What Is An Audiophile? How to Become One?

Being an audiophile goes beyond being an everyday music lover or owning a complete catalog of the top artists in your iTunes library. Audiophiles are passionate about high-quality audio and will devote themselves to having the best possible listening experience.

However, this does not mean owning the most expensive audio equipment will make you an audiophile! Here's a full guide to help you understand who an audiophile is and how to identify if you're an audiophile.

Who is an Audiophile?

The term "Audiophile" is a combination of two words - audio and philein. While audio is a common English word, philein is a Greek word that implies "to love." Thus, an audiophile is simply a music fanatic, an audio freak, or a sound nerd. To be termed an audiophile, a person must understand music and music equipment well.

Therefore, an audiophile can be defined as someone highly passionate about audio reproduction quality, including music tracks and movie soundtracks. Audiophiles will primarily seek to reproduce the top quality of an audio recording in their houses via high-fidelity equipment such as an amplifier, speaker, turntable, D/A converter, and headphones to experience a playback level that resembles the original recording.

If they are in a live concert, an audiophile will strive to get the finest recording in the event and seek to play it in a home environment similar to a live show. While it's hard to playback recorded audio at the same quality it was recorded at, an audiophile will tirelessly spend money, time, and resources to attain that quality.

Are you that person? Audiophiles are also fascinated by the science behind audio reproduction- how songs are recorded and how the recording equipment is manufactured. They are also curious about sound engineering, speakers’ technology, and the pros of different audio file formats. So, how do you become an audiophile if you are not one?

How to Become an Audiophile

To befit an audiophile, you must train your ears to listen to different sounds from different equipment and take note of how the different audio settings impact your listening experience. You must also invest in the right equipment and learn the different vocabulary used to differentiate complexities in various audio. Let’s dive deeper!

1. Train Your Ear to Identify Hi-Fi (High-Fidelity) Sound

For your ears to start identifying high-fidelity sounds, you must expose them to different sound qualities. You can begin this by distinguishing audio quality from live events or recorded musical concerts. While noticing the differences in quality, avoid listening to standard MP3s (lossy files); instead, go for music produced in a lossless format such as FLAC or WAV. The two formats differ in the type of data they contain.

Lossless file formats have raw data, while MP3s are compressed versions of unedited files. During the compression, some data is lost and thus altering the sound of the first recording. To become an audiophile, you must differentiate the sound quality of different sound recording formats!

2. Get to Know Your Equipment

How do you know if your equipment works best? Start by experimenting with the different sound settings that your device has. What happens when you boost the base? Does it make the tone richer? What setting improves your system’s sound clarity? By experimenting with your sound equipment, you will understand how your equipment works and how to optimize it for the best music listening experience. Here’s how to make the best of your music equipment;

• Rearrange your subwoofer so it’s on the same wall as your main speakers. You can try some little level adjustments to see how well the sounds can blend.
• Organize your speakers so that each is near your central listening spot. The speakers should also be on a stable surface and be at an equal distance from the wall behind them.
• Change the DAC (digital-to-analog converter) that came with your device to an external one. Doing so will eliminate the jitters that come with incomplete data transfers.
• When using vinyl, keep your turntable away to avoid vibrations.

3. Invest in the Correct Equipment for High-Fidelity Sound

There are different pieces of equipment that you can combine to reproduce high-fielty sound. However, each of this equipment has its pros and cons;

• Turntables and vinyl: With a good turntable, you can achieve a warm and rich sound playing from your vinyl. However, you must invest in a top-quality machine to get the best sound quality!
• Amplifiers and receivers: You need a reliable amplifier or receiver to achieve a desirable home sound system. An amplifier will convert low-voltage sound signals to powerful signals, thus boosting your sound. The amplifiers are divided into; preamps (preamplifiers), power amps, and integrated amplifiers.
• Speakers: Consider the size of the speaker against your space and whether you need a surround sound or a dual speaker setup. Surround sound is ideal for a home theatre, while the dual speaker is perfect for listening to music collections.
• Headphones: Over-the-ear headphones offer the best listening experience in reproducing sound as they have the most significant drivers. Avoid noise-cancelling headphones, as they have an extra layer of processing sound that can alter audio quality.

So, how do you know that you are now becoming an audiophile?

Signs of an Audiophile

Once you have practiced being an audiophile, here are the signals that you are now an audiophile;

• You are now familiar with audiophile jargon like original analog source and lossless compression. Besides the terminologies, you are also versed in the technology that has led to the development of today's music gear.
• You start desiring new audio equipment. You now want to invest in the best affordable audio system and experiment with it.
• You start believing that highly-priced cables can improve the sound quality of your audio system. Poor quality cables will lead to poor sounding on your speakers regardless of speaker quality.
• You develop high aspirations for being an audio engineer and become more concerned with audio quality than the song itself.
• You start listening to music almost every other time than before.

Conclusion

Being an audiophile means being serious about audio quality and appreciating the differences in sound quality across different audio formats. It’s a musical expedition that lets you search and discover how to perfect the audios you listen to via high-end audio, converters, speakers, and headphones. If you have the passion, time, and money, become an audiophile today!

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