It’s the time of year for saving money!
For years I’ve been calling myself “a recovering audiophile” but perhaps that’s too harsh a term, even if it is intended to be a nod toward the often addictive and abusive nature of the hobby. That really isn’t the problem, though. The problem is that the word “audiophile” itself doesn’t exactly exude coolness. And if you really want to be honest, it’s far too close to the word “pedophile” despite the fact that the two inclinations have literally nothing in common other than both having awful names.
At any rate, nobody–not even the religious audiophile true believer–thinks that our hobby can survive without new blood. Perhaps, it needs a new name too. Let me make my case. While I really dig on audio gear and have been blessed to own some of the best ever made, the lure to procuring said gear since 1987 wasn’t the gear itself. Not by a large margin. The lure was to reproduce the music that I love so much in ways that added to the emotional experience of musical playback. I desperately want to hear exactly what the producers, engineers, and musicians intended when they were in the studio or on the stage. I want the dynamics, the openness, the bass, the impact, and the overall experience at home. Much like you, I have invested thousands (if not tens of thousands) of dollars in music software that I truly cherish and consider a solid investment, even if damn near every record ever made is on Tidal now for $20 a month (many in HD formats). I don’t want to think about what I’ve invested in audio gear over the years–even with industry accommodation prices that help reviewers like me buy above our pay grade. I am sure it’s well in the six figures, but the gear has always come second to the content. And it always will.
So, if we aren’t going to be called audiophiles any more, what the hell should we call this hobby or the people in said hobby? This is where things get tricky. Does “music lovers” say enough about the hobby? Not really. A music lover could be someone realistically satisfied by a Sonos system. Could that be you? For me, Sonos is fine for background music and that’s about it. Could we be “audio enthusiasts?” That’s better than being a “-phile” of anything, right? Would you want to be an “Anglophile” even if you really loved England and everything about its culture? I think I will pass, as it’s just not that cool. I don’t want to be a “-phile” of anything, just like I won’t purchase anything from a “shoppe.” Yes, its semantics, but it’s also a rule of mine.
There are all sorts of techy names that we could go by, but tech isn’t really the draw–the music is. Don’t get me wrong: tech is a key part of the audio experience, but it’s not the driving force. I am not seeing a techy name sticking. We aren’t gear heads like in some hobbies. We are “enthusiasts,” like people who love cars, wine, watches, and so on.
Last week, I had dinner with a true industry icon in Manhattan at one of the Flat Iron District’s hippest eateries, Upland. There were way too many trendy-ass hipsters packing man-buns and handlebar mustaches for my tastes, but the food was very simple and the service was quite attentive. During dinner, we really dove into the main issue that has hurt the hobby the most: the drastic narrowing of the specialty dealer distribution pipeline. 10 years ago, a high-performance audio company could sell their products nationally in dealers like Magnolia, Circuit City, Ultimate Electronics, and Tweeter–not to mention many more regional chains and one-off specialty audio salons all over this fine country.
Today, in terms of specialty AV on a national level, there is only Magnolia (almost always inside a Best Buy) and they can’t sell every product known to man like four national chains could. Yes, now there is Costco, Target, Walmart, and Amazon.com, but they sell more mainstream AV–not truly specialty audio and-or video. I am talking about products that don’t just sell themselves into your push-cart that’s already rocking a 32-pack of Quilted Northern and an industrial sized box of Cheerios.
Simply put, there just aren’t as many places for people to find out about the hobby of high-end audio, as audiophile regional shows cater only to those who have found the religion. They don’t have the foresight to color outside the lines in terms of media partnerships and or other outreach. The fact that the hobby is becoming more and more niche is a real problem. It’s a problem that I argue starts with the hobby’s scary name, but that’s only a start. Issues extend past the name to the sloppy way far too many audiophiles install their gear (think: messy, dedicated listening rooms jam-packed with cluttered equipment racks and cables flowing damn-near everywhere) to the fact that most audiophiles listen alone when they could integrate great sounding music (even at low levels) into social channels.
Bringing, say, wine tasting together with a listening party might comingle two related hobbies as well as appeal to more of the ladies out there–and wouldn’t that be something considering what a sword fight of a hobby audiophilia is today and always has been?
Going deeper, one might argue the overall cost is another key problem, but I reject that notion. Today’s audio gear is getting more and more affordable while getting more and more high performance, so I’m not buying cost as a real issue.
So, I am not sure I’ve come up with a new name that sticks, but I think it’s clear that we need one. So, I turn the topic over to you. If being an audiophile is too creepy for a new generation of more mainstream buyers? What should the hobby be called to reach more people–people who love music and are actually willing to invest in the technology required to make it sound its best?
What say you? Chime in below in the comments section.
Very well said! There is nothing sadder to me than seeing a room full of great gear pictured in someone’s house, with one listening chair in the perfect “sweet spot’. Nothing brings me more joy than sharing great music with friends at a dinner party, or with my kids. My gear is positioned as well as possible in a shared room. Would it sound better in a dedicated listening room, with everything taken out? Maybe, but listening in isolation would take the joy out of the music!
Well said on your part. Thanks for your insightful comments!
I’ve always called the hobby high performance audio.
HP audio women or man sounds right containing high performance or – if you want – Harry Pearson, the man who inspired more than any other member of the „club“ .
I don’t like the reference to Harry Pearson. The Absolute Sound had no circulation when hifi was actually popular in the seventies. I only knew him as an environmental reporter for Newsday.
I am with Steve on this one.
Harry Pearson had much more downside than up as I have learned the history.
Hmmm. Interesting. Wine enthusiasts are ‘Oenophiles’ and watch enthusiasts are ‘horologists’. Both equally awful names. But you rarely hear anyone refer to them by those names. But what exactly are audiophiles enthusiastic about? Music enthusiasts doesn’t seem to sum it up. Neither does electronics enthusiasts. High Fidelity enthusiasts? Audio Enthusiasts? Many people consider Oenophiles ‘Wine snobs’, but I’m not sure Audio Snobs holds quite the right cache’. HiFi Heads? I dunno, but it’s a thought provoking post, Jerry.
Audio snobs is pretty much where we are now. Millennial’s are working on the wine snob thing. Can’t be snobby about something they consider a necessity.
I think Lee is working on growing a man-bun to fit in with the millennial set but I am not 100% sure!!! 🙂
Don’t think a man-bun will work. The successful millennial can spot boomer and gen x fakes a mile away.
I just returned from a week in Sedona. We visited several wineries in Cornville, AZ filled with kids. The best wine was from former lead signer of Tool, Maynard Keenan.
Euphonist?
If it’s Euphonist, then we’re suffering from Euphonasia.
Audiofan?
I’s say I’m an Audio/Video enthusiast. As to getting the word out, there used to be a pizza place in Seattle’s Pike Place Market that had a killer quad open reel setup with McIntosh gear behind glass for all to see. Full tower speakers in the corners. People people went for the pizza and came away as budding audiophiles. We need more integrated touch points like that. Exposure, exposure, exposure. Maybe a coffee chain could run with the idea? Modernize the idea with a jukebox concept where customers can sign in to cue up songs and get more info about the gear, etc. We need more innovation in the space.
Audio Enthusiast.
This is my favorite so far.
I see that the hand-wringing exercise de jour (not just in this publication) is ‘we are dying off, woe is us’.
Frankly, that seems to me to be complete and utter nonsense. “We” (old white guys?) may be dying off, but MUSIC, the goal of this hobby surely, is alive, well and listened to by more people, in more places than ever in human history. Is it the same; done the same way? Absolutely not! But is that really the goal? Isn’t the goal the music?
The hobby of building the (or any) of the components of a good quality hi-fi will continue to diminish in terms of assembling electronics, IMHO. The hard bits right now are in assmbling and curating a library that suits ones taste and in making all the pieces work well together: I have in mind getting music where one wants it (e.g. more rooms) at an acceptable quality. For that one has to find new pieces, listen to them and add them to one’s collection.
I’ve commented (here and elsewhere) before about the challenges of acquiring a good collection at a reasonable cost: that remains an issue. A recent experience: I purchased a copy of Rattle’s 2016 Berlin Phil recording of the Beethoven 192/24 and not only did many (three IIRC) symphonies have only three movements, the recording is flat, has no dimensionality. When I queried it, I was sent a download link for the missing tracks (why not the complete album – that alone made me feel like a criminal) and the comment ‘No one else has complained’. This form a ‘premium’ source with which I spent hundreds of dollare per annum.
To the ‘dying’ aspect: Does anyone here participate in online fora? Dead you say? Check out haed-fi.org! A more erudite, amusing, and helpful bunch would be hard to find. And I cannot keep up with the daily volume of posts. That volume is such that I track the whole forum via RSS feed and particpate only in the Schiit thread and the RaspberryPi streaming thread. Dead you say?
I like a lot of the ideas here about combinatorial events, wine and hi-fi – now you have my attention! And it’s OUR job to be the advocates for high quality music. MUSIC, not tech. My stepson came over and I used Tidal (more on that later) to play HIS choice: Leonard Cohen ‘Steer Your Way’ – he was amazed at hearing on a good, but modest, hi-fi.
Ditto for the 18 year old college goer, for her music. But you get my drift. I think that for a majority, the music is key and they will compromise quality to be able to listen to it easily and simply. Hence, despite all it foibles and flaws, iTunes success. Apple did what was needed; make music available affordably, in the way the consumer prefers to consume and (in the words of a colleage for the early certification programs) “It just ^*&9)$$# works.”
Cheers
Home Audio Connoisseur (or more simply a HAC) – A person who takes great joy in the experience of sound reproduced through an electronic audio system designed for home use.
Jerry, I love the conversation but suggest that there is room for growth in this channel but not necessarily from the top-end down, but rather from the bottom up. And when I mean bottom, I refer to those that actually do have a love for music, for trying out new veins, but have little money to work with … our children.
I have three in their twenties and all of them love to listen to music. While two get by with pretty much any playback system available (car, earbuds, my system), our youngest got into vinyl while still in high-school and like most teenagers, in spite of his dad. The fact that I was a DJ and still have SL-1200’s and SL-1800’s in the garage along with a compliment of badly abused records and several DJ rigs had no bearing. Other than gifting him an SL-1200 (which he thought was old and used until he began researching its value and then re-skinned it in with a black-lacquered metal jacket to make it look “new”), I had absolutely nothing to do with this passion which is most likely why he is now a HAC or HAC in training.
Much like several of his friends and school mates, his love for vinyl is based on his desire to collect and adventure. He and his HACs in training are in it for the format. But a curious byproduct is that a love for vinyl requires the use of more serious electronics and speakers. The format is what drives their listening experience and it should come as no surprise that they are proud HACs. Sometimes he just listens to music on his own but often this is a very social experience with HACs and non-HACs. And sound quality is something he and his friends are just learning about. Like most connoisseurs, his palette for better and better sound is developing and outpacing the strength of his wallet. In terms of the classic Tech HiFi catalogue, he is on system #2, maybe #3.
Unlike digital formats including hi-res formats, the cult-like approach to collecting records is a formidable force when it comes to future HAC’ers. But make no mistake, these “kids” know better sound when they hear it and equally important, are experts at demonstrating this experience to others. They take great care of their components and lifestyle is an equal aspect in their thinking. For example, my son insists on having a nice (albeit Ikea) shelf/bench that not only elegantly holds his system but also has room for his record collection. Wires are neatly tucked out of sight. And among his first add on purchases to a receiver he got for his 17th birthday, were a better stylus & cartridge as well as a subwoofer to marry to his KLH hand-me-down speakers.
As for manufacturers who are looking to reach out to this potential market segment, you need to look no further than Record Store Day, a global event that celebrates vinyl.
In the good old days, those who worked in HiFi would gather around the newest pair of speakers that just landed in the store. The speakers would be unboxed, setup and then broken in. And when they were ready to be played, everyone brought in their favorite records & pot, and together as a team, would do serious listening over pizza and beers after the store closed for the night. If you recall with warmth this scenario, you may want to pay a visit to your local college dormatory.
“Phile” after any word means addict to me. It means you are so far into that aspect of your life that you ignore the other parts. In our case many times we ignore the social aspects of our addiction and lack any ability to share it with those who show an inferior but valid interest in our “hobby” There are steps to audiophilia that perhaps will lead to some answers here. When you first had that “aha” moment, usually precipitated by a friend’s interest in showing you how “live” music can sound in your house, you became “interested in audio” Then you spent a little extra on a system to get a better solution and you become an “audio enthusiast.” Educating yourself from magazines, forums, seminars, listening, and experimenting you then become and “aficionado” where a good part of your free thinking time is consumed in one direction. Finally, you make the jump, and you start looking at every aspect of your system and perfecting its addition to your system and you step into the audiophile world. I may not have these steps right but I believe there are several terms to describe a group of audio loving, HiFi loving, music loving group in any situation. It is a mixture of people, all of whom should enjoy an evening in our stores, or a few hours at our events, or perhaps we share a few hours at theirs. Sharing our “philia” is not a requirement, but as a manufacturer representative I highly encourage you to involve you friends. With a new event that happened in Munich, MQA streamed high resolution music live from London to several rooms in Munich for 20 minutes. For a brief time 100s of attendees, attended a “concert” together. Perhaps we can come up with a term for home concert lovers that ignores the minutia of putting together the perfect system and focuses on the results that so many people, regardless of their audio knowledge level, can enjoy. One thing I know is we will never agree on a single term and all self-describing terms tend to be organic so choose one that describes you and start using it with your friends. If they don’t look at you like you are crazy, perhaps we have the right term. Share it here as Jerry is a great source for bringing those terms together and creating something we can market to generation X, Y, millennial and beyond.
Well there’s ‘Audiophiliac’ that’s being used by Steve Guttenberg, which to me sounds more perverted than Audiophile as it’s closer to ‘Necrophiliac’ …. not sure which is worse… hahaha. ‘Sound Fanatic’ might be a better term?
Am I now suppose to stop using the word Anglophile because I am afraid to be confused with child molesters?
The hobby isn’t dying because of the name. It’s because people value convenience over quality. The energy should be put into making people realize how cool it is to hear their music sound great
i am always amused by these sorts of conversations. the name won’t affect the hobby, one way or the other. “audiophile” won’t kill the hobby, nor will some cool new moniker save it.
and the most amusing thing are the oft-cited statements that “the hobby is dying”, “we need new blood”, etc. the truth of the matter is, that even since the infancy of the audiophile hobby, it’s always been “dying”. it has ALWAYS been a sort of lunatic fringe pursuit by a very small percentage of those who listen to music. it’s always been the case, before computers, before internet marketing, before earbuds, ipod and mp3’s. same as it ever was. and, as graham bird mentions below, more people now than ever, are listening to music. maybe the fact that the lunatic fringe percentage of the music listening population hasn’t increased at the same rate as overall music listening has, makes it SEEM like the audiophile pursuit is dying? in any event, i don’t care. i know it’s not dying, and i am happy to listen to quality reproduced audio playback, even if only a tiny minority of the population does so, or understands the attraction. i do it for me, not for universal recognition…
ymmv,
doug s.