[krmathis]

No, not once so far.

 

[Lime Cat]

Sorry for stoling your thunder jdimitri, can't escape the 'gees.

What Aman wrote, well me thinks he's right. But most things we human do are, at least in my opinion, nonconstructive. So is any "real" hobby anything other than pastime in the end as well?

 

[porschemad911]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slaughter /img/forum/go_quote.gif leng jai, I just got into this hobby a couple months ago and recently I found myself asking the same questions. I also think this hobby can be perceived as frustrating because you buy a pair of cans, amp or source, just to relaize you still want more, then you have to try and sell it and move on. It is an extremist's hobby. Why is it that we can usually find 1 pair of speakers that we are happy with, but we need different headphones for different genres of music? I guess it is a curse to like too many genres. I will stay in this hobby because of the journey, but it will mostly be middle of the road as I have too many hobbies and not enough cash to support them all.

I agree with what you're saying, which is why I'm so happy I've found my perfect system. The fact that it didn't cost the earth (perfect condition Denon CD player $120 AU, brand new LDII+ $260 AU and perfect condition AKG K-501 $165 AU) is a wonderful bonus! I love it for all genres, and don't plan on changing a thing.

 

[ClieOS]

Repond to what Aman said:
Beside of sitting in a dark room listen to music, i do headphones and amps DIY, mod and tweak...i do consider myself an audiophile (at least compare to all my friends and family), and not all audiophiles sit on the dark and do nothing (but listening to music). If my friends got a headphones/equipment problem, they usually turn to me and i give them my best answer (socially productive TOO

)

Look at how Wiki define hobby, "...Hobbies are practiced for interest and enjoyment, rather than financial reward..."

Beside, how many people here in HF actually involved in music-related business after becoming an audiophile? I am sure those people in HeadRoom or Firestone etc are mostly audiophile themselves. They even make their living out of it.

 

[Aman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ClieOS /img/forum/go_quote.gif Repond to what Aman said: Beside of sitting in a dark room listen to music, i do headphones and amps DIY, mod and tweak...i do consider myself an audiophile (at least compare to all my friends and family), and not all audiophiles sit on the dark and do nothing (but listening to music). If my friends got a headphones/equipment problem, they usually turn to me and i give them my best answer (socially productive TOO ) Look at how Wiki define hobby, "...Hobbies are practiced for interest and enjoyment, rather than financial reward..." Beside, how many people here in HF actually involved in music-related business after becoming an audiophile? I am sure those people in HeadRoom or Firestone etc are mostly audiophile themselves. They even make their living out of it.

I'm sorry, but if you are going to place audiophilia on the level of a "hobby", then that is one damn unproductive, superficial, and sad hobby right there. The constant quest to achieve the "perfect sound", by spending an exorbitant amount of money, is not anywhere near a hobby in my book. Audiophilia doesn't even include the concept of intellectually enjoying and understanding the music (and many "audiophiles" don't do this) - it's perhaps one of the lowest forms of "hobby" I can think of, I am forced to call it that.

As I said before, hobbies should be productive in some manner - writing, building, painting; those are hobbies. Spending a bunch of money on shiny electronics is not.

 

[Andrea]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aman /img/forum/go_quote.gif The discrepancy that must be made is that you actually call this a "hobby". I believe that is too broad a term - some dictionaries may define the word as any activity for self-enjoyment or benefit, but when I think "hobby", I think model building, or writing. I don't think about spending exorbitant amounts of money on audio gear and then sitting in the dark by yourself enjoying it. In other words, I usually consider a hobby something that requires some level of skill and dedication. Don't elevate this whole audiophile craze to the level of "hobby". This is a pastime. This is a nonconstructive thing we take part in. We get nothing out of it but enjoyment and, for those who listen to the right music, an intellectual heightening. However, if you're talking about the people who build cables, do hardware tweaks, or actually make music (I am a member of this sadly small demographic on these boards), that is certainly a hobby. The only "joke" going around here is that you call this a hobby. No hobby is ever a joke. Hobbies - be it collecting, or crafting, or creating - are always worthwhile in the end; either financially or productively (sometimes both).

What a strict, pedantic, and egotistic view!

In turn, by my definition of "hobby", anything that playfully heightens your faculties is a hobby. And since man's faculties are far, far broader than man's intellect, anything pleasurable that actually results in some kind of useful experience and adds up to your own wisdom is deservingly a hobby.


The only joke I'm seeing is the lack of discernment between the people who live the hobby in a sober fashion, coniugating playfulness to usefulness for their various faculties; and the people who live it insensibly & frivolously, either endlessly chasing an abstract/ephemeral aim or addictively seeking sensual pleasure through their ears (usually both things go together). Naturally the distinction is so clear cut just for illustrative purpose...

 

[martythestickman]

when was the last time anybody actually just sat down, turned the volume up to a nice listenable level, closed their eyes, and listened to a track they love?

it even works with ibuds...

 

[aluren]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aman /img/forum/go_quote.gif As I said before, hobbies should be productive in some manner - writing, building, painting; those are hobbies. Spending a bunch of money on shiny electronics is not.

i think you're talking about passion rather than hobby. people who are passionate in music or audiophilia would actually try to make music or develop audio equipment. enjoying other people's creation is a hobby. for example, collecting coins is a hobby because we enjoy and admire other people's artwork in coin making. we also enjoy the rarity of certain coins. i rarely see people who collect coins or stamps actually make their own coins or stamps... so buying coins to collect is a hobby, but buying audio equipment is not? in both scenarios they are buying for enjoyment...

 

[ClieOS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aman /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm sorry, but if you are going to place audiophilia on the level of a "hobby", then that is one damn unproductive, superficial, and sad hobby right there. The constant quest to achieve the "perfect sound", by spending an exorbitant amount of money, is not anywhere near a hobby in my book. Audiophilia doesn't even include the concept of intellectually enjoying and understanding the music (and many "audiophiles" don't do this) - it's perhaps one of the lowest forms of "hobby" I can think of, I am forced to call it that. As I said before, hobbies should be productive in some manner - writing, building, painting; those are hobbies. Spending a bunch of money on shiny electronics is not.

From Wiki:
Audiophile, from Latin audire "hear" and Greek philos "loving," is a person dedicated to achieving high fidelity in the recording and playback of music

Being an audiophile has nothing to do with buying fancy player nor headphone. It is about music loving. You seem to confuse music lover to gadget lover. You say about 'intellectually enjoying and understanding the music', are you think all audiophile should be musician that spend 5 years on music study? We are audiophile, not musician.

We love music, and believe in using certain combination of equipment with enhance our experience. It could be a stock ipod earbud or a K701. If you believe spending money will de-value a hobby, than i am truly feeling sorry for you. Thinks about those who love car, collect rare stamps or posters, or even home improvement, many of these activities bring no true value to those who perform them, and most of them can cost a lot of money.

You associate a hobby to productiveness/usefulness and try to measure it by its return? Fun is its return, and you can not measure fun. If i have a sad hobby any day, that is only because i am not enjoying it!

 

[jdimitri]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ClieOS /img/forum/go_quote.gif From Wiki: Audiophile, from Latin audire "hear" and Greek philos "loving," is a person dedicated to achieving high fidelity in the recording and playback of music

The key word there is actually high fidelity..
The 'real' meaning of audiophile actually doesn't involve most of the self-proclaimed audiphiles here..

Doesn't matter what the dictionary says, it goes:
standard/lo-fi- where the majority of music listeners are, it's only the music that matters
hi-fi- what's taken by the current world as better sounding equipments than the usual (eg ibuds, $10 computer speakers), music matters as much as the equipment

the real high fidelity, which is audiophile quality, is where one attempts to extract the most out of the music via their equipment.. The key here is that they're constantly changing their equipment
Done by spending a lot of money on speakers, amps, dacs, power cables, interconnects and so on so forth
Here, music is usually less important than the equipment

The border is sometimes vague.. i'd say most people here are under hi-fi bordering audiophile

at least that's my take on it, i've known a number of people from each category

 

[Andrea]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ClieOS /img/forum/go_quote.gif You associate a hobby to productiveness/usefulness and try to measure it by its return? Fun is its return, and you can not measure fun. If i have a sad hobby any day, that is only because i am not enjoying it!

And enjoyment is perfectly worthy in that it's a way of knowing the world like any other - just like a child experiences the world through the pleasure of his/her senses. Of course it's a different level of knowledge hopefully

 

[F107plus5]

Well...jokes are supposed to be "funny" and something that I find to be "funny" is just how many listeners here have just tons and tons of cans and amps and sources.

Funny. Strange, interesting.

I can see the seeds of it in the comparison between my MS-1/MS2i and my KSC75.

For just a bit less than 2% of the time the KSC75 beats the MS-1/MS2i group out in bass response. Some notes or bass hits sound better through the 75s. Over 98% of the time the MSs beat out the 75s, but that nasty little note or two here or there makes me realize that the MS2i CAN be improved upon. And it's driving me cuckoo.

Maybe it's my amp. Maybe the MS2i/MS-1 just needs a bit stronger hand to control the bass of the MS2i vs the KSC75.

I'll have to ask my wallet if it makes sense to pay an additional $300 or more to find out if I can get my $300 phones to improve over just one aspect of a $10 set of cans.

Funny business.

......I can get a glimps of the future here; and it's disturbing.

EDIT....yeah, I was planning on getting a better amp after getting the HD600s later anyway....but that ain't the point.

 

[bazmonkey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ClieOS /img/forum/go_quote.gif You seem to confuse music lover to gadget lover. You say about 'intellectually enjoying and understanding the music', are you think all audiophile should be musician that spend 5 years on music study?

No offense, but you seem to confuse the Greek roots of the word "audiophile" with what the rest of the English-speaking world means when they use the word. Being labelled an audiophile implies a bit more than one's music appreciation. It implies that you own/use/are interested in high-fidelity sound equipment, that you engage in practices and purchases that no "normal" person would ever consider, and that your fascination goes deeper than merely the music itself, into the actual recording and reproduction of it. The world is full of people who have a genuine fondness of music. The world is not full of audiophiles.

If boiled down to the mere aquisition of audio equipment, then yeah, what we do here is a joke. Buying headphone after another, arguing till we're blue about burn-in and thousand-dollar freakin' cables, essentially showing off our financial coolness in our signatures, that's no hobby at all. I'd like to hope, however, that gathering audio equipment is, for most of us, ultimately a mere step in our common love of music. And that, a deep, critical appreciation of music, is a mighty fine hobby.

I like to compare it to a sport, like football. What we do here (what an average person would consider the audiophilic part) is like merely shopping and talking about sports equipment. The hobby itself is playing the game. Lots of people play football now and then. We're just really serious about it.

 

[ClieOS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bazmonkey /img/forum/go_quote.gif No offense, but you seem to confuse the Greek roots of the word "audiophile" with what the rest of the English-speaking world means when they use the word. Being labelled an audiophile implies a bit more than one's music appreciation. It implies that you own/use/are interested in high-fidelity sound equipment, that you engage in practices and purchases that no "normal" person would ever consider, and that your fascination goes deeper than merely the music itself, into the actual recording and reproduction of it. The world is full of people who have a genuine fondness of music. The world is not full of audiophiles.

None taken.
I am not a native English speaker, nor a good one. But no English dictionary in the world AFAIK said an audiophile values equipments more than the music they produced. A common definition of audiophile will be like "A person having an ardent interest in stereo or high-fidelity sound reproduction.", and i just blindly assume one who interested in reproducing Hi-Fi sound will be interested in listening to those sound too. Of course, like you said there are those who buy things for showing off, or buying stuff because they like to shop. In any case i believe we can all understand they are not audiophile by any means.

The idea of labeling an audiophile as a person who only interested in equipment is somewhat troubling for me to understand. I personally like the answer i got from answer.com:
"Quite often, audiophiles are as passionate about the equipment they use as the music they listen to."

 

[NiceCans]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ClieOS /img/forum/go_quote.gif The idea of labeling an audiophile as a person who only interested in equipment is somewhat troubling for me to understand. I personally like the answer i got from answer.com: "Quite often, audiophiles are as passionate about the equipment they use as the music they listen to."

I am as passionate about my headphone rig as I am about my coffee grinder and sewing machine . . . . I have little regard for these objects in-an-of-themselves, but much for the results they produce and enjoyment they yield.