy when a review comes out confirming what we perhaps already know. It’s also the reason many wait for the review before buying, being on the cautious side. Not wanting to step out and perhaps get ridiculed.
When we setup our system at home, kickback and really enjoy, one of our first impulses is to want to share that experience with others. But buried in there is also the desire to get the nod from others, to make sure we’re not off base. I think it’s just part of our nature to belong to the group and to have our efforts validated and accepted by those we let into our lives. Those that may potentially judge us and our decisions.
In some cases we guarantee peer acceptance by the equipment we choose rather than the performance we achieve. People write me for advice and use their system list as their calling card, validating their system choices as if I too might judge them based on what they have chosen to create music in the home. How many of us would even think to call ourselves Audiophiles when our only claim to high end audio was a pair of Radio Shack speakers and a Yamaha receiver?
And yet I think it’s ok to do so for the brave among us. I admire people who have made much with little. I have heard great music come out of some of the cheapest systems I can imagine and inevitably the owner of the system cares enough to have set it up right. I have also heard the opposite: more times than I care to remember. Great equipment setup incorrectly.
Being an Audiophile has nothing to do with the amount of money you’ve spent or the brands you’ve bought.
It has to do with your care and interest in how the music sounds.
