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A no-taking-sides, no judgment classification of the 4 types of Audiophile. "The audiophile bestiary".

Gorgonzola

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I would propose a fifth category - The Music Lover. Their most important outcome is to hear the music as it was recorded and will use a combination of measurements, listening and others opinion (often in that order) to guide their journey.

The biggest challenge we face as humans interacting on a forum is the fact that we are not designed for this type of interaction. 70% to 90% of communication is non-verbal so that leaves a very wide margin for error. I do however strongly agree with the spirit of the sentiment.
One can be an audiophile as well as a music lover, of course, BUT "Music Lover" should not be any category of audiophile. I've know a good many genuine music lovers who were content with extremely modest systems.

Many undoubted music lovers have, e.g., "compact stereos". To be sure some of these are pretty decent but they aren't going to match any well-thought out system worth a few thousand bucks. Further, that sort of music lover has little if any interest in room treatments or critically placed listening position, not to mention cables or similar distractions. Yet they are certainly music lovers and love listening.

E.g. Denon D-M41 Cdn$ 780 ...
g033DM41-F.jpg
 

fpitas

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My problem with "audiophiles" has to do with their fervently claiming silly things they won't even bother to prove. In fact, they usually get hostile if you mention proof. Smacks of a sick religion. And of course, waiting right behind them are the snake oil merchants.
 

Gorgonzola

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I know plenty of subjectivists that have zero, or actually negative use for measurements. The higher up the ladder you go in price, the more this becomes a norm.
I believe this is certainly true. I could direct folks here to at least one website where this is clearly manifest.

(I'm no qualified psychologist but this hasn't prevented me from stating opinions about human motivation.) In the case of these "high-end" audiophiles who personally own "megabuck" equipment, big factors are denialism and self-doubt. It is scary to them to contemplate that a $1000 dollar that is SOTA by measurements might actually sound better than their $20,000 amp. That's very discomforting to them and it is mentally easier for them to simply dismiss and distain measurements or low-cost equipment in general.
 

Cote Dazur

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I try to classify all audiophiles
Interesting concept, what you have done so far is not very impressive, but if you persevere, who knows, you might reach your goal. You probably will need a lot more than 1500 words to have any chance to even put a dent in it.
 

-Matt-

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The Economist Audiophile...?

They believe that sound quality and equipment cost are directly linked. They will often trade in equipment in order to re-invest in an ever more expensive setup. They believe their status/rank as an audiophile is somehow related to how much they have spent on their hobby.
 

Vacceo

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I despise the usual connotatioms of the term audiophile. It is packed with sectaria tendencies that involve dogma about Diana Krall, luddite attitudes (active speakers are bad, class D is terrible, vynil gets you higher than angel dust...), and prejudice against non-music sounds (home theatre and multichannel is for plebs, podcasts are for nerds...).

But all that speaks more about my phobias than about the general reality, so the most rational approach i can think is this:

If you want quality sound, first you have to get a good definition of what is "quality". Usually the most common is "closest to natural". But since that is bs knowing many films are not "natural" (I have never seen an X Wing in the sky) or music can be perfectly "artificial" (Kraftwerk anyone?),
so perhaps we can leave it to "playing the source closest to what it contains".

Then, after that, the only element left is how to get there. Sound is a mechanical wave, hence, its description falls under what physics describes. To reach that mechanical wave, there are steps that are grounded on devices that work due to electricity, another field covered by physics. Last but not least, our brains give a response to that mechanical wave, hence, the last element in the mix are psychology and physiology.

This approach to sound is effective because it can be turned into an univocal language. This allows it to be shared easily, tested in different conditions, and most important for our pockets, predicted.

Poetry is great and even a potential source of knowledge, but it is not a univocal language, that is what makes the approach more falible. If I'm going to spend money on a device, I want the best possible knowledge beforehand.
 

MaxBuck

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The notion that objectivity and subjectivity are opposing positions strikes me as false. I've used objective measurements to steer me toward the gear I own, but ultimately convenience and enjoyment of the produced sound (both of these are subjective) are what matters.
 

MattHooper

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There's always going to be tension between these two things.:

1. The practical need to have some short-hand way of referencing groups of people who share some commonalities, especially when discussing opposing points of view. In other words: the usefulness of definitions.

vs.

2. Most people don't like being "put in a box" (or "defined" in to a box).

So there should be some good purpose for defining people in to groups. It seems the OP's purpose is to compare different approaches among audiophiles. If you are going to talk about the validity of different approaches, you can't detail every individual audiophile's beliefs. Practically, you need some manageable number of categories, which the OP whittled down to 4. So, fair enough as far as that goes. And it seems the OP's finds they all have some validity.

But you'll always be faced with #2 above, and given the sliding scale and fluidity of people's approaches, you'll always produce some blowback. Which is fair as well. As we've seen, it's hard not to produce strawmen with these definitions. You end up putting one aspect that someone will agree with along with a characterisation they won't agree with (e.g. see the blowback from people who may identify as "objectivist").

I suspect the OP understood he was playing with a tinder box of sorts ;-)
 

Peluvius

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One can be an audiophile as well as a music lover, of course, BUT "Music Lover" should not be any category of audiophile. I've know a good many genuine music lovers who were content with extremely modest systems.

Many undoubted music lovers have, e.g., "compact stereos". To be sure some of these are pretty decent but they aren't going to match any well-thought out system worth a few thousand bucks. Further, that sort of music lover has little if any interest in room treatments or critically placed listening position, not to mention cables or similar distractions. Yet they are certainly music lovers and love listening.

E.g. Denon D-M41 Cdn$ 780 ...

Audiophile - "a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction"

I do not believe ownership of equipment is a prerequisite or that having a modest system precludes you from fitting into an "audiophile" style of classification. I would also propose a music lover, given no further constraints around budget or knowledge etc.. would progress towards listening to music using a technical solution that was more accurate. This has been my experience with every person I know. They will ALWAYS appreciate a relevant improvement in reproduction quality but often will not believe it is worth the money, the time or the effort to make any further changes to their listening technology.

I would go further to propose that most of us here will have either a musical or a technical leaning and our interests and motivations will be proportionate to that leaning.
 

caught gesture

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Audiophile - "a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction"

It’s an impossible destination and will, therefore, continue to attract the snake-oil salesman. How do we define this high-fidelity and reproduction without being present in the mastering suite, the mixing studio, the recording room with our ear next to the microphone? The purity that is being chased is a wraith even at the point of capture. Everything after blurs it even more. We do the best we can to get the playback equipment out of the way, although some like their reproduction seasoned with a sprinkling of distortion.
 

MAB

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Can we cut out the clichés? It sounds stupid saying this. People keep repeating this cliché and it's dumb.
Yah. Reminds me of going to a customer‘s house to help him hook back up his Mark Levinson 20.5‘s to a pair of soffit mounted Infinity IRS Beta Panels (yes indeed!). He had 7 CDs. I cranked the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack to make sure the rig was working and headed back to the shop ASAP... That dude definitely fell outside of this cliché!
 

FeddyLost

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Dividing people up by how they approach their enjoyment of music hardly seems productive to me.
Actually, it's not dividing. It's roughly describing, as the TS is the marketeer, so he need to make the strategy to identify and attack target groups.
If we compare this with psychology, it's like "dividing" people into visuals, audials, sensorials, etc.
The better we understand our differences, the better we understand methods of proper sending our message to "another group".
It's like joke about "if you are hurt on another planet, don't call for a doctor, look for veterinary".

I would actually like to improve these definitions to the point that they seem agreeable and useful
I'd add some range about "hard outside reference".
It's really rare, but I'd say it's good term to understand some motivation of some extremely rich customers. It's about "i've heard that like this and I need to restore this experience". This can require horns for headroom, dedicated room, perfect impulse integration between drivers, etc.
I've met once some really enthusiast audiophile, who needed to reenact an audio performance of a real, puristic two-miked concert. He used some Deutsche Grammophon records as reference, and they sounded extremely well in his dedicated room with a lot of diffusion. Slightly blurry if compared to deadened room, but "correct".
Most of commercial records sounded ... bad. Layered, edgy, scattered, etc. Still "right" regarding tonal balance, but not even close to "reference tracks".
It was kind of "monitoring" in the worst term meaning. Start the track and I was thinking "what the #### I'm listening to?"

Personally I understand our limits, so I've checked my hearing and found that it's much better to trust mic than to my ears. Only due to my intent to have linear responce from audio system to have better reproduction of tracks that was done on linear (i hope) systems.
I have zero references, but linear audio system have enough flexibility, so illusion is realistic enough if there was such intent.
Since then, I have no complaints regarding realism as I don't know what's that. "pure stereo" is good enough and everything else is a studio product, so I'm kind of happy.
 

Timcognito

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So what have the subjectivists to follow if not there gurus?
Their ears, previous experiences and emotions while listening. I'll bet Amir, Erin, A Jones and J Atkinson have heard many things that did not show up in measurements and vice versa, but because they listen to and measure so many devices they are more acutely aware of subtleties that are missed by even many so called "audiophiles". I would say the same about a musician listening to recorded music. The ear attached to the brain can be a effective measuring device when need, training and experience are part of acumen. Subjectivity gets a bad rap around here. Electronic and acoustic measurements displayed in tables and charts are only a proxy to sound waves moving into ones ear and brain. Relying on measurements only reduces the work to the subjective goal of hearing accurate and pleasing recordings.
 
OP
kemmler3D

kemmler3D

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I’ll say one thing: you’ve got guts.
Not to worry Tom, I do this kind of thing for a living, the debates can get pretty spicy, and at least I don't have any risk of pissing off my boss ITT. ;)
 
OP
kemmler3D

kemmler3D

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The notion that objectivity and subjectivity are opposing positions strikes me as false. I've used objective measurements to steer me toward the gear I own, but ultimately convenience and enjoyment of the produced sound (both of these are subjective) are what matters.
Agree. I would actually say that ABSOLUTE objectivists (according to the attempted definition in OP) almost don't exist. I think I've missed the mark here because I didn't put enough into explaining that everyone falls into all 4 categories to some extent but everyone also makes a choice as to which value system is most important to them. I'm going to rewrite the post and cut out all my flowery "fun to write but nobody's going to read" explanations so the actual point I'm struggling to make hopefully becomes a bit more clear.

At the end of the day, very few people put technical perfection over what sounds good to them, i.e. not many people will be happier listening to something that measures well but sounds bad to them personally. That would define an absolute objectivist, I don't think we know too many of them.
 
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kemmler3D

kemmler3D

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There is a large difference between opinions backed by facts and research and the ones that are not. Hence the analogy I provided. There is no equivalence here. All you can say is that these kinds of groups of audiophiles exist. Not that they have valid opinions.

We are using the term 'valid' differently here. A valid opinion (in the way I am using the term), is rational or cogent, but not necessarily correct or even justifiable in terms we can relate to. To me it just means that the statement of opinion is not logically malformed.

"Bubblegum is better than chocolate" and "chocolate is better than bubblegum" are equally valid, but both can't be correct, in fact neither one is correct because they're just individual preferences.

"Speaker A is better than Speaker B" is an opinion that can be justified with a great deal of evidence of performance, expertise, knowledge, etc. However, "Speaker B is better than Speaker A" is equally valid, and possibly even correct, if your value system is such that you don't care about performance, expertise, or knowledge.

What I am getting at with this post (not very clearly so far) is the differences in personal value systems.

Because I like making analogies, here's another one. "Risking your life to climb mountains with no ropes in harsh conditions for no pay is awesome." is a valid opinion. It is not one that many of us share, to put it mildly, but alpine climbers have a value system such that they would probably consider this opinion not only valid, but correct.

Most of us think they are insane, but that doesn't mean they're WRONG, (you can't prove "awesome" wrong), they just have very different values than you or me.

e: Just because an opinion is valid doesn't mean we have to accept or tolerate it. Some people think horrible crimes like beheading your children are totally acceptable, because of their value systems. Some people think [insert the worst speaker you can think of here] are good because of their value systems. We are under no obligation to tolerate, entertain, or humor bad opinions, but I do think it's helpful to understand where they come from, if only to more effectively combat them.
 
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Rick Sykora

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I suggest your segmentation needs work. In short, what you propose is 2D when it may be much more. Since you went with 2D, objectivist and subjectivist fit along one dimension nicely. IMO, your nominal and romantic segments struggle to have a comparable fit along another dimension.

Before we expend further effort here, a key marketing rule is to know your audience. Am not sure you have shown why an ASR audience would find much value in a audiophile market segmentation. I acknowledge it may have value in a professional marketing context but much less so here. The marketer in me asks what is your message while the engineer wonders what problem would this really solve?
 
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