Last night my wife and I had some of her family come over for dinner. At some point after dinner with the wine flowing and everybody in a relaxed mood, the subject of my new interest in higher-quality audio and headphones came up, leading to me going into a long, rambling dissertation on the joys of higher-quality audio. I could see my wife's uncle and cousin starting to have their eyes roll into the back of their heads, but before I completely lost them, I go and grab my laptop with Qobuz, and plug my new Audeze LCD-X's connected with the AudioQuest Cobalt into my laptop. Nothing too fancy I know, but it was enough for me to query them with, "What's your favorite song that you know how it sounds really well?"
Her uncle takes a moment, and eventually asks to hear Stevie Wonder's "Another Star". We pull it up, he puts on the earphones, and after about two minutes of listening he tears up. I don't show it, but in my mind I'm thinking, "HOLY crap!!!!"
I mean, this guy isn't a Neanderthal or anything, where he's not connected to his emotions, but he's not the type to wear his hear on his sleeves by any means either. Slowly, he puts the headphones down, comes to give me a huge, heartfelt hug and says, "Now I get it." Not to get too corny, but it really was a beautiful, emotional moment. One I'll remember for a long time.
As someone who's relatively new to the hobby there were several lessons for me. It was the first time I felt the FUN of trying to share why I'm excited about being an Audiophile with the relatively uninformed. Secondly, while I do enjoy reading and educating myself (slowly) with all the knowledge here, and there's often a strong focus on equipment and the search for the "endgame" DAP, DAC, Headphones, etc. which can be fun, NOTHING can beat the beauty of getting closer to the music, no matter what equipment gets us there.
This morning, both my wife's uncle and cousin said they're now interested in attending the upcoming Rocky Mountain Audio Fest show which is local for us. I'm looking forward to having some company instead of attending the show on my own, but it'll be really interesting to see if/how they both develop as they potentially begin their own Audiophile journey. Good stuff!
Her uncle takes a moment, and eventually asks to hear Stevie Wonder's "Another Star". We pull it up, he puts on the earphones, and after about two minutes of listening he tears up. I don't show it, but in my mind I'm thinking, "HOLY crap!!!!"
I mean, this guy isn't a Neanderthal or anything, where he's not connected to his emotions, but he's not the type to wear his hear on his sleeves by any means either. Slowly, he puts the headphones down, comes to give me a huge, heartfelt hug and says, "Now I get it." Not to get too corny, but it really was a beautiful, emotional moment. One I'll remember for a long time.
As someone who's relatively new to the hobby there were several lessons for me. It was the first time I felt the FUN of trying to share why I'm excited about being an Audiophile with the relatively uninformed. Secondly, while I do enjoy reading and educating myself (slowly) with all the knowledge here, and there's often a strong focus on equipment and the search for the "endgame" DAP, DAC, Headphones, etc. which can be fun, NOTHING can beat the beauty of getting closer to the music, no matter what equipment gets us there.
This morning, both my wife's uncle and cousin said they're now interested in attending the upcoming Rocky Mountain Audio Fest show which is local for us. I'm looking forward to having some company instead of attending the show on my own, but it'll be really interesting to see if/how they both develop as they potentially begin their own Audiophile journey. Good stuff!
