[choweee]

i just had a question for y'all.

how did you guys (and girls) enter the world of audiophilicity?

i noticed that out of all my friends, i'm one of the only ones that appreciates music to the extent that i do. and when i think about why, my mind drifts back to the years after years of piano, cello, guitar, drums, and music theory that i've had. that's what makes me savor and truly enjoy sitting back and simply listening to music. and then that made me think, well, here's an entire forum dedicated to headphone/music lovers, and this led me to an idea.

is being an audiophile related to being a musician?

any thoughts, comments would be very enlightening.

 

[headphonegeek]

for me yes.singing led to the world of audio.

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

The only instrument I've played was 2nd grade recorder

 

[rextrade]

I wouldn't really call myself an audiophile, but I appreciate good sound at least. I don't think being a (former) musician had much to do with it. It was acutally after I stopped playing music so much that I developed an audio habit, but playing music definitely helps me appreciate audio nuances better. When I played in bands, maybe my ears were just too tired to sit back and appreciate the nuances of reproduced music.

 

[Entropism]

Most of my friends are in bands, great musicians, but when I play them something that shows off sound quality, like my car, they just shrug. Then they pop in a 128K MP3 CD. Ugh.

 

[GirgleMirt]

I'm starting to see a pattern here, weak musicians who can't produce good sound with their instruments look for it elsewhere!

Heh, I guess playing an instrument already means that you somehow appreciate music, and the fact that you have some knowledge about it also makes it more enjoyable to listen to.

Plus, musicians usually have better (trained) ears than the common folk, so their demands are bound to be higher than someone who can't tell Bose from [insert high-end gear]..

btw, I'm a former violion player who migrated towards the guit, wouldn't consider myself an audiophile though.. And it was more curiosity which brought me to hifi, see how good things could really sound, and hear what I was missing on some of my favorite disk.

 

[Bill Ward]

I'd say only a small percentage of "audiophiles" are musicians, failed musicians, or musician wanna-bes. Probably the bulk of the audiophile community consists of people to whom music speaks with an irresistable allure. The addiction consists in pursuing ever more satisfying means of sound reproduction in order to optimze the pleasure music brings.

I've never played anything more musical than the radio, and I won't even sing in the shower, but I can't imagine a day when music isn't part of my experience. No doubt a background in performance or music theory brings its rewards to audiophilia, but I doubt it's a necessary or even a causative factor.

BW

 

[tiberian]

i love music, i now play guitar and bass, used to play trumpet in secondary school...
its all about getting the right sound and the emotion within...

 

[D-EJ915]

As I learned on a previous thread such as this, it is the job of a musician, namely a performer, to cause the audience to be filled with emotion, this doesn't necessarily have to "sound good" to do so. I do, however, think live sound is horrific from an audiophile's standpoint. I play the guitar lone, now...no more baritone/euphonium for me

 

[Garbz]

I woke up to it one day. A long time ago I could hear the difference between at 96kbps mp3 and a 128 but could go no higher. I'm a quality freak, you know like Oscar Wild "I have the simplest taste of all, I want only the best."

So I didn't buy Sony street style headphones where everyone else bought cheap $2 things for music but because ... well I wanted something better.

Since I've always listened to music religously one day some clients of mum (2 germans both massive audiophiles) invited us for dinner, and I noticed a room in their house with just 2 speakers a sofa and an amp / cdplayer. When they came over a few weeks later one of them looked at my system and just said it was complete junk.

How dare he I spent $300 on my reciever and it was second hand and had a $900RRP. But he was right after listening to his setup once I started saving up for something new.

But the turning point where I really became an audionut was when I went to Northside HiFi and heard a JMLabs test disc played on the Bowers and Wilkins Nautilus, and Electrocompaniet NEMO pair. Since then I've never looked back.

(acutally buying an Electrocmpaniet ECI-3, B&W 705s shortly)

 

[zachary80]

Quote:

Originally Posted by choweee i just had a question for y'all. how did you guys (and girls) enter the world of audiophilicity? i noticed that out of all my friends, i'm one of the only ones that appreciates music to the extent that i do. and when i think about why, my mind drifts back to the years after years of piano, cello, guitar, drums, and music theory that i've had. that's what makes me savor and truly enjoy sitting back and simply listening to music. and then that made me think, well, here's an entire forum dedicated to headphone/music lovers, and this led me to an idea. is being an audiophile related to being a musician? any thoughts, comments would be very enlightening.

I took lessons and played instruments for years without listening to music. Then one of my teachers suggested that I would improve more if I listened to similar music....and it all went downhill from there

 

[CRESCENDOPOWER]

For me it all started by tape recording songs from AM, and FM radio in the mid 70’s on my crappy tape recorder. After a while of analyzing the recordings even I could understand that they didn’t sound natural; then the journey began. I am still jealous today that I can’t play an instrument.

 

[MTL]

I don't really think that there's a relation between being a musician and the way you reproduce recorded music at home.
BBC Music Magazine used to have a series on 'sound rooms' some years ago. These were all people in the music business - and only a hand full of them had more or less decent systems or cared about the set up of their speakers etc.
Knowing quite a few professional musicians myself I can second this observation: the majority of them does not seem to care how it sounds - and, lets face it, they may be right... To appreciate or judge an interpretation of some (classical) composition, a Tivoli mono radio usually will do (at least that's what I sometimes think while away from my system on holiday). This does not mean that I do not enjoy my more or less audiophile system back at home then.

 

[DarkAngel]

(Related topic.....)
Unfortunately as silly as it sounds many audiophiles know very little about music and invest very little time/effort in obtaining music.......they are obsessed with equipment not music. I know people who have 100k audio systems and less than 200 albums of music.

Just by looking at Head-Fi thread counts you see vast majority of people want to discuss technical details about headphones, amp, cables or any inane topic other than music. Majority of members at Head-Fi don't discuss music in music forum beacuse it is not main priority.......getting best headphone/amp (usually collection of them) is priority.

There is almost zero discussion of music at Audiogon, and when people have threads asking how much people spend on equipment vs music you can see why........it's all about getting better audio gear, music is only needed to test gear so you can get better gear.

 

[zachary80]

DarkAngel, what you say may be true, but a lot of people on here talk about equpment because thats the main focus of headfi (along with audiogon). Look how many equipment subforums there are compared to music. Also, I don't talk as much about the music because to me, there is nothing really worth talking about. We hear the same music, and everything is just ones perception of it. And one person may prefer a song the other doesn't, similar to equipment, but the song costs $1, instead of a cd player which costs $300.