Which goes precisely to my original question... what does look for, and how do you know when you find it?
Hi Bobvin,
I can only describe what I look for in another audiophile, and what I seek to attain for myself.
FIRST: I DO try to see if in blind tests i can isolate effects coming from equipment. And when i mean blind...i mean in some cases i dont even know if ANY change has been made because its not even a test. I just happen to walk into the room i know, sit down and listen. There have been a few good occasions when i could calibrate myself. Dealers had done things without even remembering, and therefore NO ONE knew there was something different.
Its kind of an 'acuity test' that focuses on things audiophile's care about: tonal qualities, instrument decay, separation, etc.
SECOND: Does it sound 'super hifi' or 'super real'? That's much tougher, and it all comes down to whether you trust the original source to have been faithful to 'real' instruments. In this case, I can only say that I fall back to my own times when i studied piano for 12 years and all those years at the keyboard to listen to the weight of the keyboard, the sound of the strike of the keys...which is VERY different as you go up and down the register.
And when i listen to people's comments about audio, i try to gauge whether they are making comments that i equally can hear as relates to 'live instruments'...again trusting that the various 'reference albums' are considered to be well recorded/mastered and transferred so as to be 'truthful' to the original event.
I have listened with professional musicians from London, and what they listen to is often VERY different to what audiophiles listen to...often, they are listening to the musician, not the system. But on the occasion when i can get them to break away from the music and listen to the qualities of the system as relates to live instruments, i have learned a lot by listening to what they say about the depth of instrument notes, how violin bodies resonate, the blat of horns, etc.
In complex systems with rooms, equipment, impedance, sources of unknown quality...it is an alchemy of art and science in my opinion that is best learned from audiophiles whom you respect...and when you hear something you love that they also love (and can critique)...then you not only can learn from them...but you are also doing so in a way that you can calibrate that WHAT THEY ARE SAYING ultimately will suit your personal tastes.
And like anything in life (including the piano!), practice makes perfect. The good thing is...if we're audiophiles, then practicing is fun!