What is wrong with audiophiles?

The problem with us audiophiles is that our perennial quest for audio satisfaction is often beleaguered by the various misinformers they we may encounter along the way.

Some of those we encounter may mean well, and some no doubt will be plotting to ambush and rob us soon after we embark upon what is usually a solitary lifelong mission.

It is certainly a dangerous mission, not as dangerous as mountain climbing - but still one that may take an entire lifetime and a large amount of free capital at our disposal.

Even worse, there is no guarantee of success as the sheer number of disillusioned long time audiophiles out there will attest to. 

Young man take care...

I would propose a simple rule for posters on this forum. If you have not auditioned a particular class of gear (i.e. power cables, cable elevators) or a particular piece of gear (amp, speakers, whatever) then you shouldn't have an opinion on how they sound, whether or not they make a difference, or if they are worth the money.

I am highly skeptical by nature but I have heard some pretty amazing differences when I didn't expect to. This has taught me to be humble about things I haven't tried like little pea sized metal thingies you stick to the wall or even cable elevators. I live in a semi-rural community so I don't have any local audio buddies (my best audio friend lives across the country) so I just have to sit here and wonder about things like 5 figure power cords. I've been to a couple audio shows and had the fortunate experience of hearing some demonstrations that overwhelmed my skeptical bias.

When non-audiophiles have heard my system I have often gotten an incredulous response. They look at me with and expression of "I can't believe this" and will say something like "I had no idea. The musicians are right there." As millercarbon stated it's the imaging that really gets them but the full range, the detail, and dynamics are big factors.

So my question @millercarbon is how do I get invited to one of your parties? I'll bring a nice bottle of whatever you're having and I promise to let it breathe.

We live in a contentious and polarized world. Moderation is rare. And there is a good deal of ego channeled through audio choices. I would say that “audiophile” differences in perception and reaction are to some extent informed by the social and political world around us as well as our own learned modes of perception.

 

Few seem to have a sense of the complexity of neurological processes, learning curve, and experiences that underpin perception. While there may be an audio event that one person perceives, another will have different neurological experience and perception. Think of the variety of perception and activity involved in playing a violin or hitting a baseball. While there might be one audio event, it will be perceived differently by virtually every listener. My wife, who is a music lover of great experience but not an audiophile, hears aspects of recordings that I don’t notice until she points them out to me. And then I learn something new about perception and try to add it to my perception and learning as makes sense.

 

Let us enjoy the music as fully as we can.

@8th-note: " I would propose a simple rule for posters on this forum. If you have not auditioned a particular class of gear (i.e. power cables, cable elevators) or a particular piece of gear (amp, speakers, whatever) then you shouldn’t have an opinion on how they sound, whether or not they make a difference, or if they are worth the money."                                                                                                                                             Good luck, getting a cadre of OCD gum-flappers to observe any such, "simple rule"(ESPECIALLY, given the logic).

Ordinary people should be so blown away by your system I doubt they would say it sounded any different because you took off a cable elevator. Have them close their eyes next time instead of you talking it up first.

As a matter of fact what happens is they come in and "Oooh! Ahhh!" and sit down and I turn off the lights and they listen in the dark. Well there is a lava lamp. And LEDs. But basically dark.

So this is another great comment to ask once again What is wrong with audiophiles??? Because in this case its been made perfectly clear these things did in fact happen. Not just once either but repeatedly, so often I’ve lost count, and over a period of many years. So who in their right mind would have the arrogance to say, "I doubt they would..." Only someone who either cannot read, or who is calling me a liar.

What is wrong with audiophiles is generic. Now I have to ask, What is wrong with YOU, delkal?

Casual listeners used to iPods and AVRs don’t even know what to listen for. 95 % of the "ordinary people" have no idea what a soundstage or imaging is.

Right. So now the question is, "Do YOU?"

Soundstage and imaging are words. Words that audiophiles banter about because like every other specialized language the one word "soundstage" is a whole lot more efficient than "the believable illusion of sounds coming from all across the front of the room, with the sound of each instrument and singer appearing to come from its own unique location in the room, in width and depth, as if it really was there in real life."

A phenomenon that was there all along. So audiophiles know a few specialized words. Keep in mind however that specialized lingo is there to facilitate communication between the adept. Superior vocabulary does not make you superior.

For the record, nobody ever, not one person in 30 years of doing this, has ever needed to be told to listen for imaging, soundstaging, or any of that. What they all do, every single one of them, is prove beyond a shadow of a doubt they are in fact hearing it. They do this a million ways. They point. They get up and look around. They take pictures (a recent irritating habit, I am about ready to ban cell phones from my listening room). They get up and move around while the music is playing coming closer and closer moving side to side trying to figure out the boundaries of this illusion. One even got up and looked under the blanket covering the TV, so convinced he was there was a speaker hiding behind it.

So let there be no doubt, no doubt whatsoever that ordinary people and casual listeners hear imaging and soundstaging. They do. The arrogance of someone, to assume otherwise.

What is wrong with audiophiles!!!!!

auxinput has an answer! Well one of them anyway, for sure:

I think a lot of what has happened here with "audiophiles" is "perception bias". They get locked onto a perception of what something "should be" instead of the actuality of "what is". This means that whatever idea or product or brand has been suggested or documented somewhere (i.e. professional reviews, engineering measurements, etc.) becomes an influence to almost an obsession where the "audiophile" is no longer listening but responding to an idea. A lot of this is human nature and is difficult to change. The downside here is that some people get so obsessed that it becomes a religious crusade in which everyone else needs to be converted to their ideas. This is an unfortunate bi-product of what has happened on this forum.

Definitely a great big grain of truth here.

I get pushback all the time from audiophiles for saying to disregard all the reasons, just go and listen, because the reasons are almost always all BS. Normal people, never. Normal people all seem to know there are things we simply do not understand. Normal people are, er, perfectly normal in this. Not audiophiles. Audiophiles seem to want to believe the BS. Or maybe its not just that they want to drink the Kool-Aid. Maybe its also they like to feel superior, and pseudo-tech talk does that for them.

For sure I have been at audio club demos where guys who had just heard the round cones sound totally better than the pointy spike cones would nevertheless stand there pontificating on how necessary the pointy spikes are to "grounding" or "isolation" whatever. Yada yada. Like you didn’t just hear it. Then when another one says well maybe what you’re hearing isn’t more detail its hyped attack and treble they look at him like he’s from Mars. Which makes no sense if you’re a listener, but total sense if you’re an audiophile locked onto a perception of what "should be".

Good one!