Great Topic!
After years of participation on AudioCircle and Harmonic Discord I’ve discovered that I had a total misconception of the term audiophile. I think part of this stems from cruising audioreview.com where reviewers tag themselves as either Audiophiles or Music Enthusiasts. The implication for me was that an audiophile must earn the title by being armed with golden ears, a plethora of knowledge and a very high end high $$$ system. Since I've yet to see a test that certifies one as an audiophile, I assumed that any self proclaimed audiophile must have a very high impression of himself and just might be a bit of a snob. False!
Merriam-Webster defines audiophile as:
a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction
Like it or not, by definition those that post reviews on audioreview.com are audiophiles and so are the members of AC. Any snobbery that’s associated with the term stems from a misunderstanding of the term and or the attitude of some members of the audiophile community. This isn’t a slam on the audiophile community; one can find snobs in every walk of life.
Last weekend I was sharing a nice bottle of wine with my wife’s cousin in New Orleans.
He is the New Orleans Chapter President of one of the most prestigious wine societies in the US. Naturally I like to pick his brain regarding wine and in the course of our discussion he posed the question.
“What defines a great wine?”
His Answer:
The one you like be it a $3 screw cap or a $1,000 bottle from his reserve celler!
No snobbery there.
IMHumbeO, the same holds true for audio.
Tubes vs. Solid State, Copper vs. Silver, CDP vs. Turntable, etc.
What defines a great system?
The one you like!
Recording Quality:
Perhaps we could coin a term for those of us who have become snobs, or at least very selective about the quality of the recordings we listen to. Our enthusiasm for high-fidelity sound reproduction drives many of us to continue to improve our systems and those improvements enable us to more easily distinguish fine recordings from inferior recordings.
Listening to inferior recordings on a great sound system is for me analogous to driving a Porsche in a school zone. A school zone just isn’t the right venue for exploring the capabilities of the machine. I once read a post from Zybar where he used the phrase “it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up”. When I’m looking for a similar experience I’m a very selective, perhaps to the point of being snobbish, about the recording I select.
For me, audiophile recordings must be well engineered in order to allow one’s system to show what it’s capable of. Lesser recordings are enjoyed on my Nano and office system.
Jeff
