|
|
|
|
|
AudiophileAn audiophile is one who is concerned with achieving high-quality results in the recording and playback of music. Audiophile values may be applied at all stages of the chain: the initial Audio recording, the production process, and the playback (usually in a home setting). The adjective "high-end" is commonly applied to audiophile vendors, products, and practices. There is great scepticism outside the audiophile community surrounding whether these practices and products have the claimed effects on the listening experience, and there are often accusations of self-delusion. People on both sides of the debate concede that, since many audiophiles are laymen, they are vulnerable to exploitation by fanciful claims made by unethical vendors. Core values Perhaps the clearest and most widely-accepted statement of audiophile values is due to Harry Pearson, longtime editor of The Absolute Sound: "We believe that the sound of music, unamplified, occurring in a real space is a philosophic absolute against which we may judge the performance of devices designed to reproduce music." Audiophiles widely share the belief that even the world's best music reproduction equipment currently falls far short of this absolute. Even given agreement on the goal, opinions vary widely among designers and listeners on how best to achieve it. If there is one shared design principle, it is Minimalism; given that capturing, storing, and playing back music inevitably degrades it, the fewer and simpler the stages, the better. For example, audiophile gear almost universally lacks Tone controls, since it is felt that these can only degrade the audio quality while moving the sound away from the "absolute". Audiophiles agree that the room in which the playback system works is of great importance to the quality of sound. There are a wide variety of room-treatment products available to address this issue, and extreme audiophiles are known to use purpose-built listening rooms. Consumer practices Audiophiles regularly listen to music sourced from CDs, LPs, and FM radio. At the current time, CD is the most common source of high-quality music, and thus the CD player will serve as the primary source component. However, there is a large and active community of music lovers who still buy and use LPs; turntables and cartridges are among the most exotic and lavish high-end audio products. Most audiophile systems separate the functions of the pre-amplifier (which selects among audio signals and has a volume control) and the power amplifier (which simply takes a line-level audio signal and drives the speakers). Some audiophiles use, rather than a stereo power amplifier, two monaural amps, one per channel, in "monoblock" configuration. Some go further and use multiple amplifiers per speaker to drive the woofer, midrange, tweeter, and so on. However, there are those who claim advantages in the use of "integrated amplifiers" that combine these functions in a single box, arguing on the basis of an appeal to minimalism. Audiophile amplifiers are available based on solid state (semiconductor), vacuum tube, and hybrid technology. The amount of power required is moot. Very low power Single-ended triode tube amplifiers are often claimed to provide superb sound when paired with appropriately sensitive speakers. On the other hand, there are others who use solid-state amplifiers rated at over one thousand "watts RMS" per channel. Audiophile speakers exhibit a wide variety of technologies, and range in size from tiny to room-filling. The availability of high priced, exotic designs is most extreme in the speaker category. It is perfectly possible to invest over a hundred thousand dollars (USD) in a pair of high-end speakers. There are a wide variety of accessories deployed by audiophiles in the hope of improving sonic performance. Most common are premium interconnection cables used for electrical power, line-level, speaker, and digital-signal applications. Other accessories include power filters, equipment stands, and room treatments. Professional practices Audiophiles tend to hold commercial music recording practices in low regard. Particularly in the pop-music domain, most recordings are based on the heavy use of multitrack technology, the studio dominated by a huge mixing board with as many as 80 channels, each channel operating in the digital domain and subject to a wide variety of tonal and "effects" processing. Audiophiles argue that this complex signal chain degrades the quality of the signal and lessens the spontaneity and integrity of the musical performance. There are those who agree, both among professional musicians and audio engineers. Currently-active recording artists who apply audiophile recording principles include Neil Young, the Cowboy Junkies, and the White Stripes. Techniques applied by recording engineers who are audiophiles include the use of exotic high-end microphones, the use of a smaller rather than greater number of microphones, tube-driven rather than solid-state electronics, and the minimum amount of processing in the production chain. Current trends In terms of revenue, the high-end electronics business is dominated by home theater rather than pure music applications. Virtually every significant vendor in the space has a full line of home theater products. There is active interest in the audiophile community in newer higher-bandwidth digital recording formats such as Super Audio CD and DVD-Audio. These formats encode music at data rates such as 96KHz per channel (compared to 44KHz on CD) and thus are referred to as "high-resolution" audio formats. The industry has failed to converge on a single format, and thus the availability of music recordings is limited, and consumer uptake to date has been slow. Criticism The skeptics' case Key points often made in criticism of audiophiles include: - Double-blind tests have been conducted which apparently refute audiophiles' claims that they can easily perceive significant differences between very similar musical components.
- Measured audio distortion is immensely higher in speakers than in "upstream" components such as CD players and amplifiers, making it hard to believe that subtle differences in these components can have an appreciable effect on music quality.
- Audiophiles often prefer the use of vacuum tube rather than more modern solid state electronics, despite their substantially-higher measured total harmonic distortion.
- Audiophiles regularly make strong claims for the superior quality of music reproduction from (vinyl) records on a turntable, compared to modern digital alternatives, which, among other things, are free from "click and pop" problems and background noise.
- Some audiophile practices seem outlandish, such the late-Eighties vogue for marking the edges of CDs with a green felt marker, or the practice of suspending cables above the floor on small racks.
- The prices of audiophile products can seem remarkably high, even if one believes in the benefit conferred. It is quite possible to spend over a hundred thousand dollars for speakers, and tens of thousands for amplifiers and CD players.
- Vendors of audiophile products regularly make fanciful and frankly unscientific claims for the results produced. At one point a company called Tice Audio sold an ordinary clock radio which, it was claimed, would improve the quality of a playback system if plugged into the same electrical circuit, by causing some mystical change in "electron energy". Vendors such as Shun Mook market a variety of disks and clamps which, when attached to audio components, are claimed to improve sonic performance.
- In particular, vendors of audio cables have been prone to claims, and to pricing, which strain credulity. There have been audio cables which are filled with water, which glow in the dark, and which come with a separate AC cord which must be plugged in to power the workings of the cable.
Audiophile rejoinders to the skeptics The arguments brought forward by audiophiles in response to their critics include: - There are problems in applying double-blind methods to comparison of audio devices; audiophiles assert that a relaxing environment and sufficient time, measured in days or weeks, is necessary for the discriminating ear to do its work.
- While tubed electronics are less linear than solid state at high signal levels, they are claimed to be significantly more so at lower (sub-one-watt) levels; and it is argued that most musical signals spend most time at these levels. Paraphrased, "The first watt is the most important."
- In defense of their preference for analogue over digital formats, audiophiles point out that the process of converting a bit-stream to an analogue waveform requires heavy filtering to remove spurious high-frequency information, and that it should be expected that such filtering should involve some signal degradation. (Filtering typically introduces a large amount of phase shift in the passband.) The use of the new higher-bandwidth "high-resolution" music formats should help address this issue.
Having said all this, many audiophiles freely admit that their pastime does contain a measure of cultish behavior and in particular that there is charlatanry among some vendors. See also External links - Audiogon An Audiophile on-line marketplace and discussion forum.
- Audio Asylum A web site where "inmates" discuss all that is high-end.
- Stereophile The largest and most widely read magazine of Audiophiles, includes on-line reviews and articles.
- StereoTimes and Audiophilia These are on line Audiophile publications that review audiophile equipment and have articles of general interest to Audiophiles.
- Head-Fi Short for Head Fidelity, Head-Fi is an online discussion forum for high fidelity products with an emphasis on headphones and portable audio.
- The Absolute Sound The oldest and perhaps most prestigious of high-end publications.
- The Audio Circles Like Head-Fi and Audio Asylum, Audio Circle is another hi-fi discussion forum.
|
 |
|
| Copyright 2005-2009 OnPedia.com. All Rights Reserved |
|
|