Inclusionary versus Exclusionary Tactics

As pointed out in the last post, there seems to still be some old school high-end audio exclusionary tactics in our profession:

“High Fidelity is only for rich [need we say old, white, men?], classical-music lovers only whose system must only be evaluated by comparing their system to the sound of acoustical instruments.”

Somewhat shocking that these attitudes still exist.

The typical stuff one can read posted by Bored Angry Self-Absorbed Guys in the forums is more egalitarian, but still exclusionary: Only tubes, only solid-state, only ‘my favorite brand of the week’, only panels, etc.

But, in our experience, people are much more reasonable in practice. Real people with real systems have their preferences, but they laugh about them, or they are forthcoming about the trade-offs that their preferences require compared to the alternatives.

Real Audiophiles seem to be much more pragmatic and practical and not as fanatic as the people posing in forums, and the audiophile ‘public persona’, would indicate.

This is too understated… When people think about audiophiles, and when they read the forums, it seems like 99% of us are wacko and unpleasant to boot. But people with real systems that they care about and work on are only occasionally unpleasant and rarely audiophile bigots.

[Now, it doesn’t help that the anti-audiophile brigade are some of the most bigoted people one would hope never to meet – but it being unfashionable to pick on people of color or the foreign born – they turn their hate to us.]

It is my stipulation that 99% of the people are nice people and that this 1% is not only unpleasant, and has chased away most people off the forums, but that they have chased away most of the people who might otherwise be interested in this hobby.

So, I am not for censorship, but um, can’t we keep a handle on publishing hate-filled diatribes? The anti-audiophiles on AVS Forum and the angry men on Audio Asylum have already chased away many of the reasonable 99%. If Stereophile, many of whose members live on AA, continues going this direction, I predict that they will 1) soon close their doors, and 2) it will just solidify a number of people’s attitudes towards audiophiles as being exclusionary, unfriendly, holier-than-thou, and not too rational.

The point then, is that all music can be good [and bad], including Rap for those of you who are over 35. All technologies can sound good [and bad]. All people, including audiophiles, can be good [and bad].