Should people who can't solder, build or test their speakers be considered audiophiles?



  So, if you bought that Porsche but can only drive it and not fix it do you really understand and appreciate what it is? I say no. The guy who can get in there and make it better, faster or prettier with his own hands has a superior ability to understand the final result and can appreciate what he has from a knowledge base and not just a look at what I bought base. I mean sure you can appreciate that car when you drive it but if all you do is take it back to the dealership for maintenance and repairs you just like the shape with no real understanding of what makes it the mechanical marvel it is.
  I find that is true with the audio world too. There are those who spend a ton of money on things and then spend a lot of time seeking peer approval and assurance their purchase was the right one and that people are suitably impressed. Of course those who are most impressed are those who also do not design, build, test or experiment.

  I propose that an audiophile must have more than a superficial knowledge about what he listens to and must technically understand what he is listening to. He knows why things work and what his end goal is and often makes his own components to achieve this. He knows how to use design software to make speakers that you can't buy and analyze the room they are in and set up the amplification with digital crossovers and DSP. He can take a plain jane system and tweak it and balance it to best suit the room it is in. He can make it sound far better than the guy who constantly buys new components based on his superficial knowledge who does not understand why what he keeps buying in vain never quite gets there.

  A true audiophile can define his goal and with hands on ability achieve what a mere buyer of shiny parts never will. So out comes the Diana Krall music and the buyer says see how good my system is? The audiophile says I have taken a great voice and played it through a system where all was matched and tweaked or even purposely built and sits right down next to Diana as she sings. The buyer wants prestigious signature sound and the audiophile will work to achieve an end result that is faithful true to life audio as though you were in the room with Diana as she sings. The true audiophile wants true to life and not tonally pure according to someones artificial standard.

 So are you a buyer or an audiophile and what do you think should make a person an audiophile?
mahlman
  I propose that an audiophile must have more than a superficial knowledge about what he listens to and must technically understand what he is listening to. He knows why things work and what his end goal is and often makes his own components to achieve this. He knows how to use design software to make speakers that you can't buy and analyze the room they are in and set up the amplification with digital crossovers and DSP. He can take a plain jane system and tweak it and balance it to best suit the room it is in. He can make it sound far better than the guy who constantly buys new components based on his superficial knowledge who does not understand why what he keeps buying in vain never quite gets there.


Yes correct, Beforea  newbie buys any speaker, 1st he must be aware of sensitivty issues, type amp employed, and who will remake the xovers, which new caps will he employ. 
A new speaker will not have top quality components. 
All these upgrades and modificatiosn  requires some working knowledge of xover components.
" Apparently I stumbled upon The Onion... "
 You stumbled upon rejection of hoity toity holier than thou audiophiles who then delivered in spades the attitude that caused me to write this post to begin with. The onion is second best when compared to price tag audiophiles.
  " No one should be an audiophile -audiophiles are mostly about bad music brand names and amounts spent not performance. "
  There are two types of audiophiles. One that wants to sadly demonstrate name/price tags and another group that wants you to hear things. Type A tends to gather where they can get self validation for what they bought into and Type B works on improving what he hears.
Sorry...but this is one of the silliest threads i have read in 18 yrs. on the Gon!
I own a Porsche and i know everything there is to know about my vehicle but i don’t own thousands of dollars worth of high tech equipment needed to “work on it” because i do not own a dealership:-)
I also LOVE music and it has been my forty year career but i never worried if i could fix or discern every nuance about my equipment because that is what you get a warranty for!!
By the way...I have never considered myself an “Audiophile” because who the Hell cares?!
I LOVE music with a nice glass of wine in a well set-up room with synergistic gear and that’s plenty good enough for me...SNOB?