Nothing, that is, except for me to hold Julia and her mother, Janet, hostage to my crank-literary whims: We drove to a friend's house in Troy, New York, and put our chicken in their oven. Then I got out my computer and went directly to the source with the following questions about women and their relationships with domestic audio. (For the record, Janet owns a Rega Planar 3 turntable in Union Jack finish, Julia a Thorens TD 124 Mk.II turntable in cream enamel. Both collect and regularly buy LPs.) Here is a transcript of our conversation:
ART: Do you consider yourselves to be feminists? [I already knew the answer to this one.]
JANET: Yes.
JULIA: Oh yes!
ART: Do you consider yourselves to have an average interest in music?
JANET: Above average.
JULIA: Yes, above average.
ART: Do you consider yourselves to be audiophiles?
JANET: [hesitates] Yes . . . yes, I do.
JULIA: I think my answer would have to be "Yes, with reservations."
ART: What, if anything, keeps you at arm's length from throwing in your lot with other audiophiles?
JANET: Nothing holds me back, because I have been educated [slight chuckle] to know what good sound is and what bad sound is. So I have no reservations.
JULIA: I would say that I don't know anyone else my age who is also an audiophile, so I don't see myself as part of that demographic.
ART: Is there anything you see in the general behavior of audiophiles, as a group, that keeps you at a distance?
JULIA: An unspecific atmosphere of mostly unknowing condescension.
JANET: I just don't know what to say to that. I mean, I don't have a problem with the demographic, but . . . some of these guys need a date!
ART: The condescension and the, let's say, awkwardness—do you see those as gender-specific characteristics?
JANET: Yes. [long pause] However: Women just haven't had a crack at being such big douchebags as the worst male audiophiles! [laughs]
JULIA: As my primary interactions with audiophiles have all been with men, my perceptions can't help but be gender-specific.
JANET: And by the way, there is also a financial component: If I wanted a pair of DeVore speakers, with some work I could probably make that happen—but you [points at Julia] couldn't get the line of credit you need.
ART: Do you think men and women listen to music in the same ways?
JULIA: I would say they do listen in the same way, but maybe they focus on different things when they listen.
JANET: I think there are differences. I'm able to have it as background music, whereas a lot of men can't. But I can also switch gears and put on my audiophile hat.
*****
NB: While transcribing that conversation, I had to request that the background music—Frank Sinatra's Strangers in the Night—be turned off. Speaking only for myself, I can't tolerate music as an adjunct to any other activity, apart from perhaps eating and drinking (and I'm not even wild about doing that). In any event, it's a terrible album. The title song stinks. The performance of "Downtown" is like a parody of Sinatra. And that cheesy electric organ: whose idea was that?
The Good, the Bad, and the King
This is ground well-trodden, by me and by others: Just as I adhere to a more or less triennial schedule when it comes to writing columns about phono-cartridge alignment, the joys of monophonic sound, and the superiority of physical media, so do I return, locust-like, to the subject of Why must some audiophiles be so pathetically combative? Looking back, I see that my past columns on the subject have been light on helpful answers. Yet today, in a year when we've witnessed record numbers of women elected to public office in both the US and the free world, the answer seems simple: because the vast majority of audiophiles are men, some of whom behave badly, often out of that distinctly male combination of competitiveness, materialism, and pure greed—hoarders of vintage audio gear, come on down—and because no one has spent the time and the care and the love to tell them how poorly some non-audiophilic music lovers view them and, as a consequence, the hobby they pursue.
Surely, little else keeps music-loving women from our ranks. The disparity between men's and women's pay, unconscionable and intolerable though it is, needn't work against them here: most of the best-sounding products I've heard are far from the most expensive in their categories, perhaps even their product lines. And as far as I know, being an audiophile requires little in the way of upper-body strength, that rare metric in which men, on average, actually do have an edge over women: Yes, some power amplifiers, in particular, are stupidly heavy—but here, too, most of my favorites are not. (With each passing year, manufacturers of high-end amplifiers use ever-more-gargantuan lumps of aluminum to suppress the resonances that might affect sound quality. I suppose that works on some level, but I continue to wonder: In what universe is that sort of thing considered clever engineering?)
In any event, I feel strongly that, if male audiophiles put forth even the slightest effort to make female audiophiles feel more welcome, the latter might begin appearing in this hobby in droves. I'm not saying we have to empty the ashtray, vacuum the floor mats, get rid of the trash that's piled up on the back seat, add a few potted plants, and let someone else take the wheel—just turn those giant, metal-studded testosterone dials a wee bit to the left. There would be fewer slugfests on the chatsites (maybe fewer chatsites, too—or at least more civil ones), and thus fewer sleepless nights for those poor, sensitive bastards who stay up into the wee hours, arguing with men named BoogieMan and Megadoom about cable break-in and tube rolling and my own favorite topic, those asshole reviewers. Then we can forget about who has more bass than whom, and turn our attention to more important matters (such as who has more records).
I used to love spending time in musical-instrument shops. I used to be one of those idiots who, given a freshly minted Saturday morning and a pretty girlfriend by my side, couldn't wait to convince a teensy corner of the music world of my imagined superiority. Nothing came of it but a weary girlfriend and the mostly unspoken disdain of strangers. Better I should have stayed home and practiced. More to the point, better I should have stayed home and listened, instead of demanding to be heard.
It's never too late to start.
This is ground well-trodden, by me and by others: Just as I adhere to a more or less triennial schedule when it comes to writing columns about phono-cartridge alignment, the joys of monophonic sound, and the superiority of physical media, so do I return, locust-like, to the subject of Why must some audiophiles be so pathetically combative? Looking back, I see that my past columns on the subject have been light on helpful answers. Yet today, in a year when we've witnessed record numbers of women elected to public office in both the US and the free world, the answer seems simple: because the vast majority of audiophiles are men, some of whom behave badly, often out of that distinctly male combination of competitiveness, materialism, and pure greed—hoarders of vintage audio gear, come on down—and because no one has spent the time and the care and the love to tell them how poorly some non-audiophilic music lovers view them and, as a consequence, the hobby they pursue.
