Audiophiles love music … but so do lots of other people. So what is an audiophile? What sets them apart from other music lovers? The key is in how audiophiles listen and what they listen for. While audiophiles listen just as others do, enjoying songs, tunes and movies, they also listen in a different way. For at least some of the time they seek to bring their recordings to life, immersing themselves in the scene of the action. This requires care in selecting and setting up the audio system and listening environment, but for the audiophile the rewards more than justify the effort.
This different way of listening includes:
- Listening as a dedicated activity. Audiophiles listen to music as an activity in its own right, rather than only using it as a background, to accompany their other activities, or to dance and party.
- Seeking the richest experience possible. In their listening audiophiles try to get as close as possible to the recorded event, with all its power and subtlety, tone and texture, emotion and impact, be it music or movie.
- The enjoyment of sound itself. Audiophiles like sound itself, its tonality and dynamics, texture and nuance, its tactility … its ‘reality’.
Dedicated listening may seem strange to other listeners. Audiophiles sit in their audio system’s sweet-spot, lost in the sound as if attending a live show. And this is virtually what they’re doing, as they travel across space and time to the recorded performance. A good audio system really is a sound TARDIS[1], a time machine, as big on the inside as the recording venue. It spirits them away to wherever and whenever the music or movie takes them. This is something that background listening just can’t do.
For audiophiles it’s not just about taking in the beat, melody and lyrics of the song, following the dialogue of the movie, or enjoying its sonic special effects. Beyond this, they immerse themselves in the recorded event. They want to ‘see’ the performers arrayed before them, each life-size, no larger and no smaller, occupying their own location in three-dimensional space. Instruments and voices must have all the power, delicacy, texture, richness, and variation of timbre, timing and dynamics of the real thing. Listeners must be awed by movie characters, or taken into their confidence with their whispered intimations. They must be startled by the sudden sound behind them, enchanted by delicate forest sounds or shaken by the furious clangour of battle. These are delights that the performers, actors, sound engineers and producers have carefully crafted for them … and they want it all!
And it’s not just about music and movies, it’s also a love of sound itself. We constantly receive sounds from our environment. Each has its own character. They each also have particular meanings for us, and can produce emotional or cognitive responses. Some sounds impose themselves on our hearing, while others are more subtle and require our attention to be observed. How we respond to these sounds depends on our natural inclinations and interests, and what’s important to us at the time. Audiophiles have an inclination to, interest in and love of sound, and they want the sound on their recordings to be rich and real.
So, how do we enter the world of the audiophile and share in these rich audio experiences? It’s not mainly about money. Affordable audio, movie or headphone systems, well thought out, can provide lots of pleasure. First you need the desire to drink as deeply as possible of the delights of your audio recordings. The audiophile community, locally and internationally, offers a wealth of information, and opinion, to guide you along this journey. There are also numerous online and print publications, online discussion forums, social media groups and pages, blogs and online videos. If you want more technical detail, there’s a vast trove of academic literature within easy reach of your favourite search engine. When COVID-19 has been tamed, the global round of audio trade shows will once again be available. Finally, manufacturers and dealers provide lots of information on their products.
This is a brief view of the audiophile. I look forward to audiophiles and others enriching the discussion here with their thoughts and experiences.
© Wayne Butcher
[1] The TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) is Dr. Who’s spacecraft and time machine. On the outside it looks like an old English police public call box, while on the inside it is huge. The Dr. uses it to cross the universe in time and space from one adventure the next.
Excellent article. Very well written. For me it has always been about the love of music, first and foremost. The sound was a secondary issue but in retrospect this was due to a lack of exposure. In my teens we enjoyed a relatively modest system in our household. Can’t remember all the details but the sources were a Technics turntable & cassette player. We had a Pioneer receiver, a ADC equaliser and a pair of three way speakers. In my opinion it sounded good but I had no real reference point.
I recall my first exposure to much better “sound” was listening to my cousin’s system in North Carolina. It was a Nakamichi system (cd, cassette player & receiver) with Linn speakers. It sounded amazing! I believe that peaked my interest in “sound” but for the majority of my adult life I was still in love with mainly the music, all types of music but with a strong preference for R&B & Jazz.
My pursuit of “sound” is a relatively recent obsession (maybe 4 years ago) but it has been an enthralling experience. It started with headphones because I could experiment with different headphones and headphone amps/dacs and make comparisons at a far more modest investment. It’s far more difficult to do with two way systems as it involves a much larger investment ….but there is no substitute for experience and therefore exposure is key. Listening to Wayne’s system provided me with a reference point, a guide as to how a great two way speaker system should sound. I am still on my journey to getting there and I am enjoying every minute of it.
An Article on Part-Time Audiophile provides some interesting additional perspectives:
https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2020/09/12/hifi-how-do-we-listen/
Superb description, and reading it, the unsuspecting would imagine audiophilia as a genteel pursuit of a universally agreed ideal – a commonly acknowledged reference that this happy group of hobbyists aspire to while calmly sharing experiences and agreeing about the path to audio nirvana.
This is not the reality.
We are a sometimes fractious bunch, opinionated, obsessive and often deeply insecure about our systems. Different technologies have their passionate devotees. The issues of contention are often arcane and, to a normal music lover, frankly bizarre. Delta Sigma vs. Resistor Ladder Digital to Analogue Conversion, DSD vs PCM, Class A vs Class D amplification, Monopoles vs. Dipoles, Planar Magnetic vs. Electrostatic vs. Cone/Dome transducers (and others even more exotic). These are the topics of endless hours of discussion – then there are debates about wire (HUGE! And vitriolic), power supply topologies, digital vs. analogue. Our music and systems are usually the most expensive thing we own after our homes. I have never had a car that was worth more than my Audio System at the time.
We are arguably insane.
My own journey has been long. My Dad was an Audiophile and music lover. His point of reference for sound was his experience listening to live Classical Music in Concert Halls as a student in England, and later experiences listening to live Jazz in New York. I grew up exposed to several very good audio systems and a large collection of Classical, Jazz and Soul music. I got hand-me-downs – each new addition to his system meant the replaced device being offered to me. As I developed my own sense of preference for music and technologies, and developed the capacity to buy or build what I wanted, we would share experiences, listen to each other’s systems, and quite often it was a new piece of equipment of mine that would inspire his next purchase.
An Audiophile has moments of transcendental joy listening to music. The experience can be intense and filled with awe. Often alone. I wouldn’t change it for anything.
Hmmmmmm……Interesting topic and article.
My take is a bit controversial.
IMHO, there is a distinction that needs to be made between a music only audiophile and someone who invests millions in an audio system to support the watching and emotions of a movie. Don’t get me wrong: A home theater enthusiast can be a true blue audiophile and music lover, and many exist. However, I don’t think it can be disputed that many (the majority of???) video enthusiasts who have ludicrously expensive multi-channel audio systems in there home theater, use it to enhance the drama of watching a movie – a rarely “actively” use it to listen to music only as an event itself. So the audio system in many (again – not all) HT setups is used by its owner to support the video experience, and music only reproduction is a very, very, very distant second. I find it hard to call that person an “Audiophile”. But hey, that’s just me. Maybe the terms “Home Theater Audiophile” and “Music Audiophile” could be used WITHOUT the requirement that they be mutually exclusive?
Regarding the subject at hand: My take on an audiophile is simply someone who actively pursues electronic components that gives him/her a greater emotional connection to his/her recorded musical media. I say this because if we accept that attempting to reproduce a live event in our listening room is simply impossible, then an audiophile IMHO pursues electronic reproduction of our media that brings us closer to and more emotionally involved with our recorded music. Hence Tube lovers vs. Solid State lovers, and analog vs digital lovers, and line source vs point source lovers, and dipole vs monopole vs horn-loaded lovers etc. – ALL of whom can correctly be termed Audiophiles. To borrow a phrase from the late, great Ronnie Dyson: when you get right down to it – an Audiophile is someone whose passionate objective is the maximum possible connection with his/her recorded music, and will actively and pursue the electronics/room/environment that will achieve that.
All IMHO of course.
Ah! I was waiting for the magic words “live pan music”. Here’s a quote from the legendary engineer Bruce Swedien: “Anytime you listen to amplified music over a pair of speakers, you are not listening to music at all. You are listening to somebody’s _opinion_ of what that music should be. And as an engineer, it is important to develop your own sonic opinion. You can only do that by listening to live, unamplified music. And in Trinidad, your students have an unriavalled opportunity to do so, with live steel orchestras on practically every corner…”
To clarify: especially for audiophiles in the Caribbean- what, specifically, is your point of reference?
Many of the audiophiles I know listen to live music when they can. Opportunities are sometimes limited here in the Caribbean, but some folks make a point to listen when they travel abroad … and some make a point of travelling abroad to listen. For my part I’ve done a bit of both.
In addition to Caribbean venues I’ve listened to jazz in a number of New York clubs and listened to classical in New York, London and Sydney. In the Caribbean, and in Trinidad in particular, the Carnival season provides a great opportunity to listen to live pan music.
Excellent article. But consider this: To me an “audiophile” really seems to enjoy listening to the electronic reproduction of music. I hardly ever hear them speak about concerts they attended at great concert halls etc – so I always wonder what is their point of reference?
Great article. Audiophiles all have a love for music and spend an inordinate amount of time and money pursuing the highest quality reproduction of that music in their setting. Some approaches include compiling music systems via a plethora of means. Many take the trial and error route while others may take the more technical direction if they have the skills. There are many ways nowadays to enlighten oneself via internet groups and Youtube. The overarching goal is to get the best sound in their location. There is a sense of pride to let others hear and critique their efforts and those with open minds can improve their systems from sound advice in many instances. The hobby also brings a camaraderie, pride and satisfaction which are all great ingredients for a healthy life. Once it does not become an obsession, an exponential amount of joy can be derived.
Well said, Lallan.
Very well written, Wayne. A thorough and insightful first taste.
My own take is this : A music lover cares for music. An audiophile cares for music and for how it is reproduced. The music lover gets emotional and sometimes intellectual satisfaction from listening to music. The audiophile gets these and something more – a rich sensorial experience that deepens the pleasure and the meaning of the music. It is akin to the difference between eating pasta in a chain restaurant and having it in a fine dining restaurant. Once you experience it, you can tell. Any notion of sameness dissolves. And for the audiophile, there is no going back.