What is an audiophile? If anybody qualifies for those silly hats with
little propellers on top, it is the audiophile. Probably the last perservering
nerds, now that computer hacking is respectable, almost mystical. Audiophiles
aren't into listening to music, playing it, dancing to it, or any of the
things you are supposed to do with it - although oddly enough they also
aren't into objective reality, hard facts, critical reasoning, or any of
the left brained activities that one would suspect people who can't dance
would be interested in.
What audiophiles do is sit around and try to tell if they can hear
a difference between one brand of ridiculously overpriced cables and another,
or lament how record players kick CDs (although they don't actually use
the word "kick", except for Corey Greenburg, the former Enfant
Terrible of Stereophile, who is actually Joe Six Pack masquerading as a
junior audiophile - somebody you can almost take seriously, at least for
his taste in blues - and somebody who actually does listen to music, making
me conclude he is nearly - the operative word here is "nearly"
- successfull in fighting off the Audiophile virus).
The reason Audiophiles are so misguided is because they don't understand
that music, and hence stereos reproducing music, sound vastly different
depending on the hour of the day, your mood, what you just ate, who you
are with, and (zang!) your degree of involvement. The most involvement these
couch potatoes usually get is when they whip out their pens to write something
like "the midrange detail is somewhat occluded by a slightly recessed
area in the presence region, although this can be mitigated in part by standing
on your head and balancing your cat between your toes. I found the sound
to be slightly sweeter when using the XYZ P-2000 cables, although I am not
sure I would recommend spending $5000 on a pair of cables for a $600 pair
of speakers".
What's important here, kids, is that all stereos that don't cost more than
your house (or a small airplane) pretty much bite when compared to live
music. Each one will do a few things "right" that this or that
audiophile considers important, but at the expense of a whole buttload of
other things that basically scream "This is a stereo! Not Live music!".
But then again, who the Hell cares? The trick is to get involved. Stereos
sound about a zillion times better when you are dancing to them, playing
an instrument along, falling asleep in that zen state you get in when you
are half dreaming, listening with your friends, or just plain ignoring the
stereo, and listening to the music, which is what you are supposed to be
doing in the first place.
Now there are two good reasons to get a good stereo. The first is because
it sounds better, and the second is because it is more accurate. Let's break
these down into more detail.
Sounds Better! Less Filling!
Anyway, although most of the yinyangs that write for the stereo rags have
left any clues they might have once had in the attic with their old Beatles
albums, they are right about a few things. One is that what sounds great
in the store, or great at home for the first five minutes might really end
up sounding like crap on extended listening or living with it. Another is
that placement of the speakers is extremely important for the sound.
However, once they start talking about the degradation between the "bypass"
outputs of a preamp and the ones that go through the tone controls, you
know you are in dreamland. It seems to me that about 50% of what they say
is worthwhile, and the rest is nonsense. Not that there aren't differences
between these things, it's just that they don't really *make a difference*
to anybody who cares more about music than impressing their audiophile friends.
You want to hear differences? Switch between two CDs, even in the same genre.
You'll hear a difference (unless you have a truly lousy stereo which makes
everything sound the same - hint: car).
Now if a stereo has a sonic signature that annoys you, than it's bad. Whether
it is imaging problems, bass boom, harsh treble, wildly unrealistic sounding
violins, this is what separates the men from the boys (sorry, ladies - it's
just such a great sounding phrase). A good stereo will let each album (or
CD) sound different in it's own way, but all stereos normal mortals can
afford will impose some sonic signature. If it's just a fingerprint you're
on the right track, if it is a snowshoe sized impression on the sound, head
for the hills.
Which brings me to why you'd want a good stereo, and be willing to part
with the bucks to get it. It will sound good if you do it up right. Sounding
good usually means that you want to listen to it, even after you've had
it a while, and after you come back from the stereo store or your friend's.
If you can listen to it after live music, you either really like listening
to music, or you have a damn good stereo.
OK. So we buy a good stereo because it sounds good. What about accuracy?
Well, if you are a recording engineer, or like to hear every detail in the
music you listen to (hint: you're in a cover band, or a budding producer/engineer),
than you want (need) accuracy. The best way to get that is with decent headphones.
Unless you are willing to accept serious compromise, or have more money
than Godzilla has bits of building stuck in his (her?) toenails, get good,
efficient, headphones. Get a decent preamp with enough juice through the
headphone jack to drive something decent (most CD players can't handle decent
headphones, especially on peaks).
Recommendations - NAD integrated AMP, Discman, Sennheiser 560s (warning:
540s are kind of harsh and shrill), Grados if you can afford them. if you're
really on a budget, get Sony MDR-CD6 cans and plug them direct into your
discman (they are super efficient, so a wheenie jack out of a CD can drive
them). Don't forget to take frequent breaks, and keep the volume down! It's
real easy to fry your ears with headphones, and you'll regret it.
More on accuracy: It's often said that you sacrifice accuracy for a musical
sound, and vice versa. Kind of like the Heisenburg uncertainty principle
of audio. Audioholics will contend that with real top shelf components you
get both. Well, Virginia, you probably don't want accuracy for what is on
most recordings. They were either recorded with wildly aberrant monitors,
peaky mikes, or mixed by people who are considered deaf by law on 39 states.
Slap on the headphones if you have to hear exactly what Skeet is doing on
the 4th guitar track (the one mixed way back to the left behind the slide
whistle and tambourine sitting on top of the washing machine), otherwise
get a stereo with reasonable accuracy that *sounds good*!
Now, you probably don't really know yourself what sounds good, that's what
those stereo magazines are for. Some of them will take 30,000 measurements
of things you wouldn't even learn about if you got a dual PHD in astrophysics
and signal processing, and some of them will totally eschew measurements
(but not obfuscation) and prattle on about things like "air" and
"transparency". Don't believe any of them, but unfortunately unless
you have lots of experience listening to different components, you can't
trust your own ears either. The best you can do is pick how much you can
spend, audition as much as you can stand at a few different shops (and maybe
your friends if you are lucky), get whatever you like the most, be prepared
to change some of it over the next few years, and than (most important part)
never look at an audio magazine again.
Actually, the best thing you can probably do is chop your stereo budget
in half, get a decent TV and laserdisk, and dream about surround sound systems
(we'll get to this another day).
If you feel that you are succombing to audiophilia, quick grab some Zeppelin
(recommended: Kashmir, Houses of the Holy), and crank it! If you won't listen
to this kind of music you can stop reading now.
The Real Thing!
Sometimes you will encounter someone who actually does know what they are
talking about. Usually they will be a real musician (or engineer), or build
equipment (hint: not cables). These are people who can tell the difference
between different crossover slopes in speakers, can hear when tubes are
ringing, can dial a subwoofer in by ear, can sing a 1k tone by ear, and
can tell what is really going on in the music. Unfortunately, they will
be lumped into the audiophile category too (they might even think they are
audiophiles, but they are really something else without any word to describe
it, except perhaps "talented").
When you meet somebody like this, imprison them in your house and feed them
whatever they want until they escape. Get all the information from them
you possibly can and listen to music with them 20 hours a day. Write down
what they say! Don't let other audiophiles near them as the other audiophiles
may become confused and possibly form a club of which they will want you
to be a member. Basically an audiophile club is like a chess club without
the chess, except if you are lucky they will have decent imported beer at
meetings, possibly with food.
Truly talented individuals sometimes stray into audiophile delusion and
start talking about the merits of $10,000 CD transports (transports! The
damn things don't even make any sound, you have to spend another $10k on
a D/A, and $900 on a digital cable, to hear them, dummy!) - you can always
tell the real thing, though, when they enjoy music in your car or on your
cheap stereo you bought (because you took my advice and spent the rest of
your money on a road bike, a powerbook, and a couple of vegi pizzas). The
real thing won't even make fun of your stereo, in fact they usually won't
even talk about the stereo (unless you bring it up), just the music and
what they are hearing.
Bad objectivists :-(
Just as there are audiophiles who have something besides 30 years of wax
between their ears, there are also scientific objectivists who are such
total beetbrains that they actually lend credence to the crazy audiophile
voodoo ravings by doing things even stupider than buying CDs made out of
gold (and I'm not talking about the kind you get from Dean Whitter here).
There are fanatics on both sides of the fence, and some rabid objectivists
don't even bother to listen to stereo equipment, unless they are conducting
moronic experiments such as AB/ing cables through 2 way monitors in a 400'
x 600' auditorium to prove "there is no difference between cables".
Here's a Zen audiophile koan for you: Without AB tests we can tell nothing.
AB tests tell us nothing.