I recall a letter to Stereophile, way back when they were a small paperback book format. A reader claimed he owned some 24,000 records! And according to him, this made him the ultimate audiophile, and anyone with less than 10,000 albums should not be allowed to voice an opinion. They printed his letter, with no rebuttals. I was flabbergasted! That anyone could have such a snobbish attitude about stereo! I did the math, and it would be impossible for him to listen to even half of his records in his whole life. If he played 10 albums a night, every night without fail, and never played the same one twice, it would take nearly 7 years! While my measly collection consisted of around 500 at that time, I thought to myself, if you owned but one album that you truly enjoyed, that moved your soul, then you had a right to own a nice system to hear it on! Now maybe one album is an exaggeration, but you get my point. My collection swelled to nearly a thousand, at one time, but I took all the ones that I didn't like and sold them, spent the money on more gear! Perhaps that makes me a gear head? Talking about the different kinds of Audiophiles, I do think there are ones who are more about their collection, and others who are more about the gear, even though they do go hand in hand.
I do like some classical, a little jazz, but am a rock fan most of all, and have been to hundreds of rock concerts. And believe me, no one wants to reproduce a rock concert! Very few that I would ever say sounded good. But! When I am critically listening to my music I am hearing the studio venue, and a good recording from a good engineer can take me to that place. That I feel like I was in that room where the music was recorded, in the studio with those musicians. And being a musician, I know what that sounds like. And perhaps therein lies the difference between regular people and audiophiles? Do normal people analyze music? Do they critically listen for those minute details?
Especially when young people are in the room, I will ask them, "Do you know what instrument that is?", "What instrument is making that sound?", and I am often amazed that they have no idea! They aren't even listening. They are singing along to the words, but are paying no attention to the actual music at all. And I also see that is an issue with modern pop music, it's all about the style and personality of the singer, and their accompaniment is a Casio keyboard. If Audiophilia is on the decline, perhaps it's partially due to the fact that modern music does not benefit from a good system? Perhaps if youngsters were exposed to better music then it would increase their interest in better reproduction? When I say youngster, I'm referring to those under 30, younger than me, let's say.
