Whatever Happened To The Audiophile?

[Grahame]

Interesting article over on NPR's website ( read it whilst they are still around ) .

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/05/134256592/whatever-happened-to-the-audiophile

EDIT: add tiny url for tapatalk users

http://tinyurl.com/4o8hcxj

All the usual suspects are present and correct

So, where have they gone or, are we all just here?

Lively comments thread. The other place gets a mention

Edited March 6, 2011 by Grahame

[Salt Peanuts]

Linky not worky

[Grahame]

Linky not worky

Long link works in browser, not in tapatalk. Try the tiny URL - works in tapatalk for me

[Grahame]

I found this comment amusing

"The target audience for modern pop thinks their trunk rattle is part of the song. "

[Sherwood]

Great article, Grahame, despite the fact that it (predictably) skips over headphones entirely.

The irony here is that missing headphones entirely really defeats the purpose of the whole thing. The era of average consumers sitting down in a chair and doing nothing else but listen to music may actually BE over, but audiophiles needn't die with it.

[Clarkmc2]

I have encountered, in my audio travels, one intelligent take on why the goal of an audiophile might/should not always be the precise reproduction of the original performance. The late musician extraordinaire Glenn Gould was one heck of a thinker.

He was a pioneer in modern recording techniques and editing together performances. He considered playing "classical" music to live audiences a very compromised way of life and way of creating and experiencing a performance. I think he was right. I think only improvisational music (Jazz mostly; the Grateful Dead never could get it together in the studio, so there is that too. They were highly improvisational.) often benefits from live recording, and not always.

He also went on at length about this specific topic, the role of the home listener. He was not opposed to EQ and knob turning in general.

Gould's thoughts are on display in the 1978 book by Geoffrey Payzant, Glenn Gould, Music & Mind. The whole book is fascinating, but chapters three and four specifically cover these topics. I found the book used at reasonable cost on line, from Canada of course. If you like what you read, there is the much larger and less edited The Glenn Gould Reader, but I would not start there.

The NPR comments, I confess, include a lame attempt by yours truly as Ducatista47. I ran out of allowed space before I could broach this topic.

Clark

PS The thread does have an Engineer's comments about binaural recording. Way over the heads of most of the posters, but it is there.

[swt61]

The era of average consumers sitting down in a chair and doing nothing else but listen to music may actually BE over...

I do this all the time, but I agree with you, and there are fewer dinosaurs like me every day.

[Aimless1]

You're not alone Steve. I do this most nights.

[grawk]

I think the death of audiophiles is overstated. I think it's just now there are a lot more people listening to music in lots of different ways, but my guess is there are more audiophiles now than there ever have been.

[Dreadhead]

I agree with Dan. I think the overall music listening population is up so high these days that the true audiophiles share of the market has plummeted but I'd guess there are more individual audiophile now more than ever.

That said I probably don't qualify as an audiophile much anymore. I haven't done dedicated listening lasting more than a song or two in months if no a year. Of course I still go ape shit over a poorly recorded recording so some of it is still there

[Tyll Hertsens]

I think the word "audiophile" tends to have a meaning that just doesn't jive with the nature of the market at the moment. We're audiophiles here, and it's obvious that we don't quite fit the mold of the traditional meaning of the word.

The market has changed dramatically; audiophilia just hasn't sorted itself out in response yet.

Working on it.

[kevin gilmore]

I still listen to 2 cd's, sometimes more every day when i get home.

right after i let the dogs out. sometimes with added liquid refreshment.

[Driftwood]

So, that NPR article says that audiophiles are in search for "the exact replication of an original performance." That hits on something I've been wondering for a while, and that basically is, what am I trying to get out of this hobby? I can buy that being the pursuit of classical music enthusiasts, or people who listen to recording which are primarily capturing an actual performance. Much of the music today, especially popular music, no longer fits this definition, and so what does "the exact replication of an original performance" mean in that context? If that is in fact what being an audiophile is about, I guess that yes, by the trends of the recording industry the audiophile is going to be fighting an uphill battle. Myself, I think I am looking to minimize the harm that is happening, not to replicate the original event. I'm easily distracted by crap like clipping (and there is nothing more frustrating when the recording itself is clipped) and by frequency response abnormalities. I just want that crap to get out of the way so I can enjoy the music.

[mypasswordis]

In my experience, audiophiles look for anything but the exact replication of a performance, in the name of finding something that "sounds good." If they wanted exact replication they'd use the same studio monitors and equipment in studios so it'd sound the exact same as the mastering engineers made it, and the mastering engineers wouldn't have to play around with EQ and shit to get it to "sound good" on a variety of setups.

[Dusty Chalk]

I'm looking for euphony. Toobz. 10% distortion. \m/

[Currawong]

This comment was interesting:

On the home-theater front, Mike Mettler, editor-in-chief of Sound + Vision magazine, sees many audiophiles becoming videophiles. "As the home theater boom truly began to explode over a decade ago," he says, "audiophiles dove into it relatively willingly, as we also appreciate the benefits of watching a great picture on a great screen or TV. But it all ties back to enhancing our inherent passion for great sound."

Quite a few times when I've become interested in an artist, I've headed to Youtube to see videos of them and I also remember getting up early on weekend mornings to watch Rage, Video Hits and others on TV, which counted down the top 50 of that week. I think something along the lines of high-res, well-mastered recordings of live performances in a high-res video format which I could watch AND listen to in high fidelity would be fantastic. Considering we have BluRay players and high-end displays available, I'm surprised it hasn't caught on with audiophiles, unless I'm missing something. I did notice Nuforce selling analogue stage upgrades for Oppo players, so maybe I have.

[NwAvGuy]

Quite a few times when I've become interested in an artist, I've headed to Youtube to see videos of them and I also remember getting up early on weekend mornings to watch Rage, Video Hits and others on TV, which counted down the top 50 of that week. I think something along the lines of high-res, well-mastered recordings of live performances in a high-res video format which I could watch AND listen to in high fidelity would be fantastic. Considering we have BluRay players and high-end displays available, I'm surprised it hasn't caught on with audiophiles, unless I'm missing something. I did notice Nuforce selling analogue stage upgrades for Oppo players, so maybe I have.

I'm a bit late to the party, but thanks for the link Grahame. I overlapped some of that era growing up so it was a nostalgic read in a good way.

I would have agreed with Currawong and S&V several years ago, and perhaps it will still happen, but from what I've seen home theater is going in a different direction. Blu-Ray is capable of great audio, but few seem to care.

Just look at how CES has changed since the 90's. The high-end exhibits get smaller, weirder, and more marginalized every year. While the main show floors have gone from having a few dozen sit down home theaters with decent audio systems to today's Android tablets, cell phones, and acres of flat screens. The cheap flat screen seems to be killing off most home theater. Typical buyers of 55" flat screens just get some crappy sounding 2.5" deep flat speakers to slap on the wall next to it.

Today's serious theaters are more sold to the multi-million dollar McMansion crowd. A buddy designs six figure installations and the owners often make all the buying decisions based on pictures of the gear without ever listening, or viewing, anything. The dealer brings a 3 ring binder full of marketing brochures and a gallery of their past installations, and the whole deal is done at the dining room table. They're often more concerned about the fabric and leather swatches than the speakers. Obviously most wouldn't consider these folks audiophiles without ever listening to a single piece of gear before they drop $100K even if some of what they end up with has audiophile brand names on it.

So times really have changed. I'm not sure what qualifies as an audiophile anymore?