You know you have audiophile system when...


The definition of an audiophile systems is truly unknown, but recently after dabbling with tube rolling, power cables, and interconnects my system achieved a level where its clarity was no longer what grabbed my attention. Instead, I was distinctly hearing the bloom and decay of every note in the music. It’s just a different level that I believe has me listening to music differently.  It translates into greater dynamics and voices and instruments having more distinct vibrato characteristics.

mceljo

Now you've got me curious about the cables--interconnect or speaker and brand?

My feeling that i had achieved an "audiophile system" was when i invested enough to have constant "wow" moments of "they are here" or "i am there" on live recordings (esp acoustic) and even studio recordings where the engineers attempted to achieve that with the miking and instrument placement.  I wish that could have been achieved with cables only but it required a more significant investment in every category: amplification, speakers, DAC, turntable/tonearm/cart--but other than [possibly] cable tweaks or tonearm/cartridge upgrades i'm done---probably, maybe...

that's probably a fair statement for many audiophiles--but hopefully their goal would be to make music sound, well, more musical ?  It's certainly why i focus almost exclusively on live recordings these days and i'm pretty satisfied with the sound...well, almost, maybe...

When an album is recorded in multiple recording studios & you can hear the difference between tracks.  

@wyoboy - In my system, a Waudio 10AWG power cable made a significant difference for my amplifier and both Chicago and now Sydney interconnects from Audioquest made a significant difference between my DAC and amplifier. I have some other cables in the system, but really believe that these two made the most (if not all) difference. I’m not one to spend hours swapping things to verify everything to the Nth degree. I tend to decide what I want to upgrade to and if I don’t hear anything to the contrary I just go with it. The two cables above made immediate improvements in my system that were as significant to my ears as tube rolling has been in my Pathos Classic One MkIII amplifier.

I struggle to really describe the changes, but the change is signicant enough that I can "hear it" even on recordings that I have not listened to for a long time.  There's just a dynamic and depth that wasn't there prior to the cable upgrades.