Should people who can't solder, build or test their speakers be considered audiophiles?



  So, if you bought that Porsche but can only drive it and not fix it do you really understand and appreciate what it is? I say no. The guy who can get in there and make it better, faster or prettier with his own hands has a superior ability to understand the final result and can appreciate what he has from a knowledge base and not just a look at what I bought base. I mean sure you can appreciate that car when you drive it but if all you do is take it back to the dealership for maintenance and repairs you just like the shape with no real understanding of what makes it the mechanical marvel it is.
  I find that is true with the audio world too. There are those who spend a ton of money on things and then spend a lot of time seeking peer approval and assurance their purchase was the right one and that people are suitably impressed. Of course those who are most impressed are those who also do not design, build, test or experiment.

  I propose that an audiophile must have more than a superficial knowledge about what he listens to and must technically understand what he is listening to. He knows why things work and what his end goal is and often makes his own components to achieve this. He knows how to use design software to make speakers that you can't buy and analyze the room they are in and set up the amplification with digital crossovers and DSP. He can take a plain jane system and tweak it and balance it to best suit the room it is in. He can make it sound far better than the guy who constantly buys new components based on his superficial knowledge who does not understand why what he keeps buying in vain never quite gets there.

  A true audiophile can define his goal and with hands on ability achieve what a mere buyer of shiny parts never will. So out comes the Diana Krall music and the buyer says see how good my system is? The audiophile says I have taken a great voice and played it through a system where all was matched and tweaked or even purposely built and sits right down next to Diana as she sings. The buyer wants prestigious signature sound and the audiophile will work to achieve an end result that is faithful true to life audio as though you were in the room with Diana as she sings. The true audiophile wants true to life and not tonally pure according to someones artificial standard.

 So are you a buyer or an audiophile and what do you think should make a person an audiophile?
mahlman
I don't think this was necessarily a superb video it was just the first one that amused me. Have to admit I was thinking of the $250 beeswax impregnated fuses and $60,000 speaker wires (Hey that is what they are, right?) I have seen for sale and found some of the comments funnier than the video. It's the utter absurdity of so much of what I read that was on my mind when the video was picked and I was not going to waste much time looking for the perfect one.
  The pretentious flowery audiophile jargon seen in so many listings is an immediate danger flag to me that says here are people buying/selling things based on phrases as much as anything. Then they can turn around and tell their friends what they are hearing in those same exact words and it looks cool and on and on it goes. What was it PT Barnum said some time ago?

My belief is a lot of the claims I read for a lot of "audiophile" grade must have improvements are just junk and word salad meant to appeal to the same bunch that inspired this thread. Beside this video were many others extolling the virtue of wires and fuses and speaker cables with directional arrows because you know electricity follows the arrows. Most were hawkers of such gear or reviewers sent free gear I figure.
What’s this, Revenge of the Nerds II? Inmate Uprising III? High School Confidential? 😬
mahlman: 
" " I will say the manure is spread deep 😄 "
  Have to have it to grow good crops.

     I do enjoy threads that begin with a premise that is full of manure.  These manure ball threads tend to roll downhill quite naturally and satisfyingly well.

Tim
Once a troll always a troll. If people respond sometimes it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. 🐟🐠🐟🐠
Geoff, Yesterday a post of mine was removed. Going by Agon's guidelines of the four offered reasons, in their email to me, abuse towards another member" had to be it. The only member it possibly be toward is you. Was I wrong? 😔