That's not every ones definition. "An
audiophile is a person who is enthusiastic about
high-fidelity sound reproduction "
If a guy has a pair of Salons and hardware to match, and listens to music while doing nothing else, but dosnt know the difference between class B and C amps he's not an audiophile? I worked with recording engineers whos tech knowledge was limited, they don't know the technical difference between the optical and FET compressor but they can tell you how they sound different. Are they audiophiles?
And since 80% of audiophiles believe in magic, and shun the science, how is understanding technology paramount?
@amirm 's point - which I strongly agree with - is that those proverbial "80% of audiophiles" don't actually believe in magic and shun the science - it's not that simple. Rather, pretty much everyone who would self-identify as an audiophile reads a lot about the technology, including specific cause-and-effect claims made by manufacturers and regurgitated by many reviewers. Even the most strenuously subjectivist, "trust your ears/we listen to music not measurements" audiophiles don't actually just listen with their ears and ignore specs. They first narrow down their list of potential components to consider and audition from 100s or 1000s to just a handful, and that weeding-out process very much involves technology and specs. They don't buy enormous, hyper-expensive Wilson Audio floorstanders simply because they or someone else like the sound - they get on their radar in the first place because their size and design are claimed to produce certain audible effects, and some of those effects like bass extension are paired with measurements to illustrate them. Similarly, they don't buy insanely expensive turntables and tonearms simply because they look cool (although of course that's part of it) - they come to desire those turntables in part because the cool appearance is the manifestation of a design that is claimed to produce certain specific technical benefits (lack of rumble, anti-resonant behavior, speed accuracy, and so on).
The difference between such folks and self-identified audio objectivists - and this is the important core of Amir's point - is that subjectivists are quite limited and selective in which specs they take seriously, and when. If they read about a new high-end cable that uses certain technology to allegedly lower the noise floor and tighten up soundstage imaging, and then if they read a well-known reviewer in a respected publication who repeats that technical claim and says the cable produced "blacker blacks" in the quiet or silent parts of musical content during listening tests, then they will add that cable to their list of potential future purchases, and the technological claim will be a key part of how that cable came to appear on that person's potential shopping list.
Now, if that person is in an audio forum and repeats that technical claim - or repeats the "blacker blacks" or soundstage-imaging claim - and they get challenged on that claim because science tells us it's nonsense,
then that person will claim not to believe in measurements and will trot out the "I listen to music not measurements" idea.
But everyone who buys expensive equipment, goes to the trouble to comparatively audition equipment, and so on, uses technological information and is "into technology" in precisely the way Amir says.
Someone who picks up inexpensive used gear or maybe inherits gear from a family member or perhaps quickly buys something available locally - in other words who focuses little on the equipment and almost entirely on collecting music - is probably not an audiophile. They are a music lover - which is fantastic of course!
But people who are more specifically interested in high fidelity/high-quality/"realistic" sound reproduction and who invest significant time and/or money in the audio reproduction gear, are audiophiles - and they are
all technology-oriented even if they might try to pretend otherwise when they find themselves stuck in an unwinnable argument.
