An audiophile is (almost) definable as someone willing to go to great lengths/expenses to achieve improvements in sound quality that are very subtle (compared to, say, the difference between hearing a junk "shelf system" literally on a shelf and hearing the same system properly set up in a correct configuration for actual stereophonic sound reproduction) - and in some cases, frankly, of dubious reality. Moreover, many of us obviously enjoy some sort of element of wackiness, whenever we proudly describe to others these aspects of our system (e.g. my "audiophile grade" electrical outlet).
Even if *music* has the universal importance that many audiophiles somewhat optimistically suppose it does, that is obviously not the same thing as *audio* having any importance. For most people, the job of an audio system is simply to produce a *recognizeable tune*. That's it. If they can hear enough to be able to hum along, the audio system is doing its job, and doing it entirely. The concept of doing it better is almost meaningless to them, and so the concept of spending large amounts of time or money to make it better is bound to seem bizarre.
In my experience, fairly few people have ever, even one time in their life, used an audio system for its theoretical purpose, to create a *sonic illusion* that you are hearing a musical event in some other acoustic space. I don't know how many would have any sort of "revelation" if they did, but until they do, we can all expect to be thought of as wackos.
Even if *music* has the universal importance that many audiophiles somewhat optimistically suppose it does, that is obviously not the same thing as *audio* having any importance. For most people, the job of an audio system is simply to produce a *recognizeable tune*. That's it. If they can hear enough to be able to hum along, the audio system is doing its job, and doing it entirely. The concept of doing it better is almost meaningless to them, and so the concept of spending large amounts of time or money to make it better is bound to seem bizarre.
In my experience, fairly few people have ever, even one time in their life, used an audio system for its theoretical purpose, to create a *sonic illusion* that you are hearing a musical event in some other acoustic space. I don't know how many would have any sort of "revelation" if they did, but until they do, we can all expect to be thought of as wackos.