Aficionados won’t like me, but I don’t need the expensive stuff that they peddle.
By all means, enjoy what you enjoy, but don’t start peddling your stuff to me. Oftentimes, your stuff is not even objectively better, that is, if you don’t willfully ignore the studies that disprove your position. However, even the notion of objectivity falls apart when you consider who you are talking to.
When you are talking to me, you are talking to someone who has medically diagnosed hearing loss in the left ear. I think I also have an undiagnosed auditory processing issue on top of it, but that’s not proved. I’m also autistic. Mind you, I did not use to lean on my autism as a reason your peddling does not apply to me, but I’m going to start now.
Let’s start with the notion that your hi-fi will totally change my listening experience, or that I somehow have to buy vinyl albums, or that analog audio is inherently better. Here, the very objective studies that you take pains to ignore have shown that you are wrong. No, I’m not going to link to them here. It is a waste of time, in my experience. You can go on believing what you will and plunking down big buck chasing after a pipe dream. Though, in the end, I guess you prefer what you prefer, and I prefer what I prefer. Just don’t turn your preferences into rules.
On top of the fact that studies disprove your position, see above. I’m partially deaf. Even if you could prove by A + B that your system is better than mine (and you can’t), I would not hear the difference. Why should I plunk an extra amount of money towards something that I don’t need. Bragging right? Maybe that’s where the autism comes into play. I don’t give a rat’s ass about bragging rights. I used to drive a truck because I lived on almost 9 acres of forested land. I’m now in a small apartment. The truck is gone.
“Okay, you’re deaf, but what about the coffee?”
Similarly, I don’t think that the differences that ponderous coffee aficionados like to harp on would register with me. Or maybe they wouldn’t register with the same impact. What good does it do me to buy the expensive beans that have been harvested by Buddhist monks in the Himalayas, if I cannot tell the difference? Mind you, I’m not a complete dunce. I do listen to some of the advice I can get, and I do follow a procedure. However, I think the return on investment hits its limit pretty fast with me.
Again, autism may play a part in this. Our senses are either understimulated or overstimulated. Some of my autistic friends might be able to taste differences that most aficionados cannot, or they may be overstimulated in a way that makes all coffee distasteful to them. Again, that’s the point of spending big bucks on something that won’t make a positive difference in their life.
The examples I gave here are only a small slice of the pie. I also know of products that some people like to repackage and would have you believe that they are superior to the original, when, in fact, they are the exact same product!
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