Are you a music lover or an audiophile?

[jls001]

Just chill and listen to the music; there is always a better sounding box.

Well spoken.

 

[himadri]

Yes.Just returned from a Bela Fleck and the Flecktones concert at Fox theatre Oakland San Francisco. The line array system at the venue was far more dynamic but tonally there was nothing to choose between my humble home system and the venue.The second part of the concert was mind blowing.Jazz fusion at it's best.
Cheers

Just to expand the concert as a music lover .
Bela fleck on banjo: I was taken aback at the harmonic possibilities of the instrument.we are familiar with the guitar , but Fleck was doing everything with the banjo ( a not so esteemed instrument) that a guitarist would do ( and more).
Howard levy: a harmonica was playing jazz.i had heard blues but complex jazz was extraordinary on the instrument.
Roy Wooten: drumitar. An extraordinary futuristic guitar like percussion instrument.sounded like a high quality drum set.
Victor Wooten : one of the best bass guitarist in the world.
Overall an eye opener.
Cheers

 

[coaltrain]

Howard levy: a harmonica was playing jazz.i had heard blues but complex jazz was extraordinary on the instrument.

Toots Thielemans

 

[swamytk]

Perhaps the biggest yet understated difference lies in the prefix of this thread's main header. It was always about Music vs Audio.

Music is Art
Audio is Science

Music is subjective
Audio is objective

Music needs instruments
Audio needs equipment

Music is about creation
Audio is about reproduction

Music is about passion
Audio is about perfection

Music is akin to God
Audio is akin to Temple

Greatest musicians all over the word, never relied on big audio brands to cascade their music! But even the greatest of great audio brands need tracks from musicians to showcase their equipment potential! Imagine they playing pink noise and test tones to wow people !

I used to be a crazy audiophile pointing digging out as many english words as possible to describe the sound, but the truth is there is no solace to this audiophile journey! Year after year Brands come up with more and more resolving setups (whether your ears are able to differentiate them is an altogether different story) There is never an end and ever if someone claims to have found one, it will be short lived.

On contrary, Music lovers find happiness at random places! Imagine hearing old Bollywood, Illayaraja songs in some remote bus stand, how about that small tea shop you see near the corner of the street, or the old pocket radio of an old man crackling in a crowded train!

Indeed true! But I see a lot of audio than music in recent years of film music in India - may be I am getting old

 

[superczar]

While some believe in a perfect setup that attains Nirvana for critical listening, I am more of follower of a acceptably good sound wherever I go maxim.

Over time, I have built a veritable mish-mash of components that allow me to take my preferred sound stream wherever I go.
From that POV, I love streaming services - in mild order of preference: Spotify - Apple Music > Youtube Music> Prime Music

My listening setup consists of 4 setups ranging from mid-end to downright cheap (5 if you include airpods, which I incidentally totally love)
These setups are connected to 4 Play-fi devices (1 for each), 5 Airplay devices (3x audio, 2x video - 1 exists purely so that I can switch from speakers to airpods for late nights)and a couple of CCAs that however hardly ever get used.
And if it's worth counting, 5 echo and 2 google hubs to let family & friends play whatever they care while being able to play it back on decent speakers and not the muffled output from the hub itself

Love the Play-fi despite its flaky software for the ability to send my super old Vinyl player audio to the Bedroom if I so wish
Love the Airplay doohickeys for their ability to let me discover all sorts of musical genres ..
Love the Alexa devices to use voice commands to stream any music to any location I want
Love room correction on the Anthems and Audyssey to suppress any room acoustics bloat to move the sound from acceptable to ooh-is-that-good imaging-and soundtsage-I-hear territory

The CCAs dont get much love unforunately

But what I love most is carplay and spotify!
Despite the way less than perfect acoustics/non existent soundstage is the random spotify playlist or the Apple music recommendation that helps me bear the office commute on carplay!

Am I an audiophile? guess so because I continue my quest for getting my music where I want, when I want and how I want but at a quality level that goes beyond acceptable
Am I an audiophile?.. Guess No because my ears are unable to distinguish between the supposedly refined notes and warmer sound from an acclaimed NAD or Marantz reference grade integrated amp from a class D one (as long as its the same set of speakers).. And don't even get me into the cable debate