The Hobby of Audio and Listening

The Hobby of Audio and Listening

When I started the “hobby” of audio, I thought I was getting into a hobby filled with artists and people who really care about the finer things in life, including how they treat others. I got this impression from my own personal experience of being around real non professional and professional artists who actually played musical instruments. I thought, when I got into the hobby, that audio hobbyists would be the same way – artistic, insightful people. But, as the years go by and I see more and more of this industry, I see that there are very few true “artistic” hobbyists (and even fewer artistic reviewers and artistic manufacturers.

How naïve I was all the years I used to read the audio magazine reviews and think, “These guys have the best job in the world. They get to listen to ‘art’ all day long or whenever they are reviewing.” What I didn’t know until now was all it took to become a reviewer was to be political enough to convince someone to give you a job. But, I have been coming to this conclusion over the past five years after coming to my senses.

As far as hobbyists are concerned, it is rare to find a hobbyist with a true artistic nature. As I read “Letters to the Editor” for some of the magazines and threads on internet forums, I see that there are many hobbyists who are just evil in their nature and have nothing artistic about them at all. And, on the opposite extreme, the techie types who profess to hold boundless degrees seem to have missed the basics in high school physics somewhere along the way to obtaining their professed degrees. What is it about this hobby that brings out the worst in some people? There is very little true “sharing” and a lot of disrespectful "pomp and circumstance". Internet forums are not “civil” places for artistic people to gather; they are more like havens for the unhappy people who simply want to create misery. They profess love for music and peddle their personal worlds of hell and misery to others in condescending ways. This is why I do not participate on other internet forums any more nor do I read the audio magazines anymore. The audio magazines, to me, are now just something to just read on the “john”. And, I do not read the internet magazine reviews for the same reasons.

I hate to say this, but this hobby has become anything but an artistic adventure for most that get into the hobby. Why is this? I have my own ideas on the answer to that question, but the sad fact remains is that our hobby of listening is shared by very few others who are really in it just for the artistic love of music even though droves profess to be music lovers. Art is generated from deep within and is a gift given to the artist from beyond. No gift from the beyond is filled with invective. “Invective” is man made and is not a gift from beyond. For me, I live in a small world of truly, genuine artistic people, who surround me in this hobby we call "audio". That, for me, is a sad commentary for a hobby which I truly love. This hobby has been in existence since the beginning of time and man has listened to the music around him and look at what it has become for many who could care less about the beauty of music and are more bent on abusing others and spreading their invective on other hobbyists.
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Jim Bookhard