Is Audiophilia hereditary and or contagious?

Rives....Some experts believe it is a religion. That has some credence.....how else can you explain all of those religious temples disguised hi-fi stores where men go in and more than willingly plunk down their money for a promise of their place in audio nirvana as long as they attend regularly. It has to be a religion...you go into one of those temples and you just listen and leave money there...just like you do in church. You will recieve advice and counseling from the proprietor (minister), just like a church.

Mitch: It's a hospital, not a church. (Could be a pharmacy I supppose)

and all along I thought this was an asylum ... (oops that's that *other* place)

Audiophila CAN be about as close to religion as it gets. So far as your observations concerning psychosis Detlof accuracy/musicality, tubes/ss, sub sect pushpull/SET, sub sub sect Set/OTL, sub-sub-sub sect Telefunkens vs Tung Sols vinyl/digital, and one of the most touchy matters to the believers, DON'T TELL ME I can hear the differences in cables, and the non-believers, most are all the same. It plays out much the same as religion does, to some, very deeply felt, absolutist, psychotic heh? If that can't be believed, one is definitely in denial mode. As long as we are happy, what does it matter at all?


There is no one in my family with this disease which further leads me to believe it is contagious. Then again I have seen it passed on from father to son but rarely to daughter and rarer still from mother to daughter. It has an unusually high infection primarily among men of all ages, races, education and income levels. So does male pattern baldness, maybe there is a parallel?

My parents never listened to music.
My siblings had the usual plastic ponograph in a box, and a few dozen records, Elvis, etc.
I was struck with the "bug" as a teen (woof! that's a LONG time ago) when I first saw a new (1965??) Garrard Lab-80 turntable at an electronics supply store. That wood tonearm was the locus of the infection... I've been more or less infected ever since. I had periods of remission: In my twenties for awhile, no stereo, no TV.. (I was into spiritual things, the 70's sort of stuff)Then I fell from nirvana and sought out that audio form again.
I get excited in spurts, buying stuff 'till I am stuffed full.. but then the fever cools and I just listen for awhile.
Sort of like Malaria....