Am I no longer allowed to consider myself an Audiophile?

If i recorded a piece from my grand piano or my violin and your magico sounded nothing like it, (i can record it at home btw), what "accuracy" did you design your speaker for again? A whole lotta nothing, it would be...That's the definition of accuracy from speaker designers who don't know anything about how instruments sound.

The accurate sound of my instrument is a "coloration"?? You sound very confused.

What brand are you associated with? Dealer? Manufacturer?

@audition__audio  wrote

One of the members mentioned something to the effect that Yamaha tuned the speakers to sound more like their instruments. A bit of thought should quickly reveal the absurdity of such an assertion. Essentially what they are doing, at best, is designing the speaker with some coloration that some find pleasant. Kind of like the belief in the effectiveness of thin walled speaker cabinets and energy dissipation. You may not like the sound of a inert cabinet speaker like a Magico, but it is a better way to design a speaker whose goal is accuracy. It can be no other way. Oh and it is elimination of many colorations that make the speaker better but also is the reason many think the speaker is cold and uninvolving.

I guess it is inevitable that question of what is an audiophile must come up since the definition is highly variable. To me it has aways been a crazy person that obsessively pursues the perfect reproduction of music. Implicit is recreation of music as it is in the real world... not some other sonic spectacular or overly dramatic or bass heavy that he happens to like. So at the core, music is his passion. There are a lot, perhaps the majority are not going for this, they are going for something that sounds good to them. This might be rock with a kick ass bottom end, it might be imaging and impact like a fireworks display, etched micro edge on instruments. There there are lots of other reasons. This is my definition and what my goal is. 

@audition__audio Wrote:

One of the members mentioned something to the effect that Yamaha tuned the speakers to sound more like their instruments. A bit of thought should quickly reveal the absurdity of such an assertion. Essentially what they are doing, at best, is designing the speaker with some coloration that some find pleasant.

I agree! 

Mike

I’m OK with the term Audiophile, but its meaning has gotten tainted over the years! It’s simply someone who loves AUDIO.  Why do people keep proclaiming it’s all about the music??  Is that somehow more virtuous? I want EVERYTHING that I play back to sound realistic and amazing, whether it’s acoustic music, synthesizers, or a babbling brook & croaking frogs. I’m a geek for all sounds!

If you only care about the music, then you’re a Melophile.  (Yeah, a new word, look it up!)  There’s plenty of musicians who dedicate their lives to music, and don’t care one whit about their own audio system.  They are not audiophiles.  They might not even be melophiles.  I know plenty of amazing musicians who know little outside of their own narrow interests.

Oh yeah... and I love the gear too! So What?  I like things that look and feel nice, and are well engineered, and have beautiful wood veneers.  I want to see something beautiful while I hear something amazing, whatever sound it is. 

I have known a could melophiles. One was a record store clerk that had thousands of albums which he would play on a portable red and white small suitcase like record player... you know the one that was smaller than the album so it would stick out of the open small case... it had it's own speaker. There is not question... it was all about the music as the fidelity was simply terrible,