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

[Spkrdctr]

That depends, I think. If you listen to music of varying recording quality it can make sense to see how your favourite music sounds on a potential speaker.

I have some tracks I use that have some dodgy sound elements - for instance an album that is generally well recorded except some exaggeration and bit of coarseness on the female vocals. I like to hear how a speaker handles that kind of thing as it can get unpleasant on certain speakers. Ideally I want a speaker that shows me that characteristic in the recording, but which still allows the tracks to be enjoyable.

Matt, whipping out my famous broad brush, I also find that I have certain music and tracks that I listen to when demoing some speakers. Of course this is kind of raw since the speakers are not set up and dialed in. But I look more for the performance of the speaker itself. For example does Diana Krall sound amazing or just ok? Does a piano sound like a real piano? Sax? Trumpet? Then I go into special effects, do they sound bright? Buzzy? concise? Is the speaker straining? Once I have figured out the speaker can do what I want at the volume I want, then I can start to see about all the other subjective issues I might be concerned about. I find as Amir has in his tests, that many speakers can't do all that well at elevated volume levels. Most people just think, oh, wow this is louder and it sounds good. But, does it really?Listening critically is harder at louder levels but you can hear when different speakers do things differently. All this to say I agree with your statement. Oh, and when I leave Best Buy on an occasion, I tell the guy in charge of the audio area, "Hey, some guy in there blew out some tweeters on your speakers". That usually gets them running to the sound rooms! I then quietly walk out.

 

[Spkrdctr]

At any rate, I’m a “dirtbag” audiophile who is happiest getting 90% performance for 20% cost.

I think you should know this site is full of dirtbags. Getting the most for your money is enjoyed by pretty much everyone around here. From $30,000 speakers to $400, everyone wants the best sound for the least amount of money. That is why we hang around here.

 

[Ron Texas]

Taking no sides or taking no prisoners?

 

[Focus SE]

Take any topic, religion, politics, Ford vs Chevy and even audio. What you will find is unbending ideologies. I have a stereo as part of my personal entertainment. As a child I always enjoyed listening to music that made me feel as though I could relate. That wasn’t always lyrics, it was the music itself. After 57 years I have heard really nice equipment that sounded amazing. While I always desired such a system it wasn’t a top financial priority. In fact it was way down the list for one reason. Every system I heard worth spending money on was well beyond my budget. I chose not to spend knowing full well I would instantly have buyers remorse because it wouldn’t be good enough. Well I’m finally at the point where it’s just me and my wife and the time was right to do what I’ve always wanted. For years I dreamed and listened. What I discovered was that even among great hi end systems, there were many that I did not care for the sound. It’s not that that were bad just not an overall tonality pleasing to my ears. I believe that a good part of the divide amongst music lovers is the fact that each of us hears things differently. Even if we hear exactly the same our personal tastes come into play. I’m guessing according to the OP I fall into subjective. Do speakers change the sound of music? In tonality, I say absolutely. If music was mastered/engineered in a way displeasing to my tastes no equipment at any level, makes it better. Now that I have an end game set up I can’t listen to one of my favorite childhood songs on it because it’s awful on my system.
Enter the science. Fact, the system I listen to would not be what it is if it weren’t for the engineering that went into it. I am not a mechanical engineer but I have opinions on which car I prefer. Both a Jaguar and Chevy will drive on the highway. I drive a Chevy and except they are not they the same. I have found in my experience that a good number of people have dramatically heightened or reduced sensory perception. Are they wrong in their opinions of personal preferences? No. If you are to measures specs between a two way Magnavox and Panasonic shelf speaker and debate which one is technically better it’s a waste of time for me because my ears would tell me they both sucked. The science certainly can help you avoid intrinsically bad equipment but it won’t find what you like. There has to be a balance. I have been called an audiofool for buying what I did because specs say I could do better for less. I’ve looked at speakers four times what I spent and hated the sound. Are the people that bought them audiofools?
I say buy the best speakers you can afford as close to the sound you like and feed it with sufficient clean power and your ears will thank you. The best sound I ever heard came out of a system with the speakers I have. I still can’t afford the same equipment but I still bought quality and it shows. To suggest to me or anyone that I should buy something else is the height of arrogance. I would love to sit and listen with anyone’s system for the appreciation of sound.
In conclusion, I’m not sure I fit any definition of audiophile. If I don’t I’m ok with that I’ll just listen and enjoy it the way I want.

 

[Keith_W]

Archimago has a nice article from a guest writer this month about different types of subjectivism in audio.

 

[steve59]

To the OP, audiophiles don't argue about equipment or music just go to any audiophile forum and post your equipment and I promise you you'll get nothing but compliments and support.

When it comes to 1 person arguing with another person about how they spend their money, it's really not their business. Hifi gear can go from expensive to insane and how vested any individual is depends on their personal set of variables and that's it.

 

[ahofer]

Take any topic, religion, politics, Ford vs Chevy and even audio. What you will find is unbending ideologies. I have a stereo as part of my personal entertainment. As a child I always enjoyed listening to music that made me feel as though I could relate. That wasn’t always lyrics, it was the music itself. After 57 years I have heard really nice equipment that sounded amazing. While I always desired such a system it wasn’t a top financial priority. In fact it was way down the list for one reason. Every system I heard worth spending money on was well beyond my budget. I chose not to spend knowing full well I would instantly have buyers remorse because it wouldn’t be good enough. Well I’m finally at the point where it’s just me and my wife and the time was right to do what I’ve always wanted. For years I dreamed and listened. What I discovered was that even among great hi end systems, there were many that I did not care for the sound. It’s not that that were bad just not an overall tonality pleasing to my ears. I believe that a good part of the divide amongst music lovers is the fact that each of us hears things differently. Even if we hear exactly the same our personal tastes come into play. I’m guessing according to the OP I fall into subjective. Do speakers change the sound of music? In tonality, I say absolutely. If music was mastered/engineered in a way displeasing to my tastes no equipment at any level, makes it better. Now that I have an end game set up I can’t listen to one of my favorite childhood songs on it because it’s awful on my system.
Enter the science. Fact, the system I listen to would not be what it is if it weren’t for the engineering that went into it. I am not a mechanical engineer but I have opinions on which car I prefer. Both a Jaguar and Chevy will drive on the highway. I drive a Chevy and except they are not they the same. I have found in my experience that a good number of people have dramatically heightened or reduced sensory perception. Are they wrong in their opinions of personal preferences? No. If you are to measures specs between a two way Magnavox and Panasonic shelf speaker and debate which one is technically better it’s a waste of time for me because my ears would tell me they both sucked. The science certainly can help you avoid intrinsically bad equipment but it won’t find what you like. There has to be a balance. I have been called an audiofool for buying what I did because specs say I could do better for less. I’ve looked at speakers four times what I spent and hated the sound. Are the people that bought them audiofools?
I say buy the best speakers you can afford as close to the sound you like and feed it with sufficient clean power and your ears will thank you. The best sound I ever heard came out of a system with the speakers I have. I still can’t afford the same equipment but I still bought quality and it shows. To suggest to me or anyone that I should buy something else is the height of arrogance. I would love to sit and listen with anyone’s system for the appreciation of sound.
In conclusion, I’m not sure I fit any definition of audiophile. If I don’t I’m ok with that I’ll just listen and enjoy it the way I want.

The emphasis on speakers placed you toward the “objective” end, I think. Plenty of room for audible subjective preference there.

 

[Focus SE]

Archimago has a nice article from a guest writer this month about different types of subjectivism in audio.

That’s a lot to digest. Let me start by saying 90%+ would quickly say I’m a subjectivist. When in fact I have many subjectivities. I do not reject science I appreciate what it provides. Let’s take wires I’m not of the belief that $6000 speakers wires would make any audible difference to my ears. HOWEVER I will say recently I was going through a lot of my dads old reel to reels and there was an audible hum every person listening heard. By chance I moved things around and used different rca jacks and the sound was gone. Now did I spend real money on new rca’s? No I switched them with cheap crap I had laying around that would have been included in any off the shelf product. My point is the narratives of all of these debates telling people they are science deniers and their ears are lying because their brain is telling them it should be better is equally disingenuous. Now what my non scientific accidental experiment showed me one cheap bad wire replaced with a piece of crap wire with no defects makes a difference. I get the extreme craziness but that reality eventually does show up. Is there better copper in the new wire I used? No my swinging wild ass guess is there was a bad connection. It doesn’t mean the noise wasn’t there and needed to be addressed with wires not having a defect. Now let’s take ground loop hums corrected buy more expensive wires (keep in mind the insulation could very well be the difference not the wire) but when you say wire it is assumed too often the copper is what we are talking about. There may have actually been a noticeable hum dismissed as not being heard. If you have a power draw creating a minor ground loop hum possibly could be solved by better insulated wires that nuance generally isn’t found until well into the debate and then the narrative has changed. So, for me to ignore science is dumb. To be a scientific snob is equally dumb especially when the narrative isn’t the same.
Having someone tell you that a 1975 AMC Pacer is just as good as any car that will do 55 on the highway. I will postulate that there is a segment that believes that. But it doesn’t take a mechanical engineering degree to drive a better car and say it handles different. Always allow for common sense

 

[Focus SE]

To the OP, audiophiles don't argue about equipment or music just go to any audiophile forum and post your equipment and I promise you you'll get nothing but compliments and support.

When it comes to 1 person arguing with another person about how they spend their money, it's really not their business. Hifi gear can go from expensive to insane and how vested any individual is depends on their personal set of variables and that's it.

Agreed, no issues here

 

[Focus SE]

The emphasis on speakers placed you toward the “objective” end, I think. Plenty of room for audible subjective preference there.

It’s tough to get specific with every post. What I would like to add is that equipment does matter. Everything between the source and speaker has an effect. Some audible some not. Take my experience. Most of my music collection was in cd form. When iTunes came out I imported those cd’s via a multitude of computers, mainly crappy ones. I understand I instantly changed the source but it made no audible effect on the cheap system I was listening on. Now that same iTunes cd being bluetoothed to my avr is un-listenable. Not everyone coming to a forum will consider all they have done and the argument about equipment ensues. I thank you for your kindness. My point is that both audiophiles obsessed with the science and newbies loving just the sound need to listen to the other and make sure you’re talking about the same thing. As my default I don’t care how technically perfect it is on paper my “golden ears” tell we wether or not I’m forking over money.

 

[ahofer]

Archimago has a nice article from a guest writer this month about different types of subjectivism in audio.

That is very carefully done. Glad to see audibility thresholds considered formally.

 

[pseudoid]

@kemmler3D,
OT: Per chance, did you revise the title of this thread to add the last part about "The audiophile bestiary"?
I don't recall seeing it at the masthead, previously.
I refuse to be boxed in any one of those 4 categories of beasts.

​

 

[kemmler3D]

@kemmler3D,
OT: Per chance, did you revise the title of this thread to add the last part about "The audiophile bestiary"?
I don't recall seeing it at the masthead, previously.
I refuse to be boxed in any one of those 4 categories of beasts.

​

No, it was always there. And hey, humans are a type of animal, after all.

 

[Keith_W]

That’s a lot to digest. Let me start by saying 90%+ would quickly say I’m a subjectivist. When in fact I have many subjectivities. I do not reject science I appreciate what it provides. Let’s take wires I’m not of the belief that $6000 speakers wires would make any audible difference to my ears. HOWEVER I will say recently I was going through a lot of my dads old reel to reels and there was an audible hum every person listening heard. By chance I moved things around and used different rca jacks and the sound was gone. Now did I spend real money on new rca’s? No I switched them with cheap crap I had laying around that would have been included in any off the shelf product. My point is the narratives of all of these debates telling people they are science deniers and their ears are lying because their brain is telling them it should be better is equally disingenuous. Now what my non scientific accidental experiment showed me one cheap bad wire replaced with a piece of crap wire with no defects makes a difference. I get the extreme craziness but that reality eventually does show up. Is there better copper in the new wire I used? No my swinging wild ass guess is there was a bad connection. It doesn’t mean the noise wasn’t there and needed to be addressed with wires not having a defect. Now let’s take ground loop hums corrected buy more expensive wires (keep in mind the insulation could very well be the difference not the wire) but when you say wire it is assumed too often the copper is what we are talking about. There may have actually been a noticeable hum dismissed as not being heard. If you have a power draw creating a minor ground loop hum possibly could be solved by better insulated wires that nuance generally isn’t found until well into the debate and then the narrative has changed. So, for me to ignore science is dumb. To be a scientific snob is equally dumb especially when the narrative isn’t the same.
Having someone tell you that a 1975 AMC Pacer is just as good as any car that will do 55 on the highway. I will postulate that there is a segment that believes that. But it doesn’t take a mechanical engineering degree to drive a better car and say it handles different. Always allow for common sense

I do not think any objectivist believes that faulty cables do not make a difference. I had that experience recently when a poorly constructed XLR cable was shorting signal to the ground causing intermittent signal dropout. I am not going to speculate what caused your experience where swapping one cable for another got rid of the hum, but there is a fault somewhere, you just don't know where it was.

The objectivist position is that a normally functioning cable (or normally functioning anything) will sound the same as any other, provided they measure the same and are well specc'ed to the application. Of course, this does not take into account other factors which might factor into a purchasing decision, such as price, aesthetics, reliability, useability, construction, and so on which different people have different positions about. For example, I have two reasons why I use XLR - (1) I like the more secure connection, and (2) my equipment puts out higher voltage into XLR.

 

[antcollinet]

Now let’s take ground loop hums corrected buy more expensive wires (keep in mind the insulation could very well be the difference not the wire) but when you say wire it is assumed too often the copper is what we are talking about. There may have actually been a noticeable hum dismissed as not being heard. If you have a power draw creating a minor ground loop hum possibly could be solved by better insulated wires that nuance generally isn’t found until well into the debate and then the narrative has changed

Ground loops have nothing to do with insulation. Absolutely nothing.

What can influence the noise created by a ground loop is the ground connection impedance. If you could have zero impedance between the two devices at either end of an analogue interconnect, then the grounds of the two devices would be identical, and there would be no noise pickup on the input of the receiving end.

This is not possible of course, but the lower you can make that ground impedance, the less the noise - and most of the ground impedance is in the shield braid of the analogue interconnect. Improve that, and you can reduce ground noise. Never enough though if it is audible.

It is far more effective to eliminate the ground loop altogether - or if that is not possible, used balanced interconnect.

 

[Focus SE]

I do not think any objectivist believes that faulty cables do not make a difference. I had that experience recently when a poorly constructed XLR cable was shorting signal to the ground causing intermittent signal dropout. I am not going to speculate what caused your experience where swapping one cable for another got rid of the hum, but there is a fault somewhere, you just don't know where it was.

The objectivist position is that a normally functioning cable (or normally functioning anything) will sound the same as any other, provided they measure the same and are well specc'ed to the application. Of course, this does not take into account other factors which might factor into a purchasing decision, such as price, aesthetics, reliability, useability, construction, and so on which different people have different positions about. For example, I have two reasons why I use XLR - (1) I like the more secure connection, and (2) my equipment puts out higher voltage into XLR.

Thanks for the clarification. I am however very perplexed as to how I left you with the impression I believed objectivist thought that. I truly thought I went over the top to illustrate that I learned it was a faulty wire. What I clearly failed to do is express that is how people could wrongly conclude a new wire must be better

 

[Focus SE]

Ground loops have nothing to do with insulation. Absolutely nothing.

What can influence the noise created by a ground loop is the ground connection impedance. If you could have zero impedance between the two devices at either end of an analogue interconnect, then the grounds of the two devices would be identical, and there would be no noise pickup on the input of the receiving end.

This is not possible of course, but the lower you can make that ground impedance, the less the noise - and most of the ground impedance is in the shield braid of the analogue interconnect. Improve that, and you can reduce ground noise. Never enough though if it is audible.

It is far more effective to eliminate the ground loop altogether - or if that is not possible, used balanced interconnect.

DO NOT HINK I AM CHALLENGING YOUR COMMENT. I am trying to understand it. Additionally I am not trying to turn this into a ground loop thread. I will for the sake of this conversation concede my understanding is faulty. With that being said, I will try to explain how I got to that belief. In researching ground loop hum a repeated theory was that it was a magnetic field possibly caused by the proximity of speaker wires to power cords.( it is not my wish to defend that position. It only served as a starting point for someone trying to resolve an issue with no knowledge to do so.) additionally a couple of articles I read said that the problem could be worsened but a high voltage amplifiers transformers.
If I understood your comment that theory is not possible and the electronic signal creating that hum is picked up within the electronics chassis ground and sent to the speaker in the speaker wire. I guess my simple question is, can there be any audible electronic hum due to the proximity of all the interconnections? If yes wouldn’t insulation help that? If the answer is no, then please send me to a thread that my help me understand how to pinpoint the issue. The more you can put this in layman’s terms it would be greatly appreciated thank you.

 

[antcollinet]

DO NOT HINK I AM CHALLENGING YOUR COMMENT. I am trying to understand it. Additionally I am not trying to turn this into a ground loop thread. I will for the sake of this conversation concede my understanding is faulty. With that being said, I will try to explain how I got to that belief. In researching ground loop hum a repeated theory was that it was a magnetic field possibly caused by the proximity of speaker wires to power cords.( it is not my wish to defend that position. It only served as a starting point for someone trying to resolve an issue with no knowledge to do so.) additionally a couple of articles I read said that the problem could be worsened but a high voltage amplifiers transformers.
If I understood your comment that theory is not possible and the electronic signal creating that hum is picked up within the electronics chassis ground and sent to the speaker in the speaker wire. I guess my simple question is, can there be any audible electronic hum due to the proximity of all the interconnections? If yes wouldn’t insulation help that? If the answer is no, then please send me to a thread that my help me understand how to pinpoint the issue. The more you can put this in layman’s terms it would be greatly appreciated thank you.

Ah - I understand your confusion.

In a ground loop, noise is caused by currents circulating in the loop. If there is a ground impedance between two devices (there always is), then these currents cause a voltage across the impedance, which is picked up as a noise signal on the input to the receiving device. (if the connection is unbalanced)

The question is, where does the current come from? Well there's more than one source - but one of the most common is magnetic coupling from other electronics. All electric currents create a magnetic field, and if this field passes through the ground loop, it will induce a current in the loop (think of the loop as being a shorted single turn secondary winding of a transformer)

Now one thing that causes a large magnetic field is the transformer of a power supply. If that power supply is - err - powerful, such as needed for a high power amp, then the magnetic field will be even stronger. The closer you are to the transformer, the stronger the field.. Note that (again) this is nothing to do with insulation. Insulation does not stop a magnetic field.

So put part of your ground loop close to a device with a transformer in it, and then noise will be magnetically coupled into your ground loop.

Same applies to other circuits of course. For example, if your ground loop goes through your mains wiring (perhaps caused by two devices plugged into two separate sockets) then your ground loop is running alongside your mains wiring - possibly for a long run. This (like a mains transformer) is one of the classic sources of mains frequency hum in a ground loop.

 

[Focus SE]

Thank you very much. I now have some terms to understand to fully comprehend what you’re explaining. But this for sure is a leap in the right direction. Logically this makes sence (not sure I’m right) In my case I do have an amp that has 4 transformers each pushing into one of the four channels. And that is closest to all wires and power supplies.
Thank you for attempting to clear all of this up. It may not have gotten me totally up to speed but you helped immensely.

 

[antcollinet]

Thank you very much. I now have some terms to understand to fully comprehend what you’re explaining. But this for sure is a leap in the right direction. Logically this makes sence (not sure I’m right) In my case I do have an amp that has 4 transformers each pushing into one of the four channels. And that is closest to all wires and power supplies.
Thank you for attempting to clear all of this up. It may not have gotten me totally up to speed but you helped immensely.

Is that a multi channel tube amp? (The only way I can imagine an amp with 1 transformer per channel)