Who is also an audiophile?

[jvr]

I know a lot of people that really likes music and photography (or audio and photo gear 🙂), so there must be a few around in RFF...

I confess myself a very addicted, but recovering, audiophile. By this, I mean I started by playing music (classical guitar), then listen to music, then buying the best gear to listen to music and suddenly, I was listening to sound and not music, although my system was MILES better than where I started.

I'm recovering (although I still own a system where just cables make a Noctilux seem cheap. Very cheap. 🙁) and I am again able to sit down and just listen to music.

Sometimes, I have a feeling I'm falling into the same trap in photography (and it's even worse, because gear is not so expensive, meaning GAS attacks are more frequent...). I get myself analysing the merits of a photo in purely technical terms, the way I used to when listening to sound. And subtely but surely I've been making technicaly very good photos but worse as "photos". And, worse of all, I've been falling into the trap of "Oh, if I just had that lens, I would take wonderful photos!".

Feel free to share your audio setup, if you are an audiophile and your thoughts on this, even if you are not.

My "final" (yes, it's final unless I downgrade) system is a bit esoteric:

Michell Orbe SE turntable/SME V arm/Sumiko Celebration cell
Harmonix Reimyo CD
Dartzeel pre-amp
Dartzeel amp
Wilson Audio WATT VII speakers
Transparent Reference cables for CD/amp and amp/speakers, proprietary Dartzeel cables between pre and amp.
Also using Abbey Road Reference cables once in a while (at the moment, for instance).

 

[Pherdinand]

well, i am not audiophile in the sense of looking and buying the best system to play it. I am an audiophile in the sense of i can't live without music every damn day. I have something on almost always when it is possible. With the portability of todays' music, that includes ...well, almost every minute. Luckily even at work i can have it on many times.
I am listening to an excellent internet radio station non stop since last evening. It was on all night long. Sometimes i wake up and really enjoy nice background music.
It also helps, like for n overgrown kid, to have it on when i go to sleep. Sometimes i can spend an hour or two in the bed before i finally fall asleep, no matter how late i go to bed! very annoying. This is usually much reduced if i put something on.

I used to have a TESLA turntable with excellent amplifier and two great speakers when i was in school age. In the nineties. But it's too big to carry it around, i left it at home. Still works except the needle needs to be replaced. I also hooked up a technics cd player on it in the "better times". But honestly i preferred LPs for some strange reason. I don't think i could hear quality difference, but i just liked them more.
Now i'm stuck with a plain dvd player, my laptop, and a jbl "creature" amplifier-speaker system. I got the creature as a present, and i was pleasantly surprised when i unpacked and tried it out. Quite good sound for three bubbles of plastic.

 

[Pherdinand]

by the way the radio station is called Beat Blender on Soma FM. Deserves a bit of commercial, its really good.

 

[rxmd]

No. In fact I see audiophiles as a warning sign what happens to you if you get into gear too much.

This includes a certain attitude of "but it's really about the music" when it obviously isn't about music, but about gear - you can listen to great music on a $10 MP3 player and it will still be great music, and no $150 cable adds to or detracts from it.

Philipp

 

[kevin m]

I don't think you can make a sharp distinction, as your poll does, between gear lover and music lover, or gear lover and photography lover, for that matter. You need some gear to accomplish either goal, and if you're going to have gear, then you have to pay attention to it, to some degree. I think the danger lies in getting lost in the specs and losing the music, or the pictures.

I have a very humble sound system. A pair of ADS 810 speakers I bought nearly twenty years ago; an Adcom amp and preamp I bought off ebay; a Rega Planar 3 turntable and new RB-250 tonearm with a Dynavector 10x5 cartridge. I did splurge on one audiophile-type item, and that's a set of carbon fiber isolation feet for the turntable, which really work well. It's a lot of "bang for the buck" I can tell you that. My LP's have never sounded better. There's so much warmth and life in some of those old LP's that simply can't be duplicated on CD, at least not without spending a small fortune.

 

[M. Valdemar]

I like good audio gear but only to a point. I wouldn't call myself an "audiophile". I'll admit I spend too much money sometimes and that I still like vinyl, but I also have an endless supply of CD's.

To some extent I see camera/lens fetishism and "audiophilia" to be almost one and the same phenomena. They are people who have been the victims of media/marketing.

It's profound technical ignorance married with hypnosis by reviews and magazines/websites.

The same people who will spend $3000 on a lens for their snapshots simply because they read that the lens will give them the "Leica Glow" is the same person who will spend $2500 on interconnects or $3000 on AC/Mains cable. (Yes, a plug that goes into the wall. Some sell for $10,000) It's simply mumbo-jumbo and self delusion, but "religious" adherents are the most voracious supporters of their cause.

Almost none of them are engineers or scientists.

 

[mike goldberg]

Around 1970, or so, I bought a Sherwood receiver, which my son still uses in the business area of his home. In our living in Jerusalem, there's a Sony Superscope amp and Goodman speakers. I picked up a JVC used, for the PC room.

My parents played piano and violin, and my mother sang soprano, however non-professionally. I've loved pop music, easy listening and some classical, from early on. Now, it's smooth jazz, folk and world music.

As for gear & gadgets, I've been a gearhed since I was a teenager ;-)

 

[fuwen]

Not sure your meaning of audiophile, but I do have set up for home stereo and protable. I enjoy good music so collected quite a lot of SACDs, XRCDs and audiophile recordings. I spend more time on music, and really not keen in doing equipment comarisons.

Same as photography, I just stick to Zeiss and enjoy taking photographs. I really do not like to do equipment comparisons.

 

[literiter]

To some extent I see camera/lens fetishism and "audiophilia" to be almost one and the same phenomena. They are people who have been the victims of media/marketing.

This is certainly true. (I hope this thread doesn't descend into some kind of riot now)

I have witnessed the phenomena by watching a well off relative. He has quite a bit of time and money tied up in expensive audio gear. Much of his stuff is tube technology. It looks far more impressive than it sounds and it sounds nice. It sounds at least as good, to me, as my quite substandard hodgepodge of solid state stuff.

The irony of it is, his 60+ year old ears are a little deaf, his wife and I often must repeat ourselves. What is truly amazing that even with this disability is he has the ability to detect the difference in sound, in his amp, by replacing some .01mfd. OEM capacitors with $60.00 replacements.
I'd like to not discuss the antics the lad had with sourcing the correct tubes.

Once, in a fit of foolishness, on my part, I suggested we could set up a comparison test between systems. This is not wise. Do not suggest this, to these guys.

I think the advantage with coveting audio systems over camera systems is audio stuff is pretty well open ended. I mean you can keep buying more goodies to enhance what you have. More speakers, Biamp, triamp, audio tiles on the walls and when the wife finally moves out you get her sewing room.

With cameras; Well once you've acquired your M, how many lenses and bits can you get then? Do you see how camera stuff can be limiting? If ya wanna fetish get audio stuff.

 

[gb hill]

I am not an audiophille but I do like music. I have a turn table, two receivers, r to r tape deck, equilizer, and a couple of huge speakers. Thousands of records. I inherited it all from my uncle who passed away. He was a collector & loved blues music & early RnR. The other day I was going down the road and a show called Beale Street something or another was featuring a early Blues singer called Howling Wolf, and I said to my self, heck I got that!🙂

 

[Pablito]

Do you see how camera stuff can be limiting? If ya wanna fetish get audio stuff.

You gotta be kidding. Well, I'm not a fetishist and I use or used every piece of photo equipment I have since I make my living off this. But a closet will hold a lot of Leicas for those so inclined.

 

[kevin m]

Once, in a fit of foolishness, on my part, I suggested we could set up a comparison test between systems. This is not wise. Do not suggest this, to these guys.

No foolin'! Nothing like a blind test to make a true believer shout "infidel!" 😀

It's the chasing of diminishing returns for ever greater sums of money that strikes me as, well, foolish. Whether its $10k A/C line conditioners for the audiophiles, or $5k lenses for the family snapshots, it can get pretty silly pretty fast.

 

[leicakl]

yes, i've been an audiophille for 10 years now. i listen to jazz and blues mainly. my current system comprises:

roksan xerxes 10 / naim aro / zyx mc with dps 1.5 p/s
frank acoustics pipit reference phono stage
naim audio nac 52
naim audio supercap
naim audio nap 180
sonus faber concerto with naim audio naca 5 speaker cables

cheers!

 

[M. Valdemar]

I think for any type of "gear", be it cameras or audio, a true blind test should be the deciding factor.

NONE of the fetishists will agree to or admit the results of blind tests as conclusive. They will come up with every rationalization known to mankind to "prove" their pre-existing beliefs.

 

[visiondr]

I used to have a tidy little system: Linn LP12 with Akido arm and K18 cartridge, Naim Nait 2 integrated, Epos ES11 speakers on Epos stands. My CD front end was a Rotel something or other. It was a very nice package... until the divorce.

 

[Cron]

no hard core audiophile but using my (to me) very good system every day to hear blues and southern rock and trying to find vinyl also from nowadays music;
oh, its a LP12 with some electronic and not wifeacceptable speakers

 

[visiondr]

By the way, members of the male gender in particular have an amazing and almost limitless tendency to fixate on gear whatever the endeavor: photography, music, cycling, I imagine hunters can get totally wrapped up in "stuff" and so can cooks, skiers, car enthusiasts.... the list is virtually endless.

Ok, so some women get wrapped up in clothes, and home furnishings. But, really, let's be honest, men can get totally nutso over "stuff".

 

[dpetrzelka]

I've built my entire home stereo - from the tube phono pre-amp, to the 2A3 single ended triode monoblocks to the Fostex 166E single driver back loaded horns.

I think I'm as much into the technology (as old as it is) as I am in the sweet sound it makes.

 

[jvr]

"Ok, so some women get wrapped up in clothes, and home furnishings. But, really, let's be honest, men can get totally nutso over "stuff""

Yep, that's absolutely true. Most women I know have wonderful earing and can easily say they like or they don't like a particular audio setup but surely they don't give a damn about how it's produced (transistors, tubes?) and they would not (there are notable exceptions, like always!) spend a lot of money to get the "small-extra" that comes with bigger bucks.

BTW, I have a friend who is admittedly like that and keeps hopping between hobbies just to get the gear. And then he moves on... 🙂

I think my "audiophilia nervosa" is not of this kind but is tied to my long standing perfeccionism. It's always possible to get a systems that will sound better, with more records, if you are willing to put the effort and the money on it. The question is always "Is it worth it?". If what you like is listening to music (and I do!) the answer is probably "No". But if you like the "learning" process (and I do!), and have the money, the answer may be "Yes", at least for a while.

BTW, and in total disagreement with some of the opinions in this thread (but respecting them nevertheless because YMMV 🙂), I think most of the audiophiles I know are not "marketing/review/peer pressure" victims and a lot of them are enginners (so they know wire is wire). Some of them (just like RFF members) like niche products and reviews are hard to come by (try to find reviews of the Dartzeel, even on the Web, let alone a magazine...) and probably not trustable (in the sense that we are all different).

I don't regret the whole process and the money I spent, I learned a lot in the meanwhile. Some of it were to be expected ("You need to spend a lot of money in audio to learn you don't need to spend a lot of money in audio"), some a surprise (speaker cables do make a difference, even in double blind tests. And I am an engineer).

And I learned something very important: my ears are the ultimate judge and I have to trust them. Even if reviewers say it's good, even if all your friends have it, if you don't like, it's not for you.

I see nothing wrong is experimenting new cameras or new lenses. Just like I don't have a problem trying a new set of speakers (although testing new speakers in your own room tends to be more of a challenge in terms of logistics than, say, a new lens). But I begin to worry when I spend MORE time testing things than using them to hear music/take photos. And by "Music" I mean "real music " (not audiophile-grade CDs with lots of strange noises), and by "Photos" I mean "real photos" (not pictures of face-on walls or shelves or whatever we use to test lenses/cameras).

In this respect, digital was a bad movement for me. I would never dream to spend more than one roll of film to "test" a new lens (and sometimes, even developing at home, rolls accumulate and when I develop them I don't even remember what lens I was testing... 🙂).

Moreover, I now fret with small focus misadjsutments that look terrible on "Actual pixel" view but would go very unnoticed on an 8x10 print in my lab. Sometimes I don't resist reviewing pictures on the LCD, interrupting the flow of the moment and loosing some real good shots (especially with people).

I think this thread was motivated by a desire to change things for next year and put out some public commitment on doing it... 🙂 And maybe because I have been looking at more the 150 rolls of "old" B&W pictures I took (and scanned): a lot of them are unfocused, some badly exposed but, on average, much better photos than I've been making, with much beter gear... 🙁

Am I saying that we need worse gear to make better photos? No way! That would be so strange as saying that we need bad sound to listen to good music.

But I find I am getting more gear-focused than was in the past, when I should be more subject-focused. And that is something I notice in my older photos and would lke to get back. By gear-focused I don't mean I spend hours fondling my cameras, lenses and light meters (not that I have a problem with collectors: collecting cameras is as wise as collecting stamps or coins!!!).

By "gear-focused" I mean my "new" cameras get more in my way (between me and the subject) than the cameras I used before. I am more aware of focus and exposure "errors" than before and I get myself looking at a picture and thinking "wow, that's sharp" before seeing the real photo. and so on.

For me, my trajectory as a (recovering!) audiophile is a warning sign and I would really like to keep photography simple, like it used to be before I started analysing.

 

[mllanos1111]

Well I've always been into audio as well as cameras.
I have Martin Logan speakers, Electron Kinetics Amp and PreAmp, SOTA turntable, Clear Audio Arm and other stuff.