TIME Magazine and the Audiophilia “Disease”

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

CNET blogger Steve Guttenberg thinks TIME magazine may have been joking when it published its article on “Audiophilia” as a disease back in 1957. Here’s an excerpt from the original story:

What distinguishes the psychopathological addict from the enthusiastic followers of this (or any other) hobby? Dr. Bowes answered: “His tendency to become preoccupied with, and dependent upon, the bizarre recorded sounds . . . combined with the urgency of the need and the final insufficiency of all attempts to satisfy it … The sound is turned up and up until it reaches the physical level of pain . . . One addict told me he would not be satisfied until he could hear the drop of saliva from the French horns.”

Sounds about right to me! Read the entire TIME article, and check out Steve Guttenberg’s post about it.