What is an audiophile? Are you an audiophile?

A lover of music is a person that can sit and listen to music on any system regardless of the quality or cost.

An Audiophile cannot.  If the reproduction of music isn't up to their quality standards, it will drive them out of the room.  Like hearing finger nails across a chalk board.  or as is my case, styrofoam.

To me, it isn't necessarily the costs of the equipment that matters, but how well that equipment reproduces the music.  Often, costs does play a factor, as most times (not always) you get what you pay for.  But not always.

An Audiophile knows what musical instruments actually sound like and can discern whether or not a system is accurately reproducing the musical instruments.  Or dimensionality, sound stage, etc.  This is all dependent on whether the artist actually used real instruments in their recordings, miked correctly for sound stage, etc.  if it isn't there in the recording, then it isn't there and just enjoy the music for what it is.

But an Audiophile isn't necessarily an audio snob, just like a wine enthusiast isn't necessarily a wine snob.  There are audiophiles that are snobs and wine enthusiast that are wine snobs.  But, they are just snobs regardless.

Same for car, watch, book, fashion, art, etc. enthusiast.  Doesn't make them snobs.  just enthusiast or experts.  

Snobs rub your face in their absolute (in their opinion) understanding that they and only they know everything to know about a subject.  I joke that a snob is someone that tells you what you like.

Anyway, enjoy

@minorl 

I've never enjoyed music more than when I was 8 years old, listening to WABC on a  transistor radio in bed on cold winter nights. To me, it's the physical/emotional/spiritual connection with music that I most treasure-- in the end it's far more important than having a high-end system. 

Snobs rub your face in their absolute (in their opinion) understanding that they and only they know everything to know about a subject. 

Yep. There's one a few posts above.

Let’s not forget that music reproduced by Hifi is a step backwards fidelity wise, compared to how music had been enjoyed since its inception. Music was always played live and in person, often by family members to entertain each other.

Being an audiophile is nothing more than seeking the experience of being in the same acoustic space as when the music was performed, to be able to experience as closely as possible the musical intent of the musicians and composers.

Audiophiles have kept alive the lost activity of sitting just really listening to music. I would venture to say a very small percentage of the population sits down to do nothing other than listen, just as one would during a performance.

Today music is a background, a soundtrack for life while we’re doing other things.

Audiophiles are deep music listeners, lovers of the emotion behind the music. We appreciate the beauty and tone of the compositions. We seek to be moved, excited, and most of all to experience the drama of the performance.

I sometimes joke that I have the best jazz club in the city. I get to spend time with many of the long gone legends of music. But they are resurrected nightly through sonic holograms that allow me to share the same sonic space of the original event.

To travel back in time to Rudy Van Gelder’s living room, to a Bill Evans club date, to a performance whose master tape was long ago damaged or lost in a fire.

The deep focus on the music is almost meditative. The subtle cues of live music recreated allow the emotion to flow. There’s an intimacy between performer and audience that occurs when everything is dialed in, and it’s thrilling.

And while we all have our test tracks and reference cuts used to evaluate the system, once that critical phase is completed, out comes the music that is played for pleasure. As my system gets better and better, it’s not fewer recordings that sound good, but more recordings, average and even ancient.

Nobody in his sane mind can contest this fact...

Music is a spiritual experience way over the acoustic one....

Music is a therapeutic nevermind the system /room price tag or S.Q.

An audiophile is like what the poster above suggest  someone who learn each day how to listen, enjoying music ...

To me, it’s the physical/emotional/spiritual connection with music that I most treasure-- in the end it’s far more important than having a high-end system.