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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
hifihandyman's avatar
hifihandyman
77 posts
 
Kenji, is that you?
asvjerry's avatar
asvjerry
4,336 posts
 
@hifihandyman...I suspect not....K would be all over us like stink on....

'nuff said....;)
vinylandtubes
45 posts
 
mahlman

If one were to apply the logic that you use to support the opinion expressed in your initial post, then:

One cannot appreciate a work of art unless you have yourself chiseled marble, mixed pigments to create the desired colors or stretched a canvas over a frame.
One cannot appreciate the skill and creativity of the composer without having composed.
One cannot comprehend that alcoholism and drug addiction are not beneficial to one’s health without having succumbed to such vices.

I, however, am not offended by your argument as I am primarily a lover of music; audiophilia runs a distant second.

Enjoy the music.
punkrock67's avatar
punkrock67
32 posts
 
Put simply NO! You do not need to be able to use a soldering iron to be an audiophile, just like if I own a a Porsche I don’t need to be a mechanical engineer. That’s why there are people who train for years to work on the complex machinery that makes up a Porsche. It is like saying that in order to be considered a Posrsche owner you have to drive any number of the 911 combos and the Caymen is not a true a Porsche but that would be wrong. 
I know my way around a soldering iron and maybe some day I will build a speaker system from scratch, but thankfully there’s an Italian company that makes some of the finest sounding speakers on the planet and I will buy them soon, but I still consider myself an audiophile...I have been into this hobby since I was a Freshman in high school. To me it’s about the music and listening to the music as the artist intended it to be heard. The equipment is the non musicians way to achieve that goal. We tend never to be satisfied.

In the end it’s about finding that diamond in the rough. I’m looking got a transparent warm and natural sound in my home that grabs you and drags you on to the stage. That’s what an audiophile is, it’s not about building a speaker. That is a great thing for some for others-we rather spend our time searching for the best albums to listen to. 

mahlman OP
433 posts
 
" Fortunately I started young, planting the Redwood tree that would grow to provide the Rosewood veneer for my DBA. While that was growing I was busy digging the ore I would refine down into voice coils and speaker cables. Fortunately tubes are not that hard, mostly silica for the glass although it took years building my lungs up to where I could get enough vacuum. Speakers actually not that hard, paper pulp cones only take a year or so to make, not bad at all. I did cheat and use melted down plastic bottles for the platter. All was on track and I was close to my goal of being a genuine Real McCoy Audiophile, one who built everything from scratch and trial and error, until I heard wire is directional. That’s it. I am done with audio.

Fortunately I was saving aluminum cans the whole time and have almost enough to melt down into the case and pistons for a flat six.... "

Remarkably similar path to the one I took. My biggest problem with the platter was finding a good Porcupine quill to do the little groove squiggly thing. I figured out how to solve directional wiring too. Lay your wire out double the length you need and cut in half and join them at the ends making sure the direction is marked so the flow is reversed. What one sends the other returns but if you screw up and don’t get the direction right you will only be able to send or receive so be very careful. The direction is not readily evident many times so judicious attention paid to the original wire when you cut is very important. I use beginning or end markers applied as I cut and as long as I put an end with a beginning I know that all will be well.
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