audiophile

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An audiophile, from Latin audio^[1] "I hear" and Greek philos^[2] "loving," is a hobbyist, identified by their love for music, or use of high-end audio electronics.

Some Audiophiles try to listen to music at a quality level that is as close to the original performance as possible using high-fidelity components. Others try to recreate a particular sound belonging to a piece of equipment that is old or no longer current, such as the sound created by tube amplifiers

Audiophile values may be applied at all stages of music reproduction: the initial audio recording, the production process, and the playback, which is usually in a home setting. High-end audio refers to expensive, high-quality, or esoteric products and practices used in the reproduction of music. Electronic gear used by audiophiles can be bought at specialist shops and websites.

Audiophile magazines include Hi-Fi News, Hi-Fi Choice, Hi-Fi World, and What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision in the United Kingdom as well as Stereophile and The Absolute Sound in the United States. Hobbyist audio societies also exist: Stereophile's website has a list of such groups in the United States.^[3]

Audiophiles can purchase special recordings made with extra attention to sound quality, such as re-issued recordings, for this purpose, as well as recordings in the high-resolution formats such as Super Audio CD or DVD-Audio. Many modern audiophiles also take advantage of lossless file formats such as WAV, FLAC and Apple Lossless.

Audio system components

An audio system typically consists of a number of components. These include one or more source components, one or more amplification components, and (for stereo), two or more loudspeakers.

In addition, higher quality signal cables (analog audio, speaker, digital audio etc.) can be used to link these components. There are also a variety of accessories. These include equalizers, specialized equipment racks, power conditioners, devices to reduce or control vibration, peripheral devices such as record cleaners, anti-static devices, and phonograph needle cleaners, and reverberation reducing devices such as speaker pads and stands, sound absorbent foam and soundproofing.

The interaction between the loudspeakers and the room plays an important part in sound quality. Sound vibrations are reflected from walls, floor and ceiling, and are affected by the contents of the room. Room dimensions can create standing waves. There are devices for room treatment that affect sound quality. Soft materials, such as draperies and carpets, can absorb higher frequencies. Whereas hard walls and floors can cause excess reverberation.

Sound sources

Modern turntable.

Audiophiles play music from a wide variety of sources such as phonograph records, compact discs (CDs), and digital audio file formats that are uncompressed as well as ones that are compressed using lossless data compression like FLAC, Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless and Apple Lossless. Since the early 1990s, CDs have become the most common source of high-quality music. Nevertheless, turntables, tonearms, and magnetic cartridges are still used, despite the difficulties of keeping records free from dust and the delicate set-up associated with turntables.

Top-loading CD player and external digital-to-analog converter.

The 44.1 kHz sampling rate of the CD format, in theory, restricts CD information losses to above the theoretical upper-frequency limit of human hearing – 20 kHz, see Nyquist limit. Newer formats such as DVD-Audio and Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD), with sampling rates of 88.2 kHz or 96 kHz or even higher, have been developed in an attempt to address this criticism.

CDs are made utilizing 16-bit technology. Some higher-definition consumer formats such as HDCD-encoded CDs contain 20-bit and even 24-bit audio streams. With more bits more dynamic range is possible; 20 bit dynamic range is theoretically 120 dB—the limit of most consumer electronic playback equipment.^[4] In order to get closer to the sound of the live performance these higher bit rates can be desirable.

In MP3 encoding, as well as with other lossy compression formats, musical information is lost in proportion to the degree of compression.

Amplifiers

The Quad II, an early monoblock valve (vacuum tube) amplifier.

A preamplifier selects among several audio inputs, amplifies source-level signals (such as those from a turntable), and allows the listener to adjust the sound with volume and tone controls, switchable filters, etc. A power amplifier takes the "line-level" audio signal from the preamplifier and drives the loudspeakers; typically the only control on a power amplifier is a gain (level) control (or none at all).

Audiophile amplifiers are available based on solid-state (semiconductor) technology, vacuum-tube (valve) technology, or hybrid technology—semiconductors and vacuum tubes.

Loudspeakers

The cabinet of the loudspeaker is known as the enclosure. There are a wide variety of loudspeaker enclosure designs, including sealed, ported, transmission line, infinite baffle, horn loaded, and aperiodic. The enclosure plays a major role in the sound of the loudspeaker.

The drivers are the actual sound-producing elements, referred to as tweeters, midranges, woofers, and subwoofers. Driver designs include dynamic, electrostatic, plasma, ribbon, planar, ionic, and servo-actuated. Drivers are made from various materials, including paper pulp, polypropylene, kevlar, aluminum, magnesium, beryllium, and vapor-deposited diamond.

The direction and intensity of the output of a loudspeaker, called dispersion or polar response, has a large effect on its sound. Various methods are employed to control the dispersion. These methods include monopolar, bipolar, dipolar, 360 degree, horn, waveguide, and line source. These terms refer to the configuration and arrangement of the various drivers in the enclosure.

The positioning of loudspeakers in the room and of the optimum listening position (referred to as the "sweet spot") is of great importance in producing optimum sound. Loudspeaker output is influenced by interaction with room boundaries, particularly bass response, and high frequency transducers are directional, or "beaming."

Accessories

Audiophiles use a wide variety of accessories and fine-tuning techniques, otherwise known as "tweaks," to improve the sound of their systems. These tweaks include: filters to clean the electricity; equipment racks to isolate components from floor vibrations; specialty power cables, interconnect cables (e.g., between preamplifier and power amplifier), and loudspeaker cables; loudspeaker stands (and footers to isolate them from the stands); and room treatments – to name but a few.

Room treatments consist of several types. One type is sound-absorbing materials which are placed strategically within a listening room to reduce the amplitude of early reflections, and to deal with resonance modes. Another type is called diffusion which is designed to reflect the sound in a scattered fashion. Room treatments can be expensive and difficult to optimize--as acoustics is considered to be both an art and a science.

Headphones

Audiophiles are also known to use headphones as a high quality output for their music.

Audiophile-standard headphones retail in the region of $60–$500, although it is possible to spend upwards of $14,000 (e.g. the Sennheiser HE-90^[5]). Headphones marketed to audiophiles are a tiny fraction of the cost of comparable speaker systems and do not require any room adjustment for music enjoyment. Running afoul of community noise regulations or even disturbing roommates can be avoided. Newer canalphones, while as expensive as their larger counterparts, can be driven by less powerful outputs like portable devices.

Headphones are also often used by audiophiles in environments that wouldn't accommodate a full audio system, such as the workplace or an unsuitable room at home. Some audiophiles claim that there are headphones that can surpass the quality of any Hi-Fi Speaker set.

Testing

Audiophiles are split into three schools of thought regarding testing. Objectivists believe that audio system measurements and double blind testing is of the greatest importance. Subjectivists believe that measured performance can not account for all discernible differences in sound quality and thus they rely on extended listening tests to form an opinion. Audiophiles in the third group choose to combine both approaches by performing objective technical tests in combination with extended subjective listening tests.

Beliefs

Minimalism

Given that each step in capturing, storing, and playing back music may degrade it, especially due to the fact that circuitry is prone to electromagnetic interference and electronic noise, audiophiles insist that the fewer and simpler the stages, the better. Many audiophile components, for example, lack tone control circuits, since it is felt that these may degrade the audio quality while moving the sound away from the ideal.

The minimalist subjectivist assertion is that music contains elements which cannot be measured by electronic instruments,^[6] so the less one alters the original signal, the more likely it is that this unmeasurable quality is preserved.

Objectivists, however, want to reasonably quantify and specify the effects of input source, amplifier set-up, system power, speaker configuration, etc. on the listening experience. This desire is complementary to purely subjective preferences in quantifying the perceptible effects of different equipment set-ups.

Restoration

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While minimalists strive to keep the signal unmodified from studio rendition to final listener output, a non-minimalist desires the opposite by attempting to either restore the original environment or, in some cases, enhance the original rendition. DSP algorithms such as real-time mono-to-stereo conversions, Sound Retrieval System (SRS), and Environmental Audio Extensions (EAX) manipulate the signals to enhance listener experience. EAX, for example, can simulate a room environment or simulate a stadium environment by using mathematical acoustical algorithms to add echo or reverb to the signal, taking a rendition of a song and placing it in the simulated environment. For example, a recording could be sent through a DSP algorithm mimicking outdoor echo effects, which would not be present if the recording was captured directly from the instrument or in a studio designed to dampen any acoustical effects. Non-minimalists may also choose to manipulate the sound with an equalizer in order to compensate for resonant room modes as well as to enhance certain frequency ranges that may have been lost during recording or that are not reproduced during playback. Minimalists would argue that these devices alter the natural quality of the sound.

Analog sound vs. digital sound reproduction

Audiophiles differ in opinion over the relative value and performance of digital and analog media. Pro-digital audiophiles believe that digital technology's absence of clicks, pops, wow, flutter, audio feedback, and rumble make it superior to records. They also assert that digital technology has a higher signal-to-noise ratio, has a wider dynamic range, has less total harmonic distortion, and has a flatter and more extended frequency response.^[7][8] Pro-analog audiophiles believe that analog sound lacks the deleterious effects caused by the analog to digital conversion necessary to produce CDs and therefore analog music reproduction from records played on a properly configured turntable/tonearm setup is superior to digital music reproduction from CDs played on CD players.^[8]

Equipment concerns

In the high-fidelity debate, some prefer vacuum-tube electronics over solid-state electronics, because despite inferior measured performance, some claim a warmer or more musical sound. Vacuum-tube amplifiers are often attacked as inferior because, in addition to their substantially higher total harmonic distortion, they require rebiasing, are less reliable, generate more heat, are less powerful, and are often more expensive.^[9]

Some have long believed that sound quality was degraded by large levels of negative feedback in amplifiers. Poorly-designed feedback systems can produce poor sound quality. Thus the association of feedback with poor sound quality is likely a reflection of poorly-designed power amplifiers that use feedback incorrectly.^[10] Feedback impacts the harmonic balance of the distortion spectra. ^[11]

Criticism of audiophile marketing practices

Criticisms usually focus on claims around so-called "tweaks" and accessories beyond the core source, amplification, and speaker products. Examples of these accessories include speaker cables, component interconnects, stones, cones, CD markers, and power cables or conditioners.^[12] Manufacturers of these products often make strong claims of actual improvement in sound but do not offer any measurements or testable claims. This absence of measurable (rather than subjective) improvement, coupled with sometimes high prices, raises questions about the truthfulness of the marketing.^[13]

It is possible to spend over one hundred thousand dollars for a pair of loudspeakers, tens of thousands of dollars for electronics, and more than seven thousand dollars for cables.^[14] An example of this type of marketing, and the associated reviews in magazines, is the $1499 power cord, for which the reviewer states that "The choice of power cord one makes to transmit AC over the final feet to a component has the potential to be the most influential sonic link in a music system's power chain."^[15]

Roger Russell – a former engineer and speaker designer for McIntosh Labs – describes the introduction of expensive speaker wire brands, and critiques their performance in his online essay called Speaker Wire - A History. He writes, "The industry has now reached the point where [wire] resistance and listening quality are not the issues any more, although listening claims may still be made....The strategy in selling these products is, in part, to appeal to those who are looking to impress others with something unique and expensive."^[13]

Skeptic James Randi, through his foundation, has offered a prize of $1 million to anyone who can demonstrate that $7,250 audio cables "are any better than ordinary Monster Cables".^[16] To date, no one has claimed the prize.

See also

• Videophile

References

External links

• Stereophile Online - US based publication concentrating on two and multi-channel audio reproduction.
• The Audio Press - Criticism of industry, magazines, and reviewers.
• Science and Subjectivism in Audio Technically-detailed article by Douglas Self.