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
Sarcasm can be a good thing and it was at the beginning...

But stirring the pot too long ,with many justifications, made sarcasm no more efficient and transform it in provocation...

And provocation is, like any ideology without any bone, mainly boring....

Sorry to say that....
" But stirring the pot too long ,with many justifications, made sarcasm no more efficient and transform it in provocation... "

It is amazing to me this thread has gone on for so long and continues to draw the indignant in. Evidently there is something to this topic that has touched many here for better or worse as comments keep coming in. It is appropriate for a site with so much nonsensical claims of false technology and audiophile attitudes.
Just remember that I am not the one who gives this thread legs it is you who so graciously continue to post that give this thread legs.

" The longer this thread goes on the more you flounder."


I see you are still reading so this is a book you can’t put down. So what is your reason for being here?
No the ones with money can just get the maintenance man to do the soldering or the cleaning ladies son.
When the torero pass many red flags in front of the bull's head, he does not mock  him, he plays silent, with no justification... He does not  say to the bull: " how stupid you  are for being here..."

Especially when he has created himself the arena  for his own " exploits"...

Bulls are bulls, we all are "stupid audiophile bulls"...

Not you for sure....You are the "enlightened" torero who owns the theater....

Congratulations!