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Music Lover , Audiophile or Both ?

Irwin said:
Sorry about the above glitch ,my bad ! In no way did I intend to insult anyone posing the question in my initial thread . I have been buying music and stereo equipment for at least 50 years . Having owned countless pieces of audio gear ( way too many to remember them all ) , and no matter how many times I made changes in equipment , the
music came first . No matter how good or bad the sound quality of the source material was , if the music touched me , the equipment didn't matter . That's why I consider myself a music lover .
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No glitch. No problem. Some people associate the moniker "audiophile" with negative connotations. I don't, and never have. Audiophiles... ensuring improvement in sound quality for more than a century. Term came later.
 
I love to listen to music but the gear is also clearly a factor. There are songs that I will skip (Pandora radio) when I am in the car or similar but when I am at home I will listen to it. Sometimes listening on my main system can make a boring or played-out song fun to listen to again.
 
I think most of us move around on the music vs gear spectrum quite a bit. Some days, I'm all about hearing the gear. Some days I hear a great song on my phone speakers, and love it.
Whenever this conversation comes up, I think of this one cassette tape I had as a teen. The Clash's first album. It was a 3rd or 4th generation copy, on cheap equipment, and the speed was all off. But man, I loved that album. I remember getting the CD years later, and never capturing the feeling of the crappy tape. I try to remind myself of this when I get too focused on the gear. While I love fiddling with the gear, the emotion of music is for me something I don't want to lose site of.
 
It's the premise that I don't agree with ... just my opinion.(IMHO) ... audiophiles are by nature music lovers. The pursuit of the ultimate playback experience is all about the love of music.

The gear (for audiophiles) is a way to enjoy their ultimate love of music.
 
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I have to go with both with an emphasis on the music. Yes, I consider myself an audiophile. However, the term only means "lover of sound". I try to get the best reproduction of sound I can get within my budget constraints. That means saving and buying the best I can afford rather than a bunch of less accomplished gear just to collect it. As such I have one IMO good system that has been relatively stable for the last 15 years.
 
If the definition of music lover in the context of this thread means I will listen and "love " it on almost any laptop speaker just because it is music then no, I am not a music lover. I also love the silence of nature all around me, and I don't waste my silence time listening to poor sounding reproduction equipment. I rarely listen to car stereo because of all the ambient noise (I will use sound deadening headphones occasionally on long trips in the car).

The thing is that I do love recorded music, but not just any music,and not played back on just anything either. So what am I? Audiophile or music lover (in the context of the op)?
 
Alobar said:
If the definition of music lover in the context of this thread means I will listen and "love " it on almost any laptop speaker just because it is music then no, I am not a music lover. I also love the silence of nature all around me, and I don't waste my silence time listening to poor sounding reproduction equipment. I rarely listen to car stereo because of all the ambient noise (I will use sound deadening headphones occasionally on long trips in the car).

The thing is that I do love recorded music, but not just any music,and not played back on just anything either. So what am I? Audiophile or music lover (in the context of the op)?
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As long as your mind is open, enjoy-for if the cup is capped, one can not taste any more ;)
 
Djcoolray said:
Social definitions of what others imply something to be....

Audio is the replication of sound without the implication of the equipment used to do so. An audiophile has an obsession to sound and is mesmerized by it. Possession obsession of equipment leading to the enjoyment of music is not the same because they can not enjoy music unless it's played on a certain kind of equipment. Not to be confused with using better equipment to obtain a better sound. But if a person has no appreciation for the endless amounts of TOTL equipment all with the potential of emitting great sound then the person is a collector of gear which makes them a gearhead and not an audiophile. To a gearhead audiophile is a higher grade of quality gear....
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Interesting perspective. Based on this I would say 'audiophile' is just the intersection of 'music lover' with 'gearhead'.
 
Audiophile. I'd have to say that at this point in my life I consider myself as more of an audiophile. Yes, I love music and have been a musician for nearly all my life (began reading music and playing instruments at age 3-1/2). But ... these days I'm more likely to spend time evaluating whatever equipment I am listening to for its ability to portray the music than I am to truly "listen" to the music. I recently built some OB speakers (well sort of) and I'm fussing with the right amount of attenuation for the tweeter to get the right balance between detail and "naturalness" of timbre while making sure that the soundstage presentation is what I want it to be. (They sound fantastic by the way) After I listen for a while and come back upstairs my wife always says, "been tweaking again?" She never asks what I've been listening to as she knows that I'm changing something in my system, building an IC cable or tweaking a crossover or fiddling with DSP or room treatments or something! So, ya, I'd say I'm an audiophile - but music is still very important and much loved.
 
guiller said:
Just for the fun of it, one may define a parameter to answer this question for anybody that is curious about it. Lets consider the quotient

(Total investment in music media)/(Total investment in audio gear)

If the quotient is larger than 1, one may be defined as a "music lover" and if it is smaller than 1, then one may be regarded as an "audiophile".

In my case, this quotient yields a parameter of 10 or larger!
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Well that doesn't work. My equipment spending outweighs my media costs because FM doesn't cost a thing. When you've got a dozen or so good stations there's not much need for spending money except for the equipment to listen to it.
 
Nothing wrong with being a tone snob. If you enjoy the music too, even better and for some ignorance really is bliss, God bless em.
 
I'd define my experience as that of an extremely hardcore music lover/listener but nowhere near that of an audiophile. Due to budgetary and time constraints, I aim for what I feel is "good enough" reproduction equipment and focus the remaining 90% of my attention of listening to my collection of music.

As basic as it may seem, at this point in time, "good enough" consists of a minimum of 100+ low-distortion watts per channel, a pair of three-way floorstanding speakers with at least a 12-inch woofer, minimum of 5-inch midrange, and a tweeter, 14-16 gauge copper speaker wire, at least two subwoofers and a digital, file-based source of playback as I grew tired of physical formats quite a while ago. Such a setup throws an adequate sound stage into my 21Lx12Wx10H living room, provides the "lake" of bass I like, and provides a high enough output of decibels for comfortable listening while reading a book on the other side of the room, doing chores/tasks elsewhere in the house, or even cleaning the gutters (I really cranked it while cleaning them a couple of weeks ago...). It's nowhere near the best of the best, but it's more than adequate for everyday enjoyment.
 
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Without the music the gear is pointless. System building requires your active participation. Listening is a passive activity. At this stage of my life I enjoy building things.
 
I have to admit, I don't enjoy listening to music much unless it is being reproduced well to some degree. I would rather not listen to anything then listen to my coworkers boom boxes cranked up full throttle, distorting out some crappy music. I would prefer silence. I am fine with it when they don't crank it up to the point where it starts distorting.
 
I spend a lot more time looking at gear than reading about artists and seeking new music. While I love music, I like the equipment more and always have.
 
musichal said:
No glitch. No problem. Some people associate the moniker "audiophile" with negative connotations. I don't, and never have. Audiophiles... ensuring improvement in sound quality for more than a century. Term came later.
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I think the suffix -phile generally has negative connotations. Think pedophile. An oenophile is a wine snob; ergo, an audiophile is a high fidelity snob.
 
An interesting question I've posed before, but in many ways, a rather derivative one.

For me, I love music. I'd rather go blind than deaf. But maybe I have crossed the line between enthusiast and audiophile.

I now have to listen to music on a good system - music through the phones at work, or my wife listening to something on her iPhone is enough to make me tear my ears off.

No layman recognizes the brand names of my gear, I make my wife crazy with my fiddling and swapping pieces in and out, and I find I'm totally happy with my system. At least until I hear one track that just doesn't sound right.

I agree with what was stated earlier - chasing audio perfection is not mutually exclusive with loving music. Maybe the main differentiation is that the audiophile enjoys the journey, while the music enthusiast usually finds a destination.
 
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