Can you be an audiophile if you don't own "great/expensive" equipment..?

You know, in the end, you can afford what you can afford. Buy the best stuff you can afford, play your music, and enjoy it! The equipment I had and thought was "good" when I was 19 I cringe at now, but honestly, I got so much enjoyment out of it, how could it have been bad? Now that I'm 38 and make big boy money, I can afford nicer equipment and my stereo is 3x nicer than the stuff I had during my ramen and macaroni and cheese days, but for me, it's more about the music. An audiophile cares about sound AND the music. As long as every time you buy some piece of new equipment, it's an upgrade over what you already had, your happiness with your sound will know no bounds.

 

I had the most enjoyment from music between the ages of 14 and 20 listening on an old hand me down music centre (turntable/cassette/tuner). I loved that thing. Then I had a nice Sony 'midi system' (CD/twin cassette/tuner) which sounded ok-ish too. Then that broke and my journey into separates began. Despite spending a rather large sum over the years the HiFi hobby means that you are never satisfied, the next upgrade will cure that upper mid bass issue or provide a better soundstage etc. Never have I had so much fun as I did in my youth!

 

Yep.

Regardless of budget, one can generally find something pretty good system wise. Sure, you can spend a ton, but that is an individual choice. There is a ton of used equipment out there and technology has never really been better-we have plenty of choices of new/used/vintage equipment and records vs 3 or 4 decades back.

One can bin dive ... still plenty of gems out there. I just paid 12 bucks for a nice Sonic Youth Goo DGC.

It's all about enjoyment of the music. If your taking risk/debt on to show off equipment....then your not in the right place.

 

The stereo was best as a teen when accompanied by a young lady who was really into Jackson Browne and Van Morrison.

 

Nails it.

Only change I'd make is from "if you can only afford $50" to "if you've only budgeted $50 for". I could afford to spend a heck of a lot more on audio gear than I have. However, I've also noticed there are definite diminishing returns even if you only go a bit beyond my modest kit on the price scale. And a lot of outrageously expensive kit actually sounds worse than more modestly-priced upgrades.

 

Great topic! I believe it was either Obi-wan Kenobi, Gandalf or Al Gore that famously observed, "Your two best days with Audioquest Everest cables are the day you buy them, and the day you sell them."

 

Providing you have 'ok' playback equipment, finding a decent source is the most important thing these days because a brickwalled album will still sound like garbage even on a £100,000 system. In fact it's better to play a lot of modern albums and remasters on garbage kit. They go hand in hand.

 

You can be but you are only an audiophile when it comes to hearing expensive systems and realizing how much better the expensive system is. You get what you pay for.
Yeah I know, I have no right to comment since I have not filled out my equipment list.

 

You only get what you pay for up to a certain price point. At a certain juncture, the incremental improvements in sound quality don't justify the jumps in price. For instance, it's almost universally true that a $5,000 turntable is going to give you nicer sound than a $300 turntable, but you'll never convince me that the jump in sound quality between a $5,000 and $20,000 turntable is worth the $15,000 premium. Eventually you hit that plateau and then you're just buying equipment for bragging rights. File under "I Might Be Dumb But I'm Not Stupid."

 

Well no wonder some people need to put so much effort into finding the perfect equipment and environment. It’s difficult to fine tune to the ideal level at 1 kHz naturally.

 

In my opinion, as soon as you hear the difference in sound quality, and prefer one over the other in regards to format (in my case LPs over CDs of certain albums), then you may be an audiophile.

 

What he said.

 

I thought that way as well until I heard my doctor friend's $25,000 turntable and cartridge setup Koetsu thingy.

 

See, one of the reasons I go with CDs is its got a much lower barrier of entry. As opposed to a vinyl rig. That's not to say your player can't be crap, you have to spend SOME money, just not nearly as much.

 

I've heard systems that went in excess of $100,000 on multiple occasions and yes, they sounded amazing. But so did my neighbor's $10,000 system. And did the $100,000 system sound $90,000 better than my neighbor's? Nope. Different stroke for different folks with different amounts of disposable income.

 

It cost me a lot less than $400,000 to hear music every day that sounds far more life-like than it does on Fremer's toys.

(Them's the perks of being an orchestra teacher! )

 

I wonder what the results would be with 20 listeners? I am guessing very different.

 

This is quite possibly the single most pretentious comment I've ever read on the SH forums in my 12 years of being here. Wow, just wow. Are you even capable of just putting on a record and enjoying it without analyzing every nuance of the recording and how it sounds on your system? I'm guessing not. Talk about sucking all the fun out of listening to music. Sheesh. This was literally four paragraphs of you performing gratuitous autofellatio.

 

I don't know much about this subject but I think all you need is love

Seriously though, however long it takes, it seems as though an audiophile would want the best. I agree you shouldn't go into heavy duty debt over it. It just takes time I imagine.

 

I'm sorry but these "My $5,000 system sounds as good as a $50,000 system threads" IMO are plain silly. If you don't hear any difference you probably do not have ears discerning enough in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I wish I had a $50,000 system. I will now duck from the flying knives.

 

Courageous words of wisdom.

 

It's the ears not the gear as men say

 

Do you mean Class A vs Class B, Class AB, etc.?...

 

I actually think your second paragraph is the most important. So many audiophiles seem to be so wrapped up in sound quality that they don't pay attention to the music itself. Then again one would be surprised how many "audiophiles" can't even tell that their speakers are not in phase.