About Non-Audiophile

[kin0kin]

Hi folks, I'm curious as to what made you an audiophile/audiophile-to-be. I'm an audiophile and my exposure has to do with my dad and uncle's interest in audio equipments and good music reproduction. I've been exposed to good music since young and has always been looking for the most natural sound that I can get from any equipment.

I noticed that most people around me aren't audiophile. It makes me wonder how could someone go through with their lives without good music (reproduction). Almost everybody in my office has an ipod. Almost everybody with an ipod is using stock ipod earbuds. Whenever I try to strike a conversation about "audiophile" they don't seem to care. People hop into my car and I was expecting to hear something like..wow your setup sounds good. But majority of the people didn't care I put on my Senns in the office..nobody cared except that it leaked like hell and sounded like a crappy radio where some people complaint.

I'm pretty sure this has been discussed...but it's one of my pet's peeve that most of the people I meet aren't audiophile.

[twitchie]

People are just different and have different interests and priorities. Some people have to have a DSLR to take pictures, while some just use the camera built in their cell phone.

Some people enjoy fine cuisine, some people live with oversalted, fat fast food. You're cheating and probably alienating yourself by allowing it to bother you that others around you don't share your interests.

I can certainly hear the difference between a lousy system and something nice, but I don't consider myself an audiophile because I don't honestly care about squeezing the very last ounce out.

I used to fix cars and have my tools, but I don't expect people to 'Oooh' and 'Aaaah' when they see my Snap-On socket set and it doesn't bother me that my friends have garbage for tools as long as I am not asked to use it.

Just enjoy the hobby, enjoy the good company on this forum and especially around you, and do everyone a favour and don't start down the path of audio snobbery for snobbery's sake.

I was just playing with a signal generator and found that I can't hear much above 11KHz, so who am I to judge what's good and bad? All I can say is what sounds good to me and can't expect that to matter to others much at all.

[kin0kin]

well you are right. Different folks different strokes. It's a pet's peeve and I just had to say it out.

[Cal Weldon]

Well said twitchie. You're not a counsellor by chance are you?

kin0kin, (yes I noticed it's a zero not an O)

I feel for ya, but at this age I've long rid myself of the need to show others the way. It is frustrating but that'll pass. Just good to know we have another onboard who is happy to strive for audio nirvana even if you hafta walk alone.

We're here if you need to talk.

[Conrad Hoffman]

Kin0kin, twitchie beat me to it. I do some commercial photography and try to get everything "just right". What I've found is that most people really don't care about technical quality. It's only photographers themselves that worry about noise, grain, composition and a bunch of other fine points. People react to the overall image, but DSLR or box camera doesn't seem to matter. Flaws that drive an educated eye crazy are invisible to everybody else.

Audio is much the same way. I can't stand compressed MP3 stuff, but my coworkers don't care in the least. Out of all the people I've worked with in the last decade, not an audiophile amongst them, and only one or two people halfway serious about photography. Twenty years ago this town supposedly had more hi-fi stores per capita than anywhere else. Today, all out of business. So are most of the camera stores. All that remains is Best Buy and a couple stores with far more TVs than hi-fi equipment. Even home theater with fancy audio doesn't seem to have the following that hi-fi once did.

[audio-kraut]

To my experience, the audiophile is more concerned about the equipment, how it looks, what it costs , even going into the netherland of cable sound.
Being an "audiophile" has to do with the sound you like, actually not trying to achieve the most accurate or distortion free reproduction of the source material.
That is why some outrageously distorting tube amps are actually higher valued than SS equipment approaching 0.001% distortion levels at all harmonics.
I consider myself of the old school high fidelity: get the equipment out of the way, it should have no sound - or the least amount possible, and if digital equalization works - that is just fine by me, despite the frowns of the hardcore audiophile.

[jlsem]

To my experience, the audiophile is more concerned about the equipment,

Your apparent isolation from the rest of society has left you a bit out of touch with reality. Do you really have contact with any audiophiles, or are you just making assumptions based on things you've read?

John

[tsmith1315]

Originally posted by kin0kin
Hi folks, I'm curious as to what made you an audiophile/audiophile-to-be. I'm an audiophile and my exposure has to do with my dad and uncle's interest in audio equipments and good music reproduction. I've been exposed to good music since young and has always been looking for the most natural sound that I can get from any equipment.

I grew up around live music. Not arena concerts or anything like that -just a baby grand, a small Ludwig kit, electric bass and 6-string permanently set up in the living room.

The youngest of 3 boys, I do not remember life without my oldest brother and his buddies jamming in the house, or my father playing piano while his guitar bud picked an old Les Paul through a Fender Twin. Nearly 40 yrs later, I can close my eyes and still hear Horace playing Snowbird through that old Twin. It was wonderful then, it's beautiful now in my memory.

My affinity for music grew from there.

A lot of living room, back porch, or practice-house concerts. As a teen, my parents were out of town on the weekends, so we had weekend concerts at home, too.

A lot of small club, bar, and outdoor concerts followed.

I know what music sounds like when it is played.

I want it to sound like that when I play it back.

That interest began in my early teens, again through my oldest brother's influence and working with car audio. I was installing equipment here and there by the time I was about 13. At about 17, I visited George Merrill's Underground Sound in Memphis. It was suddenly obvious that playback could be a reasonable facsimile of the original, and I've been engrossed ever since.

Sorry to droll on, but you asked!

Originally posted by audio-kraut

I consider myself of the old school high fidelity: get the equipment out of the way, it should have no sound - or the least amount possible, and if digital equalization works - that is just fine by me, despite the frowns of the hardcore audiophile.

Isn't that audiophile?

[audio-kraut]

Your apparent isolation from the rest of society has left you a bit out of touch with reality. Do you really have contact with any audiophiles, or are you just making assumptions based on things you've read?

Despite my "isolation", speaking two languages fluently I have extensively discussed things audio on different forums - and my experience has been what I stated.
I also had sufficient personal contact that confirmed my internet experiences.

I rather think you are the isolated one.

Audiophiles are more enamored with the particular sound of their equipment and disparage any attempt to "neutral" sound reproduction as being contrary to their goals of a "pleasant" and "pleasing" sound.
This is contrary to what I want to achieve, part of my goal is a flat in room frequency response and the least distortion possible within a budget.

This goal is clearly not what is discussed on various "audiophile" forums, from the infamous audiogon site to various forums in Germany, Canada and the US.
An identifying badge of an audiophile is the unquestioned believe in the efficacy of special "high end" interconnects, speaker cables, power cords and power conditioners, and often the believe that tube equipment is far superior to any solid state equipment.
They even claim that a special powercord connected to the motor of a record player will significantly enhance the sound.

That is the mark of your typical audiophile, and I refuse to being identified as such. Therefore I call myself a "hifi" adherent with the goal of...achieving the highest fidelity to the source material in reproduction.

Anybody claiming this is congruent with the ideas that are being advanced in audiophiledom, clearly is clueless.
Some reading of Sterophile or related "high end"magazines, including several Canadian publications, should disabuse anybody of this notion.
There might be the odd "lone voice" of reason out there, which quickly gets drowned by the shear volume of audiophile nonsense.

[jlsem]

Therefore I call myself a "hifi" adherent with the goal of...achieving the highest fidelity to the source material in reproduction.

I stand corrected. If that's not an audiophile, then I don't know any either.

John