What makes Audiophile?
- Thread starter JustinICT
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Djcoolray
Addicted Member
You said it....
What does make an audiophile is arguable !!!
Because no one reacts to sound or any other stimulus the same...sound, coffee, 70% dark chocolate or alcohol. Not everyone gets goosebumps and chivers up and down their spine when they first hear a great system and have to replicate that experience and make it a permanent part of their life. There have been divorces over stereo equipment.....because of how much people are enthralled by sound. What artists do with sound only makes the situation more endearing. But if your having the worst day in your life with the worst headache of your life and sound from a great stereo system makes your headache go away faster than a tablet of Motrin......you just might be an audiophile !!! Fact is, the reason for why some people love sound so much has already been medically proven. The suffix “phile” denotes an uncontrollable human passion included in the slang term audiophile and from the behavior of many on this site the ideal has been more than proven. Audiophile is about the person and not the equipment, the equipment is just a tool and the quality of equipment an audiophile uses has been called audiophile grade equipment over the years.
You just might be an audiophile if......
Djcoolray
Addicted Member
I’ve got an idea...
A showdown between new and newly restored, a comparison of new and later modeled TOTL equipment. Stuff dreams are made of....because until someone does a side by side, anything anyone has to say on the topic is habitual rhetoric. Because there was just too much equipment manufacturered over the years to to think that a few newer models have to sound the best...
mfrench
Addicted Member
I want a copy!seriously.
This is Sarge, her new turkey call, and the turkeys up on the hill,.. and crows, and sparrows and other local birds, and barking dog Rasshole (Rascal), and cars, motorcycles, etc.
Its T-Day morning, and everyone is heading out of town, or heading to town, on the road to town,… Its sort of noisy this morning.
I did this recording with my Sennheiser MKE2002 binaural recording head - like a mannequin head with realistic ears and mics in the ear canals. You’re supposed to listen to it through headphones. There is a lot of stuff going on in it.
Yea!, the turkeys are still here on thanksgiving morning.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/16zewh8qlk4kltf/talking-turkey.mp3?dl=0
Binaural effects,...
At :48sec, listen for a car coming up our road. It enters from the left, crosses behind the head, then passes us via the right side. You can hear him stop at the top of the street, and the turn right; yes you can tell the direction.
The road is 250' or so from the head, and, the same car making the right turn is a couple of hundred yards from the head.
Also, lots of little local birds. Sarge started identifying them one after the other.
She'd never really critically listened to a binaural recording until an hour ago. What she heard had her tickled, shocked, laughing. She was quite impressed with binaural. Try it, its a good listen.
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BrocLuno
Lunatic Member
Been at this for a while. Back in the day, I worked for GRT/Chess/Janus records in the Sunnyvale plant. We had a sound studio and test chamber. The test chamber was anechoic and mostly JBL based. It tested as flat as we could make it. Was not all that great a listening space. Cost a lot though ...
I much preferred the tape plant production floor with RCA theater amps and some big KLH speakers up on the head wall. QC used to put stuff up there and we'd listen to see if we could hear issues. After the third week of Jim Croce, I was ready to go nuts, but then I'd bring in one of my 10" reels and we'd rock out during lunch
If I could live through that and still enjoy sound and audio equipment, I'd say I am an audiophile
Along the way I have run many different combos. I have discovered synergy. And I have discovered that $ can't buy it. You can buy engineering values and tests and component matching. But, you have to discover synergy. And when you do, It's magic
I much preferred the tape plant production floor with RCA theater amps and some big KLH speakers up on the head wall. QC used to put stuff up there and we'd listen to see if we could hear issues. After the third week of Jim Croce, I was ready to go nuts, but then I'd bring in one of my 10" reels and we'd rock out during lunch
If I could live through that and still enjoy sound and audio equipment, I'd say I am an audiophile
Along the way I have run many different combos. I have discovered synergy. And I have discovered that $ can't buy it. You can buy engineering values and tests and component matching. But, you have to discover synergy. And when you do, It's magic
MaxxVolume
Lunatic Member
"Audiophile".....Hmmmmmmmm.... I believe you have reached that lofty title when you don`t even hesitate to purchase those $800-per-meter interconnect cables because they just might be better than the $600-per-meter pair you bought last month....
Djcoolray
Addicted Member
Doctors have proven that the more fibrous tissue emanating from the audio cortex to the underside of the brain, the more a person enjoys audio. Has nothing to do with how people need to believe the same old thing as yesterday. Just because social expectations have come up with a social definition.....as in tried until Blue is always true doesn’t change reality. The world is not flat....
Audio has nothing to do with how much money a person need to spend even though pleasure does lead to compulsion.....
Audio has nothing to do with how much money a person need to spend even though pleasure does lead to compulsion.....
mmickk
What!!??....Wasnt me!
So I cant be an Opera or music fan unless I can or am willing to pay for the best seat in the house? Everyone else in the house don't matter or qualify?
Price would be the last factor I would consider due to the fact that someone could slap an exorbitant price on a piece of junk and apparently it would qualify as audiophile. NOT that THAT ever happens!
,, An Audiophile is in my opinion one that actually “LISTENS” to music. Audiophiles religiously look to better their equipment no matter if their budget is $5 or $5000. Audiophiles are always in the pursuit of high quality audio reproduction. You can recognize an Audiophile if any of the following words are in their vocabulary when discussing music: equilateral triangle, sweet spot, stylus, vinyl, vintage, tubes, depth, cables, detail, highs, mids, frequency, analog, FLAC, lossless, live, soundstage, phase, resolution, imaging, open, warmth.
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reynolds753
Just a man on a bicycle and a threat to no one
As much in this life, perception is everything. When people come over to my house and see my set up in the kitchen/family room (tuner/amp/pre amp/SACD player/couple of turntables/lots of vinyl and CDs everywhere/speakers on stands) they just assume that I am an "audiophile". I can mix and match the equipment and the play back modes and at some level it all sounds good to me. The non "audiophiles" are always impressed. I will make an exception for this recent stash of new vinyl I bought for my daughter: it does sound superb.
Final_Baton
Well-Known Member
An audiophile :
1-thinks he/she is an audiophile
and
2-tells everyone else he/she is an audiophile
1-thinks he/she is an audiophile
and
2-tells everyone else he/she is an audiophile
Well, that’s just too damned sensible.
I sense that you disapprove. Why not tell people, if the subject comes up? I tell people I’m an audiophile.
Guth
New Member
Over on another audio forum a similar question was asked: "Can you be an audiophile if you don't own "great/expensive" equipment..?
I went on and on in my response. Following was just a portion of my overall response, lol.
To me, being an audiophile has little to do with how much money you might have available to you to throw at this particular pursuit. Anyone with the money needed can go out and buy an impressive array of gear or source music but that does not necessarily make them an audiophile in my mind. It might make them that much more defensive when questions such as the one posted by the OP in this case are posed, but it doesn't necessarily make them audiophiles. My apologies to anyone who hates being labelled in any way, but to me, a gear lover is someone likes to buy audio gear, listens to it, and talks about it with others and maybe even shares their photos of gear with others. A music lover on the other hand is someone who is primarily focused on the music itself, irrespective of the gear that is being used to play music. There are far more music lovers in the world than there are gear lovers. People can dump large sums of money on acquiring gear or music, but they don't necessarily have to — there are people who get incredible amounts of enjoyment out of vintage gear and dollar bin recordings or music available via radio broadcast or various streamed sources.)
To me, an audiophile is someone who is aware that both the gear itself as well as the music source (be it vinyl records, CDs, tapes, digital files, a streamed music source, or whatever) plays a role in how recorded music is consumed. An audiophile is determined to maximize their enjoyment of recorded music by paying attention to the gear, the source music, and finally the room that their gear is located in (unless portable headphone based systems are involved.) An audiophile might be looking towards future upgrades (be it in terms of gear, source material, or both). But whether or not that is case they are most certainly focused on improving the enjoyment they get from that which they already own. An audiophile is likely aware of variables like speaker placement and turntable isolation or maybe even room treatments and they typically like to take advantage of the benefit provided by changes they can make to such variables. They likely go to greater lengths to clean their vinyl records, or isolate power supplies from source components for example along with any number of other things.
On the other hand, an audiophile might not have access to really expensive gear. But they still will likely take a number of steps at getting the most out of the gear and source material that they do already own with a focus on improving the sound quality of the music that they enjoy. That might simply involve purchasing different releases of certain albums or CDs of the same recording for any variety of reasons (but those reasons will typically always have to do with the sound quality of the music contained within the material of choice the analog source or the bits of the digital playback chain). Many of these things can cost very little — most anyone can choose to move speakers around to see how it impacts the sound quality for example. Simply put, being an audiophile has little to do with the money involved in maximizing the enjoyment realized while listing to recorded music. but that's not to say that it can't.
I went on and on in my response. Following was just a portion of my overall response, lol.
To me, being an audiophile has little to do with how much money you might have available to you to throw at this particular pursuit. Anyone with the money needed can go out and buy an impressive array of gear or source music but that does not necessarily make them an audiophile in my mind. It might make them that much more defensive when questions such as the one posted by the OP in this case are posed, but it doesn't necessarily make them audiophiles. My apologies to anyone who hates being labelled in any way, but to me, a gear lover is someone likes to buy audio gear, listens to it, and talks about it with others and maybe even shares their photos of gear with others. A music lover on the other hand is someone who is primarily focused on the music itself, irrespective of the gear that is being used to play music. There are far more music lovers in the world than there are gear lovers. People can dump large sums of money on acquiring gear or music, but they don't necessarily have to — there are people who get incredible amounts of enjoyment out of vintage gear and dollar bin recordings or music available via radio broadcast or various streamed sources.)
To me, an audiophile is someone who is aware that both the gear itself as well as the music source (be it vinyl records, CDs, tapes, digital files, a streamed music source, or whatever) plays a role in how recorded music is consumed. An audiophile is determined to maximize their enjoyment of recorded music by paying attention to the gear, the source music, and finally the room that their gear is located in (unless portable headphone based systems are involved.) An audiophile might be looking towards future upgrades (be it in terms of gear, source material, or both). But whether or not that is case they are most certainly focused on improving the enjoyment they get from that which they already own. An audiophile is likely aware of variables like speaker placement and turntable isolation or maybe even room treatments and they typically like to take advantage of the benefit provided by changes they can make to such variables. They likely go to greater lengths to clean their vinyl records, or isolate power supplies from source components for example along with any number of other things.
On the other hand, an audiophile might not have access to really expensive gear. But they still will likely take a number of steps at getting the most out of the gear and source material that they do already own with a focus on improving the sound quality of the music that they enjoy. That might simply involve purchasing different releases of certain albums or CDs of the same recording for any variety of reasons (but those reasons will typically always have to do with the sound quality of the music contained within the material of choice the analog source or the bits of the digital playback chain). Many of these things can cost very little — most anyone can choose to move speakers around to see how it impacts the sound quality for example. Simply put, being an audiophile has little to do with the money involved in maximizing the enjoyment realized while listing to recorded music. but that's not to say that it can't.
Quadman2
Lunatic Member
There are times when definitions just don't cut it no matter how you slice it.
Personally, I think an audiophile is one who no longer just hears sound, but starts to listening to it, with ever increasing attention for detail. This where gear and what kind comes into the picture.
For what its' worth.
Q
Personally, I think an audiophile is one who no longer just hears sound, but starts to listening to it, with ever increasing attention for detail. This where gear and what kind comes into the picture.
For what its' worth.
Q
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