What is high end audio all about?

[rockitman]

anything referred to as 'high end' be it cars, audio, wrist watches, wine, fine dinning, etc has a cost involed and its never cheap.

Fits the renaissance man profile.

 

[NorthStar]

-- Big Ego?

 

[rockitman]

-- Big Ego?

Very weak argument, imo.

 

[Groucho]

Thomas Beecham reputedly said:

It is quite untrue that British people don't appreciate music. They may not understand it but they absolutely love the noise it makes.

That applies to me, I think. If it was simply about the musical performance, I'd be happy with one of those little mid-fi stereos for £200. However, I think most of us get off on the psychophysical effect of sound itself. We have all probably had some moment of epiphany in our youth when we heard hi fi for the first time and became instantly hooked on the physical sound of it, and have been pursuing a bigger and bigger hit ever since. Mix that in with most men's love of technical equipment (I definitely have that), and high end audio is the perfect recipe for male obsession. Deep down I also have the notion that hi fi is a symbol of 'lifestyle', which stems from the 1970s when every stylish house on TV, and the ones I visited in real life, had a highly visible audio system with large speakers. I certainly had audio envy by the time I was 11, drooling over all the hi fi magazines, and that was when I started to assemble my first extremely poor, but symbolically important system.

So for me, audio is inextricably linked with music, the physical thrill of powerful sound, childhood memories, lifestyle aspirations, and notions of good taste. Expensiveness is not a factor, however, so my idea of 'high end' is more related to how much time I put into creating it (building my own speakers and active crossover software, for example) than how much money it costs. I also have a leaning towards vintage equipment, that was once considered 'high end', which satisfies my nostalgia for the 1970s lifestyle. One day I'll have the perfect house and room to put it in...

 

[treitz3]

Nice post, Groucho.

Tom

 

[rrr]

lol, you can still get shiny for cheap, relatively speaking that is.

Yes, but then you are only a "CryptoAudiophile".

To be the real thing, you have to pay up!

 

[MarinJim]

Since my first cassette player in 6th grade to my present system, for me, it has always been about emotion and connection to the music, first and formost.

 

[Ethan Winer]

So what separates high end audio from mass market dreck?

Price?

 

[Ethan Winer]

I know it's been discussed here before, but "high fidelity" to what? The master tape? The sound in the studio (where most listeners have never been)? The sound in the concert hall (where different seats usually have dramatically different sound)?

Fidelity to the master tape (or Wave file). A playback system can't recreate something that wasn't captured by the microphones in the first place. The best we can hope for is to not audibly degrade the music that was captured originally. I know some people think the holy grail is recreating the sound and experience of a live event, and that's a worthy goal, but it's outside the purview of a playback system. Further, a lot of music never existed as a live event. Even classical music is often a bunch of separate takes that were spliced together.

--Ethan

 

[Champ04]

In one sentence? How about one word.

BLING!!!

(Oh, wait, that's not it.)

Fidelity

 

[Bruce B]

or what my wife says... "He must be compensating for something" !!

 

[NorthStar]

Sex?

 

[andromedaaudio]

good one .

What is High End Audio all About?
eeeuhh ,...Keeping yourself occupied ??

Price?

 

[cjfrbw]

Exotic Paralysis, Fascination, Communication in forms that cannot be spoken any other way.

 

[treitz3]

A playback system can't recreate something that wasn't captured by the microphones in the first place.

--Ethan

Hello, Ethan. At the risk of sounding argumentative [which is not my intent], it has been discussed at great length here at the WBF that a microphone can not record height in a recording, yet a playback system [system and speaker type dependent] can have the ability to recreate the illusion of height. Just playing a Devil's Advocate here...

Tom

 

[Saturntube]

It is all about the search for pleasure, our brain feeds from it and needs it!
Some find it in high speed cars or motorcycles, some find it in excersice, some in Golf, some reading!
I think we audiophiles find it in music waves exciting our brain...

Of course one does not exclude the other, but realisticly speaking, what do you have more money invested on?

 

[gamve]

High end audio is simply just about drugs for your ears.
It's a sickness I Tell Ya

 

[Whatmore]

Hello, Ethan. At the risk of sounding argumentative [which is not my intent], it has been discussed at great length here at the WBF that a microphone can not record height in a recording, yet a playback system [system and speaker type dependent] can have the ability to recreate the illusion of height. Just playing a Devil's Advocate here...

Tom

it's a kind of magic

 

[mep]

It makes music make more sense.

 

[microstrip]

Hello, Ethan. At the risk of sounding argumentative [which is not my intent], it has been discussed at great length here at the WBF that a microphone can not record height in a recording, yet a playback system [system and speaker type dependent] can have the ability to recreate the illusion of height. Just playing a Devil's Advocate here...

Tom

Tom,

You are not paying the Devil's Advocate, you are playing the audiophile advocate. We risk that this issue evolves in a linguistic debate. A microphone can not capture height, but an instrument sounds different if it is playing in a low position or in a high position. In some systems the indirect clues about height position embedded in the recording are enough to create a correct illusion of height in the soundstage, that can be very gratifying.

In order to debate this issue you need psycoacoustics, starting with how we perceive height of a sound source and understanding it is a completely different from lateral and depth localization.

All IMHO.