Audiophiles, Music, and Equipment: Can We Be Both "Conservative" AND "Progressive"?

The terms “conservative” and “progressive” can be highly differentiating, polarizing, and clearly segmenting among those who identify as one, or the other. As audiophiles, can we sit back for a moment, take a look inward and ask ourselves the question: “Can we be a little bit of both?”

We’ll start with the premise that the “audiophile” is a music lover, high fidelity equipment connoisseur and generally good person. Great works have been around for centuries. We’ve seen various arrangements, variations, covers, remastering, artistic interpretations, etc. of the original work. We may enjoy the updated versions of the work with instrumentation or technology that was not available at the time. A recent topic on this forum mentioned that an enduring classical piece written for solo piano is most recognized as a full orchestral rendition -- Pictures at an Exhibition. Sometimes the “cover” is more commercially successful than the original writer/songwriter version and, in many cases, a vast improvement of the work. As much as we may welcome, or even prefer, the newer form(s) of the work, something anchors our hearts and souls to the original. We believe that it should be around forever. “Conserving” the piece as the artist intended not only supports and archives accurate music history but allows us to enjoy and fully acknowledge of the genius of who created it. The concepts of “Leave the original intact”, we might say (conserve) and “Allow others to apply their unique talents to create something special” (progressive) may actually coexist in the music world.

The equipment we’ve fondly tinkered with for decades may follow a similar trajectory. We all remember the pieces that just blew us away and began a life-long journey in pursuit of better sound. Numerous principles guiding "better sound" from the past are still relevant today, continually assessed by engineers and audiophiles worldwide. We also remember those moments when “the newest thing” failed to meet expectations. And those times when our patience paid off and those breakthrough technologies finally matured and earned a distinguished place in our audio racks – possibility pushing aside tenured and reliable pieces. “It’s time to move on” appears quite frequently on this forum and rings true for many participants. Others want to “hang on to what they got” for a variety of reasons: financial, emotional, physical, logistics, etc. Or, in their view, the gear may still be performing at its peak and can sonically compete quite well on the open market today. So, there is no strong motivation to change. Yet, there’s this desire to be “progressive”-- not marooned in an audio sense, left by themselves on an island of obsolete ideas and outdated equipment. This dichotomy reveals a synergy among active audiophiles—a desire to maintain what is familiar, competent, and operational while embracing the urge for progress. More often than not, we’ll see a hybrid of both “old school” and “cutting edge” in the same system – perhaps even inside the same chassis.

The conventional tug-of-war between conservative and progressive ideologies might not entirely encapsulate the audiophile community as it relates to music and the equipment designed to reproduce it. We are grown up enough to acknowledge both, and there is more than one “right” answer to a problem.