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What Meatloaf and Beer Have Taught me about Audiophiles

Recently in life and online I've had some curious observations about human behavior I thought I'd share.   To begin with, I have recently discovered that a surprising number of My Fellow Americans do not like meatloaf.   As a meatloaf maker and meatloaf cognoscenti I was absolutely astonished at this.  Some people who otherwise like burgers and the like hate meatloaf.  

If you make meatloaf and love it your immediate reaction to this is "but you haven't tried _my_ meatloaf."  That's our natural knee jerk reaction because we just can't imagine.  Related to this I have a bartender.  We'll call him Calhoun because his name is Calhoun.  An otherwise respectable fellow who knows beer and tequila better than most.   I would go in to see what the latest rotation of Indian Pale Ales were.  About once a month they'd get some new "dessert beer."  That is a brew made to taste like a sweet food substance.  The least offensive of which were peanut butter and the worst strawberry shortcake beer.  Calhoun would proceed to push me to sample these unholy abominations every time he could. 

Of course I'd tell him "I don't like flavored beers." Which was partially a lie as a coffee or espresso flavored beer would probably be divine.. but we digress.

Sometimes he was so adamant that the latest beer flavor was the one that would change my mind I'd go ahead and try them.  Of course, they were invariably disgusting. 

My point to all this is that being on both sides of this argument.  It's really hard to accept that our fellow audiophiles don't like something we feel is sublime and we will push our fancies onto them in the hopes of enriching their lives for the better.   It's hard for us to respect that someone else can love music and the stereos that play it and yet not have found their happy place the same way we have.

By the way, I use the Betty Crocker meatloaf recipe and add a tablespoon of chipotle powder.  Amazing. 

erik_squires

Showing 3 responses by ghdprentice

ghdprentice
7,819 posts
 

@stuartk 

Sure there are going to be some trade offs. The more you invest, in general the less tradeoffs. 

I used to go through periods when I would explore different genre of music. Rock was my first love, then jazz fusion, classical, traditional jazz... then electronic. I was going through a system upgrade during my electronic phase, I carried around five of my favorite electronic music CDs. They were just magical and often  ethereal. I chose some equipment on the basis of those CDs. Wow, they sounded great... but when I would put on a jazz, vocal, or other album. They sounded terrible. I had inadvertently optimized for a single sound... one that often had no real touch points in reality. It was completely artificial, what a mistake. Well, unless I was listening to electronic.  

Ultimately that experience and some others drove me  to find a ruler to measure sonic characteristics. Ultimately, I realized it was real acoustic music. If all you listen to is rock... then you can optimize just that (hint, go for MacIntosh + B&W). But if you listen to more... it is really worth shooting for the real thing. 

ghdprentice
7,819 posts
 

@stuartk 

That is what I mean... knowing what the real thing sounds like. However, you are making it sound way harder than it is.

One listens to lots of live music, individual instruments, in small combinations, in concert halls. Sure they are all different, but the mind is a wonderful thing, you can hear and learn what differences in location in a concert hall sound like, what different concert halls sound like. What pianos sound like, violins, echos in halls. I have heard a number of Stradivarius violins from twenty feet... they are unique... unbelievably sweet.  I can hear them in recordings nearly instantly. I have been to hundreds of symphony concerts... some in different concert halls. Small venue jazz, as well as Rock and other electronic music concerts.

I know what the real thing sounds like. Then I have applied that general knowledge to curate my system. The fanatic part comes in the willingness to pursue understanding the real thing and in endlessly evaluating equipment an getting ever closer to the real experience... music that emotionally pulls you into the experience like the real instruments are there. 

Will audiophile does not require lots of investment... folks this dedicated to a pursuit tend to spend a lot... it part of the disease. But just putting together a bunch of powerful or flashy audio equipment, or stacks of subwoofers does not make an audiophile... There are lots of way to enjoy the pursuit of high end audio... home audio. 

 

ghdprentice
7,819 posts
 

I think this is a question of semantics. I completely agree that there are all sorts of tastes among people that love music and buy equipment to reproduce it. Just as there are among eaters. However, there are common folks and epicureans. People who love ketchup on eggs and those a carefully prepared Confit de Canard and can tell nuances in it. 

An audiophile is a person who is passionate about high-fidelity sound reproduction. They strive to achieve the most accurate and enjoyable listening experience possible, focusing on capturing the nuances and subtleties of music. Sounding like the real thing.

There is a focus on accuracy... there is a target. Lots of folks have consumer products... they are not audiophiles because the output does not approach sounding like the real thing, and they don’t care. Some folks have very expensive systems with a wall of subwoofers... they are not audiophiles. They love music and systems that plaster you against the rear wall, but nuanced accuracy to the real thing is not there. There are folks that are into vintage gear that is incredibly warm and romantic, but is not approaching the real thing. Yes, you are correct, there are lots of tastes out there. 

There are also people with incredibly modest system who have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours choosing and tweaking their systems... wires all over the place... who have done incredible things to make their system outperform and sound more like the real thing than folks with a lot more money invested who’s system doesn’t sound real. They are audiophiles.

I think I understand the point of the post... audiophiles have different tastes. With that I must respectfully disagree. Audiophiles are crazy fanatics trying to reproduce music that sounds like the real thing, as accurately and nuanced as possible into the home. Most folks and certainly many on this forum are not audiophiles. Not an insult... doesn’t mean they are not passionate about equipment and the sound they like and love music. 

There are other categories of folks. High end enthusiasts for instance, audio.

While I have no doubt that one to the great chiefs of the world, or maybe even the OP could produce a epicurean meatloaf... in modern language meatloaf and beer (as in six pack Joe) allude to simple tastes and big flavors not nuanced, complex and carefully balanced as the audiophile would require in his sound in order to reproduce music well. 

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