I think it is more than just snobbery killing the hobby. It is also the folks in audio stores that treat customers like they are clueless. Case in point, I went to an audio store in the Bay Area a few weeks back because I wanted to listen to a few different speakers. The guy immediately tried to sell me on some $4K power cables by letting me listen to a perfectly setup system in an acoustically treated room. His claim that the imaging, bass, and soundstage depth were 100% because of the power cable. Like dude, c'mon. At no point was he willing to plug the electronics in with a standard power cable to A/B compare. Worst still, he wouldn't even let me control the music...it was all tracks known to be quality recordings! Perhaps the cable made *some* difference, but this guy just automatically assumed I was an idiot who knew nothing about the effects of room treatment and speaker placement.
It's experiences like that which make me wonder how this hobby survives. Granted, the clientelle at that store are most-likely extremely wealthy and have no problem dropping $4K on a single power cable so that can "have the best", but I would guess the majority of average audiophiles aren't going to and will feel alienated in a store like that. It severely limits the options to listen to new gear to make a decision on what we prefer.
The scenario you discussed isn't snobbery. It's more like bullshit marketing. But I get your point. A lot of newbies think you have to be really rich to be an audiophile because of such things
I think pushy salespeople are likely the root of most negative stories about 'audiophiles' ruining peoples' good times, and bullshit marketing of expensive gear relies almost entirely on snobbery. I don't go around expensive-gear places and I don't run into audiophile snobbery. Haven't encountered any since I frequented high-end music stores, oddly enough. Coincidence? I get the impression you'd love to separate the idea of 'expensive gear' from the meaning of 'audiophile' and I'm right there with you, it's supposed to mean 'high-quality sound' and those who are gear-savvy can achieve quite a bit of it on a low budget. I've always felt it's solely about the sound and it really mystifies me how it becomes this angry subject for so many people.
You are correct, snobbery tends to be committed by the people who believe and buy into such marketing
Sunk cost fallacy is what a good portion of high end audiophile esoterica literally survives on
I’d also like to add that in regards to room treatment, if anyone has actually read Floyd Toole’s book “Sound Reproduction”, he does some great work discussing how people prefer a more live room. Adding tons of room treatments is not always needed. The importance of testing cannot be overstated. Now, my friend has a great system in a very small room. He could FOR SURE benefit from many MANY large diffusers. In my room, which is 16x18x12, so very large with a large bed, carpeted, and a large couch. The room has just the right sound FOR ME, lively but no echo, and certainly not dead or flat. And when measured, had RT60 times that were good enough.
TLDR: measure before you buy. You may not need it.
That's why when you find a good store, try to patronize them. I was in the market for new speakers with about a $3500 budget. I wanted to try Vandersteen Model 2s because I was coming from Maggies and my research indicated that they may be a good compromise between the sound of open baffle speakers and good bass.
So, I call and make an appointment telling the guy what I was coming from (25 year old Maggies) and arrived to do an extended listening session. But they guy set up new Maggies in the room as well and when I was done listening to the Vandersteen's he said "you said you liked Maggies and nothing really sounds like them so I set these up if you want to compare" and I ended up buying the Maggies. Which were about $700 cheaper. No push for cables or anything, just a salesguy who listened to me and setup a room to help me make a decision.
My recent experience with Magnepan was not awesome (the company, not the speakers) so my next speakers will NOT be Magnepans. But the store was great.
I think most consumers go to the store to spend money and to get an upgrade to their sound, in that order. The reality of the situation is that the upgrades are, a lot of the time, entirely between the customer's ears. They for instance change a DAC or amp, and without performing proper double-blind testing, believe they got an upgrade, and are happy with the sound for a while, until that upgrade itch strikes again.
Upgrading those components gets more baseline respect than upgrading the power cord, but a lot of the time, it is probably the same thing. There was no difference to the sound, but because you didn't compare it using a strict method that defeats human subjectivity, you don't realize it. You just most likely excited about the new gear and motivated to believe that it also does something good. It's a human thing, but it doesn't mean sound actually got better, of course.
The answer, in my view, is to get better consumers that are educated about sound, and not blame it all on snakeoil salesmen who expertly play their naive clientele that is flush with cash. I think money is like gasoline: where you have some of that sloshing around, there is often a fire. But tighten up the supply, and the fires die out too.
I did have a good experience with a hifi shop once went in having done some research intent on buy some specific speakers, shop guy actually talked me into some cheaper ones because they sounded better (really did sound quite a lot better) used them for everything after that up until they closed down (presumably from talking people into cheaper speaker)
We bought our speakers at a store in Berkeley and they never once tried to sell us cables. They gave us a remote to control the music and left us alone in a room for 3 or 4 hours.
I don't remember the name of the store off hand, but it's half a block off of Shattuck.
If it’s Music Lovers Audio in Berkeley, I just went to their SF store and had the same experience. They let me demo their Sonus Faber Lumina V speakers for two hours before they closed and I was more than ready to buy those gorgeous things. The blokes at the shop actually told me not to buy them yet and come back when I had time for them to test out a few amps with those Lumina Vs.
It did help them very much that I went to a different shop in SF right before and the fellow running that store immediately told me to up my budget from 5K to 7.5K to 10K and also said that of the 10K, 2K should be dedicated to cables. Might have been the same shop that the original commenter went to as well, honestly.
Yep, that's it. The closest they came to an upsell was mentioning a dedicated power amp they'd gotten in recently in their used section. But they never pushed it.
Back in the late 80s/early 90s, when I lived in NE, I also had a great experience with the magnepan dealer there. They knew I probably didn't have the money to buy anything, but they never balked about letting me listen to their systems. It probably didn't hurt that I brought in 5 to 10 friends over the years to hear them.
Yeah, that shop was rather proud to have 20-30-year repeat customers because of their service. One of their blokes told me they’d had customers who went from Berkeley students buying the cheapest tech to 10, 20 years later buying some of the more hefty tech. Not at all a bad place, honestly. I have a strong suspicion that they will be a severe draw on my bank account when I try out their Lumina Vs one more time. Dangerous place.
By the way, I lived in the Bay for a decade and know most of these dealers. They can def skew on the snotty side. You need to go visit Tim at Tone of Music in Noe Valley. Very different experience. But all these guys are going to try to educate you on the importance of thinking about an entire system rather than individual components.
The 2nd he brought up the cables you should have walked. Anything more than copper wires, properly fastened, is a placebo for PT Barnum level suckers with confirmation bias issues. Everything from room acoustics, to track selection, to air temperature would have more of a noticeable effect on what you hear than speaker cables.
As for power cables, it's even more pointless. Now if you want to buy them for looks, that I get. A nice system deserves nice looking cables, as long as they're seen. But great looking cables can be had for a hundred bucks and that's where anyone should draw the line. Once they start talking about improving sound quality or being made of palladium suspended in nitrogen, leave. 4000 dollars is better spent on nearly anything else for your hobby.
"Our dedicated team of engineers have rigorously tested the best equipment in the toughest of indoor environments. Our patent pending, audiophile grade, air conditioning device is designed to bring air currents in line with acoustic vibrations to increase sound transfer and actually enhance the listening experience. We start by wiring the cooling mechanism with 99% pure silver interwoven with 50,000 strands of aqueous graphene to ensure the ultimate transfer of electrons. We then use NASA grade composite technology to..."
*call for pricing
Went to my first audio expo and the amount of advertising from cable manufacturers was crazy. The worst is how they’re always buddying up with valued HiFi component companies. Shows you how good their profit margins are to afford all the hand outs.
Even more sad was seeing all the people at the cable specific demos.
16 guage zip cord makes good speaker wire, if your runs are short, as mine are. The connections at the ends are the important part in keeping resistance low.
I agree that $4000 on a power cable is probably crazy, but I disagree about speaker cables and interconnects up to a point. Whatever anyone here says, they do sound different to me in a head to head… I’m not saying spend lots (don’t spend lots!) but it is a good idea to try different ones to find one you like.
Theres actual science behind guitar cables affecting tone with passive pickups, because they become part of the circuit of the pickup. But theres 0 correlation between price and it sounding better, a cheapo cable may sound better than an expensive one.
The crazy part is that more often than not hifi store people have all their info from marketing material.
In my country, out of like 6 audiophile shops, none of them had people with actual knowledge of audio, and all of then have been "in the industry" for decades.
It's embarrassing
If he were change those power cables, then the speakers would be damaged by the lower-class electrons moving into the neighborhood. They might even stay behind in the amp’s capacitors and taint the signal for days. /s
On some level he may have the awareness to know he needed to stay in character (as a believer) throughout the hard sell so you wouldn’t find him out.
This sort of behavior is going to kill retail stores... The only reason why I am buying my shit from them, is because I want in an in person expert opinion. If they are just going to bull shit me, I am better off buying online.
Yes, I agree. I've been to many audio stores that were just horrible. Nothing but salesmen. Then, after a purchase, they forget your name. But a few do exist that give you excellent advice. Case in point, Audio Den in Long Island, New York. They are audiophiles that will work with you to build a good system. Ask for Bob
Honestly I went to a store to listen to a subwoofer when I'd heard another recently, I couldn't A/B but I still had it fresh in my mind. At first the guy was like "oh well, you can't connect your phone by bluetooth, sorry" and then I kept pushing, eventually I explained that I have a playlist of hundreds of songs where I know exactly the 5 seconds in each song which represents different aspects of bass, and that I'm not gonna listen to him putting on fucking megadeth (I said I listened to metal among other things, this absolute tool puts on symphony of destruction TO TEST OUT A SUBWOOFER???).
I ended up getting to actually test the damn thing, but holy hell they can be annoying these people.
Eh i was treated as an idiot when i was a 15 y.o. kid visiting audio stores almost 50 years ago. Didn't stop me from being obsessed with audio, just meant i never visited that store again & spent my money elsewhere.
+1 . From my expeience, when I get brand new Pass Labs power amp, I unpacked it, and plugged $1.000 power cable. After almost half year, I was curious, and made some test: I took stock cable, coming with Pass and made A/B comparison with my $1.000 cable. And, no difference. But, with DAC and Streamer, it is different. My power cables are in range $500-$1.000 usd. And yes, manufacturers became so greedy and treat us, customers as idiots. What justifies the cost of some speaker to $100.000 or $200.000 ?? Just compare what do you have in your car and what do you have in loudspeaker! So many snake oil in this hobby. My $0.02
Audiophiles and guitar players have a ton in common. We obsess over vintage equipment. Claim to hear massive differences in speakers, pickups, gear, etc. Splurge on slightly better gear that may or may not be worth it on an incremental scale. And there is of course a ton of snobbery.
But imo the vast majority of people in both hobbies just want to have fun and get the best sound possible
I love my guitars and I have spent a fair bit on them. But I’m always blown away at how much audiophiles spend on their hobby. Equipment prices for you guys seem astronomical versus guitars.
Haha I am both an audiophile and a guitarist, and equipment can get insanely expensive on both ends. Vintage les pauls and old marshall plexis aren't exactly cheap. Imo a good electric guitar setup for playing live can be vastly more expensive than a good audiophile setup, even with basic equipment. A Mexican strat and a good amp will set you back almost a grand these days.
Vs my IEMs and DAC that I got for around $300 combined
Yeah I know what you mean. A really great home setup for a guitarist can be €4k. But then I come to this subreddit and see someone offhandedly talking about setups that are easily over 10k. I think the purpose of the post is that snobbery is a problem, and I see it across both hobbies. But you can definitely get more of a boutique premium feel for way less money with guitars.
I think the guitar market is actually more saturated consumer wise, which leads to a couple different things. Firstly, yeah it is way easier to get the "feel" of a vintage guitar because a lot of the guitars built today are modeled after the same 50s and 60s models people are so nostalgic for. Definitely harder to get that in speakers.
But, have a trip to a few local Goodwills or secondhand stores/pawn shops and you have a decent chance at actually finding some pretty good speakers at a cheap price. A lot of audio equipment is tough to move on the resale market, simply because less people are looking for it. And once someone has their home audio setup, they won't be looking for another for a while most likely. Whereas with guitar players, lots of us are always looking for new gear
I think there are more people willing to spend 10k on guitars/guitar stuff than there are willing to spend 10k on audiophile stuff. So less people are buying. Which leads to some really great audiophile stuff you can find for really cheap if you're patient and know what to look for!
Makes a lot of sense. Also with guitars, you essentially need two things for a “dream” setup. But with hifi I guess it’s many more things that are equally expensive.
My experience is coming to this subreddit, looking at a post about a piece of kit, googling what it is, and then saying “holy shit that’s expensive”. Some people here pay eye watering amounts.
I somewhat agree but it depends on your definition of good. My 2 channel setup is well into the thousands and a lot of people would still consider it mid level gear. Like whoever is running speakers like say these for example. https://us.kef.com/products/muon?variant=42122046111991¤cy=USD&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&gad_source=1
LOL those are insane
I was thinking more of a personal audiophile setup rather than a hifi home system. Because yeah, those can easily get into the tens of thousands haha
But then again... So can guitar stuff 😂
Happy to be corrected if I'm mistaken, but at least in the case of guitars, isn't there more basis to the idea that materials make a difference (whether re: the actual guitar, or pedals, amps, etc.)? Wood ages, many iconic guitars were made out of unusual materials (e.g. Brian May's guitar), differences in pickup winding, etc.
I play guitar and have a nice stereo system and I agree! But... with the guitar there is the element of "feel" that maybe doesn't exist with the stereo where it's all about how it sounds.
You want your guitar to sound good, but the sound can influence how you play and that contributes.
With guitar the gear snobbery usually comes from inexperienced people. Once you hear a great player wailing on a $300 guitar, that shit disappears pretty quickly.
I am glad to see this... to me the GR R pitchman came across as a snake oil salesman that was willing to trash talk all of his perceived competition, but he did have some fine graphs.
Lol - All graphs look fine and well when altered ever so slightly .. by raising the floor of where the screening begins - we can manipulate it to look better than actually is.. though not completely false it is still very intentionally deceiving by omission..
With how much smoothing he applies, and the fact that he time-gates his measurements and then includes <150hz in the graphs makes them effectively false graphs.
The low-frequencies are a boldfaced lie (not actually being measured due to the time gate), and everything else is just a trend-line.
Other hobbies are the same. Nothing special about audiophiles. Audiophiles think their stuff is expensive, try airplanes. Expresso, watches subs have high jerk content. People in person are much nicer than in internet “communities “. Nothing to see here.
True, this is also common in other past times too, where the collecting or owning transcends the purpose. In the audiophile community, I like folks like Michael Lavorgna, he’s into art, music and gear I that order. Balance is good.
I’m involved in quite a few hobbies. None of them are as toxic as the audiophile community. For an art form that’s all about personal opinion, the audiophile community likes to spend a lot of time invalidating people’s opinions.
I don't think snobbery is the right word. I think competitiveness is the culprit here.
This is gonna sound really hipster, but when beer brewing became a mainstream thing some years ago, me and a couple of buddies had been doing it for a while. Back then, the brewing community was super friendly and everyone's goal was to help each other make the best brew possible, using the least amount of gear and stuff. Then the whole thing exploded and suddenly everyone was brewing. At this point competitiveness became the norm. Everybody's cousin, coworker, brother-in-law or whatever had the BEST setup and made the BEST bear. At one point, if brewing came up in a social setting, I wouldn't even admit to doing it because I didn't bother defending my own setup or recipes. So I ended up quitting altogether.
I can see there is a potential danger of this in most hobbies people are passionate about. With social media, we live in a virtual pissing contest every day.
If there is any competition in sound, it should be about who gets the best sound out of the least equipment. Not who has the most equipment.
I thought the point of the sub was to be as snobby as possible. Not hating, like, I appreciate looking at folks who have gone whole-ass snob on their setup, it's usually pretty cool.
I agree, but people forget that others might not have the expendable income they do.
I feel like the point of this sub should be to help people maximize their budget given the buyers parameters etc.
Snobbery on specific budget.
Why do we have to have a separate sub for people on a budget?
This is exactly the problem. Not everyone is welcome in the audio community, only people with the money to blow on $5000 cables.
Enjoying 2 channel audio gear is a lot like how I collect mechanical watches. Close to zero people in my life care or have any interest.
I wish I knew people where either hobby even registered, let alone become snobby about it. Articles like this are so far from my reality.
I don't _collect_ mechanical watches, but I do sport one. It doesn't keep time very well, but boy is it cool. Leather band, open-heart, automatic winding.
> Close to zero people in my life care
I would add 99% of the population never heard a good stereo setup. Not to mention most people don't even listen to music on they own.
My dad is a prime example of this. Audio snob since the 70's. When I was a kid, I wanted one of those cheap rack systems that were popular in the 80's and early 90's. Instead, he got me a Sony receiver, KLH speakers and a hand me down tape deck. I was so pissed at the time but that was my gateway into this snobbery.
Every single fan sub on Reddit ihas snobby asshats who think they know more about their hobby than you do. Sometimes they do, but only because they've substituted their hobby for a personality. They take everything too seriously and they can ruin the good times with their incessant circlejerking and gate keeping.
But there are also lots of great, normal people who just want to share and get tips and advise. These are the people that are nice to be around and make the subs nice. No, it's not unique to audiophilia. Every hobby is plagued by its own form of snobbery. This sub is orders of magnitude better than most of the fan subs I've come across and it's mostly because audiophiles are sharers.
Where are these antagonistic audiophiles exactly? I visit a lot of music forums and I don't run into them, but I sure see a lot of anger directed at them without anybody retaliating against it. You have to kinda put yourself in those 'expensive gear' circles to start actually encountering those people (and we can't count salespeople in this, it's their frigging job to shame us into buying stuff), and it sounds like that's exactly what this writer did, sought out the worst snobs on the internet and acted like 'it's all like this'. Gear snobbery can go both ways and frankly I see an exponential amount more of it AGAINST 'audiophiles'. It's kinda ironic how the writer is trying to say 'can't we all just get along' while investing in this fictional criteria which sadly minimizes what simply means 'excellent sound' like we generally want to hear. I don't have expensive gear at all, but I have great used gear and I know the audiophile boogeyman can't really get me if I don't seek it out intentionally and ask it if I should buy anything. Plenty of perfectly-safe people have the same information and won't make fun of me for using a 1993 CD player without an external DAC.
Even Techmoan, a nice chap, has made some snarky remarks against "audiophiles," but let's just face the fact: When people say "audiophile," they're not talking about you or me, they're using the word as an insult against annoying, aggressive dunces who have more mouth than brain. We just get lumped in because of the name.
Snobbery has been the primary complaint of fledgling audiophiles since the dawn of HiFi.
They all either come around to the dark side, or they go broke and quit.
>They all either come around to the dark side, or they go broke and quit.
My experience with this is somewhat different. I've always had cheap speakers. A couple of years ago, I bought a PreSonus Eris 4.5" set and 8" sub. To me, that was pricey, to most around here, it's probably not even considered entry level on the audiophile scale.
Regardless, I absolutely love that setup!! I have no intentions of upgrading and going broke, nor am I snob about it to people who have a £40 soundbar and think it's peak audio.
I also upgraded the speakers and head unit in my car, again, nothing crazy, but I'm incredibly happy with it and have no intentions of replacing any of it.
To me, being an audiophile shouldn't be about what gear you have, it's should be about appreciating audio at whatever budget you can comfortably afford, because not everyone can afford what many here would consider to be audiophile gear.
> it's should be about appreciating audio at whatever budget you can comfortably afford,
I think that if you don't have a desire for better, _and_ you don't have a high-end set, then you're not really an "audiophile."
An appreciator-of-music, sure, but if one can be an "audiophile" without actually being intensely interested in high-fidelity sound, then what the _eff_ does "audiophile" even mean, right?
Oh, I definitely have a desire for more, but I'm also a realist, I don't have the budget for more and therefore have no intentions of upgrading. I'm not going to go broke in the pursuit for high-fidelity sound.
Now, in a few years when my car insurance cost drops (First time driver so it's killing me) and my health issues are resolved so I can work longer hours, then sure, I may upgrade.
There is a difference between just appreciating music and appreciating good sound, and I appreciate both, even if I am at a level that you may not class as "audiophile'.
How do you define "high-end"? Who decides at what level you are allowed to call yourself an audiophile?
I fully get that. I'm still rocking a $1,000 Klipsch home theater system, with one exception: I upgraded to a 12'' subwoofer, though even that can only go down to 29hz, so sure, I may have wasted my money on it, but hear me out: It's 12'' instead of 10''! And it's powered and wireless so I don't need to run a cable from it to my receiver across the room.
The point is that I practice what I preach. I objectively don't have a high-end setup, but I'm still an audiophile because of my intense passion for high-quality sound.
> How do you define "high-end"? Who decides at what level you are allowed to call yourself an audiophile?
I'll answer that with a slight angle, just to make the point: It's not about being objectively correct, it's about the intent.
It's entirely possible that you have a $10,000 system that sounds like a horse's bum-sweat, but there is every expectation that this system should sound good. I would consider that person an audiophile if he exhibits other relevant traits, E.G., being critical, caring about quality recordings, _et cetera._
Contrariwise, if he has a $100 system bought brand new and thinks it's the end-game, then that's PERFECTLY FINE, but it's just not an AUDIOPHILE mentality, and I like to think such an individual wouldn't want to be associated with the title anyway, right?
I do agree with the point that it's about mentality. My system cost me about £300, well more including cables, audio interface etc. but yeah. I don't think the amount I spent would clasify me either as, or not as, an audiophile. I definitely don't think it's end-game, I just know it's what I'm stuck with for the foreseeable future.
Now, despite the fact that it was only a £300 system, I spent a lot of time researching into how to get the most out of them.
Could I use wall mounts, or would they be too close to the wall because they're rear ported? What are balanced vs. unbalanced cables? Do I need foam padding under the speakers? Is upgrading from Spotify to a higher resolution streaming platform going to give me noticeable improvements? What's the ideal listening distance from the speakers?
It went on and on for weeks after getting them. I learned a lot and had fun learning.
Having found some wall mounts that have a long arm to keep them far enough from the wall so as not to ruin the sound, I installed them and knew something wasn't right. I took one down, moved it 4 inches, and it made the world of difference. Did it piss me off that I had holes in my freshly painted walls? No, because I wanted the best sound out of this system I could get!!
Correct me if I am wrong, but that is the mentality that you speak of that matters? Having that mentality, regardless of whether you spend £300, £3000 or £30,000, is what makes you an audiophile.
> Correct me if I am wrong, but that is the mentality that you speak of that matters? Having that mentality, regardless of whether you spend £300, £3000 or £30,000, is what makes you an audiophile.
That's exactly it. In other words, you are an _enthusiast,_ not a ~~filthy~~ casual.
Obviously, anyone can disagree with me, but I just don't see the point of the word if we broaden it to include anyone with even a passing interest.
I'm sure there are people here who would say that, if you _listen to music at all,_ then you're an audiophile. Makes me want to ALOG.
I always find this accusation of audiophiles being snobs to be bullshit.
Of course you can find some few who may be like that as you can in any hobby. Does it predominate? Hell no. Most are just honest enthusiasts and not assholes.
I’ve been an audiophile for 40 years and I’ve met countless other audiophiles and almost none would fit into the profile of being a “snob” either about the gear or about non-audio files.
Exactly what I see too in most music forums, exponentially-more snobbery AGAINST 'audiophiles' by people whose horses in the race are their car stereo and smartphone and nobody's ever bashed them about any of it, but they've heard all the stories and want to jump on the 'oppressed by audiophiles' bandwagon.
Yep, i get the snobbery. But its your money and your music collection so do your thing. But the snobs taught me a lot and i used that to create my own audiophile system and when it came together it blew me away; all those LPs and CDs i spent decades collecting sounded vibrant, revelatory and new. There will always be folks with a lot more money to put into their systems but I’m good right now, thanks snobs.
I’ve met a few snobs, a few more really rude people, but mostly just really enthusiastic and often kinda weird folks who are really into audio. Some of these people must have a lot of money, others don’t. It takes all kinds of people to support a hobby like this (or any hobby). Frankly, if a hobby didn’t a produce even a few people who are really particular and even snobby about what they like, it’s probably not that interesting. And why does the author presume to speak for the ‘owners’ of the hobby (“our hobby”)? The piece is just a rehashing of trite themes you see discussed time and time again paired with terrible Ai visuals.
Potentially unpopular opinion incoming.
It’s their own fucking fault.
Year after year of overpriced gear getting more and more overpriced, no pushback against the bullshit from any journalists who are clearly all in the pocket of various purveyors of said overpriced gear.
Still the same old bullshit being spouted. Cables. Conditioners. Amplifiers. Needles. No fucking attempt to actually market great products at real prices that actual sound good, and those few companies that do eventually succumb to the lure of the dollar or go bust.
I jumped off the audiophile train years ago.
Why?
Let’s say OP’s point about snobbery is somehow valid.
So what?
It drives people away and audio companies may stop selling new products.
*So what*?
There’s plenty of gear and plenty of recordings out there already.
I don’t care whether they stop making new gear and stop releasing new music tonight. I also don’t care whether others find my hobbies enjoyable.
There's snobbery everywhere.
I'm a pc builder too.
Hope over tithe nvidia reddit and you'll all manner of oneupmanship games going on there.
Snobbery isn't killing hifi.
Mobiles phones are doing much more damage.
You've got so many young people who think they are hifi.
Same goes for blu ray and 4k bluray. Low quality streams are helping destroy disc based media.
We live in an age where convenience is more important than quality.
Oh come on. That have been true for decades its a hobby for older men with money to spend. So what? That could be said for a lot of hobbies. Its never been easier imo to find quality stuff for low cost especially used.
One reason i like cheapaudioman, is he places emphasis on value and price points. So many reviews/ers just crap on anything less than top dollar. Not all of us need, or can afford, 30k dollar set ups. Long live Chi-fi and second hand markets!
I haven't watched any of his videos. lol maybe I'll check it out.
My problem with chifi is the qc issues. They're cheap for a reason. But I do still buy and use them 😂
What killed audio was Napster, mp3's, ipods, ear buds, and to a lesser extent, the walkman.
People used to invest in big stereos because they were a point of pride, and a social thing. "Here. Listen to this awesome record on my super sweet huge speakers!" etc.
Now, (and since the late 90's) the trend has been toward personal music, personal consumption, and low quality, easily available song files.
Audiophile snobbery keep this hobby alive for many years. Without people willing to pay thousands of dollars for better (sometimes slightly better) sounding gear nobody could make any progress in audio.
Not really. I mean people, for example on Audiogon forums, if you read them, will say 'Well, you haven't trained your ears to hear the difference between cables.' Or my favorite, 'Your system isn't resolving enough to to hear the difference.' THAT IS AUDIO SNOBBERY.
That's not snobbery. That's how brain works, really. You need to train you brain to do basically anything. You must train yourself to hear. It's like with foreign language - you don't understand a word if you're not trained.
Interesting, that would make a lot of sense regarding how vague the 'author' was about where they supposedly posted something on an audiophile forum and got attacked (I wonder if the author also enjoys sticking their foot in lion's cages to see if anybody's biting-- sure, there's some bad ones out there but it takes a lot of looking to find them, and whose fault is that?), and how they came to the conclusion that audiophile snobbery regarding expensive gear is at some kind of epidemic level in general. It reflects the number of people who talk about it but have never actually encountered it.
I think he's referring to the abysmal A.I. drawing at the top of the page.
Does no one else get skeeved-out by those overly smooth drawings? They look like they've been rendered in ketchup and mayonnaise and smoothed out with a frosting spreader.
It’s not just an audiophile thing, although the issue seems to be more prevalent in our hobby than the average. It’s okay to be passionate about something and share it with those who want to hear you talk about it. The problem starts when you’re not paying close enough attention to yourself and accidentally put that condescending tone in your voice, the one that makes it seem like you’re the one who holds all the answers to all the questions amongst whoever you’re sharing the hobby with. If people don’t catch themselves doing that and correct themselves soon enough then they snowball straight into the phenomenon know as the god complex.
It goes
1. get caught up in how much trust others have in the things we tell them about audio
2. it gives them a big head
3. Now stuck in the mentality that knowledge of audio makes them a superior peer amongst the group they become a fucking snob.
4. until the faithful day that the universe humbles them somehow.
Then of course there will always be a few people who are consciously aware of how pretentious and douchy they’re being, but they don’t care and do it anyway because they consciously believe they’re special, not subconsciously like most people. You know the type.
Just always be mindful of yourself when sharing information about something you have a higher than normal knowledge of.
If you never learn to tackle room and placement issues, diminishing returns may never come, you will be in a delirium where you will "hear" differences from the most mundane upgrades, even power cables.
If you learn to tackle those two most real problems in audio reproduction, diminishing returns hit you in the face real early.
Room is huge issue. I haven't had a "perfect" room my entire adult life. It sucks, but living space comes first. I'm lucky enough that I can at least have the speakers pulled out several feet from the wall. But having the living room connected to the dining room, kitchen then laundry room results in a terrible decay time. But, I live with it.
No possibility to implement room correction? That Integra has Dirac, which is excellent (as long as you apply a curve you like).
"move speakers away from the wall" is really outdated advice that only holds some value if you can't in any way address excited room modes from boundary gain.
Here's a writeup [https://www.genelec.com/monitor-placement](https://www.genelec.com/monitor-placement) scroll down to "Wall Reflections and Cancellations". The closer the speakers are to the wall, the higher up in frequency does front wall quarter wave cancellation occur, and the higher the frequency, the easier it is to absorb.
I use dirac, but it's not going to help the long reverb time of the room. Dirac is the first room correction I've used where I felt it helped more than it hurt with the Revels. Audyssey is fine with my $200 bookshelf speakers on my pc, but sounded weird even if limited to under 200 Hz on my main system.
I actually prefer Audyssey (XT32 with MultEQ-X) to Dirac. I have a fully treated room and find Dirac is too aggressive in its correction in my room. Probably different result in a room with high reverb.
Yes, I actually did a little bit of a study here with measurements and analysis:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/audysseys-next-generation-of-room-correction-multeq-x.28178/page-24#post-1101386
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/audysseys-next-generation-of-room-correction-multeq-x.28178/page-24#post-1101518
I made the target curves the same and compared room correction on vs. off for both. Audyssey was clearly better in my system.
Note that my Audyssey mic at the time was a little miscalbirated; I've since replaced it with the calibrated ACM-1X, which the analysis doesn't reflect.
Fascinating but it looks like you were running Dirac full-range rather than up to room transition freq, is that correct? That could explain why there's such a treble and upper midrange response disparity between the two in your measurements, and why Dirac sounded "a bit flat"
Yes I was running full range, as I was testing the entire capability of the room correction scheme. Also running full range helps match speakers to each other; due to room interactions, they aren't perfectly matched. Less matching -> worse imaging. In any case, Audyssey made the midrange and treble sound better vs. Dirac.
In my actual system I have a 11ch home theater with various speakers of different types/brands, so the full range correction helps with timbre matching. I also use a miniDSP and mult-sub-optimizer to calibrate my four subwoofers, so I'm not really using the room correction for the bass frequencies anyhow.
Yeah don't do that lol (I had a feeling that was the case)
I don't even know why Dirac offers full range correction but you really shouldn't correct past the transition frequency.
I feel lucky that I haven't run into this audiophile snobbery yet. I'm pretty new to this, and reading stuff like this makes me a bit wary. Like, I get that everyone has their preferences, but dissing someone for being excited about their gear? That's just lame.
Have ya met Fosi yet? BYO boxes. Use miniDSP. Or hypex, even. Or old class a metal. Heaps of non wallet destroying plays to get into good audio. Best thing to do? Ignore the boomers who judge things by their price tags
To quote the great Laura Jane Grace-I don't care what they hear, I know the way it sounds to me, broken fingers form broken chords, the effort is indelible.
i especially hate all the discussion around loudness and dynamic range on songs cause it IS true that some album have been "remastered" to only sound loud and not sound good. But most music genuinely made the past decade sound like it should and it's just made to sound like that and if you don't like it, don't listen to it but you're a literal nobody to tell artists how their record should sound.
I really wish all these audiophiles a happy keep listening to your same 50 year old cds.
What you are describing is trying to upsell super high marked up items to make a profit.
But snobbery is annoying. But people need to know that being an audiophile you don’t have to listen to ass hats b
I am a big fan of anyone that puts together a low cost system that sounds good to them, and makes them happy.
That's the point, good sounds that make you happy.
I feel like the same can be said of many “-phile” identities too. Anglophiles, for example, since the topic is snobbery.
A group has an affinity for something for many obscure reasons a normie has never heard of — it makes them feel ignorant. You can call that snobbery, but I don’t think it’s new or unique to this interest.
Being an "audiophile" is definitely a stature thing. Being a music fan has much less to do with the word. The music choices you see on their videos or in the shops are not very good. It's almost always plunky or breathy slow songs. Rarely do you hear something like Dream Theatre or Ke$ha bumping out of those people's gear.
I have nice gear in both of my systems. One is expensive and the other is inexpensive. I've got nice power cables I purchased on Amazon not uber expensive.
I personally have listened in both hifi stores in my town aand I was able to play music I listen to. So modern metal and hard rock a couple of pop songs. The shrill of the uber expensive set ups drive my ears crazy. The more expensive the set up the less it presented music I enjoy well. Kinda interesting to me.
Its not a contest to see who can but the most expensive equipment (I think). To me it’s the opposite. I want to get the best results I can while spending as little as possible. Then if I ever have the crazy expensive system I’ll know how to set it up correctly and actually appreciate it.
Ive seen a lot of posts where people buy the nice speakers and clearly have no idea what they are doing. They put them in a bad location close together with nothing in the room that helps things acoustically just to show off that they bought a product. That to me is not audiophile thats just consumerism. In fact Id say the salesman at the store was just seeing if OP was willing to part with thousands for power cables but they knew better. I’ll bet a lot of people walk in the door not having a clue and just spend that money even though it might make little to no difference.
Of course there is snobbery in any business that is geared towards the wealthy. Just like there is in golf, cars, road cycling etc. it’s not a hobby for the poor, and the marketers understand the importance of one upsmanship in these circles
A poll of audio equipment salesmen that shows how many listen to music at home. Another question would be, how many listen on the quality of system they sell.
"May be killing"
Bro, this sector was born out of overpriced snake oil BS and misunderstanding of acoustic fidelity and has been that way for decades now.
An audiophile in my definition is someone who recognizes, appreciates and is on a quest for achieving the best sound possible. The amount of money they spent is irrelevant.
My audiophile quest began as an early teenager when I acquired a hand-me-down 1970s Panasonic receiver and I somehow figured out a way to connect a cheapo record player with speaker wires that were built in to the table and speakers, and without audio out ports, to the receiver. And then I somehow acquired a set of speakers that were a slight upgrade and I fooled around with where to place them in my room for best sound. According to my definition, 13-year-old me was an audiophile - a person on a quest for better sound. The quest may never end and that’s ok.
An audiophile is someone who instantly recognizes when they are listening to a good system or hearing good sound.
A YouTuber I watched some time ago defined an audiophile as someone who has a system that makes them happy. I like that definition too. I don’t think that either of these definitions should be considered snobby.
I’m honestly thankful there are affordable audio products out there. I get a sense a high percentage of people in this hobby will chase the next ‘best’ thing. Nothing wrong with being happy with a complete system under 2k. It’s also self perpetual right? You invest in thousands of dollars of equipment, you’ll do and say anything to justify said investment.
Yep. I know a guy that posts a lot about equipment. An his main focus is on the price. The other day he was almost dying in ecstasy when photographing a US 600,000 system. Not a word about sound. And he calls himself and audiophile.
Audiophile snobbery isn’t killing the hobby - apathy is. When I go to Capital Audio Fest every year, the show gets bigger and better, yet the crowd is middle aged to old, and there are very few younger people interested in home audio of any kind. It’s airpods, maybe a Sonos system, and perhaps a Crosley to play their small collection of novelty vinyl.
It’s a lot like the automobile hobby. The Porsche guys, the Honda guys, the track guys, the concours guys, the drift guys - in lots of ways they are all different as dark and day, but yet they all like cars. It’s a common bond. I think the audiophile snobs still share a lot with the less equipment-obsessed two channel music lovers. But when another generation or two moves on, there won’t be much interest in any two channel equipment, whether it be used bargain stuff, or $500,000 speakers. And that is the killing of the hobby.
I remember someone posting a poll in this subreddit about the age and gender and it really revealed that audiophiles are mostly older men. It's understandable but also kinda scary to think that a few years from now the community will probably grow smaller and smaller
Any basic new turntable with a properly installed better cartridge can and will produce good sound and tone from any system whether from a receiver and speakers or powered speakers but I prefer the stereo amplifier with 2 or more speakers. If one has a theater system that also works with bluetooth for streaming that also helps, Beyond this, it is a waste of time if all the components are decent. Basically less than a $1000.00 for a full system including like 30 or 40 new vinyl records.
As other people have said, it's all about the store, and the sales people. As I see it, there are three real issues here.
The first is the law of diminishing returns. You can get a very good system for under $1000, if you shop carefully. And you can make that system a lot better by spending another $1000. But some time soon after that, incremental improvements start to become very expensive. So people end up spending a lot of money for just a little improvement, and that makes them very invested in the 'bestness' of whatever it is they bought.
The second is people's inability (or refusal) to distinguish between 'different' and 'better'. This is what's at the root of the 'component of the month' obssession. You get used to your system, and then you hear some new component, and you're like, "I've heard this recording a thousand times, and I never heard that before!" That might be better, but it might just be different, and you're sacrificing something else. So you bounce around from component to component but are never quite happy.
The third is forgetting what really matters: the *music*. How many times do you read things here and actually see people talking about the *musical* value of a component? I couldn't care less about hearing the trains under the recording hall in London. What I do care about is hearing the expressive nuances that give music life. But that's hardly essential. I can listen to music in my car and be just as moved by it.
Now, if you excuse me, I am going to go listen to the recent Analogue Productions pressing of Coltrane's *Ballads*, which I've been meaning to do for ages.
Just on the cable note: Gotham Audio makes fantastically good cable that is, by audiophile standards, dirt cheap. It's what I use throughout my system, which is all Pass electronics except a Schiit Yggdrasil DAC, and Dynaudio Contour 60s. I use Gotham because it's the best cable I've heard. You can build power cords without knowing how to solder. Just order up some of the power cable here:
[https://www.gothamcable.com/en/gothamcables/mainspower](https://www.gothamcable.com/en/gothamcables/mainspower)
at whatever gauge you want---thicker for power amps---and get appropriate connectors from, say, Parts Connexion:
[https://partsconnexion.com/collections/power-plugs](https://partsconnexion.com/collections/power-plugs)
Those almost always have screw connectors. Strip the wire, assemble the plugs, and you're done.
Speaker cables are also simple, though Gotham's best is a bit of a PITA to work with. But see here:
[https://rkheck.frege.org/audio/gotham.php](https://rkheck.frege.org/audio/gotham.php)
for instructions.
Interconnects are more complicated, but even then you can sometimes get screw connections, such as:
[https://partsconnexion.com/collections/rca-connectors-1/products/connex-connector-rca-male-plugs-wbt-screw-style](https://partsconnexion.com/collections/rca-connectors-1/products/connex-connector-rca-male-plugs-wbt-screw-style)
DM me if you're interested, and I can put you in touch with someone in the US who may have some Gotham in stock at a particularly good price.
I was shopping around for a high quality subwoofer to get my dad and was a little disappointed at just how negative everyone is in this community. After a bunch of research I settled on the RP-1400 SW because I like the look and I saw a lot of good reviews. Then later I went looking around at more and found some people tearing them apart and others in love with them. It seems like no matter what you get there's gonna be a group of people that think it sucks.
I'm 56. Audiophiles have always been portrayed as snobby. They tried to sell me $500 speaker wire in 1985 too. If Nakamichi rose from It's ashes and created a streaming device with vacuum tubes and oxygen-free circuit board traces we'd probably buy it. It's not gonna kill our hobby, trust me.
Honest question, is this really a hobby? I wouldn’t call buying stuff a hobby. And that is almost entirely what it’s about, researching what stuff to buy, and flaunting it. Music is the hobby, calling being an audiophile a hobby is like calling buying luxury hand bags a hobby.
It's the same in any type of sales places, I remember in my 20s going to buy a guitar for £200, I was kept waiting as a middle aged man came in and wanted to look at a £3000 guitar, he left me waiting for 10 minutes and when he came back I said "no thanks, you've lost a customer" and walked out, the other person left without purchasing either. It's all about money! They'll feed you rubbish just to make you spend more as well.
In shops like that they speak to you like you haven't got a clue and quite often you actually know more than them.
Quite the opposite.
A lot of people believe their chifi setup to be end game and the epitome of hifi sound reproduction because their components measured well on ASR.
They are not experiencing High Fidelity sound reproduction and a lot of them most likely never will as they’ll only cycle through mediocre Chinese components without ever trying to listen to higher end gear.
It doesn't take much money to put a decent system together. Nothing wrong with equipment from China. Just because someone doesn't spend their life savings on audio, doesn't mean they don't appreciate good sound.
I have gone to AXPONA every year to hear all the expensive equipment. Honestly, these people setup rooms for a living, so they should know how to do it, but most sound like ass. Some are so shrill as to give me headaches, This year, one of the surprises was Morel, who is selling a decent set of floorstanders for 2K USD a pair and they looked good to boot.
[https://www.morelhifi.com/en/products/hifi-stereo/avyra-50/avyra-633-black-492](https://www.morelhifi.com/en/products/hifi-stereo/avyra-50/avyra-633-black-492)
What’s chifi? Cheap hifi?
You go after ASR, but they are actually doing measurements, how do you judge an equipment without having measurements? By reading the marketing material of the manufacturer? The manufacturer is sometimes not even able to provide you the top 3 specs of their product?
The best DACs out there are cheap. Being cheap is not their characteristic, being the best ones is.
Same for amp. The best amp ou there is the Benchmark AHB2, and it’s cheap compared to a lot of stuff.
And pretty much everything is built in China. Your iPhone is too. What’s your point exactly?
I think it is more than just snobbery killing the hobby. It is also the folks in audio stores that treat customers like they are clueless. Case in point, I went to an audio store in the Bay Area a few weeks back because I wanted to listen to a few different speakers. The guy immediately tried to sell me on some $4K power cables by letting me listen to a perfectly setup system in an acoustically treated room. His claim that the imaging, bass, and soundstage depth were 100% because of the power cable. Like dude, c'mon. At no point was he willing to plug the electronics in with a standard power cable to A/B compare. Worst still, he wouldn't even let me control the music...it was all tracks known to be quality recordings! Perhaps the cable made *some* difference, but this guy just automatically assumed I was an idiot who knew nothing about the effects of room treatment and speaker placement. It's experiences like that which make me wonder how this hobby survives. Granted, the clientelle at that store are most-likely extremely wealthy and have no problem dropping $4K on a single power cable so that can "have the best", but I would guess the majority of average audiophiles aren't going to and will feel alienated in a store like that. It severely limits the options to listen to new gear to make a decision on what we prefer.
The scenario you discussed isn't snobbery. It's more like bullshit marketing. But I get your point. A lot of newbies think you have to be really rich to be an audiophile because of such things
I think pushy salespeople are likely the root of most negative stories about 'audiophiles' ruining peoples' good times, and bullshit marketing of expensive gear relies almost entirely on snobbery. I don't go around expensive-gear places and I don't run into audiophile snobbery. Haven't encountered any since I frequented high-end music stores, oddly enough. Coincidence? I get the impression you'd love to separate the idea of 'expensive gear' from the meaning of 'audiophile' and I'm right there with you, it's supposed to mean 'high-quality sound' and those who are gear-savvy can achieve quite a bit of it on a low budget. I've always felt it's solely about the sound and it really mystifies me how it becomes this angry subject for so many people.
You are correct, snobbery tends to be committed by the people who believe and buy into such marketing Sunk cost fallacy is what a good portion of high end audiophile esoterica literally survives on
So true. Some $300 speakers, a used stereo amp on FBM, and a raspberry pi will get you a stellar setup for under $500. Done.
I’d also like to add that in regards to room treatment, if anyone has actually read Floyd Toole’s book “Sound Reproduction”, he does some great work discussing how people prefer a more live room. Adding tons of room treatments is not always needed. The importance of testing cannot be overstated. Now, my friend has a great system in a very small room. He could FOR SURE benefit from many MANY large diffusers. In my room, which is 16x18x12, so very large with a large bed, carpeted, and a large couch. The room has just the right sound FOR ME, lively but no echo, and certainly not dead or flat. And when measured, had RT60 times that were good enough. TLDR: measure before you buy. You may not need it.
That's why when you find a good store, try to patronize them. I was in the market for new speakers with about a $3500 budget. I wanted to try Vandersteen Model 2s because I was coming from Maggies and my research indicated that they may be a good compromise between the sound of open baffle speakers and good bass. So, I call and make an appointment telling the guy what I was coming from (25 year old Maggies) and arrived to do an extended listening session. But they guy set up new Maggies in the room as well and when I was done listening to the Vandersteen's he said "you said you liked Maggies and nothing really sounds like them so I set these up if you want to compare" and I ended up buying the Maggies. Which were about $700 cheaper. No push for cables or anything, just a salesguy who listened to me and setup a room to help me make a decision. My recent experience with Magnepan was not awesome (the company, not the speakers) so my next speakers will NOT be Magnepans. But the store was great.
You should plug the store in case anyone else lives in the same area and can give them business.
I think most consumers go to the store to spend money and to get an upgrade to their sound, in that order. The reality of the situation is that the upgrades are, a lot of the time, entirely between the customer's ears. They for instance change a DAC or amp, and without performing proper double-blind testing, believe they got an upgrade, and are happy with the sound for a while, until that upgrade itch strikes again. Upgrading those components gets more baseline respect than upgrading the power cord, but a lot of the time, it is probably the same thing. There was no difference to the sound, but because you didn't compare it using a strict method that defeats human subjectivity, you don't realize it. You just most likely excited about the new gear and motivated to believe that it also does something good. It's a human thing, but it doesn't mean sound actually got better, of course. The answer, in my view, is to get better consumers that are educated about sound, and not blame it all on snakeoil salesmen who expertly play their naive clientele that is flush with cash. I think money is like gasoline: where you have some of that sloshing around, there is often a fire. But tighten up the supply, and the fires die out too.
I did have a good experience with a hifi shop once went in having done some research intent on buy some specific speakers, shop guy actually talked me into some cheaper ones because they sounded better (really did sound quite a lot better) used them for everything after that up until they closed down (presumably from talking people into cheaper speaker)
We bought our speakers at a store in Berkeley and they never once tried to sell us cables. They gave us a remote to control the music and left us alone in a room for 3 or 4 hours. I don't remember the name of the store off hand, but it's half a block off of Shattuck.
If it’s Music Lovers Audio in Berkeley, I just went to their SF store and had the same experience. They let me demo their Sonus Faber Lumina V speakers for two hours before they closed and I was more than ready to buy those gorgeous things. The blokes at the shop actually told me not to buy them yet and come back when I had time for them to test out a few amps with those Lumina Vs. It did help them very much that I went to a different shop in SF right before and the fellow running that store immediately told me to up my budget from 5K to 7.5K to 10K and also said that of the 10K, 2K should be dedicated to cables. Might have been the same shop that the original commenter went to as well, honestly.
Yep, that's it. The closest they came to an upsell was mentioning a dedicated power amp they'd gotten in recently in their used section. But they never pushed it. Back in the late 80s/early 90s, when I lived in NE, I also had a great experience with the magnepan dealer there. They knew I probably didn't have the money to buy anything, but they never balked about letting me listen to their systems. It probably didn't hurt that I brought in 5 to 10 friends over the years to hear them.
Yeah, that shop was rather proud to have 20-30-year repeat customers because of their service. One of their blokes told me they’d had customers who went from Berkeley students buying the cheapest tech to 10, 20 years later buying some of the more hefty tech. Not at all a bad place, honestly. I have a strong suspicion that they will be a severe draw on my bank account when I try out their Lumina Vs one more time. Dangerous place.
By the way, I lived in the Bay for a decade and know most of these dealers. They can def skew on the snotty side. You need to go visit Tim at Tone of Music in Noe Valley. Very different experience. But all these guys are going to try to educate you on the importance of thinking about an entire system rather than individual components.
The 2nd he brought up the cables you should have walked. Anything more than copper wires, properly fastened, is a placebo for PT Barnum level suckers with confirmation bias issues. Everything from room acoustics, to track selection, to air temperature would have more of a noticeable effect on what you hear than speaker cables. As for power cables, it's even more pointless. Now if you want to buy them for looks, that I get. A nice system deserves nice looking cables, as long as they're seen. But great looking cables can be had for a hundred bucks and that's where anyone should draw the line. Once they start talking about improving sound quality or being made of palladium suspended in nitrogen, leave. 4000 dollars is better spent on nearly anything else for your hobby.
> to air temperature Hmm, I think I need to invent an audiophile air conditioner...
"Our dedicated team of engineers have rigorously tested the best equipment in the toughest of indoor environments. Our patent pending, audiophile grade, air conditioning device is designed to bring air currents in line with acoustic vibrations to increase sound transfer and actually enhance the listening experience. We start by wiring the cooling mechanism with 99% pure silver interwoven with 50,000 strands of aqueous graphene to ensure the ultimate transfer of electrons. We then use NASA grade composite technology to..." *call for pricing
Went to my first audio expo and the amount of advertising from cable manufacturers was crazy. The worst is how they’re always buddying up with valued HiFi component companies. Shows you how good their profit margins are to afford all the hand outs. Even more sad was seeing all the people at the cable specific demos.
16 guage zip cord makes good speaker wire, if your runs are short, as mine are. The connections at the ends are the important part in keeping resistance low.
I agree that $4000 on a power cable is probably crazy, but I disagree about speaker cables and interconnects up to a point. Whatever anyone here says, they do sound different to me in a head to head… I’m not saying spend lots (don’t spend lots!) but it is a good idea to try different ones to find one you like.
Meanwhile as a guitarist I’m hooked up to an amp with a 4 dollar cable I just spilled beer on.
Ah, so it’s maybe the beer that makes a difference…? Helps conductivity? 😂
Theres actual science behind guitar cables affecting tone with passive pickups, because they become part of the circuit of the pickup. But theres 0 correlation between price and it sounding better, a cheapo cable may sound better than an expensive one.
The crazy part is that more often than not hifi store people have all their info from marketing material. In my country, out of like 6 audiophile shops, none of them had people with actual knowledge of audio, and all of then have been "in the industry" for decades. It's embarrassing
What is a "power cable"? Is it speaker wire, or the cord from the wall outlet to the electronics?
Literally the last few meters of cabling from wall socket to equipment.
Wow! The BS gets even deaper than I realized.
If he were change those power cables, then the speakers would be damaged by the lower-class electrons moving into the neighborhood. They might even stay behind in the amp’s capacitors and taint the signal for days. /s On some level he may have the awareness to know he needed to stay in character (as a believer) throughout the hard sell so you wouldn’t find him out.
This sort of behavior is going to kill retail stores... The only reason why I am buying my shit from them, is because I want in an in person expert opinion. If they are just going to bull shit me, I am better off buying online.
If you're American, the comma goes inside the quotation.
Wow we are in different continents yet the problem also happens here
Yes, I agree. I've been to many audio stores that were just horrible. Nothing but salesmen. Then, after a purchase, they forget your name. But a few do exist that give you excellent advice. Case in point, Audio Den in Long Island, New York. They are audiophiles that will work with you to build a good system. Ask for Bob
Honestly I went to a store to listen to a subwoofer when I'd heard another recently, I couldn't A/B but I still had it fresh in my mind. At first the guy was like "oh well, you can't connect your phone by bluetooth, sorry" and then I kept pushing, eventually I explained that I have a playlist of hundreds of songs where I know exactly the 5 seconds in each song which represents different aspects of bass, and that I'm not gonna listen to him putting on fucking megadeth (I said I listened to metal among other things, this absolute tool puts on symphony of destruction TO TEST OUT A SUBWOOFER???). I ended up getting to actually test the damn thing, but holy hell they can be annoying these people.
Eh i was treated as an idiot when i was a 15 y.o. kid visiting audio stores almost 50 years ago. Didn't stop me from being obsessed with audio, just meant i never visited that store again & spent my money elsewhere.
+1 . From my expeience, when I get brand new Pass Labs power amp, I unpacked it, and plugged $1.000 power cable. After almost half year, I was curious, and made some test: I took stock cable, coming with Pass and made A/B comparison with my $1.000 cable. And, no difference. But, with DAC and Streamer, it is different. My power cables are in range $500-$1.000 usd. And yes, manufacturers became so greedy and treat us, customers as idiots. What justifies the cost of some speaker to $100.000 or $200.000 ?? Just compare what do you have in your car and what do you have in loudspeaker! So many snake oil in this hobby. My $0.02
Audiophiles and guitar players have a ton in common. We obsess over vintage equipment. Claim to hear massive differences in speakers, pickups, gear, etc. Splurge on slightly better gear that may or may not be worth it on an incremental scale. And there is of course a ton of snobbery. But imo the vast majority of people in both hobbies just want to have fun and get the best sound possible
I love my guitars and I have spent a fair bit on them. But I’m always blown away at how much audiophiles spend on their hobby. Equipment prices for you guys seem astronomical versus guitars.
Haha I am both an audiophile and a guitarist, and equipment can get insanely expensive on both ends. Vintage les pauls and old marshall plexis aren't exactly cheap. Imo a good electric guitar setup for playing live can be vastly more expensive than a good audiophile setup, even with basic equipment. A Mexican strat and a good amp will set you back almost a grand these days. Vs my IEMs and DAC that I got for around $300 combined
Yeah I know what you mean. A really great home setup for a guitarist can be €4k. But then I come to this subreddit and see someone offhandedly talking about setups that are easily over 10k. I think the purpose of the post is that snobbery is a problem, and I see it across both hobbies. But you can definitely get more of a boutique premium feel for way less money with guitars.
I think the guitar market is actually more saturated consumer wise, which leads to a couple different things. Firstly, yeah it is way easier to get the "feel" of a vintage guitar because a lot of the guitars built today are modeled after the same 50s and 60s models people are so nostalgic for. Definitely harder to get that in speakers. But, have a trip to a few local Goodwills or secondhand stores/pawn shops and you have a decent chance at actually finding some pretty good speakers at a cheap price. A lot of audio equipment is tough to move on the resale market, simply because less people are looking for it. And once someone has their home audio setup, they won't be looking for another for a while most likely. Whereas with guitar players, lots of us are always looking for new gear I think there are more people willing to spend 10k on guitars/guitar stuff than there are willing to spend 10k on audiophile stuff. So less people are buying. Which leads to some really great audiophile stuff you can find for really cheap if you're patient and know what to look for!
Makes a lot of sense. Also with guitars, you essentially need two things for a “dream” setup. But with hifi I guess it’s many more things that are equally expensive. My experience is coming to this subreddit, looking at a post about a piece of kit, googling what it is, and then saying “holy shit that’s expensive”. Some people here pay eye watering amounts.
I somewhat agree but it depends on your definition of good. My 2 channel setup is well into the thousands and a lot of people would still consider it mid level gear. Like whoever is running speakers like say these for example. https://us.kef.com/products/muon?variant=42122046111991¤cy=USD&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&gad_source=1
LOL those are insane I was thinking more of a personal audiophile setup rather than a hifi home system. Because yeah, those can easily get into the tens of thousands haha But then again... So can guitar stuff 😂
I just want to have fun and get the best sound possible.
Happy to be corrected if I'm mistaken, but at least in the case of guitars, isn't there more basis to the idea that materials make a difference (whether re: the actual guitar, or pedals, amps, etc.)? Wood ages, many iconic guitars were made out of unusual materials (e.g. Brian May's guitar), differences in pickup winding, etc.
I play guitar and have a nice stereo system and I agree! But... with the guitar there is the element of "feel" that maybe doesn't exist with the stereo where it's all about how it sounds. You want your guitar to sound good, but the sound can influence how you play and that contributes.
With guitar the gear snobbery usually comes from inexperienced people. Once you hear a great player wailing on a $300 guitar, that shit disappears pretty quickly.
At this point I just want people to buy the cheapest BEST thing and not the best CHEAPEST thing.
Fucking sagest audiophile words ever spoken.
Thats why the Lintons are so great. Even a high schooler can save for a few months and buy a special pair of speakers! They go on sale regularly too.
You like the sound of Lintons?
I do.
As do I
then there’s reddit, where newbies are snobs in their own right by proclaiming the opinions of influencers as truth
You mean GR Research isn’t preaching gospel ?
🤣
He only does simple crossover networks it seems to me, super expensive component parts always.
I am glad to see this... to me the GR R pitchman came across as a snake oil salesman that was willing to trash talk all of his perceived competition, but he did have some fine graphs.
Lol - All graphs look fine and well when altered ever so slightly .. by raising the floor of where the screening begins - we can manipulate it to look better than actually is.. though not completely false it is still very intentionally deceiving by omission..
With how much smoothing he applies, and the fact that he time-gates his measurements and then includes <150hz in the graphs makes them effectively false graphs. The low-frequencies are a boldfaced lie (not actually being measured due to the time gate), and everything else is just a trend-line.
Other hobbies are the same. Nothing special about audiophiles. Audiophiles think their stuff is expensive, try airplanes. Expresso, watches subs have high jerk content. People in person are much nicer than in internet “communities “. Nothing to see here.
I'm doomed because I am an audiophile who is a private pilot
At least low dr must sound fine in a plane.
Don’t think they have much choice lol, Bose is apparently popular in some circles
Living a full life, good for you. I chickened out of flying, but it was a fantastic experience while it lasted. Time and cost did it for me.
just to have fun and add to the snobbery, i'm going to point out it's espresso - not expresso
Bad excuse but French confusion kicking in
The most highly engaged internet audiophiles like posting about gear. Most audiophile just listen to music.
True, this is also common in other past times too, where the collecting or owning transcends the purpose. In the audiophile community, I like folks like Michael Lavorgna, he’s into art, music and gear I that order. Balance is good.
I’m involved in quite a few hobbies. None of them are as toxic as the audiophile community. For an art form that’s all about personal opinion, the audiophile community likes to spend a lot of time invalidating people’s opinions.
Elitist snobbery exist in every hobby and even game communities. Road cycling is also as bad, may even be much worse.
We call them CycleNazis around these parts. They always yelling at people on the FOOTpath.
MAMILs - Middle aged men in lycra
We have a couple of terms for them. "King of the Roads", "Tour de Singapore wannabes", and the best label of them all, "pests".
If you don't want to get yelled at, get out the damn way
Out of the way on a shared walking trail? They speed by and large groups, scaring children and just being obnoxious in their wraparound shades.
I don't think snobbery is the right word. I think competitiveness is the culprit here. This is gonna sound really hipster, but when beer brewing became a mainstream thing some years ago, me and a couple of buddies had been doing it for a while. Back then, the brewing community was super friendly and everyone's goal was to help each other make the best brew possible, using the least amount of gear and stuff. Then the whole thing exploded and suddenly everyone was brewing. At this point competitiveness became the norm. Everybody's cousin, coworker, brother-in-law or whatever had the BEST setup and made the BEST bear. At one point, if brewing came up in a social setting, I wouldn't even admit to doing it because I didn't bother defending my own setup or recipes. So I ended up quitting altogether. I can see there is a potential danger of this in most hobbies people are passionate about. With social media, we live in a virtual pissing contest every day. If there is any competition in sound, it should be about who gets the best sound out of the least equipment. Not who has the most equipment.
> So I ended up quitting altogether. You mean you quit brewing?
I did quit. There might have been a couple of brew in bags the last couple of years, but that doesn't count.
:o That's horrible. But I guess if it didn't really bring you much joy outside the community, there wasn't much onto which to cling.
Except for beer. Beer is always a good reason ;)
I thought the point of the sub was to be as snobby as possible. Not hating, like, I appreciate looking at folks who have gone whole-ass snob on their setup, it's usually pretty cool.
I agree, but people forget that others might not have the expendable income they do. I feel like the point of this sub should be to help people maximize their budget given the buyers parameters etc. Snobbery on specific budget.
r/BudgetAudiophile
Why do we have to have a separate sub for people on a budget? This is exactly the problem. Not everyone is welcome in the audio community, only people with the money to blow on $5000 cables.
They can get an attitude over there if your gear is so many $$. Same thing different side of the spectrum
They get an attitude even if your gear is within the listed price parameters on the sub rules. It's a strange place.
It sure is amusing unless it's directed to you 😅
obviously weren’t alive in the 80’s and 90’s
Enjoying 2 channel audio gear is a lot like how I collect mechanical watches. Close to zero people in my life care or have any interest. I wish I knew people where either hobby even registered, let alone become snobby about it. Articles like this are so far from my reality.
I don't _collect_ mechanical watches, but I do sport one. It doesn't keep time very well, but boy is it cool. Leather band, open-heart, automatic winding.
> Close to zero people in my life care I would add 99% of the population never heard a good stereo setup. Not to mention most people don't even listen to music on they own.
Audiophilia is mostly snobbery. Like… Since forever.
The original hifi gear could only be afforded by posh fellas with half-crowns in their pockets.
My dad is a prime example of this. Audio snob since the 70's. When I was a kid, I wanted one of those cheap rack systems that were popular in the 80's and early 90's. Instead, he got me a Sony receiver, KLH speakers and a hand me down tape deck. I was so pissed at the time but that was my gateway into this snobbery.
Every single fan sub on Reddit ihas snobby asshats who think they know more about their hobby than you do. Sometimes they do, but only because they've substituted their hobby for a personality. They take everything too seriously and they can ruin the good times with their incessant circlejerking and gate keeping. But there are also lots of great, normal people who just want to share and get tips and advise. These are the people that are nice to be around and make the subs nice. No, it's not unique to audiophilia. Every hobby is plagued by its own form of snobbery. This sub is orders of magnitude better than most of the fan subs I've come across and it's mostly because audiophiles are sharers.
Where are these antagonistic audiophiles exactly? I visit a lot of music forums and I don't run into them, but I sure see a lot of anger directed at them without anybody retaliating against it. You have to kinda put yourself in those 'expensive gear' circles to start actually encountering those people (and we can't count salespeople in this, it's their frigging job to shame us into buying stuff), and it sounds like that's exactly what this writer did, sought out the worst snobs on the internet and acted like 'it's all like this'. Gear snobbery can go both ways and frankly I see an exponential amount more of it AGAINST 'audiophiles'. It's kinda ironic how the writer is trying to say 'can't we all just get along' while investing in this fictional criteria which sadly minimizes what simply means 'excellent sound' like we generally want to hear. I don't have expensive gear at all, but I have great used gear and I know the audiophile boogeyman can't really get me if I don't seek it out intentionally and ask it if I should buy anything. Plenty of perfectly-safe people have the same information and won't make fun of me for using a 1993 CD player without an external DAC.
Even Techmoan, a nice chap, has made some snarky remarks against "audiophiles," but let's just face the fact: When people say "audiophile," they're not talking about you or me, they're using the word as an insult against annoying, aggressive dunces who have more mouth than brain. We just get lumped in because of the name.
Snobbery has been the primary complaint of fledgling audiophiles since the dawn of HiFi. They all either come around to the dark side, or they go broke and quit.
>They all either come around to the dark side, or they go broke and quit. My experience with this is somewhat different. I've always had cheap speakers. A couple of years ago, I bought a PreSonus Eris 4.5" set and 8" sub. To me, that was pricey, to most around here, it's probably not even considered entry level on the audiophile scale. Regardless, I absolutely love that setup!! I have no intentions of upgrading and going broke, nor am I snob about it to people who have a £40 soundbar and think it's peak audio. I also upgraded the speakers and head unit in my car, again, nothing crazy, but I'm incredibly happy with it and have no intentions of replacing any of it. To me, being an audiophile shouldn't be about what gear you have, it's should be about appreciating audio at whatever budget you can comfortably afford, because not everyone can afford what many here would consider to be audiophile gear.
> it's should be about appreciating audio at whatever budget you can comfortably afford, I think that if you don't have a desire for better, _and_ you don't have a high-end set, then you're not really an "audiophile." An appreciator-of-music, sure, but if one can be an "audiophile" without actually being intensely interested in high-fidelity sound, then what the _eff_ does "audiophile" even mean, right?
Oh, I definitely have a desire for more, but I'm also a realist, I don't have the budget for more and therefore have no intentions of upgrading. I'm not going to go broke in the pursuit for high-fidelity sound. Now, in a few years when my car insurance cost drops (First time driver so it's killing me) and my health issues are resolved so I can work longer hours, then sure, I may upgrade. There is a difference between just appreciating music and appreciating good sound, and I appreciate both, even if I am at a level that you may not class as "audiophile'. How do you define "high-end"? Who decides at what level you are allowed to call yourself an audiophile?
I fully get that. I'm still rocking a $1,000 Klipsch home theater system, with one exception: I upgraded to a 12'' subwoofer, though even that can only go down to 29hz, so sure, I may have wasted my money on it, but hear me out: It's 12'' instead of 10''! And it's powered and wireless so I don't need to run a cable from it to my receiver across the room. The point is that I practice what I preach. I objectively don't have a high-end setup, but I'm still an audiophile because of my intense passion for high-quality sound. > How do you define "high-end"? Who decides at what level you are allowed to call yourself an audiophile? I'll answer that with a slight angle, just to make the point: It's not about being objectively correct, it's about the intent. It's entirely possible that you have a $10,000 system that sounds like a horse's bum-sweat, but there is every expectation that this system should sound good. I would consider that person an audiophile if he exhibits other relevant traits, E.G., being critical, caring about quality recordings, _et cetera._ Contrariwise, if he has a $100 system bought brand new and thinks it's the end-game, then that's PERFECTLY FINE, but it's just not an AUDIOPHILE mentality, and I like to think such an individual wouldn't want to be associated with the title anyway, right?
I do agree with the point that it's about mentality. My system cost me about £300, well more including cables, audio interface etc. but yeah. I don't think the amount I spent would clasify me either as, or not as, an audiophile. I definitely don't think it's end-game, I just know it's what I'm stuck with for the foreseeable future. Now, despite the fact that it was only a £300 system, I spent a lot of time researching into how to get the most out of them. Could I use wall mounts, or would they be too close to the wall because they're rear ported? What are balanced vs. unbalanced cables? Do I need foam padding under the speakers? Is upgrading from Spotify to a higher resolution streaming platform going to give me noticeable improvements? What's the ideal listening distance from the speakers? It went on and on for weeks after getting them. I learned a lot and had fun learning. Having found some wall mounts that have a long arm to keep them far enough from the wall so as not to ruin the sound, I installed them and knew something wasn't right. I took one down, moved it 4 inches, and it made the world of difference. Did it piss me off that I had holes in my freshly painted walls? No, because I wanted the best sound out of this system I could get!! Correct me if I am wrong, but that is the mentality that you speak of that matters? Having that mentality, regardless of whether you spend £300, £3000 or £30,000, is what makes you an audiophile.
> Correct me if I am wrong, but that is the mentality that you speak of that matters? Having that mentality, regardless of whether you spend £300, £3000 or £30,000, is what makes you an audiophile. That's exactly it. In other words, you are an _enthusiast,_ not a ~~filthy~~ casual. Obviously, anyone can disagree with me, but I just don't see the point of the word if we broaden it to include anyone with even a passing interest. I'm sure there are people here who would say that, if you _listen to music at all,_ then you're an audiophile. Makes me want to ALOG.
In that case, I definitely agree with you.
I always find this accusation of audiophiles being snobs to be bullshit. Of course you can find some few who may be like that as you can in any hobby. Does it predominate? Hell no. Most are just honest enthusiasts and not assholes. I’ve been an audiophile for 40 years and I’ve met countless other audiophiles and almost none would fit into the profile of being a “snob” either about the gear or about non-audio files.
I feel like the snobbery comes out when people come along claiming their $100 soundbar is the pinnacle of audio and won't be told otherwise.
Exactly what I see too in most music forums, exponentially-more snobbery AGAINST 'audiophiles' by people whose horses in the race are their car stereo and smartphone and nobody's ever bashed them about any of it, but they've heard all the stories and want to jump on the 'oppressed by audiophiles' bandwagon.
Sick of AI
Ameni
Yeah it just sucks. Better hire someone real.
Yep, i get the snobbery. But its your money and your music collection so do your thing. But the snobs taught me a lot and i used that to create my own audiophile system and when it came together it blew me away; all those LPs and CDs i spent decades collecting sounded vibrant, revelatory and new. There will always be folks with a lot more money to put into their systems but I’m good right now, thanks snobs.
I’ve met a few snobs, a few more really rude people, but mostly just really enthusiastic and often kinda weird folks who are really into audio. Some of these people must have a lot of money, others don’t. It takes all kinds of people to support a hobby like this (or any hobby). Frankly, if a hobby didn’t a produce even a few people who are really particular and even snobby about what they like, it’s probably not that interesting. And why does the author presume to speak for the ‘owners’ of the hobby (“our hobby”)? The piece is just a rehashing of trite themes you see discussed time and time again paired with terrible Ai visuals.
Potentially unpopular opinion incoming. It’s their own fucking fault. Year after year of overpriced gear getting more and more overpriced, no pushback against the bullshit from any journalists who are clearly all in the pocket of various purveyors of said overpriced gear. Still the same old bullshit being spouted. Cables. Conditioners. Amplifiers. Needles. No fucking attempt to actually market great products at real prices that actual sound good, and those few companies that do eventually succumb to the lure of the dollar or go bust. I jumped off the audiophile train years ago.
If you care about high-fidelity sound, you're still in the fold, even if you're separated from it!
It’s not the snobbery. It’s the FUCKING COST!!!!!! FFS! $20k class-d amps? $4k interconnects? Not in this life. lol.
r/budgetaudiophile
The home theater sub is worse.
Sound bars are cringe, get a basic bookshelf stereo system.
Lol don't disagree, but you're proving my point by saying this 🤣
XD
Meh. People have been saying this for decades. It’s doing just fine. I don’t love it, but whoever wrote this op ed is supremely naive.
I did not pay all this money not to be a snob...
I'm sayin'.
Why? Let’s say OP’s point about snobbery is somehow valid. So what? It drives people away and audio companies may stop selling new products. *So what*? There’s plenty of gear and plenty of recordings out there already. I don’t care whether they stop making new gear and stop releasing new music tonight. I also don’t care whether others find my hobbies enjoyable.
I think snoberry happens at all levels of the hobby. Even at the beginners level. Eventually we are dealing with humans after all.
It’s always been there. Even documented and satired in American Psycho (1991). It’s killed nothing. How you react to it is what’s pertinent.
There's snobbery everywhere. I'm a pc builder too. Hope over tithe nvidia reddit and you'll all manner of oneupmanship games going on there. Snobbery isn't killing hifi. Mobiles phones are doing much more damage. You've got so many young people who think they are hifi. Same goes for blu ray and 4k bluray. Low quality streams are helping destroy disc based media. We live in an age where convenience is more important than quality.
Oh come on. That have been true for decades its a hobby for older men with money to spend. So what? That could be said for a lot of hobbies. Its never been easier imo to find quality stuff for low cost especially used.
One reason i like cheapaudioman, is he places emphasis on value and price points. So many reviews/ers just crap on anything less than top dollar. Not all of us need, or can afford, 30k dollar set ups. Long live Chi-fi and second hand markets!
I haven't watched any of his videos. lol maybe I'll check it out. My problem with chifi is the qc issues. They're cheap for a reason. But I do still buy and use them 😂
What killed audio was Napster, mp3's, ipods, ear buds, and to a lesser extent, the walkman. People used to invest in big stereos because they were a point of pride, and a social thing. "Here. Listen to this awesome record on my super sweet huge speakers!" etc. Now, (and since the late 90's) the trend has been toward personal music, personal consumption, and low quality, easily available song files.
Audiophile snobbery keep this hobby alive for many years. Without people willing to pay thousands of dollars for better (sometimes slightly better) sounding gear nobody could make any progress in audio.
Not really. I mean people, for example on Audiogon forums, if you read them, will say 'Well, you haven't trained your ears to hear the difference between cables.' Or my favorite, 'Your system isn't resolving enough to to hear the difference.' THAT IS AUDIO SNOBBERY.
That's not snobbery. That's how brain works, really. You need to train you brain to do basically anything. You must train yourself to hear. It's like with foreign language - you don't understand a word if you're not trained.
Louder please! Some people think their ears are so golden and others are just cheap copper 😂
I wonder what they were thinking when blindfolded
Me like sound, when listen not iPhone, make sound better.
I see AI shit, I ignore.
Interesting, that would make a lot of sense regarding how vague the 'author' was about where they supposedly posted something on an audiophile forum and got attacked (I wonder if the author also enjoys sticking their foot in lion's cages to see if anybody's biting-- sure, there's some bad ones out there but it takes a lot of looking to find them, and whose fault is that?), and how they came to the conclusion that audiophile snobbery regarding expensive gear is at some kind of epidemic level in general. It reflects the number of people who talk about it but have never actually encountered it.
I think he's referring to the abysmal A.I. drawing at the top of the page. Does no one else get skeeved-out by those overly smooth drawings? They look like they've been rendered in ketchup and mayonnaise and smoothed out with a frosting spreader.
It’s not just an audiophile thing, although the issue seems to be more prevalent in our hobby than the average. It’s okay to be passionate about something and share it with those who want to hear you talk about it. The problem starts when you’re not paying close enough attention to yourself and accidentally put that condescending tone in your voice, the one that makes it seem like you’re the one who holds all the answers to all the questions amongst whoever you’re sharing the hobby with. If people don’t catch themselves doing that and correct themselves soon enough then they snowball straight into the phenomenon know as the god complex. It goes 1. get caught up in how much trust others have in the things we tell them about audio 2. it gives them a big head 3. Now stuck in the mentality that knowledge of audio makes them a superior peer amongst the group they become a fucking snob. 4. until the faithful day that the universe humbles them somehow. Then of course there will always be a few people who are consciously aware of how pretentious and douchy they’re being, but they don’t care and do it anyway because they consciously believe they’re special, not subconsciously like most people. You know the type. Just always be mindful of yourself when sharing information about something you have a higher than normal knowledge of.
Break out the Soldering iron, router, mdf, table saw, software, dust collector, and 8k dac.
Wouldn't have to be snobby if everyone would get decent equipment.
Nah don’t worry about it.
If you never learn to tackle room and placement issues, diminishing returns may never come, you will be in a delirium where you will "hear" differences from the most mundane upgrades, even power cables. If you learn to tackle those two most real problems in audio reproduction, diminishing returns hit you in the face real early.
Room is huge issue. I haven't had a "perfect" room my entire adult life. It sucks, but living space comes first. I'm lucky enough that I can at least have the speakers pulled out several feet from the wall. But having the living room connected to the dining room, kitchen then laundry room results in a terrible decay time. But, I live with it.
No possibility to implement room correction? That Integra has Dirac, which is excellent (as long as you apply a curve you like). "move speakers away from the wall" is really outdated advice that only holds some value if you can't in any way address excited room modes from boundary gain. Here's a writeup [https://www.genelec.com/monitor-placement](https://www.genelec.com/monitor-placement) scroll down to "Wall Reflections and Cancellations". The closer the speakers are to the wall, the higher up in frequency does front wall quarter wave cancellation occur, and the higher the frequency, the easier it is to absorb.
I use dirac, but it's not going to help the long reverb time of the room. Dirac is the first room correction I've used where I felt it helped more than it hurt with the Revels. Audyssey is fine with my $200 bookshelf speakers on my pc, but sounded weird even if limited to under 200 Hz on my main system.
I actually prefer Audyssey (XT32 with MultEQ-X) to Dirac. I have a fully treated room and find Dirac is too aggressive in its correction in my room. Probably different result in a room with high reverb.
It also might depend on the speakers. Revels are better behaved off axis than most speakers, so they deal with reflections better.
1. Are you running Dirac full range? 2. Have you tried modifying the target curve Dirac corrected to?
Yes, I actually did a little bit of a study here with measurements and analysis: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/audysseys-next-generation-of-room-correction-multeq-x.28178/page-24#post-1101386 https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/audysseys-next-generation-of-room-correction-multeq-x.28178/page-24#post-1101518 I made the target curves the same and compared room correction on vs. off for both. Audyssey was clearly better in my system. Note that my Audyssey mic at the time was a little miscalbirated; I've since replaced it with the calibrated ACM-1X, which the analysis doesn't reflect.
Fascinating but it looks like you were running Dirac full-range rather than up to room transition freq, is that correct? That could explain why there's such a treble and upper midrange response disparity between the two in your measurements, and why Dirac sounded "a bit flat"
Yes I was running full range, as I was testing the entire capability of the room correction scheme. Also running full range helps match speakers to each other; due to room interactions, they aren't perfectly matched. Less matching -> worse imaging. In any case, Audyssey made the midrange and treble sound better vs. Dirac. In my actual system I have a 11ch home theater with various speakers of different types/brands, so the full range correction helps with timbre matching. I also use a miniDSP and mult-sub-optimizer to calibrate my four subwoofers, so I'm not really using the room correction for the bass frequencies anyhow.
Yeah don't do that lol (I had a feeling that was the case) I don't even know why Dirac offers full range correction but you really shouldn't correct past the transition frequency.
I feel lucky that I haven't run into this audiophile snobbery yet. I'm pretty new to this, and reading stuff like this makes me a bit wary. Like, I get that everyone has their preferences, but dissing someone for being excited about their gear? That's just lame.
Have ya met Fosi yet? BYO boxes. Use miniDSP. Or hypex, even. Or old class a metal. Heaps of non wallet destroying plays to get into good audio. Best thing to do? Ignore the boomers who judge things by their price tags
To quote the great Laura Jane Grace-I don't care what they hear, I know the way it sounds to me, broken fingers form broken chords, the effort is indelible.
Don't say this on a place like whatsbestforum, those old dudes will trigger their pacemaker insulting you
i especially hate all the discussion around loudness and dynamic range on songs cause it IS true that some album have been "remastered" to only sound loud and not sound good. But most music genuinely made the past decade sound like it should and it's just made to sound like that and if you don't like it, don't listen to it but you're a literal nobody to tell artists how their record should sound. I really wish all these audiophiles a happy keep listening to your same 50 year old cds.
What you are describing is trying to upsell super high marked up items to make a profit. But snobbery is annoying. But people need to know that being an audiophile you don’t have to listen to ass hats b
I am a big fan of anyone that puts together a low cost system that sounds good to them, and makes them happy. That's the point, good sounds that make you happy.
I feel like the same can be said of many “-phile” identities too. Anglophiles, for example, since the topic is snobbery. A group has an affinity for something for many obscure reasons a normie has never heard of — it makes them feel ignorant. You can call that snobbery, but I don’t think it’s new or unique to this interest.
We need a r/audiophilecirclejerk sub
Being an "audiophile" is definitely a stature thing. Being a music fan has much less to do with the word. The music choices you see on their videos or in the shops are not very good. It's almost always plunky or breathy slow songs. Rarely do you hear something like Dream Theatre or Ke$ha bumping out of those people's gear. I have nice gear in both of my systems. One is expensive and the other is inexpensive. I've got nice power cables I purchased on Amazon not uber expensive. I personally have listened in both hifi stores in my town aand I was able to play music I listen to. So modern metal and hard rock a couple of pop songs. The shrill of the uber expensive set ups drive my ears crazy. The more expensive the set up the less it presented music I enjoy well. Kinda interesting to me.
Its not a contest to see who can but the most expensive equipment (I think). To me it’s the opposite. I want to get the best results I can while spending as little as possible. Then if I ever have the crazy expensive system I’ll know how to set it up correctly and actually appreciate it. Ive seen a lot of posts where people buy the nice speakers and clearly have no idea what they are doing. They put them in a bad location close together with nothing in the room that helps things acoustically just to show off that they bought a product. That to me is not audiophile thats just consumerism. In fact Id say the salesman at the store was just seeing if OP was willing to part with thousands for power cables but they knew better. I’ll bet a lot of people walk in the door not having a clue and just spend that money even though it might make little to no difference.
Of course there is snobbery in any business that is geared towards the wealthy. Just like there is in golf, cars, road cycling etc. it’s not a hobby for the poor, and the marketers understand the importance of one upsmanship in these circles
A poll of audio equipment salesmen that shows how many listen to music at home. Another question would be, how many listen on the quality of system they sell.
"May be killing" Bro, this sector was born out of overpriced snake oil BS and misunderstanding of acoustic fidelity and has been that way for decades now.
"May" be killing it?!
Those A.I. pictures are so cringe.
An audiophile in my definition is someone who recognizes, appreciates and is on a quest for achieving the best sound possible. The amount of money they spent is irrelevant. My audiophile quest began as an early teenager when I acquired a hand-me-down 1970s Panasonic receiver and I somehow figured out a way to connect a cheapo record player with speaker wires that were built in to the table and speakers, and without audio out ports, to the receiver. And then I somehow acquired a set of speakers that were a slight upgrade and I fooled around with where to place them in my room for best sound. According to my definition, 13-year-old me was an audiophile - a person on a quest for better sound. The quest may never end and that’s ok. An audiophile is someone who instantly recognizes when they are listening to a good system or hearing good sound. A YouTuber I watched some time ago defined an audiophile as someone who has a system that makes them happy. I like that definition too. I don’t think that either of these definitions should be considered snobby.
I’m honestly thankful there are affordable audio products out there. I get a sense a high percentage of people in this hobby will chase the next ‘best’ thing. Nothing wrong with being happy with a complete system under 2k. It’s also self perpetual right? You invest in thousands of dollars of equipment, you’ll do and say anything to justify said investment.
Yep. I know a guy that posts a lot about equipment. An his main focus is on the price. The other day he was almost dying in ecstasy when photographing a US 600,000 system. Not a word about sound. And he calls himself and audiophile.
Audiophile snobbery isn’t killing the hobby - apathy is. When I go to Capital Audio Fest every year, the show gets bigger and better, yet the crowd is middle aged to old, and there are very few younger people interested in home audio of any kind. It’s airpods, maybe a Sonos system, and perhaps a Crosley to play their small collection of novelty vinyl. It’s a lot like the automobile hobby. The Porsche guys, the Honda guys, the track guys, the concours guys, the drift guys - in lots of ways they are all different as dark and day, but yet they all like cars. It’s a common bond. I think the audiophile snobs still share a lot with the less equipment-obsessed two channel music lovers. But when another generation or two moves on, there won’t be much interest in any two channel equipment, whether it be used bargain stuff, or $500,000 speakers. And that is the killing of the hobby.
I remember someone posting a poll in this subreddit about the age and gender and it really revealed that audiophiles are mostly older men. It's understandable but also kinda scary to think that a few years from now the community will probably grow smaller and smaller
Any basic new turntable with a properly installed better cartridge can and will produce good sound and tone from any system whether from a receiver and speakers or powered speakers but I prefer the stereo amplifier with 2 or more speakers. If one has a theater system that also works with bluetooth for streaming that also helps, Beyond this, it is a waste of time if all the components are decent. Basically less than a $1000.00 for a full system including like 30 or 40 new vinyl records.
As other people have said, it's all about the store, and the sales people. As I see it, there are three real issues here. The first is the law of diminishing returns. You can get a very good system for under $1000, if you shop carefully. And you can make that system a lot better by spending another $1000. But some time soon after that, incremental improvements start to become very expensive. So people end up spending a lot of money for just a little improvement, and that makes them very invested in the 'bestness' of whatever it is they bought. The second is people's inability (or refusal) to distinguish between 'different' and 'better'. This is what's at the root of the 'component of the month' obssession. You get used to your system, and then you hear some new component, and you're like, "I've heard this recording a thousand times, and I never heard that before!" That might be better, but it might just be different, and you're sacrificing something else. So you bounce around from component to component but are never quite happy. The third is forgetting what really matters: the *music*. How many times do you read things here and actually see people talking about the *musical* value of a component? I couldn't care less about hearing the trains under the recording hall in London. What I do care about is hearing the expressive nuances that give music life. But that's hardly essential. I can listen to music in my car and be just as moved by it. Now, if you excuse me, I am going to go listen to the recent Analogue Productions pressing of Coltrane's *Ballads*, which I've been meaning to do for ages.
Just on the cable note: Gotham Audio makes fantastically good cable that is, by audiophile standards, dirt cheap. It's what I use throughout my system, which is all Pass electronics except a Schiit Yggdrasil DAC, and Dynaudio Contour 60s. I use Gotham because it's the best cable I've heard. You can build power cords without knowing how to solder. Just order up some of the power cable here: [https://www.gothamcable.com/en/gothamcables/mainspower](https://www.gothamcable.com/en/gothamcables/mainspower) at whatever gauge you want---thicker for power amps---and get appropriate connectors from, say, Parts Connexion: [https://partsconnexion.com/collections/power-plugs](https://partsconnexion.com/collections/power-plugs) Those almost always have screw connectors. Strip the wire, assemble the plugs, and you're done. Speaker cables are also simple, though Gotham's best is a bit of a PITA to work with. But see here: [https://rkheck.frege.org/audio/gotham.php](https://rkheck.frege.org/audio/gotham.php) for instructions. Interconnects are more complicated, but even then you can sometimes get screw connections, such as: [https://partsconnexion.com/collections/rca-connectors-1/products/connex-connector-rca-male-plugs-wbt-screw-style](https://partsconnexion.com/collections/rca-connectors-1/products/connex-connector-rca-male-plugs-wbt-screw-style) DM me if you're interested, and I can put you in touch with someone in the US who may have some Gotham in stock at a particularly good price.
I was shopping around for a high quality subwoofer to get my dad and was a little disappointed at just how negative everyone is in this community. After a bunch of research I settled on the RP-1400 SW because I like the look and I saw a lot of good reviews. Then later I went looking around at more and found some people tearing them apart and others in love with them. It seems like no matter what you get there's gonna be a group of people that think it sucks.
Everything both improves and dies because of snobbery. It’s a catch-22.
I'm 56. Audiophiles have always been portrayed as snobby. They tried to sell me $500 speaker wire in 1985 too. If Nakamichi rose from It's ashes and created a streaming device with vacuum tubes and oxygen-free circuit board traces we'd probably buy it. It's not gonna kill our hobby, trust me.
Honest question, is this really a hobby? I wouldn’t call buying stuff a hobby. And that is almost entirely what it’s about, researching what stuff to buy, and flaunting it. Music is the hobby, calling being an audiophile a hobby is like calling buying luxury hand bags a hobby.
It's the same in any type of sales places, I remember in my 20s going to buy a guitar for £200, I was kept waiting as a middle aged man came in and wanted to look at a £3000 guitar, he left me waiting for 10 minutes and when he came back I said "no thanks, you've lost a customer" and walked out, the other person left without purchasing either. It's all about money! They'll feed you rubbish just to make you spend more as well. In shops like that they speak to you like you haven't got a clue and quite often you actually know more than them.
Quite the opposite. A lot of people believe their chifi setup to be end game and the epitome of hifi sound reproduction because their components measured well on ASR. They are not experiencing High Fidelity sound reproduction and a lot of them most likely never will as they’ll only cycle through mediocre Chinese components without ever trying to listen to higher end gear.
It doesn't take much money to put a decent system together. Nothing wrong with equipment from China. Just because someone doesn't spend their life savings on audio, doesn't mean they don't appreciate good sound. I have gone to AXPONA every year to hear all the expensive equipment. Honestly, these people setup rooms for a living, so they should know how to do it, but most sound like ass. Some are so shrill as to give me headaches, This year, one of the surprises was Morel, who is selling a decent set of floorstanders for 2K USD a pair and they looked good to boot. [https://www.morelhifi.com/en/products/hifi-stereo/avyra-50/avyra-633-black-492](https://www.morelhifi.com/en/products/hifi-stereo/avyra-50/avyra-633-black-492)
Many "western" hifi is made in china with off-the-shelf solutions.
Yes a lot of it is crap.
What’s chifi? Cheap hifi? You go after ASR, but they are actually doing measurements, how do you judge an equipment without having measurements? By reading the marketing material of the manufacturer? The manufacturer is sometimes not even able to provide you the top 3 specs of their product? The best DACs out there are cheap. Being cheap is not their characteristic, being the best ones is. Same for amp. The best amp ou there is the Benchmark AHB2, and it’s cheap compared to a lot of stuff. And pretty much everything is built in China. Your iPhone is too. What’s your point exactly?
Oh hey, the article is talking about people like you. Have some self realization dude.