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What is an Audiophile?

Featured Opinions — 30 August 2011

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What is an Audiophile?

Why does the term “Lunatic Fringe” come to mind?

Since When Did It Become Controversial Listening to Music with Great Sound?

After all, sound is a huge part of everything we do as humans, from how we communicate with each other to how we choose to spend time alone. What is wrong with wanting the sound we interact with to be the best that it can be?

I travel in music circles with pro audio engineers, recording artists, label execs and audiophiles. It surprises me that more industry people don’t go to the audiophile shows where the rubber meets the road — the people who create the music meeting those that love and buy their products.

When I ask my industry cohorts ‘why’ the first words coming from their mouths seems to be ‘lunatic fringe’ — as if ‘audiophiles’ have the plague and should be avoided at all costs.

What is defining the word ‘audiophile’ that is so bad in their minds? Can we reintroduce ‘audiophile’ to a new generation? Do we need a new word to describe a passionate listener?

A recent survey by the CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) indicates that music lovers are everywhere. They’ve analyzed the results in a study called “Notion of Quality: Audio Expectations of Consumers.” Participants were asked to rate themselves as to their music listening habits divided into 3 categories. Here are the results of how people thought of themselves.

Audio Enthusiast –34%

Moderate Interest – 34%

Low Interest – 32%

CEA estimates that there are 80,000,000 Audio Enthusiasts in the USA alone. Audio Enthusiasts would pay more money for better quality content and listening gear. Their ages run relatively equally from 18-55+, with 77% having household incomes of less than $75,000 annually and 48% are women. Is it possible to expand the ‘audiophile’ profile to include these demographics or do we need a new word? “Audio Enthusiast” isn’t a bad term. As a product manufacturer, broadening the demographic to be more inclusive is a very healthy sign and benefits the whole community.

Today, the profile for ‘audiophile’ seems to be over 50 years old, male, with income over $100,000 annually. Some manufacturers feel that the estimate for ‘audiophiles’ is about 500,000 worldwide. That’s a tough nugget for any of us in the business to develop new products. Adding new categories of the demographics from the CEA report could be advantageous.

Take for instance, “women”.. something I know a bit about. I have often wondered why more women don’t consider themselves ‘audiophiles’? And, why more manufacturers haven’t taken advantage of the power of a woman’s dollar as the auto industry did in the nineties. Whether you like ‘Beats’ headphones or not, they’ve made it ‘cool’ to want better sound for a younger generation. Spending $299 on headphones is a start. If anyone feels ‘kids today’ don’t understand ‘quality in sound’, please come to my studio and experience my fresh faced interns working on analog tape, buying vinyl and unhappy with mp3 sound.

Once exposed to great sonics, they can’t go back to mp3.

In upcoming articles, I would like to poll the readership as to what it means to be called an ‘audiophile’. I welcome suggestions for questions. Is an audiophile someone who pays $xxxx for their listening environment? Someone who builds their own set of speakers? Goes to meetings with fellow listeners? Pays $1000 a foot for cable? Buys ‘Beats’ headphones? Hates mp3s? I’d like your opinion to help open our world to new ears. Let me know what you think.

This is a great forum to place your comments so we can all share.  Simply comment on this post.

Thanks and enjoy your music experience!

Cookie Marenco

Founder and Producer, Blue Coast Records

http://bluecoastrecords.com

Special thanks to Gene Bryan Johnson for his editing skills and the volunteers at

DownloadsNOW.net

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About Author

Cookie Marenco

With more than 20 years in the music industry, Cookie Marenco’s creative and technical skills have touched almost every aspect of the business. She is widely known for the quality of her audio engineering skills and for drawing out passionate performances from the artists she produces. She has engineered or produced 5 Grammy-nominated records, several Gold records and an Academy Award-winning documentary. Her artist credits include Max Roach, Brain, Kenny Aronoff, Vijay Iyer, Kai Eckhardt, New Monsoon, Brady Blade, Tony Furtado, Tony Trischka, Dirk Powell, Rob Ickes, Charlie Haden, Tony Levin, Alex DeGrassi, Turtle Island String Quartet, Steve Rodby, Buckethead, Ralph Towner, Paul McCandless, Ernie Watts, Glen Moore, Mary Chapin Carpenter, John Jennings, Pat DiNizio, Keith Greeninger, Houston Jones, Kristin Hersch, Brad Mehldau, Matt Rollings, Kevin Kern, Art Lande, Luis Bonfa, Clara Ponty, Chanticleer, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Mark Isham and Michael Tolcher. Her production and engineering skills can be found on projects for Monterey Jazz Festival, Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Marinfest, Midem, Hard Rock Cafe, Windham Hill Records, Verve, Rounder Records, Om Records, Sony, Warner Bros. and others.

(14) Readers Comments

  1. Pingback: What is an Audiophile? | PSTracks | | Stereophonics DirectStereophonics Direct

  2. August 31, 2011 at 4:39 pm

    Great article, Cookie, thanks! I’m a music-lover and that’s indeed what made me become an audiophile. Indeed, it’s some of your work with Windham Hill that originally inspired me.

    I recently started a blog dedicated to the Windham Hill Discography called Windhaming at http://windhaming.wordpress.com. It features credits, liner notes and samples from each of the first 106 albums – those that came out on vinyl. On the same blog, I’ve also started a page dedicated to American-made audio equipment. It’s funny how little overlap there is between visitors to the two pages. While it’s true that one can still find musical bliss is old beat up cassette tapes and even low-res MP3′s, it’s much easier when you feel like the artist is in the room with you, as you might on a great audio system.

    To answer your question: “what is an audiophile,” the simplest answer to me is that an audiophile is someone who enjoys sitting down with the sole intent of listening to music – or at least that’s the first step. What comes next is actually caring how it sounds so that you can get closer to the music….

  3. audioguy

    August 31, 2011 at 7:03 pm

    I agree with JohnnyDark. But to add a bit to the definition (and also move us closer to the “lunatic fringe”) the speakers should be placed to extract the maximum from the room/speaker combination – and that means moving them away from walls and into the room. Is that necessary to listen to music? No. But it is necessary to get what you paid for in your speaker investment. And then comes room treatment! And now you are a full fledged “lunatic” !!!

  4. jaynemo

    September 1, 2011 at 9:00 am

    I think an the term audiophile should be expanded to included the demographics of anyone who is just completely into listening to music and the art form it represents. Regardless of equipment.

    I believe a new term should be penned, enter the the “audiophool”. A person who is more into thier equipment and the $$$ they spent on it versus the music it reproduces.

  5. September 1, 2011 at 11:37 am

    For me an audiophile is simply someone who enjoys listening to music and is always seeking ways of improving sound quality to increase their enjoyment.

  6. Steve W

    September 1, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    Thanks for giving DSD a chance
    As a pure analog lover (Studer / Ampex & Technics Reel to Reels and VPI turntable) I have been listening to DSD recording for over 9 years, I was one of the believers that DSD would bring digital into the wonderful world of analog sound. I have expensively modified every SACD player I have own and found that the limiting factor was now the source material. All tube analog stage and passive I/V converters did not make PCM mastered SACD sound Analog. I was very frustrated with the industries desire to make DSD recording main stream (PCM editing), after all the MP3 compression was just fine to most of my colleagues (I am an Analog/digital engineer at a major US electronics company that supplies the broadcast industry). Your Pure acoustic DSD recording have given me new hope for DSD format, having acquired a Sony XA5400ES DSD disk player that I have modified with all tube analog, I love the downloads that I have played on the DSD Disk player from Blue Coast Records. Presently I have been working on a custom DSD recorder based on the Korg MR2000 with all Vacuum State analog and custom microphones that I have been designing for the last 5 years. Will send you some of the recording when the system is finished, this is a hobby so things move slowly. I am waiting for a new master clock oscillator for the DSD Recorder. I have access to some wonderful pianos from Steingraeber & Söhne and some local artist that are almost as good as the pianos. (http://www.pianocraft.net/brands/steingraeber-sohne/) Thanks Steve

  7. erich.j.henkel

    September 3, 2011 at 8:18 am

    What´s an audiophile? It is one deperate for the best sound. Not only at home. I live in Germany but work in China. I do have a 30 k€ Audio Equipment at home but also a Top Sony mp3 player filled with wav- files (no mp3) and a Bose NC15 noisecancelling headphone for the long distance flights (approx. 600 €) and a hotelroom system with a Netbook, an nuForce USB incl. headphone and Bose PC Monitors and of course good USB and RCA cable (> 1000€) . or me audiophile means good quality in all places and situations.
    Regarding Music: 44,1 kHz wav is minimum, I also have a lot of USB sticks with HighRes Downloads with me.

  8. luckiestmanalive

    September 8, 2011 at 3:44 am

    I think an audiophile is someone who appreciates music in the way some people appreciate fine art. If you appreciate a piece of art you can buy it but its way more expensive. An audiophile can buy a reproduction of an artist’s music relatively cheaply that can be made to sound really close to the real thing. The extent to which audiophiles are prepared to go is only a matter of degree…

  9. Pingback: August 2011 PS Newsletter | PS Audio

  10. Soundminded

    February 2, 2012 at 5:52 am

    What is an audiophile? An audiophile is an ardent member of a religious cult of loosely affiliated sects. What they have in common is an unwavering obsession with machinery for reproducing recordings of music. Often they will pay any price, make any sacrifice in the pursuit of their obsession, much like a drug addict pursuing his next fix. With each new acquisition of machinery they begin again the process of hunting down their next acquisition. They are also generally unable to distinguish between recordings of music and actual music itself. Most but not all have little or no knowledge of music as evidenced by what they listen to and like, and only a smattering of knowledge about how the technology works. This leaves them vulnerable to their high priests who manufacture products that cater specifically to their obsession, many cynically having found ways to sell endless variants of the same products over and over again by focusing on a single technical aspect of it which becomes the new silver bullet that will cure all ills of prior products, theirs and everyone else’s. Audiophiles typically spend much of their spare time reading magazines and advertising devoted to their obsession. Their temples are the specialty stores that demonstrate the latest audio equipment wonders and their Meccas are trade shows where manufacturers gather to roll out their newest offerings.

    Some of the sects are; vacuum tubes, phonograph records, horn speakers, wires, capacitors, moving coil cartridges, SET amplifiers. Typically the afflicted are members of multiple sects simultaneously and there are sects within sects. Like all religions the underlying dogmas when carefully examined are found to be largely irrational based on testimonials of miracles rather than on demonstrated facts. Thus audiophiles claim to be able to hear the difference between one vacuum tube and another, one wire and another, one capacitor and another but can’t hear the difference between recordings of music played on what they consider the best technology has to offer at any given moment and the real thing, a live musical performance. They will find any rationale to dismiss scientific methods such as laboratory measurements and double blind tests when they don’t yield results consistent with their beliefs and will trot out carefully remembered technical arguments and jargon they succumbed to when they were convinced to buy their most recent acquisition.

    Medical science has not found any cure for this affliction yet. There are some remedies that can in limited and persistent treatment work. One is to attend a large number of live concerts of musicians playing without the use of electronic machinery to enhance otherwise poor performances by mediocre musicians. This serves to demonstrate and remind the audiophile of the fallacy of his belief in the perfection of the technology of his acquisitions (almost all victims are male.) The other is to become an electrical engineer. This confers intellectual immunity from fallacious technical arguments and those taken out of a much larger context with the objective of selling products.

    I am pleased to say that I am fortunate enough not to be an audiophile. My sympathies go out to those with this painful and debilitating illness. :)

  11. Soundminded

    February 2, 2012 at 10:00 am

    Cookie, thank you for taking the time to reply to my somewhat tongue in cheek posting. I think we are going to have to agree to disagree about the definition of what an audiophile is. While the term literally means lover of sound, I’ll stick with my stereotypical view. You see I was a fellow sufferer myself a long time ago until I was cured. As an example, my best sound system’s newest component is an amplifier I built from a $200 kit in 1993 to replace one that blew up I didn’t care to repair.

    I congratulate you on your business achievements and professional career. I’m sure you worked very hard and earned your success.

    You are right about me being a music lover. I’ve been surrounded by music, musicians, and recordings of music all of my life. As child I played the piano and clarinet….badly! My interest is mostly in classical music but I also enjoy jazz. My interest in pop music is relatively superficial however whatever type of music I listen to I am extremely critical. I do not hesitate to make critical judgments about composition and performance nor to rank them by my own scale of relative merit.

    I found this web site from a reference on another site to a topic posted on this site I was somewhat familiar with. Clearly I have my own points of view which often don’t agree with others. Some people find that intolerable but I think it would be a very boring world if there weren’t multiple views, there’d be nothing to discuss, no discourse or exchange of ideas. Since I don’t take this all too seriously, it not being my profession or my obsession I can take a more circumspect view of it than those more directly connected to it. If you read my other postings you will see that while I find it interesting I don’t have any emotional investment in it. Music for me is a sensory experience, the technology to record and reproduce it an intellectual challenge.

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