What’s happened to the real audiophiles?

Nowadays it looks like we’re all listening to music from compressed files. Spotify and the like are of course easy and convenient, but surely you miss the authentic details? From where we sit, it looks like the number of people who are truly interested in top-end audio and are willing to pay what it takes can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Why is that?

Maybe we have all become somewhat jaded by the tsunami of audio and video all around us, and we simply don’t find it all that important. Of course, the quality of typical audio and video equipment has improved enormously, so you don’t have to spend as much now to get a good sound system. However, that is not the attitude that distinguishes the true audiophiles – the absolute determination to do your utmost to extract the last bit of subtle nuance from your amplifier and speakers.

Elektor has a strong history of audio projects, and you are doubtless familiar with some of our legendary designs – including Edwin, Ekwin, Crescendo and Preamplifier 2012. Unfortunately, the number of audio publications has dropped over the years, in part due to declining reader interest. However, attractive audio projects keep popping up, and we see that there are still quite a few fans of high-quality DIY audio. Many readers have built the Q-Watt Audio Power Amplifier published several years ago, and we have sold a considerable number of kits for the Supra 2.0 Phono Preamp, despite the high price of its top-end components.
So there is still hope – there are still a lot of true audiophiles amongst us.

Add a rating to this article

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Discussion (10 comments)

JLM7174 8 years ago

Well, we were there in the 70's when Elektor (and quite a few other magazines, like Radio Bulletin, Audio Amateur, Glass Audio, L'Audiophile, Wireless World and others) were publishing many audio projects. We are still here, but there is no reason why we should renew our material when it's still perfectly working. On the other hand, even die-hard audiophiles had nothing much against MP3 and other high-quality compression algorithms; the problem lies with the readers (and manufacturers who pretend you can have hi-fi with a power supply of 1.5V and low-quality earphones are Pinocchio's). Elektor has a lab full of great engineers, so what are you waiting for? It was nice to design a new phono-preamp, but vinyls... That's a real lough! They are produced from digital recordings and masters, where's the higher quality then?

0 Comment(s)

stephen Muir-Field 8 years ago

PREHAPS a audio de compresser[expander] with a peek liniter to save the loud speakers mite put the life back in to the digtal recreasion of real music ?!! is that jest a dream to try and recreate the origanel sound from the verious mp3's

M J Bauer 8 years ago

Dear Stephen,

The process of generating an mp3 file uses digital compression, as distinct from audio signal compression. These are two completely different sorts of compression. A compressed (analog) audio signal can be recovered using an expander device, but once a compressed digital audio file is created, the original quality can never be recovered, unless a "lossless" digital compression algorithm is used. Commonly used audio file compression algorithms such as mp3, ogg, aac, wma, are "lossy", meaning that some of the finer detail in the original signal are lost forever.

1 Comment(s)

M J Bauer 8 years ago

A CD recording is still the best technology available to consumers to obtain true high fidelity sound. Spending vast sums of money on vacuum-tube ampifiers, vinyl discs and turntables is (literally) a retrograde step, unless you enjoy the particular sound coloration and distortion that is characteristic of this antiquated technology! The problem with CDs and no doubt one of the reasons for their declining popularity is their cost compared to digital downloads. Also the convenience of media streaming on mobile devices is a major attraction. I look forward to a time when it could be possible to stream CD-quality audio from services such as Pandora. Another option is free-to-air digital radio (DAB), which originally promised "CD quality music". Unfortunately, where I live (Australia), a political decision was made to reduce the standard DAB bit-rate by 50%, presumably to allow more channels in the allocated bandwidth. Would it be too cynical of me to suggest that this decision might have been influenced by the music recording industry to help avert the decline in CD sales? The upside to the decline is that this greedy dinosaur of an industry is being forced to re-examine its marketing strategy. Meanwhile, we can buy CDs online directly from the artists we like. For high-quality music on-the-go, "rip" your CDs onto digital storage using a loss-less (or low-loss) file compression format, e.g. 'wav'.

Lines Francis 8 years ago

The fact some vynil recordings are better than CD makes this an open discussion .

M J Bauer 8 years ago

Tell me in what way(s) a vinyl recording can be "better" than CD... Frequency response? (No) Dynamic range? (No) Noise? (No) Distortion? (No) Playback timing stability? (No) Hmmm... what other parameters are there, other than subjective (psychological)? If a vinyl recording sounds "better" to your ears than a CD made from the same master, this could be due to one of two reasons: (1) There was a flaw in the CD production process, or (2) you prefer the particular "characteristics" of vinyl recordings. (I am assuming that the recording is being played on premium quality equipment, with the same speakers, amplifier, etc.)

2 Comment(s)

12au7a 8 years ago

Michael Kiley
I much another reason sound quality is so bad today is because loudspeakers have become too small. Even at 80 Hz, which is the highest bass cut off frequency for what I consider good sound, a wavelength in air is about 14 feet. As a result, the lowest frequency speaker driver, and the cabinet housing it, must be rather large and ridgedly constructed to prevent added resonant vibrations. I find it takes at least an 8 inch woofer in a box at least a cubic foot and a half in volume to get what I call good full sound. I can tolerate some very good 5 1/4 inch and 6 1/2 inch drivers if they are of exceptionally good quality, but an eight or even twelve incher is much better. I have six cubic foot, floorstanding cabs with twelve inch woofers; I wouldn't part with them to save my soul.

Lines Francis 8 years ago

Yes i tend to agree with your conclusion after dablling almost 20 years in this ..that the a well designed 8 in woofer is giving the very best and so much of audio nuances and harmonics at the lower frequencies that are lost is smaller wooofers .Another topic to be researched for psycho acoustics...

1 Comment(s)

Happy Harry 8 years ago

What happened to the "Audiophiles"? We're still here, it's just that we're listening to the music, not the technology. In true blind tests the so called benefits of vinyl, valve amps and all the other emperor's new clothes of gold plated connectors and their ilk disappear. So called "digital sound colouration and artifacts" are usuallly more attributable to the belief system of the listener than to the science and physics behind the recording medium, where so called digital degradation is way below any persons ability to actually hear it.

Unfortunately though, most audiophiles (and the supporting companies) have a large financial investment in "proving" that their particulr system or method of recording sound is THE best.

If it helps, listening to live music is awash with differences and distortions and the "valve sound" has already been coloured by the long line of transistor systems getting your recorded sound from the artist to the "best/correct" recording medium of your choice. When was the last time you saw a mixing desk which used valves? How many times have you seen recodings being made non-digitally, how many recording usedigital compression and manipulation?

The reaosn there are less "audiophiles" about is that people have come to realise that modern recording and distribution methods are as good as it gets or needs to be in a realistic sense and lossless digital will be, in reality, untouchable by vinyl or other antiquated systems.

0 Comment(s)

Miles_Gonzalez 5 years ago

If you are a real audio file, you must care about the music quality and bit rate very much. for me, I am an audiophile, I enjoy Tidal and currently I use the DRmare Audio Capture for Windows/Mac to help you record music losslessly from tidal. It works great. The only drawback is that it is not free. Anyway, you can give it a try and you won't loss anything.