Product Code Database
An audiophile (from + ) is a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction. An audiophile seeks to achieve high sound quality in the audio reproduction of recorded music, typically in a quiet listening space in a room with good acoustics.
Audiophile values may be applied at all stages of music reproduction—the initial audio recording, the production process, the storage of sound data, and the playback (usually in a home setting). In general, the values of an audiophile are seen to be antithetical to the growing popularity of more convenient but lower-quality music, especially lossy digital file types like MP3, lower-definition music streaming services, laptop or cell phone speakers, and low-cost headphones.
The term high-end audio refers to playback equipment used by audiophiles, which may be bought at specialist shops and websites. High-end components include turntables, digital-to-analog converters, equalization devices, and amplifiers (both solid-state and vacuum tube), (including Horn loudspeaker, electrostatic and magnetostatic speakers), power conditioners, , headphones, and soundproofing in addition to room correction devices.
Although many audiophile techniques are based on objective criteria that can be verified using techniques like ABX testing, perceived sound quality is necessarily subjective, often with subtle differences, leading to some more controversial audiophile techniques being based on pseudoscientific principles.
Signal cables (analog audio, speaker, digital audio etc.) are used to link these components. There are also a variety of accessories, including equipment racks, power conditioners, devices to reduce or control vibration, record cleaners, anti-static devices, phonograph needle cleaners, reverberation reducing devices such as speaker pads and stands, sound absorbent foam, and soundproofing.
The interaction between the loudspeakers and the room (room acoustics) plays an important part in sound quality. Sound vibrations are reflected from walls, floor and ceiling, and are affected by the room's contents. Room dimensions can create at particular (usually low) frequencies. There are devices and materials for room treatment that affect sound quality. Soft materials, such as draperies and carpets, can absorb higher frequencies, whereas hard walls and floors can cause excess reverberation.
The 44.1 kHz sampling rate of the CD format limits information loss to frequencies only above the Nyquist limit of human hearing – 20 kHz. Nonetheless, newer formats such as FLAC, ALAC, DVD-Audio and Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) allow for sampling rates of 88.2 kHz, 96 kHz and 192 kHz. Higher sample rates allow greater freedom in choices in playback components such as filters with a less steep roll off in their frequency response. Some audiophiles upsample from the source rate to higher rates which allows different filter properties to be used.
CD audio signals are encoded as 16-bit values for each sample. Higher-definition consumer formats such as HDCD-encoded CDs, DVD-Audio, and SA-CD contain 20-bit, 24-bit and 32-bit audio streams. With a greater number of bits per sample a greater dynamic range is possible; 20-bit dynamic range is theoretically 120 dB—the limit of most consumer electronic playback equipment.
SACDs and DVD-Audio have up to 5.1 to 6.1 surround sound. Although both of these high-resolution optical formats have failed to make an impact in the commercial market there has been a resurgence in high-resolution digital files. SACD can be stored as a DSD file, and DVD-Audio can be stored as an FLAC or ALAC file. FLAC is the most widely used digital format for high-resolution with up to 8 channels, a maximum depth of 32-bit, and 655,350 Hz sampling rate. Uncompressed formats such as WAV and AIFF files can store audio CD data without compression.
Audiophile amplifiers are available based on solid-state (semiconductor) technology, vacuum tube (valve) technology, or hybrid technology—semiconductors and vacuum tubes.
Dedicated amplifiers are also commonly used by audiophiles to drive headphones, especially those with high impedance and/or low sensitivity, or electrostatic headphones.
Depending on the frequencies reproduced, the drivers that produce the sound are referred to as for high frequencies, midranges for middle frequencies, such as voice and lead instruments, and for bass frequencies. Driver designs include dynamic, electrostatic, Plasma speaker, ribbon, planar, ionic, and servo-actuated. Drivers are made from various materials, including paper pulp, polypropylene, kevlar, aluminium, magnesium, beryllium, and vapour-deposited diamond.
The direction and intensity of the output of a loudspeaker, called dispersion or polar response, has a large effect on its sound. Various methods are employed to control the dispersion. These methods include monopolar, bipolar, dipolar, 360-degree, horn, waveguide, and line source. These terms refer to the configuration and arrangement of the various drivers in the enclosure.
The positioning of loudspeakers in the room strongly influences the sound experience. Loudspeaker output is influenced by interaction with room boundaries, particularly bass response, and high-frequency transducers are directional, or "beaming".
There are several types of room treatment. Sound-absorbing materials may be placed strategically within a listening room to reduce the amplitude of early reflections, and to deal with resonance modes. Other treatments are designed to produce diffusion, reflection of sound in a scattered fashion. Room treatments can be expensive and difficult to optimize.
In the amplification stage, vacuum tube electronics remain popular, despite most other applications having since abandoned tubes for solid state amplifiers. Vacuum-tube amplifiers often have higher total harmonic distortion, require rebiasing, are less reliable, generate more heat, are less powerful, and cost more. There is also continuing debate about the proper use of negative feedback in amplifier design.
Among the listeners themselves, audiophiles will commonly differentiate community members between "golden eared" and "wooden eared" individuals.Thaler, Anita. "Golden Ears and Wooden Ears–Knowledge and Learning Arenas of the Audiophile Community." Those who are deemed as having "golden ears" are people who can accurately express the description of a sound or sonic environment, whereas those with "wooden ears" are implied to be untrained in listening and needing more guidance or assistance. These labels are not permanent, however, and people within these two groups can move between the groups interchangeably, often depending on the judgement of others within the community.
Another commonly referenced study done by Philip Greenspun and Leigh Klotz of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that although test subjects were able to distinguish between high fidelity, "expensive" cables versus common use cables, there was no statistically significant preference between the two cables. Greenspun and Klotz expect that critics of the study will point to the fact that this experiment was not done as a double-blind test, but this critique has a counter in that the study participants felt as though the experiment solely isolated the subjects' opinions on sound quality and nothing more.
There is disagreement on how equipment testing should be conducted and its utility. Audiophile publications frequently describe differences in quality which are not detected by standard audio system measurements and double blind testing, claiming that they perceive differences in audio quality which cannot be measured by current instrumentation, and cannot be detected by listeners if listening conditions are controlled, but without providing an explanation for those claims.
Criticisms usually focus on claims around so-called "tweaks" and accessories beyond the core source, amplification, and speaker products. Examples of these accessories include speaker cables, component interconnects, stones, cones, CD markers, and power cables or conditioners. One of the most notorious "tweakers" was Peter Belt, who introduced numerous eccentric innovations that included a £500 "quantum clip" that consisted of a crocodile clip with a short length of copper wire attached.
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