Should people who can't solder, build or test their speakers be considered audiophiles?



  So, if you bought that Porsche but can only drive it and not fix it do you really understand and appreciate what it is? I say no. The guy who can get in there and make it better, faster or prettier with his own hands has a superior ability to understand the final result and can appreciate what he has from a knowledge base and not just a look at what I bought base. I mean sure you can appreciate that car when you drive it but if all you do is take it back to the dealership for maintenance and repairs you just like the shape with no real understanding of what makes it the mechanical marvel it is.
  I find that is true with the audio world too. There are those who spend a ton of money on things and then spend a lot of time seeking peer approval and assurance their purchase was the right one and that people are suitably impressed. Of course those who are most impressed are those who also do not design, build, test or experiment.

  I propose that an audiophile must have more than a superficial knowledge about what he listens to and must technically understand what he is listening to. He knows why things work and what his end goal is and often makes his own components to achieve this. He knows how to use design software to make speakers that you can't buy and analyze the room they are in and set up the amplification with digital crossovers and DSP. He can take a plain jane system and tweak it and balance it to best suit the room it is in. He can make it sound far better than the guy who constantly buys new components based on his superficial knowledge who does not understand why what he keeps buying in vain never quite gets there.

  A true audiophile can define his goal and with hands on ability achieve what a mere buyer of shiny parts never will. So out comes the Diana Krall music and the buyer says see how good my system is? The audiophile says I have taken a great voice and played it through a system where all was matched and tweaked or even purposely built and sits right down next to Diana as she sings. The buyer wants prestigious signature sound and the audiophile will work to achieve an end result that is faithful true to life audio as though you were in the room with Diana as she sings. The true audiophile wants true to life and not tonally pure according to someones artificial standard.

 So are you a buyer or an audiophile and what do you think should make a person an audiophile?
mahlman

Showing 19 responses by mahgister

Who  dont want to be at the same time a perfect tantric yogi master and the best lover in the world? Me... How is it that this 2  could be contradictory?

I am an audiophile because i am a music lover, and i am a better music lover because i am an audiophile... is the relation difficult to understand? if to difficult, read a book..... :)

:)

« All doors go to the same place at the end... »-Groucho Marx
Why someone can enjoy people burning themselves in a fire?

Because he start it ...Say someone using, speaking of himself, the third person....

If we think one second, we can say this thread reveal more about the OP than about each people participating at the end....

If this thread was an image of the world, this attitude would be seen as totally immoral...But think a minute, this thread is indeed an image of the world....

Ok, i will let you think if you can....
When the torero pass many red flags in front of the bull's head, he does not mock  him, he plays silent, with no justification... He does not  say to the bull: " how stupid you  are for being here..."

Especially when he has created himself the arena  for his own " exploits"...

Bulls are bulls, we all are "stupid audiophile bulls"...

Not you for sure....You are the "enlightened" torero who owns the theater....

Congratulations!
Sarcasm can be a good thing and it was at the beginning...

But stirring the pot too long ,with many justifications, made sarcasm no more efficient and transform it in provocation...

And provocation is, like any ideology without any bone, mainly boring....

Sorry to say that....
Pointing others to be troll is the only certain way to reveal yourself like one...

People able to discuss dont point to each others, trolls did.... Sorry....


Is reading 10 pages of stupidity mix with funny remarks so hard?

It seems people dont read anymore 500 hundred page books.... Thrillers dont count at all....

And my post is not a joke....I am dead serious most of the times....

:)
If someone have his head hard like an hammer, he will look for a nail to hit.... :)


« The sex appeal of a nail for an hammer » -Groucho Marx
I think that sarcasm tough is a bit too much of a more subtle gesture called "irony"....Like too much "salt" in the soup.... We must practice irony and spare the sarcasm....

I dont mean it to be a critic of your thread at all.... I enjoy reading trough the psyche of each poster.... 

It is just my grain of "salt"....
Without stupid people there is no crowds here or elsewhere, and the world will look like a desert island....And perhaps i would not be there also :)

« Idiots are the salt of the earth said someone, but sometimes there is too much salt» -Groucho Marx
Get on my level, gents.
I am not on your level at all...No formal education in music classical or not...


But I can write 100 pages about the 5th symphony of Bruckner without being able to read the partition....Musical sounds are for me words and stories and metaphors...

I can appreciate Scriabin and feeling the abyss and similarities between him and Hildegard Von Bingen, Josquin Des Prez and Sorabji….Is that validation of any level at all?


:)


«All music is already in one gong note» -Grouch Marx
Only the man who walk without dreams, sleeping, is not even crazy....

We are here looking for the best in some aspect of the world, be it sound and music, we are living..... We all try hard, each in our own way, to not sleepwalk in this aspect of the world.... 
It is an esthetic choice for me..... not a practical one.... dreams are dreams..... You are right for the rear view …. :)
My car is rented and my wife drive it.....I walk most of the times..... :)

All cars are boring except the Bugatti Atlantic 1936....I dream to buy one.... a seller here?

There is a great similarity and a family ressemblance with the Berning ZOTL amplifier but objects of my dreams partake something for sure..... :)


As an engineer both MSME MSEE and CME your post is stupid.
Is it stupid to insist on the importance of the acoustics?
An amplifier of 1978 or of 2020 can be very good and even on par in spite of the difference in design....The design science of amplifier is already good for the last 50 years...There is exception for sure, my Sansui amplifier design will be trespass by a Berning ZOTL for example....I dont negate improvement in engineering....

My point is acoustic is totally underestimated in the experience of most people.... This is my experience with audio....

More than 80 % of all threads in audio forums are about electronics....And the most important for Hi-Fi experience is the embeddings and first and foremost the acoustical embeddings....The electrical and mechanical one are important but comes after in superlative audible effects....The difference between 2 electronic components design is way less spectacular most of the times in my experience than a rightfully workings on the 3 embeddings mainly in the acoustical dimension....

If you dont know that I doubt that this is my post that is stupid, sorry..... :)

I cannot exhibit any letters after my title:  lover of music and creative audiophile with homemade materials and low cost one....  :)


I know that this thread is intended only to be sarcasm....The OP is intelligent....But I will answer like I dont know it was mainly sarcasm....


Electronic components engineering is most of the times secondary, even speakers design is most of the times secondary factor, the most important factors if you have a relatively "good" audio system already in your hand is not upgrading for a so called better design most of the times but how to embed mechanically, electrically, and foremost acoustically the audio system, never mind his design....


That is my audiophile only discovery..... :)

If you want an Hi-fi experience you need not an electronic engineer but an acoustician mainly...


For example the design of missiles is not so different from Von Braun days , if you want very good missiles nowadays you need more an A.I. specialist than Von Braun himself....

The amplifier is like a missile in my metaphor....The science of acoustics like A.I.