Vote

Excellent music in my home any time I want to listen to it, plus an expanded appreciation for all types of music—although I am having a bit of difficulty with opera.

I want to be able to hear exactly what the artist, producer, and audio engineer wanted me to hear.

It's not a good investment, but I spend quite a bit on it, it's not art, although it looks okay, I'm not more healthy because I listen .. .. .. or .. .. am I?

Deep and complex? Or another obsession? Satisfaction in audio for me is having just enough system to let the music take over. Kind of like having just enough money so you don't have to worry about money. Liberation at its finest.

To experience the music, not just listen to it.

Realistic sound, not necessarily the absolutely faithful, and musical enjoyment with equipment that must be reliable.

There is nothing in my life so satisfying as to experience the magic of music being made. The moment in time, frozen in a technically perfected (if not perfect) container. All without leaving my armchair..

Greater enjoyment of the music I love.

It's just a means to an end. I consider myself much less an audiophile now and more simply a music lover. I'm no longer passionate enough about the process to fuss with LPs—but I'm still much too focused on sound quality to ever consider MP3 or other lossy compression format. Reading about musicians, their music and how it is recorded is still fun—reading about the playback technology less so.

Why should audio be different from any other hobby? I mean, why replace half of the parts on a car, when the likes of a Honda Accord V6 is a fast as 90+% of performancce cars of 10 years ago. And who needs thousands of bottles of wine in the basement. If you need a few bottles go out and buy them. Let the shrinks among us tell us why people have/need hobbies. Everybody else who argues this out on the Internet should go get lives, and/or spend more time listening to their system, or live music. Now if you'll excuse me, I have one of my selections from the last two Votes cued up and ready to go.

Hmmm. I guess it's a matter of choice. I was seriously into the whole audio spiel when I was younger, but as time went on (and babies were born) I kinda lost the urge. Sure, I can still drool over equipment and the like, but there's just so much going on now that I really don't have the tiem to audition gear, make long decisions, spend six hours a day intently listening to records and getting weird about hardware. Still love music massively, though! The youngest component in my system (my speakers) are a decade old this year - but to my ears they're still as good sounding as they were when I bought them. I guess it has a lot to do with a person's general interests. I'd rather go fishing for four hours these days than listen to records. Hmmm...

I don't find the audiophile psyche deep or complex. Music and music appreciation can be deep and complex, but the desire to hear that music accurately reproduced seems rather simple to me. I think that the people who find their audiophile addiction deep and complex are taking themselves far too seriously. Sit back, relax and enjoy the glorious sound.

I’m an audio purist on a never-ending quest to get closer to the music (or at least to the master tape). I do not believe in adding devices that add 2nd harmonic distortion because of the euphoric seduction, or using cables to tune a system, or any other method that destroys the music. I prefer to listen to the music in the dark. This is a pleasurable escape and sometimes takes me to a state of meditation.

At this point in my life, to pass along the love of music to my children. To enjoy music for music's sake, where it is not enjoyed merely as background music. To appreciate that music can make you mad, happy, sad, hopeful, caring, silly, and on and on. Just as it sometimes takes great orators to teach people what should be self-evident truths (Lincoln, for example,) I think a good audio system can teach people that music has value and importance in our lives.

Real sound. Live sound. Being close as possible to the music and enjoying it without playing it loud. Experience music as you did in the 1970s and 1980s making one drink last all night in a crowded and ugly night club listening to groups like The Blue Nile or Spyro Gyra.

Suppose you go to an open-air art show and see a painting there that really evokes a strong emotional response. You think, “Man, I think I really get what the artist is trying to convey here.” So you buy it and have it wrapped up and take it home. When you unwrap it and hang it on your wall, to your dismay it somehow doesn’t look quite as you remembered, and the emotional impact is gone. It’s not that the painting looks bad; it’s just that the connection between you and the artist seems to have gone missing. Then a friend pays you a visit, and you complain about the picture, and your friend says, “No wonder; you are using incandescent lights in this room, which have a different spectral response from natural sunlight; and this table lamp is shining directly on the picture. You are not really seeing the picture as the artist intended. Let’s go to the store.” A few hours (and dollars) later, your friend has changed lightbulbs and rearranged the lighting sources, and the room is filled with natural-spectrum, indirect lighting. Now, when you look at the picture, the emotional connection is back. That’s what high-end audio is all about: having gear (and having it properly set up) that is good enough to enable you to experience the magic as the artist intended.

The hardware minimally interferes with or never enhances music appreciation.

At a minimum, to appreciate the unique skills of the musicians. At most, to experience with awe the passion that is key to musical creativity.

Peace, love, and understanding.

To get as close to live music experience as possible in my home.

For me, the better the audio the more it’s like a time machine. I am transported back to the musical event. Too bad I can't go forward!

I hope to emphisize the fact that I am totally hooked on audio/video and Home theater. I am trying to get my wife envolved, even just a little bit. Then... maybe the day will come that I don't have to sneak A/V gear & DVD's into the house, so that she doesn,t know that I bought them. I started way back when I was in the Army in 1975, with my first Radio Shack stereo system. I think that now, I will never be satisfied with what I have. I always want more & more. Bigger and better. The most up to date stuff. I don't think it will ever stop.