Audiophile VS Musiphile - Your Thoughts?

[The_K-Man]

Audiophile: In love with how music sounds on their equipment.

 

Musiphile: Loves how music itself sounds - on any equipment.

 

I place myself largely in the latter category.  How about you?

[Allan F]

18 minutes ago, The_K-Man said:

Musiphile: Loves how music itself sounds - on any equipment.

 

Actually, the term is melophile, viz. one who loves music.

[The_K-Man]

2 hours ago, Allan F said:

 

Actually, the term is melophile, viz. one who loves music.

 

Melo- ahh melody!  I got it now.  

[NOMBEDES]

Good subject. I go with the music every time.   Because no matter what equipment you have, from modest to super expensive, a poor recording is ...well, a poor recording.  With the present state of technology it is possible to enjoy a good recording without the expense and stress that some audiophiles inflect upon themselves.   There are a great number of threads on audio sites which recommend nice equipment for a modest amount of money.

[Blackmorec]

I’m addicted to the emotional responses...the more perfectly my system plays the music, the more powerful and intense the emotions.  I enjoy listening to music on my car stereo but I wouldn’t expect the music to move me to tears which is something that can and does happen when the music is  reproduced full range and accurately and sounds utterly gorgeous. 

 

My brain seems to have musical receptor sites and my system can generate intense pleasure when playing favoured music perfectly with no audible faults to dilute the intensity. 

 

When the music is so intense it makes the room come alive just like a live event the feeling of joy is overwhelming. If you could bottle and sell that feeling it would probably be class A ?

[KeenObserver]

Going back a number of years, I kind of fell into the TAS/Stereophile treadmill trap.  I started reading Stereophile and TAS when they were still tablet size publications and JGH was still with Stereophile.  I actually had a subscription to stereophile that I let run out twenty something years ago.

I realized that I was listening to the equipment and not to the music.  I was trying to hear differences that amounted to one one thousandth of a percent.

I tend to keep my equipment for a length of time.  When I upgrade, I do my due diligence.  I check specs, do research on various sights, read peoples reviews, and then make my purchase.  I set up the equipment as best as I know how, and then forget about it.  I watch movies and listen to music.

When I listen to music, my foot taps, my head bobs, sometimes I get up and dance around and play the air guitar.  There are times when I am listening to a symphony that my wife has to come in and shake me to tell me that I need to eat.

[Samuel T Cogley]

I always thought that I was an "audiophile" until I realized that most who consider themselves audiophiles listen to what I can only describe as Audiophile Music.  Apparently, you have to have certain musical tastes to be a bona fide audiophile.

 

I would jettison all my gear and give up music completely if all I was allowed to listen to was Diana Krall, Shelby Lynne, and classic jazz.

 

To some, being an audiophile is nothing more than having the means and desire to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on gear.  At some point, that's more like bling than music, but there is an undeniable "air of sophistication" around some "audiophiles".

[rodrigaj]

I can't, repeat can't, listen to "my system" and "the music" at the same time.

 

It's like their is a switch in my brain. The emotional response to the music supersedes all else. This happens whether I am listening through earbuds or listening on my $$$ system.

 

It's easier to connect to the emotional response of "the music" when I am on my $$$ system. So for me, spending $$$ on playback equipment provides a wider conduit to this emotional response.

[rodrigaj]

18 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

... I would jettison all my gear and give up music completely if all I was allowed to listen to was Diana Krall, Shelby Lynne, and classic jazz....

This should be given its own genre: "Audio Show" music.

[Musicophile]

I guess my name gives it away in which camp I belong?

[barrows]

These are not mutually exclusive: answer: Both!

[crenca]

I'm not as convinced as I once was that the Audiophile is an equipment centric, "In love with how music sounds on their equipment" eccentric and a "musicophile" or music lover is the more balanced, focused primarily on music (and equipment is secondary).   Mostly because I better see how this dichotomy is (mis)used in Audiophiledom, and is really just an argument point in the larger subjective/objective divide.

 

I am very interested in High Fidelity, though not the usual subjective (i.e. art & wine, bling) version of it.  Yet, at the same time some of my most enjoyable listening sessions are on/in the tread/elliptical/weight room with a pair of lowly Bose quietcomfort 35's, streaming mp3 based services through bluetooth (and thus is double lossy), or in a car with the windows rolled down and They Might be Giants turned up to the 50% distortion point (easy to achieve with car systems).

 

So I am with Barrows, but really I think real High Fidelity (and not Audiophiledom that you see in the trade publications and at audio shows) & actual enjoyable music listening (which is more than mere emotion, it is also about Beauty which is objective) is not so much "both" as "beyond" the equipment vs. music question...

 

 

[gmgraves]

21 hours ago, The_K-Man said:

Audiophile: In love with how music sounds on their equipment.

 

Musiphile: Loves how music itself sounds - on any equipment.

 

I place myself largely in the latter category.  How about you?

OK, I put myself mostly in the latter category. But I do admit that I enjoy music more when it sounds good. And I do have a few peccadilloes. For instance when I go to a live concert, if I walk into the venue and see a stack of "sound reinforcement" (PA) equipment on or near the stage with microphones connected to it, I turn around and leave (if the concert was free) and if it cost money, I go demand my money back from the management. My excuse is that I came here to hear live music, If I wanted to listen to amplifiers and speakers, I could have stayed home where I have FAR better equipment than this. My preference is live before reproduced, good reproduced if possible, whatever is available if the music is good enough. When in college, I used to listen to live concerts of the NY Philharmonic on an AM/FM portable transistor radio because it was all I had (though it was a Zenith Trans Oceanic). 

[audiobomber]

I enjoy music, first and foremost. Regardless of sound quality, music is vitally important to me.

 

However, I am definitely an audiophile. I spend an inordinate amount of time and money tweaking and upgrading my various systems. Sometimes, particularly after I've made some change, this requires that I listen to certain cuts. Not necessarily for musical enjoyment, but for probative purposes. I see no conflict between that peculiarly audiophile exercise and my love of music.

 

I would add that musical virtuosity and technique hold little interest for me. I value melody above all. Guitar shredders, virtuoso pianists, crazy sax solos; all are boring unless I hear a melody that grips me.

[The_K-Man]

22 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

OK, I put myself mostly in the latter category. But I do admit that I enjoy music more when it sounds good. And I do have a few peccadilloes. For instance when I go to a live concert, if I walk into the venue and see a stack of "sound reinforcement" (PA) equipment on or near the stage with microphones connected to it, I turn around and leave (if the concert was free) and if it cost money, I go demand my money back from the management. My excuse is that I came here to hear live music, If I wanted to listen to amplifiers and speakers, I could have stayed home where I have FAR better equipment than this. My preference is live before reproduced, good reproduced if possible, whatever is available if the music is good enough. When in college, I used to listen to live concerts of the NY Philharmonic on an AM/FM portable transistor radio because it was all I had (though it was a Zenith Trans Oceanic). 

 

I agree!  

 

And there are some big fat myths out there regarding live/concert/worship sound:

 

Dynamic processing(limiters, compressors) aren't used in reinforcement of live performances.  If anything, the live performance of popular and faith-based music is becoming increasingly more processed(equalized, dynamically processed) to a point approaching how recorded genres are in mastering.

 

When something is compressed and or limited, it can then have gain applied to it to make it much louder than it normally is in nature, and that's before the signal even gets near the final amplifier stage!  

 

And the arrogance of some people - be they soundies or just spectators - to "get ear plugs"?  Some nerve.

[audiobomber]

LOL! Woodstock without sound reinforcement would have been quite a bust. 

[The_K-Man]

21 minutes ago, audiobomber said:

I enjoy music, first and foremost. Regardless of sound quality, music is vitally important to me.

 

However, I am definitely an audiophile. I spend an inordinate amount of time and money tweaking and upgrading my various systems. Sometimes, particularly after I've made some change, this requires that I listen to certain cuts. Not necessarily for musical enjoyment, but for probative purposes. I see no conflict between that peculiarly audiophile exercise and my love of music.

 

I would add that musical virtuosity and technique hold little interest for me. I value melody above all. Guitar shredders, virtuoso pianists, crazy sax solos; all are boring unless I hear a melody that grips me.

 

Put it this way:  A great recording - for me that's something from 'Thriller', 'Abacab', 'Rumours' by Mac, one of Rossini's Overtures(William Tell frinstance) - will sound great on a broad cross section of gear, from an iPod, to a table top radio, to a rack of components to your finely tuned audiophile system.  

 

Make music sound great again, instead of engineering it for the least common denominator(smart phones with pill-sized amps and cheap stock ear buds), and I'll start buying music from after the mid-1990s again.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

OK, I put myself mostly in the latter category. But I do admit that I enjoy music more when it sounds good. And I do have a few peccadilloes. For instance when I go to a live concert, if I walk into the venue and see a stack of "sound reinforcement" (PA) equipment on or near the stage with microphones connected to it, I turn around and leave (if the concert was free) and if it cost money, I go demand my money back from the management. My excuse is that I came here to hear live music,

 

What I find interesting is that the sound reinforcement crowd can get it right, if they try. Normally it sounds atrocious, but I have had a couple of PA equipped venues get it spot on - that is, there was absolutely nothing in the sound that drew attention to the PA mechanism; it just got out of the way and allowed me to go with the music.

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, audiobomber said:

LOL! Woodstock without sound reinforcement would have been quite a bust. 

When I talk of concerts, I refer to classical music or jazz. Much rock and pop music is, of course, non-existent outside of a studio as many of the instruments require electronic amplification. That is why with rock concerts, the performers more or less have to take their "studio" with them. Without the SR, there would be no performance. That's understandable and that's not what I mean when I say that if I see SR equipment I walk. These are not rock or pop performances which I wouldn't be attending in the first place. So you can rest assured I'm not complaining about SR at pop concerts. There I understand it is a necessity, but at classical (and most jazz) concerts it's not needed at all - yet all too often, there it is. 

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

What I find interesting is that the sound reinforcement crowd can get it right, if they try.

Well, Frank, that's irrelevant to me. I go to concerts to hear real, live acoustic instruments playing in a real space. I wouldn't care if the SR folks got it perfect (impossible, but for the sake of this discussion we can assume that they can get it "right") I don't want to listen electronically manipulated reproduced music. Like I said, I can get that at home and with far better quality than any SR setup.

 

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

Normally it sounds atrocious, but I have had a couple of PA equipped venues get it spot on - that is, there was absolutely nothing in the sound that drew attention to the PA mechanism; it just got out of the way and allowed me to go with the music.

I suspect it depends on the kind of music. To me, SR is never acceptable where real acoustic instruments are playing classical music. 

[Daccord]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

at classical (and most jazz) concerts it's not needed at all - yet all too often, there it is. 

I attended a performance by The Bad Plus at an old church in Toronto. Of course the concert used "SR", as you call it, and within the first minute the mic on the piano fell inside and lay directly on the strings. It sounded absolutely awful, but the sound guys did nothing. So the drummer (who's always been my favourite in the trio) got up, walked over, and pulled the mic out of the piano. A little later the bass player said if we had any friends who couldn't make it that night they should drop by tomorrow, as the reverb would probably still be audible.

[fas42]

Quote

Well, Frank, that's irrelevant to me. I go to concerts to hear real, live acoustic instruments playing in a real space.

 

Yes, keep it all away from classical performances - but there was one situation, before I got my first good dose of playback quality, where it "did help": at the time I was acquainted with a well known classical guitar player, and at a concert where he played a composition requiring orchestral backing, he was somewhat drowned out by the intensity of their playing. He knew this, and asked if it made sense to get some slight SR; I agreed, and just using a judicious amount made all the difference ...

 

The events I mentioned had popular music content, and the SR was purely to create a sound level that matched the visuals - insufficient sound intensity, getting the balance wrong between visual and sound, can make a performance seem lacking - and hence SR is justified.

[MetalNuts]

I regard myself in between audiophile and melophile.  IMHO, it is rare to be on the either extreme side.  Have you ever heard a should be beautiful violin melody ruined by poor equipment and you have to stop playing it or would you be contended with fantistic sound effects without any need of good melody at all.

 

The equipment is the means to play good melodies.  When I switch equipment, I usually found some albums become more enjoyable, some no change and some become worse.  

[crenca]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

When I talk of concerts, I refer to classical music or jazz. Much rock and pop music is, of course, non-existent outside of a studio as many of the instruments require electronic amplification. That is why with rock concerts, the performers more or less have to take their "studio" with them. Without the SR, there would be no performance. That's understandable and that's not what I mean when I say that if I see SR equipment I walk. These are not rock or pop performances which I wouldn't be attending in the first place. So you can rest assured I'm not complaining about SR at pop concerts. There I understand it is a necessity, but at classical (and most jazz) concerts it's not needed at all - yet all too often, there it is. 

 

44 minutes ago, Daccord said:

I attended a performance by The Bad Plus at an old church in Toronto. Of course the concert used "SR", as you call it, and within the first minute the mic on the piano fell inside and lay directly on the strings. It sounded absolutely awful, but the sound guys did nothing. So the drummer (who's always been my favourite in the trio) got up, walked over, and pulled the mic out of the piano. A little later the bass player said if we had any friends who couldn't make it that night they should drop by tomorrow, as the reverb would probably still be audible.

 

My wife and I attended the Gipsy Kings concert in a nearby city last month.  Turns out they broke up a while back, and so two of the original members were there with 3 of their sons and touring as the "Gipsy Kings", so only 5 "acoustic" guitars.  Behind them were keys, drums, electric bass and guitar, etc.  Lots and lots of "sound reinforcement".  I knew we were in trouble as soon as we walked into the venue.

 

It was worse than I could have ever imagined.  Whenever the drummer played his kick drum (which was often) it came out horribly distorted, at a volume that overwhelmed everything else, and it had a tail of pure distortion that lasted about 1 second.  I stuffed half a roll of toilet paper in my ears in a vain attempt to mitigate the badness.

 

Hard to understand, but most folks simply drank their liquor and appeared to be having a good time.

 

It reinforced for me how vain it is for audiophiles to hope to convert the majority to "hi res" or some such...

[audiobomber]

1 hour ago, crenca said:

It was worse than I could have ever imagined.  Whenever the drummer played his kick drum (which was often) it came out horribly distorted, at a volume that overwhelmed everything else, and it had a tail of pure distortion that lasted about 1 second. 

I don't know if the sound men are functionally deaf, incompetent, inattentive or a combination of these. I've been to a lot of concerts where there was no excuse for what we heard.