Audiophilism is a hobby


This post grew out of another discussion on music vs. sound. According to a poll taken in that discussion, it is clear most A’goners claim they listen to their rigs primarily for the music. Although I don’t doubt the truth of that, I maintain that much of the listening is as a hobby, with music being a very important component. I’m not saying we can’t be profoundly moved by the music but rather that a lot of our enjoyment comes from the sheer sound emitted from our speakers. Great music is of course a vital part of the experience, but with all the manipulations we do with our systems, we  are fascinated by the idea of sound in itself as a hobby.

128x128rvpiano

Showing 2 responses by deep_333

I was listening yesterday to one of the first all-digital rock albums Peter Gabriel's Security. I had the original CD in a vintage 16-bit player and was amazed by the vividness of the sound quality!  I felt what I was hearing was the master such was the explosiveness of the transients and the strong rhythmic drive of the bass. Shock the Monkey never sounded better!

Get the hires studio master of his album "Us", put it through your hires dac and listen to "digging in the dirt".

 

We figured in a previous thread that there less than a million audiophiles in the US and of that group only a small number care enough to post about it on internet sites.

This estimate is probably off and the number is a lot higher, imo. The younger audiophile is a "home theater" guy, with a HT setup, spatial headphones, etc. I know quite a few of them in my city. They view audio as a multitasking system for their music, movies and games. Their setups tend to sound shockingly good and in many cases may beat the daylights out of some of the $$$$ channel based purist systems around here.

The older lads here probably have little to no idea about the above mentioned, play games, etc. Purist stereo rigs my be a dying breed, but, the above mentioned is not. If these uppity audio brands don’t repurpose themselves a bit, they will be closing shop soon enough.

The fact that AV forums have skyrocketing memberships and sites like Agon have dwindling membership should be initial proof.