Why Don't More People Love Audio?

Most people don't know that high end audio exists. Seriously, to them top of the line is something from Wally world, Best buy (Bose), Target. However, that doesn't mean they don't love audio. Most people love music, they just either can't afford or are satisfied (don't know any better)with mid-fi.

A decent mid-fi set-up doesn't sound bad. You can enjoy the music. Only a minority want the best whether it's audio, food, or microbrew beer.

I don't believe it needs to be that complicated to get good sound. For $3-5 grand you can get a pretty darn good sounding system. You just need $2K, for speakers, $500 for a cd player, then $500 to $2500 for a amp/pre-amp or some combination thereof. There is no need to ever go further, forget about exotic cords, conditioners, etc.

That doesn't mean you can't get better sound with all the extra's, just you can do well without it too. Audiophiles just aren't satisfied with good sound, we want trancendent, miraculous. Yet, even among Audiogoners there is a wide variation in what type of system we need to be satisfied.

Larry B Nice insight.

As far as complexity, it has benefited the hiend dealer community to obfuscate and complicate to the best of their capabilities. This may bring short term shot in the arm revenue but will ultimately end with a lot of turned off jaded customers.

What I do see is that people could care less about the way things sound, as the low end products have become quite good. In fact, my mother in law was over the other night and said her Bose sounded better than my system because it was surround(!?)

The technology you describe is the death knell for hiend because it is simple, sounds good (to a point) more consistently than a lot of thrown together hiend gear.

Another reason is that some hiend gear is so overpriced for what it delivers as to be ludicrous. This is just another reason that the piper will be paid be unscrupulous manufacturers and distributors at the next economic cycle...

Seevral things that come to my mind are:
1)Money. People put music low on the priority list.
2)Anlytical listening. Most people don't listen to how the music sounds, they just listen to the music.
3)Many people listen to music only at parties or get-togethers. Music is just in the background.
4) They haven't gotten the disease. Kind of like golf. Once you catch it your hooked....

Eagleman,

Good and to the point response. Your second point on analytical listening is so true.

I'm sorry Eagleman67722 but I disagree w/ your point (2).
IMHO, analytical listening is exactly what will drive people away from audio!
One needs to do analytical listening but only when setting up the system i.e. buying the gear, placing it, speaker positioning, room acoustics fine tuning & tweaking it. Once that is done, hopefully the listener will be listening to music rather than listening to the sound of his stereo (as you have suggested). The gear is just a means to an end. Judicious selection is paramount to getting to that "end" but after the selection, it's time to play music. If one continues w/ analytical listening, one is totally missing the point. Anyway, just my 2 cents. FWIW.