[sleightofhand]

I am going to break audio equipment into three categories that I simply made up.
The precise line that separates these categories is really unimportant and not the point of my post. 
 
 
Consumer (TV speakers. Apple headphones, Sub $20 headphones)
 
Consumer Pro ($100 Headphones, Bose surround sound, Alpine car stereo)
 
Audiophile. (Grado 325is, Paradigm....you get the idea)
 
 
 
I recently stepped into, what is for me, audiophile. ( Essence XTS soundcard/amp paired with Grado 325is)
 
And I pondered how this setup has now effected my old setup? Would it make me a snob and cringe when listening to
Consumer/Pro setups? 
 
Consumer- I cringed before I got into audiophile. So that is amplified. 
 
Consumer Pro
-This has been a mixed bag. I noticed with the Grado's, that I could only listen to 
good studio recordings only. I use to listen to live music a lot and it doesn't come across as well. 
Now I feel Consumer Pro sounds better for live recordings, but much much worse for studio recordings.
Also, audiophile is great for, what I call, critical listening. But, when I want to juice it and just "rock out"
I almost prefer consumer pro. (I am no bass hound by the way)
 
I just wanted to get a feel for everyone's experience when they first made that oh-so-sweet leap into audiophile.

 

[Gondee]

I see what you mean. Its certainly a large step!

 
 
For me its just as much about the music as it is the quality and fedelity at which its played. I can still stand Ipod buds, but every couple minutes it hits me that it sounds "off".

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,
 
I think you're confusing audiophilia and high fidelity. Audiophilia is simply the love of music, you appreciate it to a point that it needs a name. For this, anything with sufficient quality to keep your ears happy will satisfy your needs. This is why consumer pro, as your grouping is described, is likely the best for just enjoying music and loving it. Critical listening, as you described, is more like the idea of High Fidelity. High Fidelity is basically trying to recreate the sound as it was recorded. Perfect mimic so to speak. It's the ultimate form of flattery. They can sometimes be grouped together if you think about how they cross paths. But trying to build a high fidelity setup is different from simply wanting a higher end consumer pro setup for simply enjoying music with the ability to take advantage of higher quality recorded music (lossless).
 
I'm actually not that big into high fidelity, so to speak. I actually don't want my rendered audio to sound exactly as it was recorded. I enjoy a bit more bass. So I'm not into the whole flat response/neutral setups that pure high fidelity would require. I simply have different headphones that are better for various things, to me, so I have several `consumer pro' headphones as you described for my various tastes.
 
Sometimes I toss on Pandora to discover new artists/musics. Pandora One is 192kbps. Nothing great. But it's good enough for listening and I'm not critical to it since I'm essentially listening to the radio. You can hear the compression sometimes depending on your setup and especially after listening to some tracks that are lossless. I still do it though, because finding new music to enjoy is the point of all this `audiophile' business. Enjoying music.
 
Very best,

 

[rosgr63]

That's spot on.
 
Enjoying the music, that's what is all about!
 
How you go about it, is not that critical as long as you enjoy the music.