Audiophiles are Full of CRAP! A Cheap Audio Man Rant

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"normal people use audio hardware to listen to music, audiophiles use music to listen the audio hardware " -- random guy on a pc hardware forum.

I used to buy into the whole “audiophile” scene but after getting more into recording and studio gear (now using Genelec monitors and RME for DAC), I’ve realized not only does consumer hi-fi stuff has a ton of hype priced into it, almost nobody talks about how at a certain point, the acoustic treatment of a room plays a bigger role than incrementally improving the gear.

When I first got into audio I found a lot of snake oil pretty quickly. For me, it came down to this. The difference between the 2-5K systems from the audio store and the $700 rack system at the big box store was night and day. The difference between the 2-5K systems and the 50K systems was the difference between 12 noon and 12:15 pm. $15K speaker cables are a big ass red flag to me. I call that product a "stupid tax."

I'm an engineer who has worked in the "premium brand" electronics industry for almost 2 decades. There are a limited number of manufacturers of components--most products trying to achieve the same function use the same parts or another manufacturer's version of the same parts. Also remember that no matter the sales price, the motivation of the manufacturer is always to minimize cost. While there are quality differences between semiconductors, it's usually much more of a longevity issue than a functional issue. Resistors, Capacitors, and Inductors are where you may "hear" effects. The digital stuff either works or it doesn't. You either have a good design or you don't. Most "premium" brands are virtually indistinguishable in actual function and parts selection from the mass-consumer stuff. Often, they are the same thing with "badge engineering" (change the name and charge 5x the price). A lot of well known brands are owned by the same companies and designed by the same engineers using the same parts. Sometimes, companies will sell the same product under several different brands to capture the "brand loyalty" factor of consumers. There are a few products out there specifically engineered to be better in some respects, but it is a lot of diminishing returns. I personally hate the term "audiophile" because there has been so much snake-oil. $50K speaker wires, magic spray that gives your CDs that "warm, analog sound" (which is not only impossible, but is admitting that people are chasing a particular colored sound as opposed to "purity"). I once saw an article where a guy said his friend gave him his old $10K speaker wires because he got some $20K speaker wires. He said he couldn't hear any difference (I'd say you could use Romex and most people couldn't hear the difference). He said his dog seemed to like the sound of the new speaker wires, which confirmed something he'd always suspected: his dog has better hearing than him.

You can tell it is audiophile level quality, when your purchase helps someone else get that much closer to owning a yacht.

I’m a sound engineer, at work we have several studios with the same gear, but it sounds different because the lay-out of the rooms is different. So how on earth can you say ‘how the artist intended.. 🤯there are so many variables! I liked this rant!:-)

The most important thing I learned trying to get into "audiophile" stuff is that diminishing returns are huge and "good enough" is good enough.

As an audio engineer, audiophile forums are hilarious

As a musician I can confirm this. Whenever we record something with our band, we do the mix & mastering with high quality headphones(iem's) or studio speakers or passive speakers but after we're done doing that it's more exciting to see how the music is going to sound on different parameters like yeah shitty headphones or cars or phone speakers because the majority of the people don't even have top of the line headphones anyway, so it's more important to understand how my music is going to sound in cars and average priced headphones&speakers.

Audiophiles spend so much time listening for what they have been told to hear they stop enjoying the music. The best upgrade I ever made was few pints of good beer then every thing sounds awesome.

As a recording artist myself, I can tell you that we listen to the master on everything else other than the studio monitors. The whole point of a mastered song is to make sure that it sounds acceptable on what the majority people uses for listening to music, daaaaah....

I consider myself an "audiophile", but not because i have expensive stuff, but because i want to listen as much of the songs i like as i can. And also for the fact that i really find beautiful the engineering behind sound, everything, i want to learn all i can about it

My favorite line of BS from self proclaimed audiophiles is in relation to CD drives. The notion that highly accurately controlled speed is somehow necessary for "good" sound reproduction from a disc transport is simply amazing. It's almost as if they don't know and are incapable of understanding that the only thing the transport does is spin the disc so that the laser can read the coded information, which included the time reference. That information is then buffered in software memory and decoded by the DAC. The simple fact is that with enough memory and power the transport could spin at 10,000 RPM for a few seconds to read all the info, and then stop moving completely for the duration of the music playing.

In Mexico, we have something called the "Chivas Regal effect" you see, Tequila use to be a cheap product intended for the poor and people just concerned to be drunk. A brand came with the great idea to raise the price in order to appear like a high-end product for the elites. Now Tequila is exported all over the world with pride and considered as a fine product for "educated" buyers. How many people judge which product is better based only on the price tag?. Common-sense tend to say that a expensive product is better than a cheaper one, but some manufacturers know this and will take advantage. (also happen in other industries)

Your rant against some people's arrogant audiophile mentality made me forget about my own troubles for a moment on a very difficult and dark day. This video is a year old so the chances that you will read my comments are small but I would like to offer my thanks anyway. Keep making your videos!

There's a whole scene in the end of the movie "Once" after they've mastered their whole album. The audio tech goes, "okay, it's time for the car test". The band looks puzzled, so he explains. "We've been listening to these songs on these expensive studio monitors, it's time to listen to it on some crappy car speakers".

My friend is a musician and an a/v engineer. He has a saying I've taken to heart "sounds good, is good". If you're enjoying it, it’s good. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.

As a recording engineer, the things that you talk about are what hold me back from spending more on a home HiFi. At work I listen and record through $200k worth of gear in a full treated space. Artists approve mixes listening in their cars or over their airpods. Nobody gets to hear the final result any better than me and/or the mastering engineer. I heard the recording and mix at its best. Everywhere else is an approximation. Someone listens on a $500k system will it be better than what I heard. Absolutely not. I was there in the room with the musicians. Will it sound great? I hope so. Anyway, my home system maybe totals $2k in gear and I like it. It's meant for enjoyment. My system at work is picking apart everything. Analyzing every minute detail and it's exhaustion but it is meant to be. Anyway, good rant. Totally agree.👍

This is what happens when hobby meets community. The hobbyist by themselves is just really interested in their particular hobby. But when they begin interacting with other hobbyists, they start organizing a hierarchy and standards to judge each member’s status within this hierarchy. With something as subjective as audio, the standards tend to become arbitrary, or just tied to something more measurable, like monetary value. Thus, you get $500 gold/platinum audio cables and what not.