You know you have audiophile system when...

I'll approach this from a slightly more humble and less judgmental direction (odd for this room I know). And first of all, I have no problem with being called an audiophile. I don't wear it like a badge, but it doesn't bother me. And I couldn't care less what snarky things people in a record store might say about me. I have filthy c**t w**re b***h white trash sister-in-law who works in a wine shop and in a voice dripping with ridicule calls their more discerning customers "cork dorks". And these are the people who put food on her table!! Like I said, white trash. Anyway, to the point.

An audiophile is someone who listens to music on the built-in speakers and their iPhone and says, "Wait minute!, this can be better", and goes out and buys a bluetooth speaker. They're on the path. It's the person who listens to their old Pioneer receiver through their old Advent speakers and says, "Wait a minute, this can be better", and goes to an audio store or online and starts their journey, their search for the "better". It's the person who's still listening to their old dorm room stereo of the first stereo they bought when they moved out of their parents house. It cost $350 with speakers and might even have a built in cassette deck and one day they realize, "this can sound better". (maybe because music coming from the stereo in their new minivan sounds different and better). I'm sure all of you have been to the homes of good friends, smart people, clever and at times even a bit sophisticated who still use that old stereo when they listen to music, which likely isn't very often.  It's about the pursuit of better access to the music. Audiophiles don't use music to listen to their system. That's pithy but ignorant. They only time they do that is when they add/are breaking in a new addition or trying to figure out where that booming bass comes from every once in a while.  We're all chasing the music, and better systems are more immersive, they pull us in, relaxed, enveloping and they take us into the sonic artform to which, for whatever reason, we humans seem to be drawn.

You're at a concert. You turn to your wife and say "This sounds as good as it does at home!"

My definition of an audiophile system is that it sounds exactly like live music. I set up my new system with my new audiophile speakers, synced the subwoofer so it blended in perfectly, got speaker position perfect and everything sounded terrific.

I auditioned it for my wife. She listened and said "It sounds like they’re in the room with us." Now inside my head I was doing my happy dance, because that’s exactly what I was going for. Then she said "It’s creepy. I don’t like it."

@natman 

I auditioned it for my wife. She listened and said "It sounds like they’re in the room with us." Now inside my head I was doing my happy dance, because that’s exactly what I was going for. Then she said "It’s creepy. I don’t like it."

I'd rather have someone say, "It sounds just like we've been transported to the concert hall, jazz club, rock club', than it sounds like they are in the room with us, when they hear my system. But that is my preference. Even with a singer with an acoustic guitar, I would rather be transported to the original recording space.

Just how does on get a simulation that there is an 80 piece orchestra in the room with me? But having it sound as if I am 15 rows back at Disney Hall, sound more attainable. 

But then, I am probably just being pedantic. 

I’d rather have someone say, "It sounds just like we’ve been transported to the concert hall, jazz club, rock club’, than it sounds like they are in the room with us, when they hear my system. But that is my preference.

You are right!

It is not a taste or a preference, but an acoustic result when a system /room is under control...

If they are in " the room with you" but you are not there in the concert hall or jazz club with them to begin with it, is because the acoustic trade-off of the recording engineer is not revealed well in your system/room...

Our room must be erased by passive and active and acoustic and psycho-acoustic control to reveal some aspects of the recording original trade-off, then it is you who are there on the stage or near it,  out of your room, with an intimate relation with the sound around you , not them in your room ...

It is my acoustic experience...