Whether I'm a music lover or audiophile is situational. I've always enjoyed music played on most any old system because I'm not expecting quality sound.
I can become an audiophile at live amplified concerts and audiophile systems. I've always been a critical listener at live concerts, in the vast majority of cases sound is horrendous, way too loud, astringent mids and highs! Too many sound reinforcement companies don't know what they're doing. An audiophile friend owns a sound reinforcement company, he does sound right, it can be done. I suppose the only thing that's ever made the bad sound event enjoyable was the ganja, alcohol and good friends. On the other hand acoustic instruments and minimal sound reinforcement can make for a very enjoyable qualitative experience. I can also go into critical mode when listening to audiophile systems, its the expectation of quality that lends itself to qualitative judgements. It took many years of system building to get long term musical enjoyment from my own system. In the early years I would be happy with quality for very short periods of time. These periods of enjoyment increased in time as my system got better, to the point where today I'm never dissatisfied with the sound.
Still, despite no longer being dissatisfied, I continue to tweak my basic system, I always think I'm finished, and yet I find another thing to improve. As of today I can't think of a single thing I want to change, but based on past experience I can expect I'll be changing out something down the road.
And so it seems I'm finally a music lover when listening to my system, yet subconsciously still analyzing sound quality. I suspect many of us are in the same boat, coincidental music lovers and audiophiles when listening to our finely tuned systems.
I can become an audiophile at live amplified concerts and audiophile systems. I've always been a critical listener at live concerts, in the vast majority of cases sound is horrendous, way too loud, astringent mids and highs! Too many sound reinforcement companies don't know what they're doing. An audiophile friend owns a sound reinforcement company, he does sound right, it can be done. I suppose the only thing that's ever made the bad sound event enjoyable was the ganja, alcohol and good friends. On the other hand acoustic instruments and minimal sound reinforcement can make for a very enjoyable qualitative experience. I can also go into critical mode when listening to audiophile systems, its the expectation of quality that lends itself to qualitative judgements. It took many years of system building to get long term musical enjoyment from my own system. In the early years I would be happy with quality for very short periods of time. These periods of enjoyment increased in time as my system got better, to the point where today I'm never dissatisfied with the sound.
Still, despite no longer being dissatisfied, I continue to tweak my basic system, I always think I'm finished, and yet I find another thing to improve. As of today I can't think of a single thing I want to change, but based on past experience I can expect I'll be changing out something down the road.
And so it seems I'm finally a music lover when listening to my system, yet subconsciously still analyzing sound quality. I suspect many of us are in the same boat, coincidental music lovers and audiophiles when listening to our finely tuned systems.