Blog post: What is an Audiophile (Watch out! Idiot alert!)

There is an element of truth to all this even though I don't agree with all he's saying.

I've had the Maserati and Ferrari experience, but I'd rather go back to my Ford F-150 any day.

 

You can find anything on the Internet.

 

From a more reputable source-dictionary.com-I found:
noun
1.
a person who is especially interested in high-fidelity sound reproduction.

Nothing negative there. Nothing precluding liking music.

 

And sometimes by accident.

jeff

 

Hey, we just found each other.

 

Hey, some of this is true. I once attended an audiophile listening session where the tiniest details of reproduction were being compared, with single-blind testing, note taking, etc. IIRC, we were comparing D/A converters or preamps or something equally minute.

When it was my turn to play my selection on the system, I immediately noticed Bill Evans' floating chords on "So What" were coming out of the right speaker and had to point out that the left and right channels were reversed. We had been listening for an hour or so like that!

 

Very true - and as we know, the first couple of albums from Mobile Fidelity were recordings of trains.

 

Some people are in love with the sound of their own horn, so they blow it frequently and loudly. He's one of them.

 

And thunderstorms.

 

yes indeed!

 

The whole problem for me is how he sets up this false dichotomy between a music lover and an audiophile - that the two are mutually exclusive. For example, look at how many discussions there are on this forum about speaker positioning and room acoustics (two things he implies that audiophiles more or less ignore).

 

Yes, there is a subset of audiophiles that are more interested in the equipment than the music, but in my experience, they are the exception and not the rule. The equipment is a means to an end- the most enjoyable presentation of recorded music. For me, and most of the people I know, that means a lot of low level and a realistic soundstage- an illusion that the musicians are in the room with you. That requires a certain investment in equipment and time getting everything, including the room, set up correctly.

 

Blog reads like typical click bait, then this:

I swear a similar scenario occurred in a thread here, just a few months ago.

 

Yes, I'm an audiophile with a nice stereo. I can hear the difference between things that people keep telling me are in my imagination. Like many on this board, I own, and continue to buy, a crazy amount of music: CDs, LPs, downloads... When I'm not working, my stereo is on. I take three vacations are year to Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans, Austin... with the primary purpose of listening to live music. I also attend up to a dozen shows a year in Chicagoland in all kinds of venues small and large. Guess like most on this board, I'm just a putz without a love for music.

 

That needs to be changed. Obviously, there are a whole lot of people out there that have a negative impression of what audiophiles are, and that impression, unfortunately, came from those snobs who do only have stereos as a status symbol.

 

You nailed it!!

 

He doesn't know as much about photography as he may think either...

 

I love that this dude asks for monetary donations for his crap "content".