Okay, I haven’t had a rant for a while, so let’s try to get to the bottom of the question of what, exactly, is an Audiophile.
So, for most of you, the above dictionary definition ought to end the controversy, not that there ever really was one, you’re thinking. But hold your horses here, ‘cos it ain’t that simple. Rather than focus on the literal definition, I’m more interested in taking a more philosophical look at the meaning of the term ‘audiophile’, how one becomes such a thing, and what it’s like to live as one.
So, What Is An Audiophile?
One of the big controversies in this matter centers around the debate of what comes first, the music or the gear. I’ll explain in a moment why this debate isn’t too relevant, meanwhile, you can start to unpack the question by asking what, primarily, motivates a person to spend what is oftentimes a large percentage of their disposable income on home audio equipment; is it for the love of the music, or is it for the love of the equipment?
It isn’t any secret that being an ‘audiophile’ doesn’t necessarily require being a true music lover. There are some who qualify as audiophiles who are unabashedly in it for the gear. There are others whose only goal from the hobby is to connect closer with the music. Then there are those of us who float somewhere at the intersection of those two extremes. And, of course, there’s everything in between, expressed in many shades of grey.
The key place to start with all of this is with the equipment or the “gear” as it’s often termed. Those with an inclination toward the obtuse might argue that an iPhone with an expensive set of Apple buds qualifies as ‘audiophile grade’ and therefore one can be an audiophile with just a phone and a set of earbuds. Obviously, this is nonsense. But what about having a Bose Wave radio, or a stack system from Yamaha or a Receiver from Denon or suchlike? You see where I’m headed with this. Now as you climb the ladder from earbuds to Bose, to Denon, and beyond, at some point, you’re going to cross a line into what one might consider ‘audiophile-grade territory’. But where is that line? Who sets it? Who determines what’s good enough to be of audiophile quality and what isn’t?
I look at Craigslist now and then and frequently see people selling what I’d snobbishly class as junk, and referring to said junk in their ad copy as ‘high-end’, or ‘audiophile’. Obviously, these people didn’t get the memo. I’ve also seen people on audio forums who are rubbing shoulders with the big players, thinking they have a seat at the table given their particular standard of equipment, only to be told by some heavy-hitter that their gear is “mid-fi at best”. Ouch.
At this point, we need to drop any notion of being able to identify a threshold, a stage through which one must pass with their equipment in order to become an audiophile. It’s too vague and subjective, so let’s give up on it and move on. If this creates some cognitive dissonance for you, and it does for me, then let’s just assume, for argument’s sake, that to buy into the game you need a system with a combined value of at least $5,000. That’s adding up the MSRP of all the various bits and pieces, including speakers, source, amps, and cables. Yes, $5,000 is the minimum needed for buy-in at this high-stakes table. Flame away.
So, we need gear of a certain standard to adorn the audiophile smoking jacket and cravat, and obviously, people aren’t going to just sit there and look at the gear, they’re going to want to play something through it; so we need music. When it comes to the music, well, frankly, anything will do. Unlike the equipment, there is no threshold of performance through which we must pass to achieve audiophile status. My old acquaintance Jim, who owns HiFi Heaven in Green Bay, WI, once told me that his favorite genre was Polka. We were at a Wisconsin Supper Club at the time and he was drinking an old-fashioned while chowing down on a Fish Fry, so I tend to think he just got caught up in the moment. Be it Polka, Hip Hop, Rap, or even that damn dirty classical nonsense, you might be judged on your taste in music, but you cannot be excluded as an audiophile based on your poor musical taste.
So if any genre will do, what about quantity – is there some basic minimum amount of music which we must consume, perhaps expressed in ‘listening hours per week’, in order to qualify? Huh? Well, if there’s a dollar threshold on the gear, maybe there ought to be some quantity threshold on the music. Perhaps there is, but it then gets even messier.
Rather than try to unravel the mess further, let’s suspend the rhetoric by assuming we have enough pieces of the puzzle to identify the picture and try to draw a somewhat logical conclusion from the above:
- You can be an audiophile if you have a passionate interest in audio equipment but a merely passing interest in music.
- You cannot be an audiophile if your main interest is a passion for music, but you don’t care about how your music is served up, or your gear doesn’t qualify based on the subjective criteria offered above.
If you look at that in a binary way, then there’s no audiophile without a good system, hence the emphasis, when considering the word ‘audiophile’ not as a noun but as an adjective, is on the equipment. Get it? It’s the gear that makes you an audiophile, not the music, primarily, kinda, sorta. However you relate to the debate of which comes first, the music or the gear, you can’t be an audiophile without the gear.
Let’s Take A Peek Under The Hood Of A Typical Audiophile – Me.
My personal journey to becoming an audiophile may not be typical of most. As an engineer by trade, I’ve always had a fascination with the gear and the technology behind it. Yet music has always been prominent in my family. My brother made a living as a professional musician for many years, and I remember with fondness the old piano under the stairs at the family home. Though I took music lessons at an early age (guitar+piano), it didn’t stick. Yet I was indoctrinated into both the music and the gear at an early age, and it has been a lifelong interest that isn’t just a fad or a passing fancy.
But it’s fair to say that for the past decade or so, I’ve found it difficult for music to hold my attention for any length of time. It’s rare now that I enjoy one of the marathon listening sessions that I enjoyed regularly some years ago, ones commencing in the early evening and extending into the early hours of the following day. I’m sure part of it is the fascination with social media and the fact that we’re all constantly connected to the world via a very distracting pocket device. I also find streaming audio to be incongruous with relaxation and the ability to focus fully on the music. Rather than paying full attention, one finds oneself constantly paging through countless artists, albums, album tracks, and playlists, to the point where what’s playing through the system becomes secondary. And then of course there’s life in general – there’s always some outside distraction to keep one from becoming fully immersed in the music – like a pandemic, for example.
So it’s fair to say that at this present moment, I’m more inclined towards tinkering with stuff than I am to playing music, but hopefully, that will pass. Yet I haven’t had my card revoked, I’m still an audiophile (I think).
What Is It That Audiophiles Seek?
Since we’ve already determined that audiophiles run the gamut from one extreme to another, from gearhead to music lover, there can’t be a one size fits all answer to this question. I’d like to think that ‘quality of sound’ is paramount, and that it’s the driving force behind what we do. It’s the only real benchmark, the only point of reference as we assemble our collection of gear. But is it? Perhaps to some of us, sound quality only serves as a distraction, an irritant, as we build ever larger, more complex, and more costly systems. Is that even possible? I don’t know for sure. What I can say is this: I’ve heard a few gosh-awful systems over the years, systems that cost more than a respectable family dwelling, and poor sound quality didn’t seem to be an issue with the owners.
I suggest that you try and unpack the question for yourself [what is it that audiophiles seek?] and see what you come up with. ‘What is the ultimate goal of a music reproduction system?’ – Can you clearly and unambiguously define what that goal is, to you?
I could stick my neck out here and offer up a suggestion as to what I think the goal of an audiophile is, and what it should ultimately be: – to assemble a playback system that allows us to connect with the music emotionally, one which takes us as close as is reasonably practicable to the original recording.
Unpacking that statement, there are two criteria that we’re looking to fulfill –
- An emotional connection with the music.
- Truth and authenticity to the original source.
It’s my opinion that #2 above, the “truth and authenticity” component, feeds into #1 and fuels the emotional connection. Sure, I can feel emotional when I’m listening to music on my iPhone, but when I play the same music through a system that has a high degree of truth and authenticity, I feel a stronger connection and the overall experience becomes more fulfilling.
So What Is Truth And Authenticity in Musical Playback, Is It Attainable?
If I’m correct in thinking that the above is the fuel for our emotional connection, then we might be nearing the root of this whole discussion, so let’s take a closer look at what is meant by T&A.
When we listen to a recording played back on our systems, be it analog or digital, the music we hear reaches us having first gone through a fairly lengthy process. Musicians are performing in a room. Microphones are capturing the audible aspect of the performance and their outputs are stored on a digital drive or tape, etc. But prior to all of that, a musician or musicians must first write and arrange a song. At the writing/arranging stage, we have the song in its most pure form, and as the artist intended. All subsequent steps in the process, those steps required to capture the original intent of the artist and deliver it into your home, add layers of corruption. So what is ‘the truth’ and can you even handle it?
Let’s assume for simplicity that the songwriter is also the performing artist and that he or she is using paid time in a studio to get their compositions recorded and processed through to some form of playback media for release to the public at large. In this scenario, it would be quite common for the artist to perform their songs in a recording studio, then hand off the remainder of the process to other individuals in whom they’ve placed their trust.
Let’s categorize the main stages of the process as follows:
- Recording
- Editing
- Mixing
- Mastering
Recording Music
To capture the musical performance for future playback we need to first make a recording of the event. In the modern era, this might be more accurately termed ‘tracking’, as what generally happens is the musician or musicians commit the sound from their individual voices or instruments to individual tracks on a recording console. It’s often the case that multiple performers or multi-instrumentalists record their ‘tracks’ in isolation from one another. So they’re not performing as a ‘band’, they’re performing as a number of individuals. That has some relevance when you think about a live concert or musical event, where you can often sense and hear the interplay between musicians on the stage. A live event is a musical collaboration with a strong physical connection between performers. The output at a live event is the result of a collective spirit, where a unique musical dynamic is created which manifests from a living, breathing organism where no two performances are the same. Encoded into the event is the sonic signature of the venue, often a trademark sound signature unlike that from any other. This is all in stark contrast to a multi-track studio recording environment, where there’s often no interplay between musicians, very little natural ambiance or sonic signature from the location; where it’s all rather clinical and soulless.
However, ‘tricks’ can be used in subsequent stages of the process, to inject a little ambiance, a little more life and soul. These tricks are often applied long after the artist has left the room.
Editing
Editing is a post-recording stage where individual tracks can be overlayed and analyzed and elements of the recording can be tidied up. The recording engineer strives to coax the best possible performance from the artist during the recording stage, so as to leave as little possible effort during the editing process. Still, editing is performed on the recorded content to manipulate parts that aren’t in time, adjust the pitch, and even fix the occasional bum note.
Mixing
Mixing is where the real post-recording magic happens. It’s a stage of the process where all of the voices and instruments are combined into the final two-track stereo or multitrack mix, and the finished product emerges. One might think that the main function of the mixing engineer is to shape the final output such that it becomes the best representation of the artists’ intent. However, what was that intent and how was it communicated to the mixing engineer? More prominent musicians would almost certainly have some involvement during the mixing process, with input into how each individual track is presented. But in the vast majority of scenarios, the artist would be long gone by the time the mixing process is undertaken. So the mixing engineer basically rides upon his or her reputation in the industry and essentially becomes an extended member of the band, representing the musicians in their absence through the critical post-recording stages.
As an audiophile, if you’ve ever wondered how a studio recording has depth, ambiance, layering, imaging, etc – well it’s mostly all a product of manipulation through the mixing stage. Want to know who decided to place the acoustic guitar stage left, and the lead electric guitar stage right…the mixing engineer. Again, more prominent artists would have involvement in the mixing stage, but many less well-known and upcoming artists would generally not.
Mastering
In modern recordings, it’s common for whole songs from the same album, and even tracks of the same song, to be recorded in different studios. This might involve the use of different recording equipment and techniques, different engineers, and producers. I was reading a recent interview with Ian Anderson, the Jethro Tull frontman. He described the process for recording his recent Tull album ‘The Zealot Gene’, where due to restrictions enforced by the pandemic, most of Anderson’s and the other instrumentalist’s parts were recorded in home studios. When working this way the result can be that each song, or even each track within the song, will have its own sound. Mastering is the process of making all of the songs on an album sound cohesive and coherent.
The Mastering engineer works with the Mixing Engineer’s output, yet still has access to individual tracks within the mix (unless one or more tracks have been previously mixed down and combined). In most cases, this step of the process is more about polishing the end product, but it can also be significantly more than just that. You’re all familiar with the concept of taking an older recording and having it ‘Remastered’, it’s a common way of reinvigorating sales of an old catalog of music. You’ve probably all heard Remasters which sound quite a bit different to their originals, not just in the sense of more polish, but even as far as individual instruments being moved around in the mix, and parts of the recording given new spotlight, new emphasis, and life.
The Mastering engineer will also adjust the levels on tracks to provide consistency through the recording. This may involve using compression, which will almost certainly impact the sense of realism that we hear in the finished product.
With modern music, oftentimes a track might be released which isn’t part of a collection of songs appearing on an album. Or, the whole recording might be something generated in a home studio, without the need for subsequent intervention to make the individual tracks and songs appear more cohesive. In these instances, the artist might elect to skip the Mastering engineer stage and have the Mixing engineer take care of the process.
So with that little summary of the processes involved, let’s switch our minds back to the search for musical truth and accuracy. We can forget, in most instances, the notion of trying to capture what the original artist intended. That seems to be some kind of Holy Grail for many audiophiles as if they’re assembling a music playback system to pay homage to the original musicians. You can forget that noise. The best we might hope for is to hear what the Mastering engineer heard. But really? You need to stop and think about that for a moment. Is that really what you want?
You’ve all seen the pictures where a pair of small studio monitors sit atop a mixing/mastering console, angled acutely towards an engineer who sits three feet away. These speakers are designed with a specific function in mind and it isn’t to enjoy the final playback of a recording in your home. You’ve probably also seen photos from other environments where more, dare I say, ‘audiophile quality’ speakers were used by the Mixing / Mastering engineers. Either way, should you really be looking to recreate what those guys heard when doing the final mixes and masters? And if so, which sound are you looking to recreate in your home, the sound of the mini-monitor or the sound of the large floor-standing system used at Abbey Road? No matter what you might think or aspire to, it’s folly to try to recreate the sound of the master in your home. And, knowing the processes as described above, why would you want to? Thinking you can recreate what the original artist or his/her elected officials intended you to hear, becomes the most sinister of audiophile faux pas. It’s a path to nowhere or a path to complete madness however you want to look at it.
All of the above condenses down and places a spotlight on the term “truth and accuracy”.
In case your knickers are all knotted up right now, let me offer up a distinction and some clarification. There are some studios whose output is consistent and reliably true to the artists’ original intent. Furthermore, were you to sit at their console and hear their final mix/master played back through their speaker system, you’d hear a sound that you’d probably be very happy to hear from your system at home. Chesky Records springs to mind, there are many others I’m sure. I was fortunate enough to sit in the lead chair at a recording console, with monitors capturing a live feed from a single mic recording acoustic guitar being played beautifully in a small, intimate recording room. It was a number of years ago at Hans Christian’s Studio 330 in Wisconsin. It was a wonderful experience. I have several of Hans’ recordings and I know the effort he puts into capturing his artists and faithfully reproducing their outputs throughout the process and on to the final master. While I wouldn’t expect to hear, with any degree of accuracy, what I heard at Hans’ studio on my home system; or hear what another person might have heard at Chesky’s studio, on my home system, I should still expect to hear some kind of fairly authentic facsimile of the captured sound from the recording booth or room. I should also be able to know when what I’m hearing is a reasonable facsimile, based on my learned experience and also my intuition. My experience comes from hearing a large number of music playback systems over a 40+ year period, and this experience, coupled with some common sense, ultimately shapes my intuition. At an intellectual level, when I listen to music played back on a HiFi system, whether it’s my own system or one that’s new to me, I know not to judge what I’m hearing against some unknown absolute or some truth that does not exist. But I can employ a toolset to help me judge what I’m hearing and to help me determine whether this audible output is a sound worthy of the sum of the individual parts and the individual processes. This is, by definition, a wholly subjective process. Therefore my assessment of what I’m hearing need not be the same as the assessment heard by another person. It doesn’t make it wrong if I like what I’m hearing and you do not, as there is no truth, no reliable point of reference.
So is that it, or can we set some limits on the variability of what is acceptable for the sound produced by an audiophile system? In other words, 
how far can the sound of my system stray from some perceived ‘norm’, for it still to be classed as audiophile? I can think of two extremes that preclude us from setting any limits on variability. At one end, you have the Quad ESL57. I don’t need to wax lyrical about the sound quality of the ESL57, everyone knows it’s widely accepted as perhaps the most faithful producer of midrange clarity and transparency, a loudspeaker held in high esteem by many, many veterans of the industry. At the other end, you have the Klipsch Klipschorn [reviewed here] or Khorn. In this instance, a speaker system with its root in the same era as the aforementioned Quad, yet still in production today. Big, bold, dynamic, colored, the absolute antithesis of the Quad ESL57. Both coexist and both are widely accepted by enough people to be ‘state-of-the-art’ in sound reproduction. Yet each sounds so radically different from the other that it’s hard to take seriously the notion that both can function in an ‘audiophile’ quality sound system. Again, it takes us back to subjective taste.
Owners of the Khorn might believe that we need to have more than one physical sense stimulated; thus it’s insufficient to simply hear the music, we need to feel the music too as if we were present at the recording event, or the actual concert. Therefore a prerequisite might be that a HiFi system must be large, powerful, dynamic, and capable of placing us in close proximity to the stage on which the artists performed, if not actually on it. So they’re trying in a sense to bring the live performance into their homes. Owners of the Quad ESL57, or perhaps the Martin Logan CLS, want a transparent window into the even and are willing to sacrifice things like scale and dynamics in favor of midrange purity. The point here is, different people have different criteria and different priorities for what it takes for them to bond, emotionally, with the music. They may also feel that they have enhanced insight into what it takes for music to sound authentic. Or expressed in a different way, an individual’s learned experience has caused their intuition of how something should sound to evolve in a particular direction.
The dog knows, if only he could speak…
So given that there’s no norm or standard against which to judge the sound of a music playback system, where does that leave us? If all of the music I play through my system sounds like an early Hendrix bootleg, and I like it that way, can I still be an audiophile?
Well, yeah…I guess, so long as you’ve spent at least $5,000 on your rig, and preferably much, much more.
CAH
2022
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