The world of audio is vast and unique. Those who venture into other parts of it can be quickly overcome with confusion in regards to how to "hear" it. More so for new audiophiles. Coming from the generation where audio quality is an afterthought, you might not know how to present yourself to those who are knowledgeable and have long-time experience with high-end audio. This guide is here to help you with the very basics of how to gauge audio, what to look for when buying equipment, and how to approach this vast world.
You can always have too much - The first thing that you should remember is that high-end audio wants nothing to do with having more of something. It's about a balance of all of the sounds to be able to produce the sound as accurately as possible to the recording (note that I said recording and not performance). You don't want to "pump up the bass". To properly gauge audio equipment, you must remember that you're looking for how accurate the equipment can play the audio, not how well it can handle high volumes.
Ditch the MP3's - When you think of storing audio, you probably want to try and save as much space as possible on your computer or audio device. The main form of storing it is usually an MP3. When you use such files there tends to be significant compression which therefore leads to a loss of audio quality. For the average person using normal equipment this drop in quality is virtually unnoticeable. It is, however, completely different for audiophiles. With our high-end equipment, we can (or should) be able to hear even the most minute details and flaws in a recording. By compressing it, you're adding significant changes throughout the whole piece. With high-end audio equipment, those changes can be heard VERY easily. This makes it far too difficult to gauge our equipment's quality and provides a subpar listening experience overall.
The file format of choice for audiophiles are always lossless, one of the most popular being FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec). This file format provides the sound without a degrade in quality and is the benchmark file type of choice for most audiophiles due to its wide support and open-source nature.
The genres matter - Modern or classic rock may be great for some people but they don't encompass what audiophiles look for when examining their equipment's ability to reproduce audio. Simply put, audiophiles look for good sound reproduction from the lowest frequencies possible (the deepest bass) to the highest frequencies (the highest treble). Not all genres are able to incorporate that into their audio. The benchmarking genre of choice is usually classical simply because we are able to hear some sound from every end of the spectrum; the bass, percussion instruments, and low key pianos provide the lower frequencies while the higher-pitched string instruments (violins, violas, etc..), wind instruments, and high-key piano provide the higher frequencies. This allows us to be able to gauge how well the equipment is capable of producing audio.
Jazz is a genre that many audiophiles like to listen to. Even though it might not be all-encompassing like a classical piece, there are very small details that can only be heard by high-end audio equipment. That makes it another optimal genre to use when benchmarking audio equipment.
At the end of the day, though, you should remember that audiophiles simply want the sound to be reproduced as accurately as possible regardless of the genre. If you were to close your eyes when listening to your music you should feel like you're right there during the recording, fully immersed in your music.
Loud is bad - Good audio equipment should be able to produce all the tones present in the recording accurately even at a low volume. If you must increase the volume to hear parts of the recording, two things are possibly wrong; either the recording itself is bad or your audio equipment is not up to par with what is required to hear all the sounds. The issue is usually the latter.
Also, by playing your audio loudly, you're subjecting your eardrums to an intense amount of stress and therefore destroying your ability to hear. If it isn't obvious quite yet, hearing is a fairly important part of being an audiophile...
Experience is key - Technical specifications mean nothing. See "Revealing the Truth" for some information regarding the most widely cited spec in audio. Anywho, the main thing to know is that you can't tell how good audio equipment is based solely on the things written down on paper. A pair of headphones from a dollar store or even mid-range ones from larger manufacturers can claim that they're capable of producing all the audio in the music. The question is "how well, often, and even can it produce it?". To be able to pick your audio equipment you must be able to hear it in person to be able to gauge it. That is the goal of Audio Cognoscneti - to help audio retailers find a cost-effective way to gain new customers and stay in business so that the audio world will be able to properly experience the sound of different products.
This guide will be improved and revised in the future so stay tuned! Leave a comment down below if you agree or disagree with any of the things I said here, or if you have something to add to this guide to help make it more useful for the new generation of audiophiles.
About the author: James is a teenage audiophile who listens to a wide variety of music, ranging from electronic to the classics. He is open to learning new things and loves to hear different peoples' perspectives and arguments to his own statements. He cares just as much about audio as he does about technology, where technology is the center of his life.
Ditch the MP3's - When you think of storing audio, you probably want to try and save as much space as possible on your computer or audio device. The main form of storing it is usually an MP3. When you use such files there tends to be significant compression which therefore leads to a loss of audio quality. For the average person using normal equipment this drop in quality is virtually unnoticeable. It is, however, completely different for audiophiles. With our high-end equipment, we can (or should) be able to hear even the most minute details and flaws in a recording. By compressing it, you're adding significant changes throughout the whole piece. With high-end audio equipment, those changes can be heard VERY easily. This makes it far too difficult to gauge our equipment's quality and provides a subpar listening experience overall.
The file format of choice for audiophiles are always lossless, one of the most popular being FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec). This file format provides the sound without a degrade in quality and is the benchmark file type of choice for most audiophiles due to its wide support and open-source nature.
The genres matter - Modern or classic rock may be great for some people but they don't encompass what audiophiles look for when examining their equipment's ability to reproduce audio. Simply put, audiophiles look for good sound reproduction from the lowest frequencies possible (the deepest bass) to the highest frequencies (the highest treble). Not all genres are able to incorporate that into their audio. The benchmarking genre of choice is usually classical simply because we are able to hear some sound from every end of the spectrum; the bass, percussion instruments, and low key pianos provide the lower frequencies while the higher-pitched string instruments (violins, violas, etc..), wind instruments, and high-key piano provide the higher frequencies. This allows us to be able to gauge how well the equipment is capable of producing audio.
Jazz is a genre that many audiophiles like to listen to. Even though it might not be all-encompassing like a classical piece, there are very small details that can only be heard by high-end audio equipment. That makes it another optimal genre to use when benchmarking audio equipment.
At the end of the day, though, you should remember that audiophiles simply want the sound to be reproduced as accurately as possible regardless of the genre. If you were to close your eyes when listening to your music you should feel like you're right there during the recording, fully immersed in your music.
Loud is bad - Good audio equipment should be able to produce all the tones present in the recording accurately even at a low volume. If you must increase the volume to hear parts of the recording, two things are possibly wrong; either the recording itself is bad or your audio equipment is not up to par with what is required to hear all the sounds. The issue is usually the latter.
Also, by playing your audio loudly, you're subjecting your eardrums to an intense amount of stress and therefore destroying your ability to hear. If it isn't obvious quite yet, hearing is a fairly important part of being an audiophile...
Experience is key - Technical specifications mean nothing. See "Revealing the Truth" for some information regarding the most widely cited spec in audio. Anywho, the main thing to know is that you can't tell how good audio equipment is based solely on the things written down on paper. A pair of headphones from a dollar store or even mid-range ones from larger manufacturers can claim that they're capable of producing all the audio in the music. The question is "how well, often, and even can it produce it?". To be able to pick your audio equipment you must be able to hear it in person to be able to gauge it. That is the goal of Audio Cognoscneti - to help audio retailers find a cost-effective way to gain new customers and stay in business so that the audio world will be able to properly experience the sound of different products.
This guide will be improved and revised in the future so stay tuned! Leave a comment down below if you agree or disagree with any of the things I said here, or if you have something to add to this guide to help make it more useful for the new generation of audiophiles.
About the author: James is a teenage audiophile who listens to a wide variety of music, ranging from electronic to the classics. He is open to learning new things and loves to hear different peoples' perspectives and arguments to his own statements. He cares just as much about audio as he does about technology, where technology is the center of his life.
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