You know you have audiophile system when...
The definition of an audiophile systems is truly unknown, but recently after dabbling with tube rolling, power cables, and interconnects my system achieved a level where its clarity was no longer what grabbed my attention. Instead, I was distinctly hearing the bloom and decay of every note in the music. It’s just a different level that I believe has me listening to music differently. It translates into greater dynamics and voices and instruments having more distinct vibrato characteristics.
The term was coined in 1951, and I think it is a perfectly fine term. Sure it is all about the music first. But that doesn’t mean the gear is not also fun as hell. I guess audio enthusiast is synonymous, which I am also fine with. But just because someone is an audiophile, does not mean that the music does not come first.
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@simonmoon Agree it's just fine and right in line with what you've said. Broken down into its Latin and Greek roots audiophile simply means a "lover of sound"--doesn't mean " lover of sound equipment"...Although reasonably good equipment is generally necessary to make that sound as close to live as possible, being an audiophile does not mean you must own high-end gear. |
@simonmoon + 1 |
@simonmoon - I'm not sure that I agree with you that the majority of audiophiles are "music first" in their enjoyment. I know way more people that enjoy music than enjoy audio equipment. People that are truly music first seem to be able to equally enjoy music live, on the radio in the car, or over the speakers that grocery store equally. In my experience, most of them don't even recognize the value of an high end system. It's curious to me why so few people will listen to a system like mine and not immediately recognize how superior it is to anything that they have heard before, but even within the subset of those that do recognize and enjoy the difference almost none feel any need to get into high end gear. My conclusion is that for the vast majority of people the actual sound quality of the music doesn't improve their listening experience in a meaningful way. Obviously, audiophiles do greatly enjoy music or else they wouldn't invest so much of their time and resources in the hobby, but I think that if sound quality is a factor then the music itself is already taking a step back. On a related note, I queued up some music for my wife last night that I know she enjoys and the end result was an Amazon search for a better quality recording. It was an exceedingly poor recording that was unlistenable even for her. I was prepared to gut it out with the goal of her truly enjoying the music. Even her music first approach to listening has its limits. I wonder if I played it through my home theater receiver with some processing if it could be salvaged?
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