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Do Audiophiles really like music?

Or is this more of a hobby where they can over analyze the most minute details and spend more money to "get where they want to be". I have been in this hobby a long time now, and have been around live music for a greater part of my life. I've had a lot of equipment and have heard more systems and tweaks then I'd like to remember. But does any of this allow us to "get closer to the music", the reason we go to such lengths as most would admit. I've discovered the only thing that allows me to get closer to the music is to listen to more of it. Maybe I am growing up, or losing interest in losing even MORE hair over a hobby that's suppose to be enjoyable, but I'd rather listen to music then think of how I can improve my system.

What do you think? I briefly mentioned this in the past, do audiophiles really enjoy music, or is the music just an excuse to get better gear so they can "get closer to the music"?
tireguy

Showing 2 responses by reubent

reubent
6,935 posts
 
Tim,

It's funny, the more I obsess over my system, the less I enjoy music. Honestly, I enjoy a lot of rock music more on my stock Ford car stereo than on my home rig. It's sad, but listening to some of the poorly recorded rock music that is produced today is just more enjoyable on the low resolution system in my car.

I don't know if that makes me an Audiophile or an anti-audiophile. All I know is I like music. I like to listen to well recoded music at home, but I have to listen to U2 and Ned's Atomic Dustbin in my car because it seems that that was the intended audio rig for these recordings. They sound so bad on a high resolution rig that I can't believe the engineers that created the recording have ever heard a good system. It they had, they wouldn't record this stuff so badly.

Enjoy,

TIC
reubent
6,935 posts
 
Ashra,

Obviously music does not need audiophiles. Audiophiles are a very small portion of the music buying (live or recorded) public. Also, when recordings are engineered so poorly that they are not tolerable on a good sound system, the music producers obviously could care less about audiophiles.

The interesting thing about this is that I would guess that the typical music buyer could care less about the sound quality of the recording, but audiophiles do care. Therefore music producers could potentially increase their revenue by producing better sounding recordings. In this case the typical buyer would buy the record for the music and the audiophile may buy it for the sonic qualities.

Enjoy,

TIC
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