artnoiSep 1, 2025
This article is part of my audiophiles series of articles
I’ve always been and will always be facinated with audiophiles. When I was younger I admired and respected them. After I learned a thing or two about audio engineering, I’m still perplexed and somewhat impressed by their abilities to resist facts and continue being audiophiles.
Audiophiles are very diverse. They all work different jobs with varying degree of technical skills: from business owners, physics professors, software engineers, and even ENT doctors. Some might even have electrical engineering degrees, and some even got audio engineering degrees.
They all have many differences, but one thing unites them all: their unreasonable attitude towards audio engineering and human hearing abilities (usually their own listening powress, aka “golden ear”).
To me, audiophiles are very easy to spot and we can find them anywhere: in schools, workplace, or within the family.
Audiophiles specialize on different listening apparatus: some like headphones, some like speakers. Some are crazy about hi-fi car audio. Some like them all, and even their outdoot garden needs to have expensive audio system.
Audiophiles are very interesting and worth studying in-depth. Their very stark differences prevent us from easily understanding their thoughts with simple analysis. If you want to know why they behave the way they do, we’ll have to put ourselves in their shoes and relive their lives.
Due to my past as an audiophile, I have over 2 decades of experience with audiophiles and their way of thinking, and 14 full years of being one myself. I think I’m somehow qualified to talk shit and criticize them and their religion.
So now, let’s dive deep into the world of audiophiles, a universe parallel with our own.
Audio fidelity is faithfulness of audio signal within the system. The better fidelity, the more “true to original” the audio is.
The differences between original (source) signal and its output (sink) are audio artifacts. Artifacts include noise and distortion.
There are ways to quantify fidelity, which are discussed in this very old blog post.
The ideal fidelity is 100% fidelity, which means that the output audio signal is perfectly identical to the original source audio. Most audio engineers aim for highest fidelity within a set of constraints, including human hearing.
The concept implies that 2 very high-fidelity audio systems will have very small differences (quiet, hardly audible), as they both sound very close to the original to the point that the differences are inaudible by human ear.
100% perfect fidelity is signal basically the same signal/wave as the original - they are indistinguishable. Good but non-perfect fidelity system might have artifacts in the output, but those artifacts are inaudible to human ear. Any systems that do well enough to not have audible artifacts are usually called transparent, as in transparent glass (no tint/distortion on image).
Low-fidelity signal on the other hand might have audible artifacts, which may or may not be pleasant to us.
Since 2010s, most consumer digital audio equipments are transparent, except for the transducers, e.g. speakers and headphones. Yes, your $99 Apple iPhone 3.5mm dongle or the built-in output of your MacBooks is transparent and can definitely drive 99% of the earphones, and pretty much 95% of the headphones out there.
The key takeaway is how *only* low-fidelity systems produce audibly different sounds, while hi-fi systems sound the same (unless you listen at >100dB loud and your acoustically perfect room is 0dB quiet, which is not the case eh?). Another takeaway is there’s no improvement for sounding better, only sounding more true to the original signal.
Audio fidelity is thus like evaluating monitor displays for pro photographers, or a good magnifier glass.
The display should be able to reproduce the colors as calibrated, at any brightness levels, for any 8-bit colors. You can rest assured that the image you see on this screen will be identical to the one your photographer collegues with different but high-fidelity screens.
For a maginified glass, the magnified image should be identical to the original image but only bigger.
An audiophile is, in the dumbest sense, someone who likes audio fidelity.
In modern usage, an audiophile is someone whose goal is to enjoy high-fidelity audio reproduction (playback of audio, as opposed to recording).
In this series, “audiophile” only refers to someone who actually belives in their audiophilic philosophy, not some scammy engineers designing/selling snake oil products all while knowing wholeheartedly that what they sell is bullshit.
However, there’re many people with technical expertise that are also concerned with audio fidelity.
But because they do not show the characteristics of an audiophile, they are not called audiophiles. These rational music lovers don’t even have their own term, since they are just smart, scientific people with actually good audio system.
Audiophiles are rare breed of humans, with self-proclaimed superhuman hearing and exceptional knowledge of audio circuitry engineering and music.
They first appeared not long after home audio became affordable, and have since persisted over the decades. They were already there back when vinyl was becoming a thing. They were also there during the transition to magnetic era. They were complaining about digital audio and CDs when these technologies were becoming a thing. And they are still here, in hi-res streaming era, to point out that different computer networks produce audible differences.
They’ve always existed, and no mainstream consumer audio technologies have never good enough for them. Despite all the technological advances in audio since 1960s, audiophiles still claim they can hear all the bad sounds on modern day consumer audio equipment (that is not made by hi-fi manufacturers), and that they’d pick a big hot vintage McIntosh amplifier over the smol, class D amplifier anytime. They also distrust pro audio devices for lacking musicality.
Audiophilic philosophy is what I call the belief system of audiophiles. It’s a made up word for this series. As you know, audiophiles are very diverse, and so are their “denominations”. Some audiophiles hate anything digital, while the other might be hi-res Nazi, and there also exist audiophiles who just believe in brands.
They can’t agree on which technologies are the best sounding: analog vinyl vs lossless digital music, or tube amplifiers vs solid state amplifiers. So these preferences are not the core of this religion.
Instead, the core of audiophilic philosophy, i.e. what unites all those ideas under the same philosophy, is the belief that the ceiling for audible audio improvement knows no bounds.
They believe they can always milk better sound out of the same music with a little overengineering hardware, like with this Sony high-res audio SD card (discussed here), which is not entirely wrong (replacing gear -> different output).
Their pursuit of hi-fi audio push their “audio standards” far past real audio engineers, who are allegedly deaf (alleged by the audiophiles themselves) know nothing, and only listen to funny tones instead of actual music.
They also think the pro audio devices the engineers use to produce their heavenly sounding records are all crap compared to their high-end audiophile hardware. It’s also normal for high-end audiophile equipments to cost more than the pro audio hardware in the studios. In other words, they think that only fellow audiophiles understand playback fidelity.
Audiophiles also have weird trust issues.
They respect and trust fellow cultured audiophiles more than actual experts. This also extends to fellow audiophiles with vastly different “audiophilic philosophy” than themselves, more than they trust the real audio engineers or other experts.
For example, there might be a guy called George who’s well known in his forum as analog-tube-horn god and somehow a random digital-only audiophile who’s only into digital audio will respect George’s opinions on audio fidelity, simply because George’s gear is expensive and “high-end”.
Even though George is from a different camp (analog vs digital), he’s still a fellow audiophile, a senior member of the cult with lots of experience.
So if George’s defending his distorted tube amp against an objectivist, then that digital audio guy will jump right in and help George defend his analog greatness.
The more expensive and “accepted” George’s components are, the more prestige he gets out of the community. If George’s rocking the world’s most expensive tube amp, then you can bet your ass that the digital guy will listen to the tube amp and say it sounds good, nice and mellow, but a little bit too warm for his liking.
Now that we know about their religion, let’s analyze audiophiles and what makes them tick.
If you never knew about audiophiles before and come across this article, you might hurriedly deduce that audiophiles are truly idiots based on their characteristics and patterns. And you would be right 30% of the times.
The problem is that most audiophiles I personally know are far from simple idiots. In fact, they are usually above-average in intelligence, and even more above-average in wealth.
Some are even very smart, like my previous engineering manager and ENT doctor. These people are way smarter than I am, and they should be able to understand difficult technical context regarding audio and our ability to hear sounds.
So, why have they become slaves or zealots to their religion? Why a doctor buy and place his quantum room treatment rock on his speakers to “synchronize the harmonics”? Why would a software engineer want expensive digital audio players constructed with built-in gold-laced noise resistant cage?
But before we jump down to the conclusion, let’s first put ourselves into the shoes of an average audiophile, and let’s try to live their lives.
An audiophile is usually some rich dude with enough spare time, let’s call him Bob.
As discussed, audiophiles are everywhere. So chances are Bob’s got to know some audiophiles in his social circle already.
Bob will then be first introduced to hi-fi audio by some audiopiles they personally know, like his friend John. Since this friend John is in the same social circle as Bob, Bob will trust John’s judgement and experience some how.
When John’s introducing Bob to hi-fi audio, John will talk about all the esoteric tech or equipment needed for hi-fi that normies don’t know about. This conversation captivates Bob, who also dreams of owning such high-performance audio system for himself so that he can enjoy live jazz concert by top artists in his living room.
This introduction memory will burn into the Bob’s brain: to have hi-fi audio, everything in the system has to be hi-fi. BUT John never told Bob what exactly does “high fidelity” means, or how to verify it. To John, high fidelity comes not from the actual measurable performance but from having all of the components being expensive.
Now Bob has fallen into the rabbit hole, and he’ll be out looking to buy and build up his own audio system, and he will ask John for feedback for his purchase choices.
When I first went to visit my rich Singaporean uncle back in 2004, he walked me down into his underground listening room, with all the fancy audio equipment and signed CDs and vinyls.
He also told me the insane price of equipment. The price per-meter of his cable broke my 6-year-old mind. He further said that his richer friend is rocking even more expensive cables, and how that system sounds just like the band is actually playing in his listening room. This gave me a simplistic understanding that audio equipment can always get better with price and engineering.
Because John, who has never uttered a word about audio measurements, taught Bob about all the basics (e.g. silver sounds bright), Bob will not look at the specs or find measurements for the stuff he’s buying.
Bob’s first purchase is a headphone, say, Sennheiser HD650. He did enjoy his new purchases for quite a while. Because this is Bob’s first hi-fi equipment, he was so impressed at the amazing sound his new headphones can produce. He wonders if he could get even better sound, so he asks John for guidance or ways to push his HD650 to its limit.
John picks up the phone, then sighs after hearing about Bob’s first setup. John did not even ask how loud the headphones get when driven by a phone, but he jumps straight into his conclusion that the phone, despite getting the headphones to be loud enough, lacks the power to bring up hidden music details.
John also scolds Bob for driving his HD650 directly from his phone, and recommends that Bob buy a headphone amplifier to produce more oompf and to be able to drive the studio headphones properly. John also said that because Bob did not have any DAC, he should get this mobile DAC/AMP to fix his digital-to-analog pipeline and driving power all in one package.
So Bob goes out and buys an headphone amplifier.
This cycle continues until Bob finally have his own mobile DAC/AMP, dedicated desktop DAC and amplifiers, and a dozen of fancy cables for each connection.
Bob is now rocking a very expensive hi-fi setup. So many gold and silver exist in his hi-fi system he could melt and sell the rare metals to get rich.
He’s very proud of his system, which he meticulously built up, until it’s finally (in his mind) the best audio system for the money and for his taste. After dozens of purchases and years of experience, Bob finally could hear the minute details John was talking about years ago. Bob could now sense the soundstage and sweetness of the “midrange”. He can now hear the rhythm of the feet of the bassist tapping lightly.
Matured Bob is very well-versed in the audiophile language and vocabulary - he can now understand all those vague words in audiophile reviews like mellow, sweet, and punchy. He even writes his own review pieces now.
Bob’s no longer an apprentice, but a master audiophile in his own rights. He now posts on HeadFi with confidence, and he could tell how an equipment will sound like based purely on brands, internet pictures, and some keywords in the marketing materials.
For example, now when Bob sees a big, black, and solidly built amplifier from company A, he’ll use his own algorithm to compute the sound signature score based on these inputs. This time, he deduces that the amplifier will have very low or even pitch black noise floor (black) with very powerful output (big), with a sweet house sound (Company A). Bob thinks to himself that this amplifier will be perfect for jazz and vocal music, and rock ballad, but will be too slow for faster rock or metal music (Yeah, the amplifier is the slow one now).
But despite all the hi-fi components, Bob can always find some issues with his system, e.g. noise floor, sound stage, and airiness.
He also has already formulated his own future plan to fix each of these issues, e.g. buy audiophile power outlets to fix the noise, or using silver cable to extend the soundstage, and a new DAC to smooth out the edge.
At this stage, Bob is actively trying to mix-and-match his setup for maximum harmony. In other words, Bob knows exactly why his system sounds the way it does, which components are responsible for the small but focused sound stage, which is responsible to the crisp trebles, and which provides warmth and natural feeling in the bass range.
This might be his real thoughts: “if I’m using silver cable, so the sound might be bright. But all those trebles will be tamed by my NOS DAC, which is warm”.
Bob is now a human audio analyzer, except his output is in the English language, as opposed to numbers.
It is now virtually impossible to bring Bob back to the mortal’s audio domain as he assumed godhood. There’re now only 2 things that can wake Bob up:
Bob awakens by himself
This happened to me. Some people’ll browser the internet enough to come across so many materials disproving the audiophile’s pipe dreams.
Bob is fixed/educated by his friend
This is highly unlikely, and will likely result in interpersonal conflicts. This is because Bob will see you as lowly, shallow, uninformed, or outcast, and will not take your arguments seriously.
If you do bring out qualified materials to prove your points, Bob will also bring out his. If your arguments finally prevail, Bob will be butthurt and likely just ignore you and continue to happily spend his money on snake oil product, like a new hi-fi titanium power cable stand.
But this conversion is very rare. Let’s examine why.
Educating means having a meaningful discussion and arguments with the audiophiles in order to instill in them objective audio fidelity mindset and the ability to indentify bullshit.
Awakening in this context is when an audiophile finally realizes his own stupidity, and his willingness to admit to his past mistakes, and switchs side to the objective audio camp.
If an audiophile is still in his early stages, we might be able to fix him with science and reasons.
But if an audiophile has reached the mature stage, then the chance that we will be able to fix him will be very low. Why? It’s because the audiophile derives so many enjoyment from owning the equipment. It’s because they alreadt spent thousands of dollars for cables that won’t make a difference.
Admitting that his system components is useless and scammy will destroy the audiophile’s entire understanding of audio fidelity. Which is their entire world.
He will have to admit that he was scammed to buy expensive Ethernet cables, diamond-tipped cable stands, and quantum room treatment. He will also have to argue with someone they know like John, and other audiophiles in his social group. He will also have to change the way he thinks of his golden ear, previously source of his pride, and admit that his ears can no longer hear anything above 13kHz.
How can they sleep soundly at night knowing that they were systematically scammed to pay $999 for 0.5m USB cable that will sound exactly the same in his room, with his other expensive equipments?
The admission of stupidity and his network effect prevent a mature audiophile to be awaken. So the audiophiles will double down, and forever be victims of themselves and the hi-fi companies.
The question “why are audiophiles the way they are” or “why is Bob still an audiophile” drove me mad. It drove me bad because at first I was focused on answering it with theory of stupidity.
You’ll have to stop thinking about audiophiles as stupid or idiots, or otherwise you’d never get your answer.
This is because the answer is very human, complex, and has nothing to do with individual’s technical intelligence.
The answer involves our humanly needs to relate to other people, our sense of belonging, intragroup competition, pride, “face saving”, etc.
There’s no other reasons or argument to explain their behaviors, except that they are also imperfect human beings.
And after I arrived at my answer, I also came up with another conclusion: Once an audiophile, always an audiophile.
Audiophiles rarely change. In fact, I have yet to personally know other matured audiophile who quited the cult after some re-education. The more money and listening time he’d spent on audio, the less likely he’ll ever listen to our scientific arguments.
Audiophiles think highly of their knowledge, listening poweress, and taste in equipment. Their equipments are also super expensive and seem illogical to most people.
They enjoy bragging to normal people that they are so good at listening music that they need to have all these expensive cables and bullshit.
Audiophiles also enjoy discussing about pseudo-science technical topics together. It makes them feel super knowledgable and exclusive, like audio wizards chanting ancient foreign language mantras.
There’re a bunches of audiophile forum posts where they all discuss about electronic circuits and how capacitors or OpAmps from brand A or B will affect overall signal flow in the circuits.
These topics include how chemical elements all have their own sound signature, or how digital audio works and why they need 24-bit audio played back by non-oversampling DAC with NOS silicon over silver Ethernet cable.
They’re also very proud of their expensive components, which “required” so much knowledge and experience to buy. Buying super expensive audio equipment will land you in an exclusive golden ear club, where members all have golden ear and the money to fix any audio issues.
By converting to the objectivity gang, the audiophiles must accept the ugly truth that their smart asses were all collectively scammed by non-scientific advertisements all this time.
They’ll have to admit that their hard-earned listening experience and knowledge is all bullshit, existing only in their own head. And they must admit that all those respectable audiophiles, who they might look up to with great respect, has been full of shit all along.
So they will stay that way and defend those expensive audio devices they cherish with great ferocity, for the opposite is to admit that the whole system is built with fake knowledge but real money.