Music lover or audiophile?

rvpiano,
What did I miss?


You posed "being an audiophile" vs "being a music lover"  as an explicit dichotomy and said you’ve moved on from being an audiophile to being a music lover.

Ah the usual false dichotomy.
Though it's always been a form of "virtue signalling" in the audiophile world to say "I'm all about the music...I'm a music lover first!"

Most of us (if not all) are both. 


I like switching up my speakers...because I like speakers and audio gear.  It's fun.  I just switched in my little spendor speakers, did the usual audiophile dialing them in to get the sound I want....and then enjoyed the f#ck out of some Cheap Trick albums.

From your first post to your subsequent replies, you’ve upheld the false dichotomy.

You started with telling people "I think you have to decide, are you a music lover or audiophile? "

Which is a false dichotomy. As you acknowledged, the majority will say "both." Because it’s a false dichotomy.



I just get annoyed when false propositions like those are promulgated in regard to audiophiles. "Audiophiles just care about the gear, they don’t really care about music!"
You can speak for yourself, to tell us you became overwhelmingly focused on the gear/sound. But generalizing this to telling people they have to decide between being an audiophile/music lover is just false.


I certainly DO know what you mean by getting crazy thinking about the gear a lot. I’ve been there. But even at those points I personally never stopped being a music lover. It’s not a "virtue" that I remained a music lover, just a plain, dull old fact. If someone is far more skewed to being interested in the gear for most of the time, I don’t denigrate that in the least.


In any case, I’m glad you feel you’re in a better place, able to enjoy things.

elizabeth, while I can't get myself to be as cynical as you are on the topic, I do agree with you that almarg is the Gold Standard for helpful input here!

rvpiano

I have to admit that I still listen for the sound at least as much as the music.

While I do understand the gist of what you are getting at there, I think it bares reflection that listening to music is to also love the sound. The musicians pick their instrumentation for how the instruments sound, because it is as much an influence on the music as the choice of notes.

It can be quite hard to separate the enjoyment of "music" from "sound."

I can listen to music as pleasant "background" from any number of "crappy" systems.

But to be compelled to sit down and directly concentrate on the music, I need a reason to do so.


Yesterday I heard a bunch of my LPs played back on a big, full-range pair of $20,000 speakers. I heard the music, but wasn’t compelled by the presentation to enjoy it nearly as much as I know I can. Throwing the same tracks on my system, dialed to my own preferences, and even though I happened to be using at the moment an old, tiny Spendor S3/5 monitors, I was just swooning to the music and sound in a way that just escaped that other system. Once the timbre and presentation of the music sounded "right" to my brain, I could just relax and luxuriate not only in the melody and beat, but in the sensuousness of the sound, which increased my involvement in the music.

@briangingrich

There’s nothing wrong with Floyd or Tchaikovsky - I’m just surpised there’s not a wider range of musical taste among in the high-end community.

My own observations are completely at odds with yours.

I’ve found over the years that audiophiles tend to have a wider range of musical interests than the average person. Personally my collection contains classical of many sorts, various types of jazz, fusion, rock, prog rock, folk, disco, funk, electronica, pop...you name it. I’ve found that most audiophiles I know have a similarly expanded interest in music, often because their interest in sound, and their systems, was a good vehicle for exploring a wider range of music.