The collectors' dilemma

So, it's not a matter of sexism, Troyen. It's a fact of life. And I don't think they are wrong. Possibly, we are.

For the audiophile issue, things are even worse. I haven't met a single woman to be interested in contemplating to receive, even as a gift, a hi-fi system. If, out of courtesy, they accept it, they will probably never properly use it.

Parla

In the bad old days when cars came with crappy, or no, sound systems, I'd spend days fixing up my wife's wheels with decent stereo. Gave that up after years of finding that whenever I drove hers, the sound would be adjusted however it had ended up after she'd accidentally nudged the controls a dozen times. Typically, the volume would be just above zero, balance and fade all the way over to one side or the other, treble and bass at either extreme. And she'd have the same tape (later cd) in there for months on end.

If she has music on in the house, more often than not it's something like Der Rosenkavalier on her store-bought ghetto-blaster in the kitchen in preference to either of two high-falutin sound systems standing idle in adjacent rooms. More than once I've found her very happily listening to a speaker whose cone surround had disintegrated, the voice coil rasping away like a poorly-tuned radio station. 

She loves her music, but how it arrives at her eardrums is immaterial as far as she's concerned.

Anyway, all this is by-the-way. If I read JAH right, he's looking for a girl who enjoys classical music. From time to time we've had some very knowledgeable ladies on here so it can't be that big an ask. How about joining a choir, JAH?

parla wrote

For the audiophile issue, things are even worse. I haven't met a single woman to be interested in contemplating to receive, even as a gift, a hi-fi system. If, out of courtesy, they accept it, they will probably never properly use it.

Parla

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What strange ideas some people have! Parla was obviously not a Gramophone reader when the audio section had a female equipment reviewer. I seem to recall her name was Caroline Osborne.

JAH wrote meanwhile "does anyone know a woman who collects cds as avidly...."

Troyen mentioned Hilary Finch meanwhile Schumann biographer Joan Chissell reviewed for Gramophone for decades so I would imagine she collected quite a few LPs, especially as those were the days when comparitive reviews were more common than today. I would also imagine she had reasonable equipment to play them on as she would frequently comment on the audio quality of the items she reviewed.

Both Pianist Magazine and International Piano magazine have female editors. Do they never listen to or collect CDs do you think? I also seem to recall Harriet Smith has been a CD/music magazine editor, I wonder how much of a collection she has? 

I think that love of classical music and collecting are two very different kettles of fish. Mission Control adores her music, but thinks I have several screws loose as I rhapsodise on the 15th version of opera x and why it's an essential purchase. I think the obsessive collecting 'bug' does generally seem to be a male preserve, regardless of the object being collected and obsessive nutters (or collectors) are, I should say, less prevalent in women who usually have a lot more common sense.

Incidentally, I remember about 30 or so years ago reading somewhere (in Gramophone?) that there was a curious phenomen where a very tiny part of the population did not hear stereo as stereo, but as two separate, unblended sound sources. The studies into this found that the phenomenon only ever affected women. I wonder whether anyone else remembers, or has heard of, this? I hasten to add that I'm not trying to make any point here, sexist or otherwise.

Women collect CDs? Well my daughter disposed of all of hers and now downloads anything she wants to her laptop and then transfers that to ipod.

I know, she should be doing the housework and other domestic tasks for which her brain was programmed.

Women, doncha just love the little darlings, more likely to collect shoes than CDs, the little darlings.

As for women and audio, well a fish is more likely to ride a bicycle.

Some time ago,I figured that if I listened to all the cds I own 24 hours a day,7 days a week,it would take me close to four months before I repeated a disc!That is VERY unsettling!It reminds me of the Rhyme Of The Ancient Mariner-water everywhere but can`t drink it.There is NO way possible that I will ever get to most of the discs.I try not to think about it or I`ll go crazy!And,like everybody else,I have my favorite select recordings that get played multiple times.