AUDIOPHILE MANIFESTO

[Spock]

AUDIOPHILE MANIFESTO

The domestic reproduction of music​

“… Our equipment is nothing more than telescopes and microscopes at the same time, which, instead of observing through a normal lens, allow hyper-real listening, not in the sense of representation, but in the sense of possibility. So our equipment is just an instrument for amplifying sensory perception”.

“Rapdog”

INTRODUCTION​

This sentence, uttered by an anonymous author – “Rapdog” was his nickname on a deceased Portuguese audio forum – condenses everything that has ever been said or can be said about home audio reproduction. It represents, let's say, the Primordial Word, it contains the creative force that unleashes the audiophile spirit, and which is simultaneously its sunset. It is because of it that we, audiophiles, exist and it is towards it that we converge. (*) The curiosity to hear more and better of a certain representation is the engine that pushes us towards the possibility of extracting and enjoying more and amplified emotions from the music/sound binomial.

Therein lies an implicit explanation for this incessant and compulsive search for the Holy Grail of sound, for this obsession that can, at the limit, be expressed by experimenting myriads of equipment for the simply listening to half a dozen songs/records. That half dozen that seem to possess the magical spark capable of bringing to us the experience of the Divine Word and Voice, allowing us to contact with the much desired and ineffable Nirvana sound. Therefore, this entire manifesto focuses on this phrase that constituted its motto, and its entire content derives from it. Such is the density of the message it contains. Fortunately, it was not lost in the ether, with me taking on the role of its perennial guardian. But, as nothing seems to happen by chance, it was the capture of this statement and the power of its content that, over time, fueled in me a desire to build a unifying (?) discourse around the issues of audiophilia, a discourse refocused on the magic of this hobby, in this and for this, trying to rediscover a certain dignity lost in the fratricidal struggles between audiophiles around the world. I really don't know if there is any other hobby that causes so many divisions among its enthusiasts. This is most likely due to the enormous subjective burden of evaluating what is ultimately a “good sound”, the conflict arising from the ineluctable clash of tastes, resulting in the possibility of having as many definitions as audiophiles themselves. In such a way that there are countless subgroups created, which coexist in true parallel universes of audiophilia. And there you have it, there are audiophile subgroups for all tastes. The audiophile community, after a certain boom that the dissemination of the internet brought with it, allowing perfect strangers to come together anywhere on the globe, enabling and encouraging the sharing of this passion for audio, is today completely fragmented and isolated, feeding its own extinction in endless faction wars.

The internet is thus the great cause of this (dis)union, as it was there that everyone began to have a voice, and it is there that everything continues in the countless debate forums and YouTube channels around the world, often in an atmosphere of thunderous shouting. After the initial joy of meeting in the virtual space, and discovered through this way so many people having this fantastic hobby in common, soon began to emerge so many and so deep divisions, that make me question what is wrong about this mania of audiophilia, and what it means to be an audiophile. In the face of such disagreements and rivalries, in the face of so much divergent opinion, what is the common thread among audiophiles, if it exists? Or are there as many different audiophiles as there are trends? Those who believe in cables and those who disdain them; vinyl lovers and digital believers; those who love valves and those who prefer transistors; those who opt for sealed box speakers and those who prefer them with ab open baffle; those who only believe in brands with pedigree and those who oppose them with their "Do it Yourself" achievements; those who are always looking for the latest news and those who think that the peak has already been reached and advocate vintage material; those who place all the importance on active components and those who focus on accessories and fine-tuning (tweaks); those who talk about the influence of electric current on high-level performance and those who make it depend much more on the acoustics of the room, etc., etc.

In the midst of so much information, counter-information and, above all, misinformation, there are countless sound lovers who today reject the audiophile label, giving it such a negative connotation that it relegates it to the status of an outcast. Audiophile is today a term said/written in silence, even by those who clearly are.

Well, being that my case, that is, I am with any doubt an avowed audiophile, I do not recognize myself and even outright reject those negative connotations that so many insist on connecting with this fantastic hobby – which, by the way, is about something that I consider to be one of the best things that life has to offer us, that is, the Music –, I thought maybe this is the time to echo this passion and defend it in a manifesto way.

(*) Perhaps often without us knowing it, at least consciously. If this Manifesto contributes to improving this level of consciousness, it will have already been worth it and fulfilled its role.

 

[Mike]

Very well said. I think we all have our own views and tightly held beliefs - right or wrong, they are ours. The reality though, is that there is no “one truth” and there is no “What’s Best”.

FWIW - the car guys are not far off.

 

[Spock]

CHAPTER I

WHAT IS AUDIOPHILIA AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE AN AUDIOPHILE?​

Looking in a dictionary for the meaning of audiophilia, I found the following definition: “strong interest or enthusiasm for high-quality sound reproduction and especially for high-fidelity sound devices”. Wikipedia says that “audiophilia is the act of liking sound, and an audiophile is a sound lover who makes constant adaptations, adjustments and changes to their high-fidelity sound devices or the music reproduction environment. It does everything possible to improve reproduction in order to enjoy the musical instruments and singers as if they were being heard live.” I didn't look any further as these are enough for the reflection I intend to make.

It is perhaps a little strange that both definitions contain a second part that, apparently, overlaps in importance with the first, and that emphasizes the attention given to the gear, the passion for it, its exchanges and pairings, almost as the biggest identification factor of being an audiophile. And I'm talking about the strangeness of the definitions because, if we look at the etymological origin of the word audiophile, in its original simplicity, we realize that it comes from Greek and results from the combination of audio (sound) with phylum (friend). So an audiophile is, or should be, first and foremost, a “friend of sound”. But this more linear definition, resulting from the simple etymology of the word, would not fully express the concept of audiophile, given that there are many people who like music, who have a sound system at home, often carefully chosen and which performs well in terms of music reproduction function, but despite this, they are not audiophile. So, is it really the passion for equipment, as much or more than reproduction itself, that defines an audiophile? No. No, because the passion for the gear is just the means by which the audiophile achieves his ends. And its ultimate goal is excellent sound reproduction, the perfect sound that will allow, as I said at the beginning, to dive into transcendence and (almost) hear the Voice of God. Yes, in my opinion, listening to music based on a high level of sound performance can effectively constitute moments of authentic prayer and spirituality, providing a pleasure that fills our soul and that is why I dare to classify it as almost communing with the sacred. That's at least what I've been able to feel in moments of peak performance of my system, whether these were actually achieved or just intuited, perhaps simply the result of the combination of favourable conditions (silence at night, time alone, the right music and predisposition to match, etc.).

But trying to approach the search for quality audio reproduction in a more secular and rational way, it is important to highlight the fact that science has apparently established that the fundamental particle constituting the Universe is something that simply vibrates. A “string” from whose vibration emanate different frequencies that seem to contain the formula of the universe to counteract entropy and allow the creation and organization of patterns out of chaos. (*) And is this what fascinates us about music? The sound patterns? Or are the pure tones of each frequency, tones that we intuit as primordial, the Holy Grail that we seek so much? Is music intimately linked to the essence of the universe? Is this the fascination that motivates us and simultaneously differentiates us, as audiophiles? Admitting that, this is an elaborate exercise, I have no doubt that hearing sounds and tones that are as pure as possible, intensely and unquestionably activates the pleasure receptors in our brain, and it is ultimately this pleasure that we seek and obtain in audio quality reproduction. And striving for this goal makes the audiophile. So, an audiophile is anyone who continually pursues sound excellence.

However, we cannot deny that, in fact, this search lives in symbiosis with the indispensable reproduction equipment and, almost inevitably, making it also a passion. Therefore, to a large extent, the gear can also be an identifying factor for an audiophile. But we must not lose focus and deceive the order of factors because it is not arbitrary. As I have already mentioned and repeat, audio equipment is just the indispensable means by which we seek to achieve the end, which is the excellence of sound reproduction. It is therefore easy to see that the order is not interchangeable, as not everyone who “plays” with audio material is an audiophile. It is perfectly acceptable that many of those who gravitate towards audiophilia, although they are essential to the audiophile community, may, despite of this, not to be audiophiles at all. Take the case of manufacturers and dealers, for example. They may be in the business for pure business, with legitimate profit being their passion. It follows that, even when those who feed this market and seek to create/improve/transact the best sound reproduction product, if they do so in order to another priority, they are not an audiophile! Being an audiophile means always having in mind the passion for the best sound reproduction, by you and for you. Of course, there are countless manufacturers and dealers who initially began as simple audiophiles imbued with this quest, and whose entry into the audio market was the consequence of this process. They will remain audiophiles as long as they remain faithful to the desire that motivated them in the beginning and boosted their creations to quality levels worthy of a place in this market.

When the objective ceases to be based on individual satisfaction with the sound achieved, or when quite simply the taste for equipment (the means) overrides the taste for performance (the end), then audiophilia becomes distorted from its essence and the audiophile, whether he is a manufacturer, reseller or end consumer, has already lost its way. Also in these cases, I hope that this manifesto can make a good contribution to refocusing audiophilia, promoting reflection and, why not, the pride in being an audiophile.

​

(*) Ernst Chladni, considered the father of acoustics, made a wonderful discovery that today we find reproduced in countless videos on YouTube and which show a loudspeaker emanating a crescendo of frequencies towards a base with sand. As the tone changes, the sand moves and organizes itself into different patterns, of different complexity and beauty.

So, it is inevitable to ask the question: what is music? If this demand for the perfect sound has music at the beginning and at the end of the search, what is music? An art form, of course. Perhaps the most sublime of all, I say, given that it perhaps constitutes, par excellence, a unique way of transmitting and awakening emotions. Which is expressed through harmonically associated sounds and tones, often enriched by the magic of voice and words, by the art of poetry. Music is something that accompanies us and defines us as human, music is something that seems to penetrate deep into our being and touch our essence. I believe that an orchestra and all the ingenuity it contains at the level of its design, as teamwork for perfect synchrony, is the best example of the human being's capacity for achievement, as an intelligent species, capable of creating. It is no wonder that music has a universal meaning, transversal to different eras and different generations, even constituting a powerful common element to connect people and link them, even if they belong to absolutely different. We find music everywhere and since time immemorial. From religion to the military institution. It's curious how, even in war, we remember the drumming or the clarinet playing. In religion it is even more common, with music being an integral part of religious ritual and there even being a history of music that is (in)fused with the history of religion. But despite all this fascination, can we truly define music? Is music the mathematics of the universe expressed in SOUND? Whatever it is, the sound patterns, the melodies, the tones, undeniably provoke a unique pleasure that fascinates and attracts us unconditionally.