What is an audiophile?, Does an audiophile collect music or audio components? Options

[Cavaille]

With my post you are referring to I stated my subjective point of view to the OP's question "How would you define an audiophile?". It is based on my personal experience with people who call themselves audiophiles but of course I do not make a claim for covering all different shades of opinion with my weighting in this context.

Oh, did I do it again? Did I anger you? If so, I´m deeply sorry... wasn´t my intention.

I am pleased about your (basic or extended) knowledge in music theory.

Very basic. If I encounter something I don´t know in the music I usually listen to, I´ll ask a friend of mine who plays a lot of instruments and cares very deeply about interpretational things. His father is a true Audiophile and they all come from a family expressed with music and technique. Strangeley, in the last years my good friend strayed away from the "audiophile path". He does not care how he listens to music and after years of asking him he becomes very enerved when I only utter the name Jerry Goldsmith

And Canar... for the sake of argument... please... just let me add something to your remark: I listen to equipment because of music. I listen to a lot of music using this equipment. And I use my (most beloved) music to listen to the equipment when I want to find something out (codec differences, different hardware etc.). That´s why I stated so often before that my ability to hear things strongly depends on the music I use.

[Martel]

I don't hear the difference between my el cheapo interconnec vs. expensive ones. Audiophiles do.

Shouldn't it be more like: "Audiophiles see the difference"? That's exactly why they don't like blind tests...

[Robertina]

Oh, did I do it again? Did I anger you?

No, Cavaille, you did not anger me .

And to be fair to audiophiles: without their willingness to spend so much money for their high-end audio components the non-audiophiles would not have been able to buy their (good) equipment for a more moderate price at a later time.

[FasterThanEver]

And to be fair to audiophiles: without their willingness to spend so much money for their high-end audio components the non-audiophiles would not have been able to buy their (good) equipment for a more moderate price at a later time.

I disagree with that understanding of how technology spreads.

In modern digital electronics, most of the functionality is inside silicon chips manufactured in large volumes. The audiophile market is not large enough to drive the development of large scale integration devices. High end audio companies use whatever is available.

The development of analog electronics is subject to the same need for volume. The selection of opamps and even single transistors is not determined by audiophile manufacturers; it is forced on them by the needs of larger markets.

Audiophiles may be driving the production of ancient vacuum tube designs in 3rd world countries. Audiophiles have certainly been responsible for lots of tweaks like magic disks you place on your equipment but I can't see that stuff becoming accepted in the real world.

Bill

[krazy]

And to be fair to audiophiles: without their willingness to spend so much money for their high-end audio components the non-audiophiles would not have been able to buy their (good) equipment for a more moderate price at a later time.

Audiophiles have certainly been responsible for lots of tweaks like magic disks you place on your equipment but I can't see that stuff becoming accepted in the real world.

If by "audiophile" you mean someone that believes tech-voodoo over reason then I agree with this completely - in fact I'd argue that the world would be better off without "audiophiles", because some of their stuff does make it into the real world.

I recently had a friend buy a new TV, and the salesman talked her into also buying an aerial cable with gold-plated connectors ('it provides superior sound and picture to your digital TV, don't you know'). I made her take it back and get a regular cable (for 1/8th the price) and her money back.

The sad thing is, I think the sales guy actually believed the crap he was spouting. And apparently he sells a lot of those cables.

This post has been edited by krazy: Nov 10 2009, 04:28

[shakey_snake]

An audiophile is the type of person that lives to fill General Discussion with these sorts of meta-threads.

[Richard Greene]

"Normal people listen to music using equipment.
Audiophiles listen to equipment using music."

RG replies:
After reading all the posts, I liked your concise definition best.

I'm sticking with my original definition where an audiophile is a music lover who likes to hear music at home (not only live music) no matter how much money is spent on audio equipment.

I think the primary difference between a typical music collector / music lover and a typical audiophile is this: A music lover is more likely to tolerate a poor recording and inexpensive stereo system when listening to a song he or she loves ... while an audiophile is more likely to not fully enjoy a song because of the sound quality (assuming he liked the musical performance, he would wonder if there was a better quality recording available, or whether the song would sound better using different audio components).

(1) Music lover = loves live and recorded music, but may not be concerned with sound quality at home (because recorded music played at home almost never sounds like live music, whether the audio components are inexpensive or expensive, so the audio components used are not very important)

(2) Audiophile music lover = loves recorded music, and will be concerned with sound quality if it interferes with his or her enjoyment of a recording

(3) Audiophile equipment lover = loves the recorded music that best demonstrates the sound quality of the audio components he has purchased and set up.

It seems to me that the differences among these groups over the importance of audio comnponents is so large that agreement on audio components would be difficult. The music lover would see audio components as "tools" to play his or her music ... while at the other extreme, the audiophile equipment lover would see recordings as "tools" to demonstrate his audio system.

Well that's my two cents, or no sense. Thanks for contributing this thread

[carpman]

I prefer shakey_snake's definition:

An audiophile is the type of person that lives to fill General Discussion with these sorts of meta-threads.

Because from what I can gather, this "audiophile" business is a kind of appreciation society for things either irrelevant or non-existent formed around the "need" to create an excuse to treat oneself.

C.