Differences between an audiophile and a record collector, can a person be both?

of course...they go hand in hand.

 

Not necessarily......

 

uh huh...

 

You can definitely be both an audiophile and a record collector. I have been listening to records for > 50 years because of the joy of music. When I joined this forum, I became an audiophile and started buying the best sounding and mastered LPs and CDs of my favorite bands/artists. Years later, I amassed a sizable "collection" and became both an audiophile and collector.

 

Yes. Here in this forum I’ve met a few.

 

I don't know what to call myself. I've been collecting records since I was a kid and I like good sound. What I don't do is get so anal about it that I use terms like digital glare, wooly, bloom, etc. Screw all that. I know the sound I like and I have gear that makes that sound.

 

Collectors, Audiophiles, obsessive-compulsive types, music lovers ..
.. we're all in the same boat.

 

If you are interested only in accumulating things (in this case, records, CDs or any other format), you are a collector, but if in fact you are more interested in enjoying a good album with the best audio quality (according to your pocket and tastes) you are an audiophile ... if you like both situations, you are an audiophile collector.

 

you can be an audiophile, but not without a visceral understanding and knowledge of the analogue/vinyl vs digital debate. plus "ears" will help.

you can be a "collector" without caring one way, or another.

 

I’m both but of course you can be one without the other. Heck an audiophile might not have a single record in their collection.

I don’t bat an eye at a $1,000 pressing that I need for my collection, but if it isn’t the best pressing possible than I’m still looking my “player” copy of said album.

There are also variances even in the different type of collectors and the different types of audiophiles.

 

Can we just talk about interconnects or wall plugs or something easy?

 

If people can scour the world looking for the right stylus for the right cartridge for the right turntable for the right DAC for the right Phono Stage for the right preamp for the right tube amp for the right power cord...why couldn't they do the same for as many different deadwax signatures as they can find on a copy of Beatles For Sale?

 

I can best be described as a record collector. I'm not one to complain about ticks and surfice noise as much as an audiophile would, but I do prefer a quiet pressing of an LP when possible.

I really started collecting because I liked the bigger art, and the warmer sound really attracted me once I really started listening to vinyl. I also sold all my CD's for a move after I started record collecting, so the move to full time record collecting was natural since all my CD's were gone. Sorry, I think I went on a ramble there you guys!

 

I tend to find I usually like what audiophiles like but don't always hate what they hate.

I am a collector, but I want to play the vast majority of my records.

 

I’m neither. I just hang out on audiophile forums because they don’t annoy me near as much as non-audiophiles.

Personally, I don’t fully understand what makes someone an audiophile verses a music lover or a collector. Most people seem to have their own definition of what being an audiophile means.

 

I collect the best sounding (to my ears) versions of music I enjoy so that I can listen to them.

 

Have I opened up another worm can? I find this thread very interesting and tbh this is why I started it, not to devide people but get different opinions.
I don't have multiple pressings of multiple lps, some things do sound better as a first pressing (noteably anything on the Pink Island label) but I have a lot of records, more than I'm likely to ever play, and over 14 thousand 78s (look up Robert Godridge on youtube if you don't believe me)
I am starting to find lp collecting a bit annoying, in the sense that any classical lp that isn't mint will tick, and that doesn't please me in the middle of the quiet part of a piano sonata! but I'll always collect records as a large percentage of them have not been reissued, especially 78s and smaller label classical stuff.
I have a pretty flat setup with studio moniters (krk rip-offs from cool sound but they sound good) a Kenwood sub (rarely use that) and the best sounding dj mixer I have ever heard so I can have multiple things at once. Down stairs however I have a very bright akai amp with leak speakers and I have to really lessen the trebble with every record I play other than some monos. The point I'm making is I don't have expencive stuff, I don't spend a lot of money on records (most 78s are given to me for free via my web site) and I buy collections of lps, rarely do I actually buy an album and if I do it's usually a new pressing.
Is there a point when playing records, due to their imperfections, really bothers your audiophile sensibilities? I didn't think I had any until this stylus upgrade and now I hear everything, so much so I'm thinking of a downgrade!

 

They certainly CAN be both and often are. Personally I consider myself a music collector with budget restraints or Dollar Bin Forager.

 

Like Polonius said "Neither a collector nor an audiophile be".

 

I don't like the negative connotations of "audiophile" (people who tend to be driven/haunted by a need to identify and find and possess the best-sounding version of any recording, or play it on the best-sounding reference gear their money can buy) and I also don't like the negative connotations of "collector" (people who tend toward unrelaxed overconsumption and completist compulsions).

Yeah, those are stereotypes, but with a degree of truth. When I first dove into the deep end of this forum I was often quite unhappy to learn a much better version of an album I love was lurking just out of reach (the Dark Side of the Moon mint UK first pressing syndrome) or that my system might be damned as "mid-fi."

But I learned through experience that upgrading was a mixed bag — sometimes a joyous experience, but often a matter of marginal or minor improvements with an ultimately dubious cost/benefit ratio. Sometimes lurking a notch or two below the absolute best, and finding deep beauty in the excellences of the second-best, is a satisfying place to be.

Hi-fi music lover works for me.

 

Yeah I think this is a very good question to ask yourself when you buy any used LPs. I think as you upgrade your setup you will find yourself becoming a different type of collector, who considers condition and sound quality a lot more than just getting a rarer copy of a record. In my experience a lot of people who identify as collectors and specifically not audiophiles tend to buy records in worse condition than the crowd here, usually because it's the first issue, or rarest variant in some fashion.

Personally at this point in my time collecting records I really just want to gravitate towards the quietest copy with the best sound, if that is a rare first issue, or a widely available reissue I don't really care. I've been slowly replacing a lot of the VG stuff I bought in the past with cleaner reissues, and I haven't really looked back. Of course there are plenty of records that are really impossible to find in any condition other than VG. Rare soul, Afro-psych lots of 50s stuff etc. For this reason it's nice to have a second setup or cartridge that can gloss over these flaws.

I have to say I am confused by aspects of your setups. Does your Shure cart have an ESCO paratrace stylus? If so, this is a more advanced profile stylus than your 2m blue which is just a nude elliptical...

 

Yes, expert stylus company paratrace in a shure m-44. I've never heard so much bass on anything in my life and as an ex dj I used a lot of dj tables! sounds amazing with rock and 50s stuff and doesn't have the problem the blue has which is it picking up dust every few minutes.

 

Interesting. In that case your Shure has an advanced profile stylus and should be tracking and retrieving detail at far better rate than your 2M Blue which is just a fairly standard nude elliptical. If you are liking your VG records better on that, it could be that you're liking how the finer stylus is riding under some of the surface damage on the LP. I've had this experience myself, that most of my VG records sound better with an advanced (microline) stylus than on a nude elliptical.

To be honest, the Blue is probably accentuating some of the flaws that the Shure / Paratrace combo is blazing right past. You might want to start looking towards that cart as your daily driver over the 2M Blue. Of course I have no clue about the frequency response of that combo, or how the insane output of that cartridge is playing with the rest of your setup, or if the compliance is a better match to your Goldring TT or the Project. All things to consider, but from a sheer tracking perspective the Shure should easily better the blue.

As for the answer to the dust question, I would really just invest in a proper vacuum RCM, regardless of cartridge or stylus profile, it's really the best way to clean and protect your records. To me that's really the ultimate item that should be in the Venn diagram of audiophile and record collector. If you're a collector you want to protect your collection, if you're an audiophile you want the best playback.

 

Yes, and I think they are two different worlds. I was a music lover as a kid before I got my first decent hi-fi. I then spent decades in audio land, where the sonics were actually more important than the music (some of that is a matter of taste I suppose). I finally broke away from that a while ago.
But, I never considered myself a record collector. I just accumulated records- when Vinyl Died™ I was buying tons of stuff for years. Classical, jazz, pop, hard rock, novelty records, test records, show tunes, opera, soundtracks, and label shopping as well. EMI ASD, Decca, Lyrita, BIS, Harmonia Mundi, Direct to Disc stuff, etc, ad nauseam.
Only in the last decade or so did I get to the time to start meaningfully culling through all this stuff- focusing on music I liked and sorting through pressings. That, in fact, is what got me to eventually join this forum, for the pressing info on rock records. In the process, I probably got rid of 10,000 records by the time I moved to Texas.
Now, I treat it as an adventure. I'm always listening to 'new to me' stuff- I have one friend who is an "influencer" who helped me get back into jazz via spiritual jazz and others with whom I exchange info on recordings, whether old or new. I buy mostly old records, some rare, so that puts me into collector territory.
However, I still don't consider myself a serious record collector. I don't know why. I have some serious records.
And the audiophile thing? Yeah, I take that as a pejorative too, even though it shouldn't be-- you know, the stereotype of listening for sonics without regard to musical merit (but who's to say, ear of the beholder: audiophile banalities or warhorses that are regular 'demo' material. I know I'm an audiophile despite that.
Short answer- you can be both I guess.

 

Oh boy! those classical labels you mention are records I really love. I got lucky and ended up with thousands from a library, nearly literally walked into them they were just chucking them out! ended up with a load of harmonia mundi including that amazing music of ancient greece record. Sounds like we have similar tastes! I'm almost always disapointed with 80s ASD issues though. I might soon have a complete run of lyrita from a friend who is/was a writer of classical cd liner notes! which ones are the big items sonicly?