- Joined
- Apr 12, 2004
- Posts
- 8,216
- Likes
- 817
But the thread is about "why do no audiophiles listen to electronic music", the question then, is to ask yourself: If you did have something high end, something well above a competent system, how would you test its accuracy? Its soundstage? There's no doubt that you would still enjoy electronic music the most, but it might not be the only genre you try if you wanted to test the system.
For me it's not about accuracy when listening to electronica on high-end audio equipment, nor necessarily about soundstage either. But certain sub-genres of electronica can be incredibly useful in evaluating:
- Clarity and by extension, level of congestion resulting from multiple simultaneous streams of sound (ambient, IDM). Most non-electronic music just doesn't get very sonically complex.
- Frequency extension (ambient, techno, breakbeat, IDM, EBM, DNB, et al)
- Blackness of background / level of silence (ambient)
- Attack & decay, and by extension impulse response (ambient, IDM, DNB)
Ambient electronica in particular is so useful to me personally that it's the first type of music that I use to evaluate most equipment. I can use it to evaluate clarity, treble frequency extension (and quantity), blackness of the background, attack & decay, and soundstage. I listen to classical and acoustic music too, but neither of those are as immediately useful, and most gear tends to make both of them sound good anyway. I've found it much harder for gear to truly pull off ambient electronica, whether it's a set of headphones, or an amp, or even the source.