Being an audiophile is not about expensive equipment. It's about listening to music in good quality. And good quality doesn't necessary means high cost.
Finally Paul at his age is appreciating tone controls and realizing how important they are if there is too much, or too less bass or trebles etc in the recordings . And how excited he is 4:24 , that he can change the bass. Just like I was when I was 14 years old and playing with my first hifi integrated with tone controls equalizer over 40 years ago. haha Good for you Paul ! Better late than never . LOL
@@VC-zk1kv If you don't want to "shape" the sound bands most amps have direct sound button , if you have no clue what music sound is good for your " audiophilic " preferences . haha
True audiophiles understand how our hearing works and will not accept that the bass is gone at low volumes and will want loudness compensation to allow great sounding music when reading a book, and without waking up the family.
Prerequisite number 1 is to have good set of ears. Some people can't hear well, then no matter how much you want to become an audiophile, it's just not possible.
I'm glad you have an appreciation for mixing. I spent years honing this craft. There is an art to it. I think I was an audiophile way longer than a mixer.
Wow Paul, thanks for answering my provocative question. I totally agree that the main skills for being an audiophile are wanting to be one and putting in the effort to learn how to appreciate evocative music playback. The reward is the joy that comes from being moved by the music and enjoying all that has gone into delivering it to our ears. As a long time audiophile I've tried to teach many others how they can get more enjoyment out of music. My wife for example is an unwilling recipient of my hobby but she'll admit that she has come to appreciate the quality of a good recording played through a nice system. I've spent some money on my hobby but never the big bucks that I could. I know it can be better but it is fine for what I need and I can get a decent amount of enjoyment out of what I have. Thanks for your channel, I've learned a lot and continue to expand my audiophile knowledge.
The best skill to have to be a talented audiophile is to understand how electronics work so you can avoid overpaying for jewelry boxes disquised as amps, preamps, step up transformers, etc After that is achieved you should work towards understanding acoustic principles so you can maximize your worst enemy. the room you will listen in
Caring about the music. Loving the details. Always wanting to hear more. Eager to find music that is new to you.Knowing when it sounds good to YOU, regardless of cost or quality of equipment. That's Audiophile.
Ignore the snobs who say you need plenty of money to be an audiophile. You can have a complete system for the price of a Sprout, if you buy vintage. The skill is in doing the research to track down the great gear that has slipped under the radar!
@@thisisnev Uhm.. Whot!? I am telling you that old equipment often have a higher resale value than brand new products...🤦♂️ Absolutely nothing to do with capacitors😅 And FYI: Old capacitors DO of course need replacing when they are so old and used that they barely work anymore.. They do in fact degrade and do not last forever. This is a well known and documented fact. But no.. Not ALL capacitors neccecarely needs to be replaced if they still work fine.
The very best golden ears in the business use ATC - so if you don’t like yours it suggests that the control room and speaker placement could be an issue. The pro models can be rotated horizontally to sit on top of the bridge (you pop out the tweeter and install it in an alternate baffle slot so the tweeter remains above the mid range). For that small room the SCM 25A would be a better fit.
Being an audiophile is the passion for music when you get out of bed and listen to music while driving to work and going home and waiting for the weekend to relax with some wine or favorite drink and enjoy your favorite music without spending lots of money
Paul, you hit it on the head when mixing. You have to have an appropriate room and speakers. Mixing is an art. Mixing with headphones is a perfect room that no one has except those using headphones. That is why you have to go back and forth from room to room.. Listening Room 2 has some imperfections, even if they are small. Cars, living rooms, and designated movie rooms have other imperfections. When Mixing you are trying to find the happy medium of all listening mediums for all listening rooms. Mixing instruments are easy. One vocal is tough, but multiple vocals is harder. Recorded Mixing is easier than a live mix for concerts.
Palpable dynamics, and great channel separation is something that I was lucky enough to fall ass backwards into with my system. Well produced recordings make a huge difference. Two sets of stereo speakers is a must for me. Front speakers placed "according to Paul", and another set of one size smaller speakers set on the sides and towards the rear. One album by an artist I really like is usually not enough. Today I fell in love w/ Patty Loveless all over again.
Paul, I have spent countless hours doing exactly what you were describing. Mixing audio from scratch is not easy. I found that you must also compare the audio tracks to a reference track that sounds perfect, or at least perfect to the person doing the mixing. I also do the same thing, but I listen to my recordings on the studio speakers first, then my car, then my home stereo, then a boom box, and then finally a clock radio with an input. I want to hear what the music or audio sounds like in any environment, well that I have access to. Also, you said it yourself, since there is no perfect speaker, you have to listen to many different speakers/environments.
$40 Kinter amp, $10 stand mount speakers from goodwill. Sounds awesome in my bedroom. Detail without being too bright. Good clean bass. Audiophile quality? Sure. Not high end quality, but for $50 I've never heard better.
Audiophile.... to me is, one that becomes immersed in what they are listening to... I can listen to a whole album of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon.... or INXS Kick.... and feel sublime.... :)
One long day at a hifi show you will get it. Reproducing it back at your home is a rabbit hole. Audiophiles enjoy the journey. Most run away and are richer for it.
Go Vintage. I caught the bug in January hand have spent less than a thousand so far on An AMP, a receiver, four sets of speakers, A tuner, A DAC an AMP Switch and Speaker cable some new interlinks a and some aliexpress stuff (optical switch, Line in switcher, HDMI- audio splitter). It's all a huge improvement over what I had.
Ha! I typed it before starting the video and the guy in the letter also knew this already! 😅 Simply appreciating good sound and actively listening to music doesn't necessarily make you an audiophile. HiFi enthusiasts also like good sound and music lovers also actively listen to music.
Kind of a trick question! An Audiophile is a hobby, not a profession. And I think hobbies REQUIRE no initial skills, only a desire to learn. Now if you are pursuing a career in any area of audio, yes you need the appropriate skills but again you can even learn them from a hobby as well as formal training.
The cheapest upgrade possible that makes everything sound better ….. just close your eyes when listening and your brain will notice so much more of what your ears are actually hearing. Try it!
I have a number of extremely rare 1990s era CDs that were stolen from me that I never ever saw on sale in eBay, Amazon, etc. And yet I still manage to play them in ultimate fidelity inside my head. 😅
Audiophiles get as enthralled as anyone who enjoys music, what distinguishes this "hobby" is the constant search for the purest form of audio fidelity. For most hobbies money always plays a part but what part it plays is to each his/her own.
The only real skill is the ability to hear, unless one adds the ability to conduct unbiased research. Patient perseverance in listening to and testing various gear is, I think, a required quality but not properly a skill (though the ability to discern the differences might well be called a skill). Ironically (since audiophiles are often accused to the contrary), I consider humility a necessary quality as well, since one must be willing to change their mind to adapt to the realities they encounter in their research and testing.
Most of my equipment is used, today there are some very good speakers for under$500 and maybe another $500 for an integrated amp and a source and your set to go
I think that the skills to set up your system in your room (what Paul book The Audiophiles Guide is all about) and room acoustic treatment basics is definitively useful. By the way, the acoustics in that mix room looks terrible. Glass wall behind the speakers and large computer screen and window behind the ears.
Impartiality is another great skill needed. By which I mean that you don't live or die by reviews. I have seen as many bad reviews as really good ones for the speakers I have and that's basically because a review is completely subjective and one person's opinion. Obviously, if a product is universally considered bad then it's probably a duffer.
I got rid of Apple and switched to spotify for my kids.I was shocked when they noticed the difference 320kbps made.Any thoughts on their CD sound coming?
It's unfortunate that within the audiophile community there exists the 'audiophile snob'! They are usually self appointed 'experts' often with little or no technical background and more interested in being an authority rather than someone that appreciates good music. Solid gold terminals, capacitors rolled on a fair maiden's thigh, concrete turntables, cables supported on mini pylons; these are all part of the audiophile snob armoury. I've been involved with audio and music for 50 years and have spent far too long in the past listening to the equipment rather than the music. I think it's a great shame that the younger generation aren't overly aware of high end audio and favour the convenience of listening to music on earpods. With that in mind it would be good if audiophiles took on the role of encouraging young people to explore how much better their music listening experience could be rather than preach to their peers on how much better an interconnect dipped in ox blood sounds. Paul is doing a great job I think of appealing to just about everyone in the audio community and a breath of fresh air in his light hearted approach.
There are two audiophiles. One is a music lover who has a nice system. The second is a sound chasing snob that believes nothing but the expensive gear is important and aren't really into the music. It just the fuel to keep the chase going.
To me, there is a difference between an audiophile and someone that enjoys a good system. Someone that enjoys a good system within their budget will have fun listening to music. An audiophile will constantly chase better soundstages in a quest to find a sound in their head that doesn't really exist.
@Douglas Jarnagan Well said. I spent *years* (and a lot of $) chasing that ideal sound. Sometimes, you do find it though. I started from scratch, and "found" the music in an unexpected setup. Just a simple system. I listen and enjoy more now than ever, and am not chasing constant upgrades anymore.
The ability to believe that you're unaffected by bias of any kind, that your senses are more greatly heightened and therefore more special than the rest of the human race and your ears are not susceptible to the kinds of age related deterioration 'normal' human beings experience. In other words, in an audiophiles mind he wears a tight lycra top with the initials AM - Audiophile Man, and wears his underpants on the outside of his trousers.
Is it just me or did Ringo Starr ever complained that Zildjian cymbals got duller sounding as he got older? Just asking on the truth behind age related hearing loss. 🤔
@@laurentzduba1298 It's not a secret that you can EQ compensate to some extend for the treble drop of aging. Personally I boost treble from 12kHz +6dB and up and it, for example, makes cymbals sound like they did when I was younger. Of course adding EQ must be done carefully with a proper DSP solution or you mess up the sound more than you fix it. I wouldn't do it for vinyl playback, as the signal is analog and there really isn't a good analog EQ out there that can do a proper fine tuning.
@@laurentzduba1298 I don't think it's even a debate in scientific circles whether or not our hearing gets worse over time. For most of us it sadly does and seems to be accepted as fact from what I have researched online.
Audiophiles don’t like EQ’s or even tone controls, but isn’t that pretty much what a mixer is? Isn’t the sound just EQ’d (mixed) to the taste of the engineer mixing it?
Skill one : ability to achieve a high level of income Skill two: a deep love of music. Are Critical listening classes available anywhere???? Ya here that the 3rd violin sounds a bit to forward Oooh what’s that spike at 3.5k it’s a bit shrill And still too much 60-120hz blooming out all the definition.. .... oooh this sounds like it could be a cool class, I hope it exists 🤘🏽.
Also include lucky enough that Monster Cable were giving away free 500$ interconnects in radio contests during formative audiophile years plus winning a season Metallica and Megadeth backstage passes.
An audiophile needs to be highly sceptical of the hyperbolic claims of dealers, manufacturers, reviewers and hi-fi magazines. Try to spot snake oil at forty paces.
Paul, is the audiophiles’s guide of much value to someone who exclusively listens to vinyl? Obviously SACDs and vinyl records have a different sound to them, so through setting up a system with an SACD, would it then make my vinyl experience worse?
Indeed, they appear to be the ATC SCM50 (9"/3way) I've used them and you're right, that midrange driver is the star of the show. It's a 75mm/3" covering from like the mid 300hz range up to the mid 3khz range. Great monitor, active tri-amped internally with legit class AB amps. BUT, damn @$20k, they're proud of them! I've always thought they were somewhat over priced, but you encounter them all over and they do a great job as a monitor. Even second-hand they cost quite a bit. (It is temporary and Paul has admitted it ... but the manner they've got them setup in the mix/recording room is really poor. They're likely too close for solid driver integration to coalesce into a whole. The reflective mess, lack of symmetry, odd angled wall behind the mix position really hampers the system's performance.)
A good example when people claim and want to hear exactly what the recording sounded like the day it was produced. Unless they were sitting in that exact same room with those exact same speakers or those exact same headphones with the exact same preamp and the exact same amplifier whatever kind of system they have in the world they will never hear exactly the same. Even if they spend $1 million on a system
So, the art of mixing is all about getting the recording to sound the way it did when you recorded it? Maybe ya should throw out that mixing board, then. Just sayin'... 😏
I never got into the pen, however I did purchase many Sims perimeter covers and weights for my CDs. They made a couple different types; the nearly 1" top applied weights, and more flexible edge covers. Don't believe any of the above did a thing ... but what I truly loved was my Sims Navcom Pucks for vibrational damping. They were great!
Youre not an audiophile until youve been officially ghosted/ignored by an upscale HiFI shop staff! I have Stereo Exchange NYC to personally thank for my initiation ; )
Im outside NYC now and the closest shop to me is appointment only! Ridiculous..... It be so nice just to have a local shop that even sells used records and restored vintage gear.
Coming from a musicians perspective, just want instruments and vocals to sound REAL. Example; a ride cymbal that sounds like ride cymbal and NOT a foil pie plate. As a musician when you hear instruments you perform with everyday, then listen to recorded material, I can be extremely disappointed and just don't want to listen at all to it.
