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How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

priceonomics.com

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Re: How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

#11

Post by w0utert »

petrilli wrote: post #2

I would disagree with the initial premise that it's about the pursuit of "perfect sound reproduction". There's many people who do that, but that's not what the audiophile world really has become. It's about a bunch of hand waving and big checkbook spending to impress other audiophiles. Oddly, that describes a lot of "hobbies". Nobody who feels that a $4,000 power cable is important has any semblance of sanity remaini…

As someone who spends far too much money on 20+ years old cars, I think I have to agree with you. Being an audiophile is a bit like being a car enthusiast: there really is nothing rational about spending so much money on something that most people don't see the value of, something that is so subjective that you can't explain it to them. I think in the end, it's more about the joy you get out of the idea of being able to spend that kind of money on something that so few people are willing or able to do. Subliminally, it affects your perception of how awesome the car or the audio setup actually is, if you ask an outsider, chances are he or she doesn't see or hear anything better that what 'normal' people are using.

Re: How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

#12

Post by syassami »

Audiophile & Student checking in here. Most people don't realize that there is gold on craigslist that older crowd is throwing out due to their wives nagging ("These speakers are too big.." etc) I've put together an amazing system using Polk SDA-2b's, Parasound HCA-1200, & Onkyo TS-DX787(as a preamp)(donated) and behringer uca-202 DAC for under 300 dollars. Cables are all monoprice and it blows my mind that people pay more for snake-oil cables.

Being an audiophile is rather cheap once you gather the knowledge on forums (audiokarma.org) and patience at craigslist/thriftstores/ebay.

Re: How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

#13

Post by mikeash »

w0utert wrote: post #11
petrilli wrote: post #2

I would disagree with the initial premise that it's about the pursuit of "perfect sound reproduction". There's many people who do that, but that's not what the audiophile world really has become. It's about a bunch of hand waving and big checkbook spending to impress other audiophiles. Oddly, that describes a lot of "hobbies". Nobody who feels that a $4,000 power cable is important has any semblance of sanity remaini…

As someone who spends far too much money on 20+ years old cars, I think I have to agree with you. Being an audiophile is a bit like being a car enthusiast: there really is nothing rational about spending so much money on something that most people don't see the value of, something that is so subjective that you can't explain it to them. I think in the end, it's more about the joy you get out of the idea of being able…

At least you could tell the difference between a cheap car and an expensive car in a blind test.

Re: How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

#14

Post by m104 »

petrilli wrote: post #2

I would disagree with the initial premise that it's about the pursuit of "perfect sound reproduction". There's many people who do that, but that's not what the audiophile world really has become. It's about a bunch of hand waving and big checkbook spending to impress other audiophiles. Oddly, that describes a lot of "hobbies". Nobody who feels that a $4,000 power cable is important has any semblance of sanity remaini…

I think there are two main sects in audiophile-land, really: perfection and experience.

The perfection side has scopes, meters, and blind testing among its tools. The goal is in fact "perfect sound reproduction". The problem here is that between the original source (microphone, usually) and the listener's brain is all of this stuff that distorts the sound. Removing it completely is really hard, and replicating that quality repeatedly is even harder.

The experience side has experts, rituals, and demos. The goal there is to reach the limit of audio experience, literally to hear what wouldn't otherwise be heard with lesser systems. The problem on this end is that "near-perfect" systems deliver less exciting and engaging experiences than what the experience experts deem to be better. They don't enjoy the systems calibrated to perfection as much as their own custom systems with tweaks and rituals applied.

These two sides really are in a bit of opposition, but it's nice to have both to drive the high-end market of audio equipment.

Re: How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

#15

Post by octoploid »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #10
TylerE wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that way for a long time too - but ultimately I think the limited/artificial soundstage with headphones has to hold them back a bit, in the realm of merely "very good" rather than "nearly perfect". My headphone rig objectively sounds better than my speaker rig, but the speakers ultimately sound more natural, even if by objective measurements (e.g. frequency response) they're markedly inferior. (Neither rig…

You can fix the soundstage somewhat using an xfeed filter. It's simplistic, but does help move the soundstage out from inside your head to being perceived more in front. It's pretty easy to set this up for most software sources, sadly not typically supported by hardware players or phones.

The bs2b crossfeed plugin is pretty good for that purpose: http://bs2b.sourceforge.net/

I'm using it on Linux (alsa) for my in-ear-phones.

From /etc/asound.conf:

  pcm.crossfeed {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "ladspa"
  }

  pcm.ladspa {
    type ladspa
    slave.pcm "plughw:0,1";
    path "/usr/lib/ladspa";
    plugins [
      {
        label bs2b
        input {
          controls [ 700 4 ]
        }
      }
   ]
  }

Re: How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

#16

Post by te_chris »

syassami wrote: post #12

Audiophile & Student checking in here. Most people don't realize that there is gold on craigslist that older crowd is throwing out due to their wives nagging ("These speakers are too big.." etc) I've put together an amazing system using Polk SDA-2b's, Parasound HCA-1200, & Onkyo TS-DX787(as a preamp)(donated) and behringer uca-202 DAC for under 300 dollars. Cables are all monoprice and it blows my mind that people pa…

Yep, some of that gear from the 70's and 80's is still very very excellent, pair it with a good DAC (nuforce say) and you've got great sound for small $$'s.

Re: How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

#17

Post by joevandyk »

syassami wrote: post #12

Audiophile & Student checking in here. Most people don't realize that there is gold on craigslist that older crowd is throwing out due to their wives nagging ("These speakers are too big.." etc) I've put together an amazing system using Polk SDA-2b's, Parasound HCA-1200, & Onkyo TS-DX787(as a preamp)(donated) and behringer uca-202 DAC for under 300 dollars. Cables are all monoprice and it blows my mind that people pa…

How do you know which of the older stuff is good?

Re: How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

#18

Post by Lukeas14 »

"At the same time, it’s hard not to think that audiophiles are on the wrong side of history. As the rest of the world joyfully listens to Spotify and Pandora on their iPhones, audiophiles still listen to CDs! The march of technological progress has many casualties, and sound quality may just be one of them. The product desires of audiophiles are so idiosyncratic and contrary to popular tastes; they have an uphill battle to protect sound quality against faster, cheaper and more social access to music."

This is not how I see it going down. There are a couple reasons why older formats of music aren't going anywhere and will always serve as compliments to the newer digital formats.

The biggest difference between buying CDs/Vinyl vs. a subscription to Spotify/Pandora is ownership. For the foreseeable future there will be a significant market of people, including audiophiles and DJs who want to own the music they buy rather than lease it. And it's now possible for regular to receive the benefits of both formats by buying CDs, ripping them to a media server and then streaming them to your phone or tablet using services such as Audiogalaxy and Google Music.

The other reason is the lack of innovation in high quality audio formats. As evidenced by the failure of SACD, the demand is simply not big enough to support the research and marketing of new physical mediums designed solely for music. In the future we will be forced to rely on CDs (which are never the weakest link anyways in an audiophiles system) or piggyback onto other, more popular formats such as Bluray for 5.1+ high quality audio.

Re: How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

#19

Post by gknoy »

m104 wrote: post #14
petrilli wrote: post #2

I would disagree with the initial premise that it's about the pursuit of "perfect sound reproduction". There's many people who do that, but that's not what the audiophile world really has become. It's about a bunch of hand waving and big checkbook spending to impress other audiophiles. Oddly, that describes a lot of "hobbies". Nobody who feels that a $4,000 power cable is important has any semblance of sanity remaini…

I think there are two main sects in audiophile-land, really: perfection and experience. The perfection side has scopes, meters, and blind testing among its tools. The goal is in fact "perfect sound reproduction". The problem here is that between the original source (microphone, usually) and the listener's brain is all of this stuff that distorts the sound. Removing it completely is really hard, and replicating that q…

It reminds me a lot of Geordi talking to Data about a perfect shave needing to not be perfect.

Re: How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

#20

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

There is conclusive data on what we want from reproduction systems: [1][2]. Sad that a place calling itself priconomics can't even google for the most straightforward econometric study on the topic.

Engineering for the above metrics is straightforward, and not particularly costly. Even a 10k system can tie for top rank in blind tests if you pay attention to the details that actually have leverage against perception. If you're paying 250k for a home audio system, you're being sold an expensive trinket through a narrative of fetishism.

[1]: http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=12794

[2]: http://www.waynejones.net/wayne/documents/T&MW_Harman_Ar...

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