Has audiophilia changed your music taste?

Being an audiophile hasn't changed my taste in music, but has changed my appreciation for well recorded material. A good example is the latest release from Santana "Shaman." In my car, I love listening to Shaman, but at home the quality of the recording is less than appreciative.

If anything has expanded my taste in music, it's the current lack of creativity in rock. Very few of todays bands have the sustenance to produce consistently good material. Additionally, most rock recordings are compressed and their sound isn't conducive to critical listening.

Some good, honest answers here.

Obviously there seems to be two camps.

Those whose tastes were unaffected and unchanged by their venture into audiophilia, the better gear seems to have enhanced what they were already experiencing.

And those like myself, that discovered new music as part of the journey into audio nirvana.

Sugarbrie said it best.

"...companies were using specially recorded CD's to show off their gear. The performances from a musicians standpoint on many of them made my skin crawl."

I think we've all purchased "specially recorded" music in one shape or form. Every audiophile must own at least one Telarc, GRP, Concord or other "boutique" audiophile recording.

At some point we all want to see what our systems are capable of and, hence, look for a vehicle to test it...audiophile recordings. Unfortunately, many (most) of these are the most dreadfully boring, unimaginative, poorly performed recordings going. Spyro Gyra? David Benoit? Patricia Barber? Come on guys (and gals). If Patricia Barber's recordings weren't so good, I sincerely doubt that most of you would be sitting around listening to her screaching and wailing.

So I guess the short answer is yes and no. It would seem that there are two camps in this hobby. Those that love music and those that love high end audio. Those who love music seek out equipment that can serve the music best. Those who love equipment seek out "music" that serves their equipment best.

As a musician, it's easier to listen to a poorly recorded great performance than it is to listen to a greatly recorded poor performance.

-Dan

Dan- "As a musician, it's easier to listen to a poorly recorded great performance than it is to listen to a greatly recorded poor performance"

This applies to everyone, methinks, not only musicians...??

I'd further propose, as a music"phile", that a greatly recorded poor performance is bearable for a while, but a poorly recorded poor performance is instantly deadly.

I think it is too simplistic to break it down into a
convenient, but artificial split between those who listen
to music and those who listen to their systems. This
sounds to me like typical one-ups-man-ship rather than
an attempt to understand why some posters' musical tastes
have changed. There's a world of difference between
Audiophile tripe that is the musical equivilent of those
recordings of trains and such that some of our fathers
bought to hear the effects of stereo, and Mahler, Coltrane,
Max Roach, Clifford Brown, early Ray Charles, Robert
Johnson, Muddy Waters, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, Aretha
Franklin, Early Staple Singers, Charlie Patton, and the
list goes on and on and on....

That ain't music, but the stuff you listened to when you
were 17 is? Well..........okay. I can accept that this may be one's "reality." But, I would advise -- don't kid yourself into believing this is true for everyone. To do so would indicate that not only haven't one's musical tastes changed, but neither has one's youthful solipsistic world view.