Glad to see such a healthy debate on Audiophilia.

Circles, circles, circles.

From where I'm sitting, with my slippers on, I can see that you guys agree that the source material, whether it be vinyl or CD, is most important. We can not improve the source material. We can only tweak it to suit us.

In the original post aimed at defining an audiophile it was stated:-


I would venture to redefine the meaning of Audiophile by at least including the words:-

"steadfast in his resolve to extrapolate every piece of information ingrained on the source material whether it be CD, LP, Tape or other; not necessarily in the way it was originally played in the studio or on stage but in the way the mixer imagined we should hear it.


What you guys are agreeing on is that you choose your equipment to suit your listening tastes. Be it vinyl, CD, SACD or other. You are in effect "tweaking" using DACs, amps, cables, speakers.

For example; I received a few CDs this Christmas. As an audiophile I read the small print. I want to know if I can expect full digital 1s and 0s Then I put one on my CD player, (why do I keep using capital letters for a cd - they don't yet deserve it ) So, I'm lucky enough to have a couple of hi-fi set ups and I decide to play female vocals on the tube set-up. I know that the valve units will make her sound good - to my hearing -. In the future If I like her songs I might swap cables or pre-amps to try to make her better. I cannot improve on the recording, I can only try improving on the way it sounds to me.

When I am satisfied that my front end, (cd player + dac etc) is performing as it should then, (if I need to), I will experiment with the 'chain' to see if I can improve my sound.

I cannot, for the life of me, understand why someone should buy the best speakers available and then try to work backwards to the source material

I get the feeling on this forum that some of you guys have some excellent equipment but haven't yet experienced what it is capable of Its all about synergy but the basis for all of this is the original recording.