I think any hobby that attracts interest in the first place also attracts "purists". Coffee. Computers. Photography. Shaving (and the eight different major sub variants of shaving methods). Smoking meat. Smoking tobacco. Vaping. Audio equipment.

Pick a wikipedia page and chances are that scattered across the world, you'll find a handful or more of purists dedicating themselves to that subject. The internet has made it much simpler for these purists to indulge in their obsession with the meta.

Meanwhile most of the people into a hobby keep on just doing it with the equipment and materials they have. The purists do the hobbyist [1] a service in that they discuss every myriad detail at great length, frequently. The hobbyist gets free research this way, and the purist can continue to feel satisfied in their knowledge of the subject.

1. It's not that purists aren't also hobbyists - but their hobby as often the meta of the subject as much as the doing of the subject.

Add Chess to that list, people argue constantly about which is the best set and which style of pieces are the right ones.

I just bought a 20 dollar vinyl board and some plastic touranment staunton pieces from ebay - the exact same ones the local chess club uses.

I'm also into Cycling and it's much the same there as well, My carbon bike was £800 and I ride it 2-3 times a week, I have friends who spent £4000 and ride it once a month (and have to have full carbon everything) always struck me as crazy but it's their money.

I've noticed in myself the opposite trend: an almost perverse desire to use the worst possible physical tools, so to better distance myself from the "posers". I've happily programmed for hours a day for years on a $300 Acer Aspire One. I still use the same kneadable eraser bought 15 years ago in a cheap tienda. I'll use the cheapest brushes and crappiest car. I've got a cheap guitar, and a cheaper banjo, despite playing in shows regularly. It's like I want to prove to myself that I'm "doing it" enough that I don't need the fancy equipment. But I think it's still just vanity - just in the other direction.

Audiophiles - probably the most prominent example of them all.

I have a friend like this. I've been in bands in the past and worked in (even built my own) studios. I seen and partaken the 24/96 vs. 16/48 debate (spoiler: that only matters in the studio). I've worked with high end mics, pres, dacs, boards, tape, etc.

The big thing we tangle on is always digital vs. analog. Oh boy.... Zzzzz... I've cut tape and editing on analog sucks. Noise on analog is not ideal. Compression and 'natural' bottom end warmth are nice. But that's where it stops. Most of (all of?) these things can now be simulated by plugins. We don't even have to say digital has won because it's so obvious. Analog is there for the minority purists.

This debate has between us has taken many hours over many years. Oh yah, let's not forget vinyl too!..

I've had to recently redirect the argument to musicianmanship, which I feel is really where the rubber meets the road. It all starts at the source. If your source sucks, then you'll have some work to do to fix it. Stuff like autotune, sample triggers, etc. In this way, analog is better as it will demand more of the musician's performance. Hard to swap out the kick drum on analog.

All in all, I personally don't think any non-studio experienced audiophiles would know if something was recorded digitally vs. analog. There are so many things you can do now and unless you know those studio 'tricks', you can't even tell. This has already been the case since the 90's I think. Everything can pretty much be simulated, processed, filtered, chopped, moved, etc.

One great resource for all this is Ken Andrews. Look him up. He's got a lot of great stories and insight on recording.

My advice to my friend: learn the tools and use what make sense artistically. But debate for theory's sake is pointless in my mind.

My theory about audiophiles is that a lot of them grew up in the 1970s-1990s where there really was a huge difference between "high end" and consumer grade audio. That gap has narrowed considerably. I think there's also a lot more people these days out there actually explaining the engineering and science in good audio (in the old days technical details were considerably harder to look up), this makes it hard to push "marketing oriented" product (eg those infamous audiophile cables). My impression currently is that the audiophile hobby kind of was dying off.

I do think there's a few areas where analog still is a bit better technically (mostly from the musician perspective, things such as distortion and resonant filters), but digital is both often better and just so much more convenient for 90% of things. Those that embrace analog as a religion are rather annoying.

Now, I do remember in the 1980s there was a huge push of digital everything -- digital playback, "digitally remastered", etc. A fair bit of that at the time had major issues -- eg not very nice sounding DA stages, aliasing problems, etc. Perhaps this is where some of this attitude comes from.

Modern "audiophile" gear is much better today than in the 90s, especially for the same price points, but my observation is that there's a divergence between hipsters that prefer gear older than themselves looking for something unique and those that seek technical specs religiously and know where to optimize for best technical sound. I just want the best sound I can get within a reasonable budget even if I could tell the difference if I spent $1000+ more on a better amp.

Most of the anti-digital people I know fall into two overlapping camps - technophobes that don't know how basic DACs work (believing that digital audio means output of literal square and stepper waves into the air) or those that simply prefer older recordings from a point of nostalgia or artistic taste. Showing conclusively that some of their favorite records were mastered digitally before being compressed and filtered for LP is similar to watching climate change deniers try to reason via strawman and red herring arguments.

"Listeningphiles" "Observingphiles" good point

The opposite is real musicians.

You would be surprised then by how snooty some musicians are about gear.

You don't have a vetted guitar, amplifier, mixer or a microphone? Yep.

That said, they sometimes have a point.

Classic wet shaving is a bit like that.

I'm not sure if it's exactly the same as your examples though, as a lot of people into this particular hobby definitely do use and enjoy the different products. "Shave of the day" posts on forums typically show posters different set ups, with the same users having a vast rotation of gear. I guess it'd be like having lots of different pens or skateboards.

But I've also seen many different people say that they started using a DE safety razor to save money, but have ended up spending a small fortune on new gear.

Some video-games also have this in spades. I know I've pored over weapon stats to see which gadget is preferable, when just getting good at the game would have had a bigger impact than 10 more raw power points or the slight speed bonus that a particular hat gave me.

The problem with "just getting good at the game" is that it may take even more time than theorycrafting that has some objectively better result (the usual term that WoW players used when I played at least). With action games there's a certain point when you can play more but you're at a plateau because you're limited by skill and have few means to even know what to improve. Focused practice matters for any activity involving skill, but I dunno what black abyss of learning exists between me flailing my mouse like an idiot and the dudes that no scope headshots on 20 pixels reliably. Industry marketing likes to tell me I need a new mouse (some 4000+ dpi thing), new monitor (144 Hz+), but I think I'm missing something more basic like basic hand-eye coordination that gear will not solve.

I've often said it like this: "There are those who want to be something (a writer) and those who want to have been something." They want to be able to look back and say they were something but sure didn't want to put in the time to actually do it.

Photogrophy is more about thinking in light and shadow than lenses and metapixels. Programming is more about thinking in states and interfaces than keyboards and displays.

You can only master abstract ideas through concrete practice and active thinking about the problems.

Falling down hurts but it's how you get better go out n skate!