Do Audiophiles Like Music?

Forum member, “tmsorosk,” asks: “Do audiophiles like music?”

It seems a strange question with an obvious answer until you stop and think about it. So many conversations between audiophiles focus on gear and sound, but leave music—that thing which should fuel our passion—lost in the jet-black background.

Ever notice when you and your audiophile buddies get together the conversation is usually 90% equipment and sound, and 10% music? We have been building, tuning, and voicing these systems for decades. Shouldn't the talk be more about music now?

Do you agree? Disagree? Why? Share your thoughts in the forum.

COMMENTS
ack's picture

I would certainly hope we are not reading Rolling Stones that rag has not been relevant in just about 30 damn years.

Of course audiophiles like music but there are some many different people listening to so many different styles of music. There is the classical fans taxing their systems with big time orchestra affairs and guys who have speakers made perfect for the nuances of hard bop jazz fancy.

And then there are musicphile indie rock fans trying to make sure their equipment sounds as good as it looks in their perfect metrosexual apartment somewhere between stereotype internet land and Williamsburg Brooklyn.

I think it helps when reviewers here reference the music they are listening to test out the equipment I relate well to Stephen Majias and his musical tastes align pretty well with my own.

hifitommy's picture

is the love of music. why else? sure, we learn to love some of the equipment such as i did my adcXLM and my arc sp3a1(c).

which music we like is another story and now and again we like the music for what it allows our system to do and show us.

crisnee's picture

This question might be more to the point, as the first responders seemed to have missed it or glossed over it.

The answer isn't that simple. Sure you like music, who doesn't? But... Answer the following honestly and you might be surprised.

What's the ratio of time/money you spend on buying gear, thinking about buying, auditioning, doing listening tests at home, listening to special audiophile or "great sounding" albums, buying albums for their sound more than the music, rearranging your system, tweaking, reading about tweaks, criticizing or worrying about the sound as compared to just purely listening to the music (playing it as background doesn't count). Do an honest time assessment. What you got? A pretty good measuring stick, if importance can be measured by time put in. And the ratio of money spent on gear/audiophile albums vs. music might be another good measure.

My guess is that a fair percentage of "audiophiles," spend less than half their time (using the above criteria} doing serious music listening.

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