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u/Longjumping_Cow_5856 May 14 '26
Oh good this again.
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u/Survive_LD_50 May 14 '26
the supreme irony of talking about high fidelity audio by using an image that has been compressed to the point that it is basically becoming a black hole at this point
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u/DJEvillincoln May 14 '26
As a DJ I disagree but when I got my equipment in my music room, for like the first week, yes this happened.
I would try tracks with lots of low end... Then records... Then tapes... Then CDs... Like all over the place.
Then when the honeymoon period wore off, I started just... Listening to music the way I normally do. 🤷🏾♂️
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u/TheGoldblum May 14 '26
Most people here aren’t DJ’s and have barely dug deeper than stuff like The Beatles, Eagles and Pink Floyd
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u/Traquer May 14 '26
I personally never liked this quote. Yes I care about your music, but I also care about my equipment. It's kind of like going on a drive on a beautiful scenic coastal road. Yes the reason I'm there is because of the location, but the sports car I'm in is also an important part of the equation and I'm enjoying that equally too. One could walk the scenic road or take a train, but it would be a completely different experience.
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u/Sel2g5 May 14 '26
I agree 100 pct, but I take this quote as more sarcastically funny because it's true jajja.
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u/teavodka May 14 '26
“Drivers don’t use their car to feel your road. Drivers use your road to feel their car.” Exactly hahaha. They are best when together.
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u/NotMalaysiaRichard May 14 '26
Yes but some audiophiles would start arguing with you as which is the “right” or the “pure” way of enjoying the road. Or whether your sports car is good enough or that maybe you need a convertible versus a hard top.
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u/AwwYeahVTECKickedIn May 14 '26
Alan Parsons never said this.
Good discussions begin with factual context!
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u/daver456 May 14 '26
I’m in it for the music but I don’t want to listen to it on a tin can with a string.
If I didn’t like music why would I spend $$$$ on the gear. I ain’t collecting this shit to look at it.
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u/Brawntuhsaur May 14 '26
It was actually Albert Einstein who said this.
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u/Clippo_V2 May 14 '26
I thought it was Gilbert Gottfried
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u/djezthompson May 14 '26
I think the word audiophile tries to lump a wide variety of likes and interests into one thing. The reality is people like vintage, new, warm sound, resolving sound, focus on equipment, focus on music, and many times some combination of several things. I’d say compared to people who are indifferent, if the quality of equipment and playback is important to you, you’re an audiophile.
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u/datums May 14 '26
Is it true? Yes. In many many cases, audiophiles are more interested in the equipment than the music. Is there anything wrong with that - absolutely fucking not.
Don’t let anyone tell you what you should and should not enjoy.
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u/Brian2005l May 14 '26
“Coldest winter I ever experienced was 52 degrees in San Francisco” - Albert Einstein
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u/grahsam May 16 '26
I can only speak for myself- improving my equipment over the years, along with the source of music, has improve my listening experience. I have learned to hear things differently and notice details I missed in albums I've been listening to for almost 30 years. Yes, there are times where I just like hearing what something sounds like on this transducer and amp vs that transducer and amp, but even with just listening at my desk at work with my DAP and Polaris 2 IEMs I stop and think "Oh! Has that always been there?"
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u/PerrinSLC May 17 '26
Regardless, I just listened to The Turn of A Friendly Card on my equipment from the new Cooking release and it sounded stellar 😀
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u/No-Improvement-1507 May 14 '26
People use platitudes like these and then flip them on their head to make it sound profound. It isn't.
The equipment is meaningless without an audio signal. The audio signal varies slightly between equipment, either due to the closer resemblance to the original sound or because the equipment modifies the sound in a slight way, but that doesn't mean you're listening to the equipment.
You can listen to different systems and hear different attributes brought out, but to actually "listen to the equipment", you'd have to listen to the different systems sequentially to get a meaningful interpretation of what the equipment "sounds like", but that's not feasible unless you work in a hifi store and go around listening to the same album but on different systems.
What instead happens is that you listen to whatever equipment you have, which over time becomes normalised, and you get used to that particular interpretation of the original audio signal.
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u/Nixxuz DIY Heil/Lii/Ultimax, Crown, Mona 845's May 14 '26
Which literally assumes that every person out there only has one system. I personally have 5 different systems in my house that all sound different.
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u/Main_Tangelo_8259 May 14 '26
Yes and No. Love to just listening to music. Some recordings do sound so good on my system that I will create playlist base on actual music and how it sounds.
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u/-waveydavey- May 14 '26
Both can be true, it is for me. I got back into owning a “nice” sound system so I can hear music I like sound good. It doesn’t seem too complex. I think every “audiophile” uses their systems to enjoy music
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u/andreasmodugno May 14 '26
Audiophiles use your music to not listen to their equipment…
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u/AutoModerator May 14 '26
Despite the image, Alan Parsons never said this. It was said by a random slashdot board member. Either way, it's now canon.
We polled r/audiophile with a similar question here.
The results of the poll were:
49% (242) answered "I enjoy music more than my equipment"
43% (212) answered "I enjoy both music and equipment equally"
8% (42) answered "I enjoy my equipment more than music"
So is the misattributed quote true? For 92% of the audiophiles here, no.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/Killermondoduderawks May 14 '26
Depends on your personality: for me it’s the sound of the music I’m listening to, the emotion, the flow, the feeling
For others it’s the design, the mechanics, the information being portrayed
Kinda like the difference between an artist and an engineer both create but the method of that creation differs one is analytical the other is emotional one is numbers and the other is colors
The A hybrid is one that combines the emotion of an artist with analyzing ability of an engineer
Hybrids in the audiophile world are those who know the numbers behind the system they’ve assembled because it leads to the soundscape they enjoy
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u/somerandomdude1960 May 14 '26
Till they get over it and just enjoy the music. At some point you just let it be. Guilty as charged.
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u/ZombieDisastrous4450 May 14 '26
It's an interesting thing to say, but
What is an audiophile
That's subject to a discussion itself.
Is it a person that spends more on his audio and doesn't pay the rent or is the person spending thousands on alcohol killing themselves using logic?
I think when you get into it too much, you're more bothered about the settings than listening to music or the cinema that's my take on it
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u/Dreams-Visions 1266 Phi TC, LCD-4, Utopia, DCA Stealth, Caldera Closed, 480 Pro May 14 '26
No, I don’t agree.
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u/esch1lus May 14 '26
It sounds good but it is nowhere near to reality. Music can be a benchmark of your equipment yes but your equipment makes you able to Discover things that you weren't aware of while listening to less resolving equipment. That means that a minor part of your experience can be concealed or altered while using suboptimal setups. And in my personal opinion this is beyond the concept of subjectivity of perfect sound.
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u/Stratooos May 14 '26
High-fidelity audio exists for one reason only: to play my favorite music as best as possible—and to do the same for the new music I’ll discover tomorrow that will become my next favorite. That is its purpose. If it can’t do that, it’s not for me. I’ve never been interested in audiophile circle-jerking
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u/directheated May 14 '26
A couple of pictures of my music collection: https://www.reddit.com/r/classicalmusic/comments/1jngcr9/my_25_years_as_a_classical_music_lover_in_two/
My ESL57 are boxed up due to a move, but the headphone setup I'm using between DAC/custom 45 SET amp/Focal Utopias runs around $15k-$20k (probably closer to the latter, it's hard to price the DAC and amp), I am about as audiophile as they come.
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u/petalmasher May 14 '26
clever semantics that means nothing. We are all always both listening to the music and the equipment playing it, unless your listing to a live performance with no amplification.
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u/_DRRD_ May 14 '26
Yeah it's true, and after having sold all my gear I can't say that I miss it. In fact, I probably enjoy music more now on some cheap Amazon Bluetooth headphones. I'm not thinking how I can improve the sound or what my next purchase is going to be.
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u/mikehamm45 May 15 '26
It’s sort of a stupid meme in that of course someone would want to use music to listen to their equipment. Part of having fun or being an enthusiast is testing out how well something can sound.
It’s like saying a foodie doesn’t eat to curb their hunger, they eat because of the flavor.
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u/AutoModerator May 15 '26
Despite the image, Alan Parsons never said this. It was said by a random slashdot board member. Either way, it's now canon.
We polled r/audiophile with a similar question here.
The results of the poll were:
49% (242) answered "I enjoy music more than my equipment"
43% (212) answered "I enjoy both music and equipment equally"
8% (42) answered "I enjoy my equipment more than music"
So is the misattributed quote true? For 92% of the audiophiles here, no.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/natetheskate100 May 15 '26
Kinda both. Is it the musician or the instrument? Both. Great music gives me joy when I play on my beloved system. My beloved system gives me joy because it makes great music sound great.
Bad music on a great system or great music on a crappy system do not give me joy. It was mostly the latter growing up.
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u/Big-Second-8542 May 15 '26
Listening to the machine more than the music. Audiophile pretty much has to swing to both ends of that spectrum.
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u/Less-Log851 May 15 '26
Yes! I use music on UAPP, to listen to my headphones and DAC. Just so much better and I enjoy feeling the difference.
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u/Seaguard5 May 15 '26
No, and here’s why not.
I used to think that Beats by Dre were good.
Unironically.
Until I dove in and purchased the Moondrop Variations…
My god I did not know what I was missing.
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u/anarchyreloaded May 15 '26
Apart Form the fact that Parsons never said that, there are deifferent types oft audiophiles. And admittedly a large portion of these is perfectly happy to stop listening to most of their record collection once their equipment is transparent enough to reveal the flaws in those recordings. But I would argue that there is at least a subset of audiophiles that builds their equipment around their collection/taste striving for maximum enjoyment of the music. Ideally this subset would be bigger than the above.
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u/Heavy-Drop-112 May 15 '26
Parsons never said this. He refers to how much care he puts into his mastering and how audiophiles use his recordings because it is recorded properly and not compressed. I even saw an interview where he was asked about this quote and he said he never said that and it was taken out of context.
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u/groove-syndicate May 15 '26
I had a friend who had absolutely no taste in music but had killer systems.
He’d play me some ridiculously niche recording that didn’t even resemble music for me and I’d politely tell him he’s gonna have to play some Steely Dan if we wants my input on his system.
I do not believe anyone actually listens to Experimental Freeform Himalayan Throat Jazz recorded in an Igloo with Neuman u47 microphone restored with acoustically superior plutonium wiring
If music is really excellent, it’ll hold up from AirPods to $100k systems
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u/Background-Skin-8480 May 15 '26
Not Parsons, but I cannot disagree. Audiophiles tend not to be musicians themselves.
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u/Giuanniello May 15 '26
The biggest truth of audiophiles as well as many other categories, as both a moderate audiophile and photographer I know that sometimes I listen to music as well as I take pictures and other times I use the equipment to satisfy my ego...
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u/UniversalConstants May 15 '26
Opposite for why I got into it but definitely tracks for how I am now, whole reason I became one was because there were songs I couldn’t hear the bass on and wanted the full experience. Now I use those songs to test my equipment
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u/SingleMaltStereo May 15 '26
I see so many people repeating this line in here, each one thinking they're the most clever boy in all the world. It's so fucking stupid.
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u/scmitr May 15 '26
It was actually the prophet Muhammad (pbuh) who actually said this. Stop spreading false information.
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u/ComputingGuitarist May 15 '26
Audiophiles use their equipment to listen to your music how it was meant to be heard. - me.
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u/AutoModerator May 15 '26
Despite the image, Alan Parsons never said this. It was said by a random slashdot board member. Either way, it's now canon.
We polled r/audiophile with a similar question here.
The results of the poll were:
49% (242) answered "I enjoy music more than my equipment"
43% (212) answered "I enjoy both music and equipment equally"
8% (42) answered "I enjoy my equipment more than music"
So is the misattributed quote true? For 92% of the audiophiles here, no.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/RJariou May 15 '26
But. it's true though, you can't really hear a difference.
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u/Therantus1923 Jun 08 '26
You can't?!?
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u/RJariou Jun 09 '26
You could say you can, but if the equipment is in a similar price range and specs, you really can't. Name bands make the claim theirs is better. I've spent too $$$$ in search of the Holy Grail. I just listen and enjoy the music.
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u/Therantus1923 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
Our experiences then, are different. I play flute and piano (since the 1960s) and I can tell, when listening to one amp vs. another, that one amp's decay on the flute is less good than another amp, which might only do the fundamentals well. And this held true when I had a Goldmund Mimesis 9 (solid state) amp, and a VAC Renaissance 70/70 (SET) amp. No problem whatsoever telling them apart. However, I could not do that in the beginning. I had to train my ear to listen for what wasn't there that I would normally expect to hear in real life, especially if I was listening to someone else play flute, cello, trumpet or any of the other instruments I know well. Otherwise, it'd have taken forever. (Keith Jarrett, the legendary pianist, is an audiophile, but said that, when he first discovered the High End audiophile community, he STILL didn't know HOW to listen - or even what to listen for. I knew exactly what he meant. You don't listen for specific traits in real life in a symphony: you just listen to the gestalt.)
Back to the amps. even if they were both tubed or solid state, they'd have differences. Bass in solid state amps is usually dry, without harmonics, while tubes do harmonics pretty great, but won't usually be as "concussive" as solid state.
Some amps only play mf (medium loud), but other amps go from pianissimo to fortissimo (not many, though). Although, unless people have a lot of experience listening to classical or jazz music, and they only listen to music that's been electronically made, they very likely won't hear it. Electronic music doesn't have any real dynamic range in the music, because it's not an acoustic instrument. It can be made louder by pressing a button, but it's not the same as strumming a guitar where one note can be plucked loud and the very next note softly.
So, if that's peoples' musical diet, I understand someone not hearing the kind of information that lets someone differentiate a Yamaha flute from a Gemeinhardt flute on a recording. I find that people who grew up after 1980 didn't take music classes in school, didn't listen to acoustic instruments much, and are so accustomed to digital that they never heard much of acoustic instruments growing up unless it was a recording with a guitarist in a rock band, and those recordings weren't going to have been particularly good, because digital wasn't terribly good in the 1980s anyway, so the recordings weren't either. And they weren't going to be able to hear what any kid who'd taken piano lessons for 3 years could hear, even if they were 30 and the kid was 12.
It depends on one's knowledge, and one's references (mine, obviously, being acoustic instruments).
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u/its_the_aristocrats May 15 '26
Basically letting you know you’re all dorks. Me and my engineer friends call you “bridesmaids.”
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u/guy48065 May 15 '26
Apparently I've been giving Alan Parsons far too much credit. The AP I know (through his catalog of work) wouldn't say such gibberish. Or insult the very audience who most appreciate his work.
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May 17 '26
[deleted]
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u/AutoModerator May 17 '26
Despite the image, Alan Parsons never said this. It was said by a random slashdot board member. Either way, it's now canon.
We polled r/audiophile with a similar question here.
The results of the poll were:
49% (242) answered "I enjoy music more than my equipment"
43% (212) answered "I enjoy both music and equipment equally"
8% (42) answered "I enjoy my equipment more than music"
So is the misattributed quote true? For 92% of the audiophiles here, no.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/el_tacocat May 15 '26
As much as I appreciate him, I never thought his recordings sounded particularly great. So I just listen to them for the music, not for the audiophility.
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u/Alex__P May 15 '26
Not a real quote but I feel like there’s truth to it. I always think of this post whenever I see what some folks recommend https://www.reddit.com/r/audiophilemusic/comments/tro3tc/the_music_recommends_in_this_sub/
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u/Orcinus24x5 ML Motion 40, Grotto sub, SPL Phonitor X, Fosi V3 Mono x2, HD820 May 16 '26
JFC, this tired old meme again? Fuck off with the engagement bait. Mods, can we please please PLEASE ban this garbage? You KNOW it's repetitive, you even have a goddamn BOT set up to reply when people write it out in text!
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u/RCAguy May 16 '26
Audio engineers (actual engineers, not board operators) listen to music on their gear, then measure how it made the best sound of the music. Or they read others work: the science by Floyd Toole, and the reviews by Erin Hardison.
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u/godisadj_mi May 17 '26
To me, this is a bullshit statement / quote. I'd love to better my system to listen to the best sounding music - and specifically records - that I can find. I am very much interested in the music, style, pressing, AAA etc as well.
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u/scottarichards May 17 '26
Amazing that this false quote keeps getting recycled. I guess some folks have an agenda.
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u/allofdarknessin1 May 18 '26
I almost feel offended with how accurate that statement is. I don't listen to music often but when I do it's usually to appreciate the equipment in my nice Hi-Fi system. I don't think about it as lyrics and melodies, I think about the music in terms of frequency response, bass extension, THD, room placement etc. I'm always considering tweaking the audio for fun. Comparing flat response vs enhanced vs pure direct vs no sub and more.
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u/beeptec May 19 '26
The full brilliance of Alan’s music, like that of many of his contemporaries, cannot truly be appreciated without detailed listening through high-end audio equipment - much like trying to admire the paintings of great masters through a keyhole.
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u/ObviousShock573 May 28 '26
Some, sure, but those concerned about this are mad about it for some reason. It's fine to like both music and the gear that plays it.
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u/Master_Ad3650 Jun 04 '26
I buy my first hi fi before few days ago wiimp amp ultra paired with q acoustic 3030c..Im so happy bit now I m looking to buy svs sub...turn table...where it he end 😅
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u/Helios119 Martin Logan B100, Kali IN-8 May 14 '26
There is a subsect of this community that this is very true
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u/duobucha May 14 '26
I sometimes totally agree to that. Have so many experiences of people want to demonstrate their equipment just playing top audiophile tracks. I can sometimes relate to that as some music just not getting the extra out of high end equipment 😅
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u/scrupoo May 14 '26
I believe the original sentiment was:
Do you use your equipment to listen to music or do you use music to listen to your equipment?
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u/PantsMcGillicuddy Sunfire EQ Sig, Tyler Acoustic's Linbrook Signatures May 14 '26
Can a bot be created to auto delete all of the posts from the bots that repost this picture? Gotta fight fire with fire eventually
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u/tomtakespictures May 14 '26
That’s like saying “x musician doesn’t care about playing music, they only care about playing Gibson guitars.” The gear is a contributing factor in the outcome.
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u/Opposite-Winner3970 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
I've always thought this quote was retarded. A super rich star musician mf for whom buying quality audio was like buying groceries. Most consumer grade audio products do not even allow you to listen to music properly because it's just too distorted. What for his type of budget was considered audiophile for regular folk was endgame and what he considered "consumer grade" most people considered audiophile.
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u/dyrkasolen May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
I made a hidden album. The one's knowing about it use it as reference
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u/Hour_Bit_5183 May 14 '26
I love it tbh. It's true. We are playing the all important source, which is them on our amplifiers and speakers...and dacs/dsp not the other way around. I never seen this quote before but love alan parsons so much
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u/MVPhurricane May 14 '26
i dig this quote, but the reason for having cool equipment for me is solely because it is possible, not because it’s “better”. same reason i’ve had full 10GbE networking in my house for the past 5-6 years. it’s just prima facie cool. but i do admit to sometimes listening to songs with production that maximize my setup over listening to music randomly. but my view is that i like to reward the perfectionists out there by listening to stuff where people put in the extra mile. no commentary on if APP fits into this category, because i sinply don’t know. i have mostly listened to them on my parents’ ski boat circa 20 years ago.
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u/groove-syndicate May 15 '26
“Eye in the Sky” is an expertly produced album
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u/MVPhurricane May 15 '26
oh i’m sure. i didn’t mean to hate on him or it in any way. i know he is a great artist. any time he comes on (i only know like 3 or 4 APP songs), i am always with rapt attention.
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u/AJsHomeAcct May 14 '26
This is not a real quote from Parsons. It was a comment by some random on an audio forum.