George - Interesting,
maybe what makes someone an audiophile is a desire to make something that really should not sound good (or even work at all) sound great.
Vinyl, when you think about it, really should sound rubbish, even if it made a noise at all. How is it possible that a groove can be cut like that, and a needle run through it, and the music comes out just so alive? It should be impossible, let alone sound great. Getting great sound from vinyl is an achievement. A miracle.
Ditto CD. You look at it and wonder ‘how can that even work?’ And again the triumph is not merely that it works at all, but that it can be made to sound so good. Good sound from CD is an achievement. But less of one than vinyl so some vinyl audiophiles don’t really let them in.
But streaming? Of course it just works, like an iPhone or an Xbox just works. Bits stream from the digitised masters in the cloud service in perfect order to your dac, ready for exact unpacking. Where’s the achievement in that.
Any 10 year old in their school lunch break can set up the Rasperry Pi they carry around in their pocket to be a streamer, and they can be playing hi res music from Qobuz into their headphones before they’ve finished their sandwich. And much to the horror, dismay or denial of some, that sound is probably a better replica of the master than either vinyl or CD can be - understandable, really, given the simplicity of the chain.
Seems much to easy to be a hobby, let alone an obsession.
maybe what makes someone an audiophile is a desire to make something that really should not sound good (or even work at all) sound great.
Vinyl, when you think about it, really should sound rubbish, even if it made a noise at all. How is it possible that a groove can be cut like that, and a needle run through it, and the music comes out just so alive? It should be impossible, let alone sound great. Getting great sound from vinyl is an achievement. A miracle.
Ditto CD. You look at it and wonder ‘how can that even work?’ And again the triumph is not merely that it works at all, but that it can be made to sound so good. Good sound from CD is an achievement. But less of one than vinyl so some vinyl audiophiles don’t really let them in.
But streaming? Of course it just works, like an iPhone or an Xbox just works. Bits stream from the digitised masters in the cloud service in perfect order to your dac, ready for exact unpacking. Where’s the achievement in that.
Any 10 year old in their school lunch break can set up the Rasperry Pi they carry around in their pocket to be a streamer, and they can be playing hi res music from Qobuz into their headphones before they’ve finished their sandwich. And much to the horror, dismay or denial of some, that sound is probably a better replica of the master than either vinyl or CD can be - understandable, really, given the simplicity of the chain.
Seems much to easy to be a hobby, let alone an obsession.