Picking up on a post from David (@ddk) in the thread The language of Reproduction and language of Music. The mini-context being records and record quality.
Allow me to go broader. Per David's examples above, 'audiophile' is used as an adjective. It can also be used as a noun: "Leon says he is an audiophile but he uses Mcintosh amps."
To me, 'audiophile' in its pure form, that is in terms of the word's derivation (audio+phile), means someone who loves sound. While music is sound I think it is a matter of interpretation whether an audiophile by definition loves music. I don't conflate the term 'music' with the term 'sound'.
Wikipedia claims an audiophile is a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction. Of interest is its statement An audiophile seeks to reproduce the sound of a live musical performance, typically in a room with good acoustics. It goes on to mention "audiophile values" as seen to be antithetical to the growing popularity of more convenient but lower quality music, especially lossy digital file types like MP3, lower definition streaming services, and inexpensive headphones.
I skimmed for examples of usage on the Web (go ogle). I used search at the stereophile and TAS sites. Stereophile 755 pages of search results for the word, TAS showed 168 pages. I searched at vendor sites musicdirect and acousticsounds - not that many instances with the vast majority of the word's appearance associated to albums, both vinyl and disc.
I searched WBF posts (~196) and WBF titles (~210), without accounting for overlap. Everything from audiophile electrician, audiophile hearing aids, audiophile switches, audiophile culture, audiophile cables (lots of those), to audiophile people and audiophile spirituality.
The word is out there.
When no one is looking, do you think of yourself as an audiophile?
When do you apply the audiophile word as an adjective? For example, why 'audiophile cable' rather than simply 'cable'? Are there any objective criteria?
Is 'audiophile' just a marketing term to appeal to people who think of themselves as audiophiles? It's not just a thing - it's an audiophile thing!
Coming back to the OP what does the term "audiophile label" or "audiophile recording" really mean to people?
For me both terms mean hifi, fake and junk no different from dark backgrounds and pinpoint imaging stuff.
Of course there's my all time favorite term, "audiophile rated xyz" which automatically translates to buyer beware!
Allow me to go broader. Per David's examples above, 'audiophile' is used as an adjective. It can also be used as a noun: "Leon says he is an audiophile but he uses Mcintosh amps."
To me, 'audiophile' in its pure form, that is in terms of the word's derivation (audio+phile), means someone who loves sound. While music is sound I think it is a matter of interpretation whether an audiophile by definition loves music. I don't conflate the term 'music' with the term 'sound'.
Wikipedia claims an audiophile is a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction. Of interest is its statement An audiophile seeks to reproduce the sound of a live musical performance, typically in a room with good acoustics. It goes on to mention "audiophile values" as seen to be antithetical to the growing popularity of more convenient but lower quality music, especially lossy digital file types like MP3, lower definition streaming services, and inexpensive headphones.
I skimmed for examples of usage on the Web (go ogle). I used search at the stereophile and TAS sites. Stereophile 755 pages of search results for the word, TAS showed 168 pages. I searched at vendor sites musicdirect and acousticsounds - not that many instances with the vast majority of the word's appearance associated to albums, both vinyl and disc.
I searched WBF posts (~196) and WBF titles (~210), without accounting for overlap. Everything from audiophile electrician, audiophile hearing aids, audiophile switches, audiophile culture, audiophile cables (lots of those), to audiophile people and audiophile spirituality.
The word is out there.
When no one is looking, do you think of yourself as an audiophile?
When do you apply the audiophile word as an adjective? For example, why 'audiophile cable' rather than simply 'cable'? Are there any objective criteria?
Is 'audiophile' just a marketing term to appeal to people who think of themselves as audiophiles? It's not just a thing - it's an audiophile thing!
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