Ladies analogy lover?

Krellm7, I don't think I can buy your definition completely. Being an audiophile/stereophile doesn't correlate with the with price tag of your system, but more with the lengths you have gone to in maximizing the performance of your system.

I'm a pretty budget oriented stereo guy, and my purchases are made with maximizing value as my foremost priority. Even if my means were unlimited, I suspect that I would still be a value shopper, just with a bigger price tag :) . But I put a lot of effort into dialing in the controlable variables in room setup, configuration, fine tuning, etc.

In response to Opalchip's contention that we care more about gear than music, I would suggest that the evidence (the number of posts under Cables v. the number under Music) does not necessarily speak for itself. I already have a number of mechanisms in place to discover new music and share with others music that I like (a good public library, a good independant music store, a radio, friends with diverse tastes in music, etc.). What I didn't have, prior to discovering Audiogon, was a mechanism to ask questions about and share my (very limited) knowledge of gear.

My wife was a music major at college and she definitely loves the music more than the equipment as one would expect. However, she really enjoys the incremental improvements I've been making over the years although she doesn't always notice the difference between this cable or that even as I swear I do. Often she tells me "it sounds really good right now" which is one of the best compliments an audiophile can be paid.

It's true, almost all of my male friends are gadget freaks to some degree (not often audio gear like me though but phones, computers and "devices") but very few of my female friends care for a gadget much. I think men are more likely to be engineers and more likely to be into gadgets and gear for the same reason: I read once that we are slightly more autistic that women, so that might have something to do with it.

Everyone in the audiophile press and on websites like this is always saying "forget the gear, just enjoy the music" but I laugh when I read that. I can enjoy music on my AM car radio but i enjoy it *more* on my expensive home system.

I am a female who loves audio equipment as well as the music. I have to admit that there are very few other women that I know of that are into amps, preamps, cd players, etc. as much as I am. Most of my female friends are more into the words and music of a song instead of the quality. I was actually like that at one point until I listened to some very highend gear at a shop one day. I realized then that my music could sound much better if played through better equipment, and have been interested in high end gear ever since.

smw30yahoo.com, glad to hear fr a female audio lover finally. I believe you are right. Ladies are more into words than men. I suppose ladies are more emotional than men as such words of the songs are more important. Men are probably too logical and analytical. That's why i am always on the look out for better tweaks, upgrading etc. Happy listening