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?

[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.  

[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.

[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.

[The_K-Man]

7 hours ago, audiobomber said:

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.

 

As with the recording side of the music business, the live side is also customer-service oriented: give the client(in this case the live venue operators, church officials, wherever) what they want, or sell them what they think, or can be convinced of what, they want.

 

Our goals as end-users, end-consumers, is to not part with our money in the cases you have brought forward.  This includes not buying the physical media or attending venues/concerts where the only criteria is LOUD.

[The_K-Man]

6 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

I'll call myself a solid Melophile because I can get musical satisfaction from my car stereo, my home system, internet radio, etc... as long as the music is good, not how perfect it sounds. I guess my brain is possibly filling in the gaps, or I just don't care and enjoy the music. If music can't have an emotional impact on you unless it's perfect, I feel sorry for your soul.

 

You and I = separated at birth.  The essence of what I'm saying.

 

And to paraphrase someone on here who said that music lovers listen on "crap":  Come to my place and tell me my 80w per ch. JVC receiver and DB Plus speakers are "crap" over the crescendos of the William Tell Overture - or the refrains of 'Sometimes A Fantasy' by Joel!

[The_K-Man]

47 minutes ago, Daccord said:

 

Live performance is how most musicians earn their living. Without a paying audience you're going to run out of melo to phile.

 

But did you understand the context in which I commented?

 

The context of sheer loudness.

 

If that requires audience members to don earplugs or other forms of sound suppression to be able to tolerate the show, then something is wrong.

 

It is unfortunate that loudness is the prime criteria at live performances, whether by request of the performers themselves, by request of the venue providing the experience, or as someone else recently suggested, hearing-impaired or otherwise loudness-driven sound engineers.

 

Our biggest vote, one equally important to the one on election day, is the vote via our wallets.

[The_K-Man]

30 minutes ago, Daccord said:

 

Sorry, I missed the "largely" in your opening post:

 

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?

 

Yes, concerts in bars are way too loud and compressed, but so are movies, and years of consistent wallet-voting on my part has done nothing to improve the movie theatre experience. I saw Soft Machine at a bar a few weeks ago. I knew it would be a foam earplug event, but it was a fun evening with friends and some great musicians. I think I lean to the first category. If you're avoiding live music because the sound isn't to your taste, it's a stretch to call yourself a melophile. However, I understand your original point, and frankly I'll be very surprised if anyone pops into the thread and confesses that their primary use of recorded music is testing their audio system (even though many of us know people like that).

 

"If you're avoiding live music because the

sound isn't to your taste, it's a stretch to call

yourself a melophile."

 

 

Let's take apart the core of this statement ladies & gentlemen:

 

"...because the sound isn't too your taste.."

 

The sound of the instruments?  The sound of the vocals?  The sound of the Sound Reinforcement itself? The acoustics of the venue - be it indoor or outdoors?  Which shall it be, Mr. Daccord?

 

Again - CONTEXT.  My context is loudness, presentation volume.  The music itself might be perfectly composed and exquisitely performed.  The SR might even have excellent frequency response,  both in covered range and evenness thereof.

 

But once more, if myself and others must resort to protective measures(ear plugs, putting greater distance between ourselves and the stage, etc.)  to tolerate the volume level at which it is presented, let alone be able to enjoy the artwork and to empathize with the artist(s), then it's just TOO. DAMN. LOUD.

 

Learn to separate being a melophile/musiphile/whatever from incurring temporary or permanent hearing loss.  The two should not be accepted as part and parcel. 

 

Period.

[The_K-Man]

6 hours ago, ARQuint said:

 

I'm proud of myself for thinking of, and acting on, the following approach—and I attribute the idea to my devotion to multichannel music.

 

A few years ago, my daughter had her wedding reception in a way cool warehouse space in NYC. For the party, she had a friend who would DJ but was happy to let me supply the sound system. Instead of two of those tripod-mounted Pro Sound monstrosities, I rented four—and had them positioned at the four corners of the dance floor, facing inward. They were played at a volume that was invigorating to the dancers but not conversation-obliterating out in the room. Everyone was happy, especially the guy who paid for it.

 

I can't be the only person to have thought of this, but I've never seen it at anybody else's wedding, bar mitzvah, or prison-release party.

 

It's the same thing with multichannel playback in a typical domestic listening space: Because you have all those additional drivers moving all that additional air, plus a natural representation of space, it's not necessary to listen as loud to get an emotional connection to the music.

 

Andrew Quint

 

Senior Writer

The Absolute Sound

 

Distributed sound definitely negates the need for ridiculous volume levels.

 

Just realize that in a domestic multi-channel system, those extra speakers are typicallly for surround material.  Although a few receivers might have an "All channel" mode to send the stereo content typical of music to all 5.1/6.1 etc speakers in such setups.

[The_K-Man]

5 hours ago, Teresa said:

 

Me too.

 

 

I agree, call them "Audio Show" music, they aren't recorded by audiophile labels. Diana Krall and Shelby Lynne are recorded by major commercial labels. Same can be said for classic jazz. Actual real audiophile labels include Chesky, Reference Recordings, Groove Note, Stockfisch Records, etc. See my older posts for a list of my favorite audiophile labels.

 

IMHO the major labels used to make more natural sounding recordings between the mid-1950's to mid-1970's. Since then sonically it's been downhill. I personally believe that audiophile labels (who make their own recordings, not remaster labels) exist as they are a revolt against the unnatural modern recording practices such as EQ, compression and studio tricks which produce highly compressed, overloaded, distorted modern major label recordings.

 

I don't like something just because it is on an audiophile label, I have to like the music as well. I like at most 20% of audiophile recordings I've sampled. That compares to less than 5% of golden age major label recordings (mid-1950's to mid-1970's) as remastered by audiophile labels. And almost zero percent of modern major label recordings I've heard.

 

I'm not a fan of CDs, however I would prefer to listen to an audiophile CD over most major label high resolution downloads. But I don't have to as I have a nice collection of audiophile high resolution downloads and SACDs.

 

So, in short how a recording is made is as important to me as how much I like the music. People tell me I'm not an audiophile as I'm happy with my affordable audio / video system and don't lust after superior equipment. If they would change the name of "audiophile recordings" to a more correct name such as "natural realistic recordings" I could say I'm a lover of natural music recordings. ?

 

 

"I don't like something just because it is on

an audiophile label, I have to like the music

as well. I like at most 20% of audiophile

recordings I've sampled. That compares to

less than 5% of golden age major label recordings

(mid-1950's to mid-1970's) as remastered by

audiophile labels. And almost zero percent of

modern major label recordings I've heard."

 

Just to use the word, I would consider such '70s-'80s era albums as "Rumours", "DSOTM", "Thriller", and even some of Madonna's albums from then to be 'audiophile' quality compared to stuff that occupies the Top-40 or Hot 100 nowadays!

 

"I'm not a fan of CDs, however I would prefer

to listen to an audiophile CD over most major

label high resolution downloads. But I don't

have to as I have a nice collection of audiophile

high resolution downloads and SACDs."

 

Just remember: The audible difference between all of those formats you mentioned  is miniscule compared to the differences in the mastering of, for example, the same album on all of them.

 

For example:  The high-res release of Nirvana's 'Nevermind' for its twentieth anniversary was so compressed and brickwall limited in 'remastering'(kinda like my avatar) that it was just a loudened up mess compared to the original CD - which I own.  So of course to the masses of fans buying that download: "If it's  louder surely it must be better"!  lol

[The_K-Man]

On 11/21/2018 at 4:59 PM, fas42 said:

What there is in high quality playback is emotional energy - but because the industry overall has never really understood the importance of this, we now have the dire situation where 'energy' is injected into the situation by "pumping up the volume!" ... a disaster, in every sense.

 

Why I am so revved at getting my message out, is because it sickens me that it is almost impossible for anyone to experience decent playback of music in public settings anymore. This is unacceptable!!! There is absolutely no reason that reproduction of recordings is typically so badly done, mutilating all the inherent emotional impact of what was recorded; because of the imbecilic, thick headed attitudes of the majority in the industry.

 

Trust me - and this is just one aspect of this issue:  

 

Recorded music sounded a lot better when '0' was only three-quarters up the scale of a meter, instead of all the way on top.  !

[The_K-Man]

5 hours ago, jmpsmash said:

 

I agree. Which brings up a point (a bit off topic one), is that sometimes music listening at home is not representative of a real performance. People (me included) would listen to orchestral music or chamber and the bass is full and fills the room. It sounds great and satisfying in the listening room. In a live concert, the cello and double bass don't have that amount of intensity, there is lots of definition, but no way 12 cellos and 8 double basses would shake the whole concert hall.

 

A lot of times, the faithful reproduction might actually sound dull in comparison. I like to use photography as a analogy. Most photos taken without any post processing look rather dull. Have anyone seen straight prints from Ansel Adams? they look as dull as the ones we took. He spent a enormous amount of time planning and enhancing the photo in the dark room. I think we do that with stereo equipment to a certain extent.

 

But back to the topic, I do agree with many ppl here, the sound makes the music more enjoyable. a means to an end, a more enjoyable end.

 

 

"they look as dull as the ones we took. He

spent a enormous amount of time planning

and enhancing the photo in the dark room. I

think we  do that with stereo equipment to a

certain extent."

 

Incorrect.

 

Home playback equipment - at least good home equipment - is supposed to pass to the listener exactly what the artists, producers, or labels intended, not to "enhance" it in any way. (Although, some home or car listeners may think they are enhancing things with the bass & treble controls turned fully clockwise, smh!)

 

Post-processing is not done on stereo equipment - it's done in a studio or mastering suite, or in the case of photography, on desktop editors such as PhotoShop.

 

The previous portion of your comment stands.

[The_K-Man]

25 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

This is the "High Fidelity", or "High Fidelitist" position - one inherently "objectivist".  It is a minority opinion/goal among Audiophiles, and a very minority opinion/goal in every aspect (e.g. among manufactures, or the trade publications) of this niche industry.  For the majority, it is at best considered quaint and unrealistic, and usually paned as anti musical, anti emotional, anti art, and anti industry insider concerns.  All sorts of manufactures/reviewers/hobbyists give you all sorts of reasons why Audiophiledom is not really interested in High Fidelity.  For example I was just listening to a recent interview of Vinnie Rossi where he was deconstructing  the "objectivist" position, though like everyone else he is arguing against an extreme which does exist, but is besides the point...

 

It may be a "minority opinion among audiophiles", but remember who you're dealing with here - a musiphile, or more correctly melophile.

 

In that regard, I do not want my equipment either detracting from, or adding to, for that matter, the original sound or intent of a recording played over it.  I want my equipment to be a canvas, as transparent as I can afford it to be, upon which the musical painting, in a manner of speaking, plays out.

 

With that goal in mind comes some expectations I already have:  That a table-top system in the cellar will not rattle the walls in the same manner as my den or living room rig.  That neither of my aforementioned systems can quite approach a well set-up and professionally operated live system.  That the sound in my car may fall short of all but the smallest system mentioned in this paragraph.

 

With those expectations in my mind, I can avoid any significant disappointments in listening experiences over any of the systems in the prior paragraph.

 

[The_K-Man]

11 minutes ago, audiobomber said:

I have a pair of headphones designed for studio mastering, the Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro. They come with two sets of ear pads. "The dark grey balanced ear pads ensure a sound with a slight bass boost. The light grey “analytical” ear pads ensure a neutral sound".

 

I don't know about pros, but it's pretty clear that most people at Head-Fi who own these headphones prefer the Balanced pads. I cannot abide them, they make the bass too fat and accentuate treble. I prefer accuracy over euphony, but it seems that is not the norm among audiophiles. 

 

The Beyerdynamic Amiron is a very similar headphone, using the same Tesla drivers, but designed for home use, not studio. The Amiron is very warm sounding. I kept them one day before requesting return authorization and ordering the DT 1990. I found the very famous Sennheiser HD 650 had the same overly warm and polite tonal balance. Not what I want at all.

 

I have the DT880 Pro, 250ohm versions, also, light gray pads.  Fairly neutral I'd also say, with a slight warmth in the lower 200s, and cottony highs.  The latter is probably the only time you'd hear that a 770, 880, or 990 lacks top, although that may be due to the pads being of absorbant velour as opposed to reflective leather or 'pleather'.

 

Most 880 listeners report them to have a bright top.  Those are likely folks under thirty who can still hear well into the high teens.  This forty something can barely discern 14k & up, lol!

[The_K-Man]

6 hours ago, crenca said:

 

With due respect to K-man, but he has it backwards from the usual working definitions - though it must be said that "audiophile" itself has moved more and more in the direction of musicphile (i.e. to a radical subjectivism) and so we are back to the older "high fidelity(ist)" to describe the quest for a non-additive transparent system...

 

I have nothing "backwards".  I have mid-line stereo equipment, from playback components to receiver to speakers, basic Radio Shack interconnects, and common-sense gauge speaker wire.  IE I'm not driving speakers with ridiculous 20 or thinner AWG wire, but am driving them with 16AWG.   Nothing unusual about my setup, no boutique components or interconnects.

 

Everyone, from my wife to our guests, said music and movies sound fine on them, and that they are able to concentrate on the music or movie audio and not on the equipment reproducing it.  

 

Now, if I decided tomorrow to upgrade all my RCA(and other) interconnects to ones commanding thousands of dollars, and invest in multi-layer, interwoven speaker wire costing $100 per foot, you know what that would make me?....

 

 

An audiophile.  

 

Infatuated with how music sounds ON MY SYSTEM rather than just with the music itself.

[The_K-Man]

4 hours ago, Rexp said:

Er no.. Audiophiles do seek high fidelity, Musicphiles not so much. 

 

I resemble that statement, and would invite you to listen to my "Regular Joe" system!

 

If by "seeking high fidelity" you mean replacing USD$2/foot speaker wire with $20/foot wire, or a $500 DAC instead of a $50, I'd say that person needs to check in on South One at the hospital, if you know what dept. is located there.

 

The two most most critical components in my system are (1)placement and (2)common sense. And you can't buy either of those, for any amount of money, in a lahh-dee-dahh boutique audio store.

[The_K-Man]

27 minutes ago, audiobomber said:

Like most everything else, it is a scale or spectrum. I knew a professional jazz musician whose only music source was a ghetto blaster. 

 

I sometimes feel like I can get a more honest sound from that boombox with the tone controls set flat, than from a big expensive rig with a smiley-EQ dialed in, or other such 'enhancements'.

[The_K-Man]

4 hours ago, Summit said:

 

Yes almost all musicians love music, some like good sound too. Of those that like good sound not all strive for an accurate and unaltered sound. It’s true that it’s a scale, BUT the scale or definition don’t flip 180 degrees.

 

And as I've said several times throughout the discussion, one need not spend thousands of dollars - per component, per pair speaker, or per interconnect - to get good sound.   

[The_K-Man]

2 hours ago, Summit said:

 

The topic is (Audiophile VS Musiphile - Your Thoughts?), not how much cost a good audio system. I made a remark on that topic and how you described audiophiles and melophiles totally opposite to how I would have defined them.

 

I know - I started the thread so I know what I called it.

 

No, I did not label them opposite.  Audiophiles are in love with the sound of their system: "Feel how my subs make the floor tremble!", melophiles love where it starts: "Dig that melody", "That beat is infectious!".

 

See the difference?  

 

It's that "groovy melody" or infectious beat that shines through, on anything from a pocket transistor to a US$10-grand dedicated listening room.  Something that's had done to it what you see in my profile avatar will sound like sh|t no matter how cheap or expensive a system or device it's heard back over.

 

Get the source right, Summit:  The composition of the song, plus production values from mixing through mastering, and you'll have a winner!

[The_K-Man]

27 minutes ago, Summit said:

 

Yes it’s clear that in your and some others definition of audiophile, audiophiles listen to their gear and the music is not very important. I disagree on that is the norm. I’m an audiophile and know other audiophiles and we all love music. We listen a lot to both live and recorded music and then we listen at home we mostly listen dedicated. Music is not only something that we have in the background while doing other things like the majority of the population does. The dedicated way of listening will clearly revile the records and audio systems shortcomings. Then I only listen to music as music in the background am not very picky about SQ. Yes we of course all know that some audiophiles is more interested in the gear and the tech of them than in to get the music to sound as good, real and accurate as possible. For me an audiophile is a person that simply want good music to sound good and not something bad that we need to be ashamed of.

 

So then you write things like:

 

“In that regard, I do not want my equipment either detracting from, or adding to, for that matter, the original sound or intent of a recording played over it.  I want my equipment to be a canvas, as transparent as I can afford it to be, upon which the musical painting, in a manner of speaking, plays out.”

 

“Home playback equipment - at least good home equipment - is supposed to pass to the listener exactly what the artists, producers, or labels intended, not to "enhance" it in any way. (Although, some home or car listeners may think they are enhancing things with the bass & treble controls turned fully clockwise, smh!)”

 

To me what you strive for is precisely what most audiophile wants and not what I would say is typical of a Musiphile, especially not in a thread that is named Audiophile VS Musiphile - Your Thoughts.

 

An audiophile is focused on how, IE. a recording of a Beethoven symphony sounds on their system.  A melophile, like yours truly, is focused on how the symphony itself sounds.  Capeesh?

 

Separate "audio-" from "melo-" in your mind and you'll get the the gist - of this thread, as well as mine.  

[The_K-Man]

1 hour ago, Taz777 said:

I've seen it mentioned a few times on HiFi and review sites that the audio you hear from your own music system should be as close as possible to the studio recording. How would anyone know how the studio recording sounded, and from which vantage position would/should the reference point be?

 

Could two people in the recording studio hear exactly the same sounds?

 

Your listening space and the original recording(or mastering) studio are going to differ sonically.

 

That aside, your reproduction system should not add to or detract from what is on that recorded album.

[The_K-Man]

What I want to know is, and I see the ads for them all the time on top of these forums:

 

What diffference does USBing out of ones device, into a Dragonfly, then into the mini headphone cable make, compared to just coming directly out of the headphone jack?

 

To me I prefer a direct out vs. all those other steps. 

[The_K-Man]

4 hours ago, audiobomber said:

The difference between the inboard DAC and headphone out on my Dell Inspiron laptop vs. a $79 Sabaj Da2 USB DAC is night and day. Sound from the laptop alone is thin and sibilant. Playing through the little USB DAC adds warmth, detail and smoothness. It is literally pass vs. fail, 4/10 vs. 7/10. 

 

Try one of these, you will not regret it: https://www.amazon.com/Korg-DSDAC100M-Digital-Analog-Converter/dp/B00GTIUX0Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1547576094&sr=8-1&keywords=korg+ds-ds-100m

 

No thanks!  If I needed a smiley EQ curve or the equivalent of a Loudness button I could accomplish that with my EQ app.

[The_K-Man]

20 minutes ago, audiobomber said:

Your comment on EQ is off the mark. The Da2 is identical to the SMSL Idea. You can see the smile-free FR response here and comparison with a Dragonfly Black here:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/measurements-and-review-of-smsl-idea-and-audioquest-dragonfly-black-dacs.2397/

 

I read your post and compared the DAC's I had available (Sabaj Da2 and Korg DS-DAC010R), so I could give an informed reply. I used DT 1990 Pro headphones which are 250 ohms but very efficient. The difference between my newish i7 Windows 10 laptop's headphone out and the little Sabaj was shocking, larger and more important than the difference between the Sabaj and the several times more expensive Korg. The Korg is easily better than the Sabaj in several ways, but as I mentioned, the difference between inboard and external was pass vs. fail. 

 

It seems to me you did not want a response to your question after all, or maybe you were just trolling?. 

 

 

No.  My point is I don't need some electronic intercessor changing the sound.  I want to hear what's there.