Japanese Audiophiles Are Going to Extremes 

How I feel when I download an album in flac format

Still too low-end. I built my own nuclear reactor to get the cleanest power possible.

Imagine how under pressure the sound technician must have felt recording this

That's it? I would have watched an hour documentary about these dudes.

In all honesty. I kinda get the first guy. Retired, holds a passion for music, has thousands of dollars worth of equipment. Why not spend your free time to improve upon this....the second guy is just nuts

*"The 82 year old retired lawyer"* yep, this guy can do anything he wants.

I love that they threw in the shot at 1:20 where the guy looks like he's about to pass out for some reason. Like this guy is living on the brink of death in his tiny apartment.

I've travelled down the audiophile path. When you first make the decision to get audiophile headphones and equipment it's absolutely mindblowing listening to your favourite albums, it's like you're hearing them for the first time all over again such is the difference in quality. You hear things you've never heard before, putting a completely different spin on interpreting and enjoying the music. When you first make the leap you'll marvel at the fact that you can close your eyes and feel like the lead singer is singing right in front of you live (like they're singing into your ear), you can actually hear where the different musicians are 'on stage' and it's like you're at a little mini concert just for yourself. That might sound exaggerated however it's one-hundred percent true, listening is believing. However if you're not careful you can fast forward a few years and find yourself with maxed-out credit cards, no personal life and a house designed entirely around the movement and reverberation of air. Your life has become about fretting about the exact placement of a component because of some esoteric pseudoscience that says if your balanced cables touch the floor at any point, clarity will be attenuated 0.00000000001 percent and you'll lose a touch of your midrange. You'll be spending £2000 on special, magical pagan cultist cables blessed by Reznor, the audiophile god that have gold wiring wrapped in platinum threads and coated in a patented diamond spray that ensures excellent low-end performance without compromising on the mids and highs. You'll also have £50,000 Sennheiser HE-1 electrostatic headphones and £250,000 speakers AND bailiffs chasing you down for the unpaid balances on the 234 different credit cards, overdrafts and loans you're struggling to repay. You won't have a wife, girlfriend or children because that flesh will dampen the way the sound waves reach your ears. Most importantly, however, is the realisation that you no longer actually LIKE music anymore because all you hear is the 'flaws' in your rig. Instead of sitting back and enjoying The Downward Spiral or Dark Side of The Moon you'll be fiddling with knobs and EQ settings, whilst slightly adjusting the placement of your adamantium woofer. I beg you, IF you decide to experiment with audiophile grade sound equipment/hi-fi's PLEASE DON'T PROGRESS INTO THE LATTER! You'll turn into a hi-fi cultist who hates music (which is exactly the opposite of why you got into audiophile equipment to begin with). This has been a public safety announcement.

when will audiophiles finally understand that acoustic treatment of your room is at least equally important as the speakers themselves

I don't know whats more shocking……that the 2nd guy paid $100 grand for his speakers, or that he has a girlfriend

This is way too short. I want more details on how these guys think and live.

I've personally have been accused of being an audiophile but they could never prove it and the charges were dropped.

"I'm a complete audiophile, i strive for perfection with my music" *Grabs record by grooves*

A tip for all you audio enthusiasts, never turn your equipment upside down, the electrons fall out and it will never sound the same again.

Dude must be untouchable on the Steve Hoffman forums

This man has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on audio equipment, lives in a 250 square foot apartment, hasn't bought clothes in 15 years, and still he manages to get a girlfriend and I can't. I'm clearly doing something very wrong.

Right on with the isolated power transformer. Audiophile rule of thumb #1 *NEVER SHARE YOUR ELECTRONS!!!* Last time I shared audio electrons with the neighbor's toaster, my tweeters got yeast infections....

And here i'm contemplating whether 99€ is a bit too much to splurge out on a new cartridge.

“Personal source of pure electricity”? Without a dedicated power plant?

Seriously? A 1 minute report. This could easily be a Netflix documentary.

“I found that I had long listened to music filled with noise” *merzbow plays softly in the background*

Isn't the bass wavelength longer than his apartment?

I applaud both these gentlemen. I share their passion. I'm retired and aside from my audiophile hobby my life is rather mundane. Divorced, never hear from my children and most of my family has passed. Music is a lover that never leaves. Looking forward to the next stereo purchase gives one a sense of purpose. One side note. They both need to improve their room acoustics.

First dude needs to angle his speakers, I'm crying.

His underwear is 15 years old. For a guy that’s normal.

A good pair of headphones in a dark room at 3am will always be the best hi fi setup for those with no room.

Plot twist : Nobody tells him he's 80% deaf.

I would love to see the results of a hearing test on these two. Statistically, they are paying big money to reproduce frequencies that they haven't been able to hear in years.

He is crazy, my audio system is more important than my girlfriend.

Whatever you do, don't tell these guys about reel to reel.

I have learned to use the rotation of the Earth to play my records and the orbit of our earth around the Sun to play my Albums. The sound is simply superb.

1:32, an audiophile whose turntable is directly in front of his HUGE loudspeaker. And look at all that garbage on top of the speaker.

I was going to joke that they should build a Faraday cage around their flat. But I'm worried they'll actually do it.

Japanese taking a fad, sport, hobby, etc. to the extreme? I find that hard to believe.

I just bought my first vinyl record yesterday, but maybe I should quit while I'm ahead before I end up like one of these guys

I don't understand how people who would spend these hundreds of thousands on audio equipment and powerlines wouldn't have even the most basic acoustic treatment. That second guy had 200k+ spent on equipment and is probably getting insane resonances in that basement apartment.

and my parents call me crazy for buying those high end headphones

Surprised the first guy is keeping his records in paper sleeves if he's that obsessed. Hello surface scratches and paper flakes.

I cracked when the second man said both audio and his girlfriend are equally important to him and laughed right after.

Love the opening scene. This is where I want to be at 82 years old. Just chillin with the dopest set. Kudos to you sir.

Well, is it really any more crazy than spending 500k on a monet painting and just sticking it on a wall lol. Get joy where you get joy from. Period lol.

If he was a real audiophile he would've bought or built a small house with a dedicated room free of electrical interference and outside noise. Instead of spends $100k on speakers and rents a tinyass apartment. Wtf is this guy smoking

I wish I had something I appreciated that much. Maybe not to an obsessive degree, but a passion would be cool.

Japanese people have a synonym/metaphor for everything. Makes stuff so relatable

as he stares at his 50,000 doller turntable i can tell he still not happy!

You know, if you makes you happy and you are not asking anyone for anything...fine by me. These guys clearly worked hard, saved money, and live day to day being happy with their audio gear. Hell, I bet if you go out to Hollywood and find some of these so called "A List" actresses out there you will find then with 75 purses that average $900 each and 50 simple strap high heals at $450 a pair. Hell I would rather have, and be much happier with, $95,000 of high end stereo than those purses and shoes, but most don't call that fanatical. Many envy that purse and shoe collection. Not to mention, a vast majority of this high end stuff does not lose much in value. They can enjoy this stuff for 15 years and sell it for close if not more than they paid for it. I guess some fanatical stuff is just more accepted than others because clothes and shoes probably have many more fanatics then high end audiophiles lol.

"maybe my girlfriend" Absolute madlad lol

i have a friend in Japan just like these guys. I had a chance to sit down and listen to it once. I cannot recall ever hearing that quality of sound before. it was as spiritual experience.

I had audible interference on the electric line I plug my guitar amps into. It was pretty darn noticeable. So I bought a power conditioner on Amazon for like $60. Problem solved. Maybe I should have bought my own utility company?

In Hamasaki's apartment, speakers that size are completed wasted on a room so small. Big speakers belong in big rooms, not tiny apartments.

Quick save by the second guy when talking about his girlfriend lol

I guess that first guy hasn't heard about power conditioners 🤣

Everyone has their own personal ideas on how things work, but in reality and research, results are proven. For instance, the AC that feeds all of his audio gear is changed inside each individual piece to DC, or "direct current," through a thing called rectification. This is then sent too some large filter capacitors (hum and noise removal) then out to the rest of the circuitry. The AC is completely changed to DC and filtered internally in each unit. This is common with most electronic items in your house. If you think the noise will get through that filtering system, your ears are better than most pieces of test equipment that can see and hear well beyond what our analog ear drums can. If you think the noise from your power source (AC line to pole) is bad, you should see what the switch mode power supply in most all modern audio equipment produces. This hash and noise is also filtered out with capacitors and inductors (also known as reactors) internally in each unit. Once the magic is removed, things are pretty straight forward..... Some want to hold on to that magic, and I respect that! Take care.

This is just super counter productive. The second guy spent such a huge amount of money on those gigantic speakers that barely fit the room... I bet that in the end the space limitations and acoustic of the room will ruin the listening experience. He would be better off with a much smaller (and cheaper) set.

there are times when music grabs me so intensely my family looks at me like I am crazy, and indeed, in those moments, I am completely in my own high intensity world.

When I went to Japan, I took a Airbnb for a couple of days, and the hosts were a retired couple. They had the craziest sound setup I ever saw in my life, even better than the ones we see in this video, and I'm not kidding, I would post pictures of it but it's a RU-vid comment.. I had obviously no idea about that when arriving to the house, and as an audiophile myself, seeing such a dream-like system was mind-blowing. Sadly with the language barrier we couldn't exchange much on any of the technical aspects, but the wife served us some hand made tea and the husband played some of his favorite songs for us. It was such an awesome experience, I could close my eyes and feel all the instruments.

And his hearing can detect poor electric signals at his age ?

I just want something that works. But once you start researching which one to get, you somehow got convinced to spend 500% of your budget.

I keep coming back to this clip every few months. I look around and I see a similar view...

The Second guy is just Japanese Z Reviews.

Aging audiophiles are cute. Due to presbycusis, most of them probably can't hear frequencies beyond 8kHz and here they are worrying about high-fidelity sound!

I am electrical engineer and have great passion about audio sounds and high fidelity (20+ years of exp). I would say these extremes are just pure BS. However, if this makes you happy, by all means go ahead, but there is no scientific advantage of having your own utility pole or buying $800 cable, basically you can have a super great home theater (Audio) setup just by spending $4000-$5000, anything above that is just placebo effect and falls under diminishing return theory.

I love it, I'm nowhere in this league but I understand and appreciate high levels of passion.

We need more coverage with these two, especially the second guy, haha. That guy is awesome. I had a $32,000 stereo in a 580 sq ft studio apartment that I assembled for over 17 years, and I thought I was nuts. The second guy makes me feel normal. :D

I spend all my money on guitars. I relate to the guy who doesn’t buy new clothes.

Of course all of this totally negated by sitting a turntable, which is a vibration sensitive electromechanical device, a few feet in front of speakers fitted with 15" bass drivers. But I'm sure his $1500 IEC mains lead sounds amazing!! 🙄

Appreciate this and the passion. I am a music lover and “second base” audiophile. Budget is everything. And with that said, at some point- good enough is good enough

I feel sorry for that second guy's neighbors. And the speakers should match the size and design of the room. His speakers are way too big for his apartment, considering how far he sits from them.

Blood = Electricity in Japan. Good to know.

See and the interesting thing is if the first guy (very simply mind you) could have rectified AC to DC and then Back to AC again he would get purer electricity than being on a separate grid for a significantly lower cost

After illnesses, marriage breakdown, relationship breakdown, job losses I find myself in complete agreement with these gentlemen. My LP , CD , Blu Ray and DVD collection still fill me with joy and pleasure and not to mention wonderment ( where did Abbey Road come from ? A wonderful piece of art ) All those other things come and go but a music collection and beautiful technology to play them on are simply unsurpassable. God bless you gentlemen. You have a kindred spirit in Australia

it doesn't matter what hobby you get into you always find a sizeable fringe of people who take it to the wild extreme. They always have to have the most expensive Kevlar, fan braced, oxygen-free, einsteinium coated, gizmo available. Marketing people love them!

*strictly listens to Baby Metal and Nickelback*

These guys living the life and doing what they love. That's the kind of life I want to have.

we need a longer version of this

Listens to music recorded on tainted electricity... witj "clean" electricity. Gold

Am I the only one who wonders how an audiophile can play "I'm in love with my car" at the wrong speed?

As an audio expert who has worked in the field for decades I'd like to point out that the industry is teeming with snake oil and that under scientifically controlled conditions claims that one's source of electricity matters are shown to be baloney.

Audiophiles would buy tickets to hear that system for an hour.

It's actually this sort of fanaticism that makes the Japanese good craftsmen.

Audiophiles: cant hear over 5khz...

This appears more to be high-end hording than true enthusiasm.

WSJ, this is f** too short! Make a full 1-hour documentary on this!!!!!

When I was younger all those moons ago, I would purchase albums from the grocery store, aka. Weingarten's - that was my gateway drug until I moved up to the record stores, from there began my exploration of musical universes there.

wondering ho the 80+ man can hear all the "pure audio quality" when his ears have been aging and "low-passing" like everyone else's. audiophilia is a bad sickness

The "electrical" interference is likely just a grounding loop / 60hz hum issue.

bless them. would love to still have something passionate enough later down the line.

Considering the second guy hadn't bought new clothes in 15 years, his clothes looked pretty fresh.

Why buy 100,000$ Speakers when you can't turn the volume up, because of your neighbours?

Complains about noise, listens to vinyl. My kind of humor lol

Audio gives you emotions....it worth to buy it....I understand their passion...

For someone who doesn't know this was a 2ch material -PureAudio- back in 2007. And it is an exact same discussion about a digital audio cable or a memory card effects an audio file or an image file... The list of Electric companies and sounds effects are: Company Pros Cons Grade TEPCO Balanced Slow response C Chuden Bass-boost Loud A+ KEPCO clear-High DensityLow B Rikuden Wet BassWeak B+ ... Power plant should be in 5 km radius, otherwise noise level increases...

1:02 looks like he's loving every minute of it

Music is like the ultimate drug of choice for me too!!

Admire the dedication ~great story!

I don't mind an hour for a documentary of these Japanese audiophiles

Unfortunately they´re listening to that high-end music through their cheap 5 Dollar hearing aids... ;D

their rooms are cluttered thus not ideal listening environments

1:26 nice save, bro!

To get clean AC power all that is required is to use a Balanced Power Isolation Transformer which costs about US $2,000, probably an order of magnitude cheaper than a dedicated "power pole". The pole actually has nothing to do with it, the difference was a dedicated step-down transformer. Just as an ordinary matter in the way power is distributed to my house (underground line)I have my own dedicated step-down transformer. Before remodeling I shared a transformer with my neighbor's house. When I remodeled and upped my system to 500 Amperes capacity the utility installed a transformer for my residence only. I also use a BPIT in my studio which feeds all audio equipment, both digital and analog.