Do Audiophiles experience music differently?

Off-Topic
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Something that I’ve been pondering lately, and I know that it’s true for me but I wondered about the rest of us: compared to people you know who aren’t “in the hobby” or enthusiasts for audio, do you get huge emotional responses and experiences while listening to music? Have you had others listen to your setups, even with their preferred music, and only gotten a shrug or a “I mean, it sounds good I guess” in response?
I’ve been thinking about this, and wondering if a considerable percentage, if not majority, of audiophiles experience something akin to Synesthesia (Synesthesia - Wikipedia) from their music that the average listener does not? I don’t associate a tone with a color or taste or the like, but I can get brought close to tears, or feel a swell in my chest when listening to some tracks that I have no particular attachment to, and with either instrumental- or vocal-based tracks. This is the case with a lot of people who have sentimental attachments to specific songs and emotional events in their lives (first dances, weddings, soundtrack hits tied to emotional scenes in movies or tv shows), but seemingly not so with just a song playing at random. This also ties, I think, to what draws people to certain types or components of music. I usually seem to be able to classify people into a handful of categories in this respect:

  1. People who focus more on instruments, arrangements or technical aspects of music. Typically the case with people who have a background in music.
  2. People who focus almost wholesale on lyrics or just vocals. I feel like people who focus entirely on verbal components tend to be more given to prose than music.
  3. People who aren’t particularly given to either. They tend to not take music seriously at all and could be considered the majority of “casual listeners”.
    I have to imagine that most of our ilk tend to fall into category 1, but I’d be interested if anyone here specifically feels that they fall more into the latter two. Anyway, just a rumination that’s been coalescing in the back of my head, talk amongst yourselves and let me know if I’m close to the mark with you personally or way off the beaten path! Do you happen to have certifiable Synesthesia, even if it’s more in regard to things not related to sounds or music? Let us know!
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In my opinion the majority of casual listeners are like your nr 2 category - they focus on vocals and lyrics.

I would not describe them as “neither instruments or vocals oriented” like your nr 3 group, in my observation for vast majority of people music (instruments) is just a background for vocalists.

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While I could see that, I feel like most of the people I know that aren’t really into music don’t particularly remember lyrics all that much either, outside of maybe chorus and hooks; my category 2 was meant to encompass people that tend to sing to themselves a lot, and will hunt down lyrics rather than just guess if something seems ambiguous. They tend to be more emotionally driven by the words than the sound. More akin to songwriters than listeners, I suppose. Still, I appreciate the feedback! Keep it coming!

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I think this is an interesting discussion.
My two cents and I won’t try to drone on for too long here, I focus on both aspects of music, both vocals and instrumentation i’d say equally. Sometimes, percussion in rock songs grab my attention more so than any other aspect of a song - a good example is Fool In The Rain by Led Zeppelin. The drums by Bonham are both simple and complex and my brain cannot help but to fixate on that part of the song.
I’ve let my non-audiophile friends and co-workers try the Monarchs and their reactions are always underwhelming, when I first heard them I was blown away by the emotions I felt, the details I’ve missed in songs that I’ve heard a hundred times… But I don’t take offense. From my experience, non-audiophile folks mostly fixate on the bass of a song and the lyrics if they’re catchy enough. To them, if they’re trying a high end headphone for the first time the #1 conclusion they come to is “Everything is so clear…” and that’s it.

That’s when I know I’ve gone off the deep end when it comes to gear and listening to music.
I don’t remember who it is, but over on Head-Fi there’s a guy with a quote in his bio and it says “An Audiophile is a person who listens to their headphones with their music” and that is so true. There’s a fine line in this hobby and you can see it all the time. We talk more about the gear we’re using rather than the music we’re enjoying … what is that saying? Ignorance is bliss? Yeah. We’re far from ignorant when it comes to audio equipment and we lose that bliss.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, people who aren’t in the hobby, tend to just shut up and enjoy the music, and I couldn’t be more jealous.

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I personally consider vocals to be another instrument, albeit a complex one. I only really focus on lyrics for rap music, for songs that are song its more about the vocal quality and less about the lyrics. Having said that I don’t really focus on any one particular portion of a song but the song as a whole. I am driven more by the rhythmic aspects of music that the instruments convey; cadence, tempo, etc.

Having said that, music doesn’t incite strong emotions in me such as sadness or elation. I find music exciting, entrancing, enjoyable and Im sure some other e words but its never once brought me to tears. That is just me though and I can understand why it would in others. I don’t see how ones appreciation of the transmission of music would correlate to their emotional attachment to music though.

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That’s an interesting question! My two cents (very uninformed - I’m quite new to audio gear but I do get emotional when listening to music) are this.

First of all, I can get emotional with any sort of art. I’ve teared up in front of movies and paintings and once when having a particularly good dish. One reason for that (in addition to the fact that I’m a crybaby) may be that I engage actively with creative experiences - but not everyone does that.
Some people have no desire or brain-space availability to actively listen or watch or eat. As a result, music is a fun/soothing/entertaining background for them, but not something that they actually engage with. And if it’s just pleasant background… then, really, how much difference does good sound make? The general idea of the song, although it’s fuzzy, is there, the melody and harmonics and most prominent instruments are kinda audible, and I think people are fine with that “blurry” impression of the song.

And then, related but separate, there’s also: how do you experience music usually? As I said, I’m new-ish to audio gear, but I do go to concerts regularly across various musical genres, I can play a bit of piano and guitar (horribly, but nonetheless, I have an idea how these instruments sound in real life), etc. So when I listen to a track, I have comparison points. I understand that studio is a different beast, but still, the notion of soundstage and realism, for example, makes sense to me.
But concerts are an expensive hobby, and again, people’s time and money and brain space are limited. Most people go to concerts fairly rarely, and it’s often a social experience, a night out with mates. It’s fun in a hundred ways, and music is just one of them.
So when you don’t have any sort of benchmark… how do you even know that what you’re hearing is good?

And finally, for gear in particular, there’s another component: nerdery. Because let’s be honest, I’ve gotten a couple of IEMs recently, and ANY of them is at least decent. If you’re not into nitpicking things and poking at frequency graphs and comparing tracks with 6 different headphones on your head, then a decent kit will take you a long way. If you don’t particularly care about the extra 10% of joy… hearing a better piece of kit won’t matter to you that much.

So all that put together, I’d say: I’m not sure people are essentially different, but we all choose to spend our time (and money) in different ways. Whether we’re driven to certain hobbies because we’re predisposed to them (I guess if you feel nothing when you listen to music, then why would you put in the effort to listen more?) or because your parents were into them or because -insert happenstance- is hard to tell. But the more you spend attuning yourself to something, the more you’re going to get out of it.

I guess the long and short of it is, maybe we should all take our friends hostage and force them to listen to our favourite gear for a week, see if that mellows them out :stuck_out_tongue:

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You create a benchmark through your experiences. In my case, over the years I have listened to a lot of different stuff on a very large assortment of hardware. It’s just something that happens over the years.

  • Visit a friend, they have a stereo of some kind, and you hang around and do things involving that.
  • Go to a concert, hear the loudspeakers on stage.
  • Get dragged into various churches, hear their sound setups.
  • Walk down the street, bump into a massive assortment of boomboxes.
  • Help a friend work on a car, they will likely have some music going in their garage.
  • Work in a radio station and experience the gear they have there.
  • Watch a movie in the Theater and many will also have good speaker setups.
  • And then there’s the stuff you or your family may have personally owned over the course of your life.

It all blends in to give you a baseline to work from. However, most places, even the ones that should have ‘better’ stuff, usually don’t spring for things that are truly high-end. The best audio most people will bump into (with the exception of concerts - and those are usually about pure volume instead of very high quality). So the ‘best’ most people experience is what I would call ‘mid-range’.

  • This leads to a very large portion of the population that has no idea what the really good audio gear sounds like.

The internet has helped a lot though. Things like YouTube reviews helped get news about what good audio is, into the ears of the masses. Being able to watch a video, and hear someone talk about their experience, is much different from reading about high-end gear in a magazine. Watching videos is much more engaging way to experience the information.

But there still are many people, (I’d say most people) who have no idea what they are missing.

Even so - technology has greatly improved from what once was. We’ve come a long way since 8 tracks and record players, and as new tech becomes cheaper and more widely available, more people will have access to great audio experiences at lower prices.

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That quote is on the profile a user named baskingshark. He’s a cool dude. One of my favorites to interact with because he’s obviously intelligent, level-headed, and laid back while still being passionate, helpful, and generally well informed.

I have some thoughts on this thread’s topic, but I want to formulate them properly and ruminate on them a bit rather than just shooting from the hip so to speak. Some interesting thoughts and perspectives on here for sure. Great discussion starter @Sonofholhorse !

Edit: Here’s the actual quote from baskingshark’s sig on headfi for anyone who’s interested:

“WHAT IS AN AUDIOPHILE?
Someone who uses music to listen to their IEMs/headphones, instead of using IEMs/headphones to listen to music.”

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I do not consider myself an audiophile as I cannot see the difference in going past a certain point.
I do NOT hear the difference in upgrading RCA cables, XLR cables, headphones cables or even power cables.
The same with DAC’s.

I also do not like neutral, transparent headphones or amps that add nothing to the sound. Audiophiles, for the most part, are fixated on trying to hear what the recording engineer and the band were aiming for in the studio. I have no idea how people even know what the original sound was supposed to be.
I don’t care for studio headphones or many brands that have that clear, transparent, “adds nothing to the sound” characteristics.

I like warm amps (although not always) and fun headphones.

My favourite instruments were always the vocals. Although, I really enjoyed almost any song with the horns wailing.

Learning to like jazz was hard as there were no vocals, or at least ones that I liked.

I am head over heels in love with music. The rock and pop songs trigger happiness and many memories. The jazz relaxes me and makes feel really good.

I haven’t been working much the last few years and have been listening to music for about 40 hours per week and building a very nice music/gear collection. It is now my main passion.
And no, I do not know anyone locally that feels as I do. And NOBODY thinks my music gear is a rational expenditure.

We are unusual. :grinning:

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I’m NOT an audiophile I love vinyl (it’s what I grew up listening to) I spend most my money trying to find iems that give me the vinyl experience from a digital player. Why because I have a family and 4 dogs so the opportunity to play my thousands of vinyl albums at the volume I like are extremely limited. My most successful Aquisition has been the the Meze Advar which beguiled me with its smooth revealing musicality.

True audiophiles are way more OCD/anal about frequency graphs and 1db differences here and there where I just want to get lost in music “normal people” if such things exist just want a nice sound.

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I grew up with music. My father played country and my mother was an Elvis fan. We had a stereo system in the kitchen where my father put the speakers in the soffits in the early 70’s. I got my first record player at about 12 (I’m currently 57). I’ve always loved music.

I think in the case of the audiophile, it’s is to relive the music at it’s purest form or what makes it most “alive” for them (what ever that means).

I know almost no one that would appreciate my headphones set up the way I do. My wife even finds what I’ve spent on audio gear outlandish, But I wouldn’t give it up. In fact, I’m still looking at upgrades.

My system is a Bifrost 2 > Jot 2 > Elex or Arya.

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Just as I think of myself as a person in recovery (not an alcoholic), I prefer the term (headphone) audio enthusiast to audiophile for myself. Also, I consider myself highly sensitive to sound. The OP mentioned synesthesia, but I think I might actually border on misophonia. I can be extremely uncomfortable when I’m not in control of my sonic environment.

I’m a musician as well as an audio enthusiast. My mom and dad both had good, broad knowledge of a wide variety of music, so I had a lot of exposure from a very early age. To be perfectly honest, my obsession began when I saw a fellow playing the flute on Sesame Street. I was fascinated. I wanted to do that. And I did! I eventually earned B. Mus. and M.A. degrees in flute.

Vocals are ok, but definitely at the bottom of the list of things I enjoy in music. Contrast that with my brother, who holds a doctoral degree in voice, writes libbretti, and has now written an opera.

My wife, I think, is a category 3 person - for her, music is nice, but rarely if ever something that speaks directly to her soul like it does to mine and my brother’s.

Two adages apply to my listening approach:

  1. Familiarity breeds contempt. Listen to something enough will make me utterly sick of it. This is why I loathe Christmas music so much (that, plus it’s really lyrics-vocals oriented). It’s why I nearly lost my mind working at places with “background” music - just the same stuff over and over. Ditto FM radio, which has little to do with music and everything to do with advertising. I really need variety. Not only does this lead to a huge music collection (I might listen to the same thing 1-4 times a year), but it drives my GAS (gear acquisition syndrome). I’m always on the lookout for a gear that sounds different from what I have, plus I rotate stuff often and try different signal chain combinations.
  2. Practice makes perfect. Listening is a skill that takes practice. As has been mentioned here, if you have no desire or interest in active listening, you likely won’t be able to tell the difference between high-end and consumer-grade gear. The more I experience good quality equipment, the better I get at picking out what’s going on with the sound. I’m finding myself in situations where I’m listening to music in public on someone else’s system or what have you and getting really critical. (“This would sound so much better on something other than my mom’s built-in TV speakers. The gear isn’t really doing the music justice.”)
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Well explained.

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I don’t agree with the claim that “an audiophile is someone who uses their headphones or IEMs to listen to music”. In my opinion, an audiophile is a person who likes music, whatever it is, and listens to it with anything and everywhere…
And yes, I don’t like the term “audiophile” either, because all “philes” are … a little twisted, a little unbalanced and psychopathic in nature. I prefer the term “audio enthusiast”, which is what I really am. :melting_face: :v:

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Interesting question. I think everyone experiences music differently, including those that fit the description of Audiophile. And what the hell is an Audiophile, anyway? This is the foundational argument! Well, if you ask AI (which I did) you’ll see this:

“An audiophile is someone who loves high-quality sound and tries to achieve it in their audio system. They usually use special equipment and accessories to enhance the sound quality of their music sources, amplifiers, and speakers. They also pay attention to the acoustics of their listening room and try to reduce any unwanted noise or distortion. An audiophile may have different preferences and tastes for music genres, formats, and styles, but they all share a passion for sound reproduction.”

Now, I love music. For me, that is what all this is about. I love to experience it in many different ways. Yes, the gear helps me love the music even more, but for me, it’s the music. Yet somehow, the music doesn’t get referenced much in AI’s definition. Seems the focus is more on gear, room treatments etc. and that focus on sound reproduction. So yes, a person who is an audiophile does experience music differently. As mentioned before, I think we all do, as I feel that music is a powerful and very personal journey. But in this context, I am not an audiophile, per se. I’m more of a music lover / audio enthusiast. Again, interesting topic.

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I would definitely say yes, Although I don’t care for the term audiophile. To me that represents someone that is fixated on only the highest quality of sound, likely enjoys classical music and buys very high end gear and high res music.

As I have gotten older, I enjoy music even more. Be it from my phone, my DAP, my car, my desktop PC system or my main listening station with headphones.
Listening to music is one of the most pleasurable things in my life now.

Most people seem to not like music at all. And the ones that claim to like it just use it as background filler. Just to cover any awkward silences.

The only people I know that enjoy music as much as I do are on the audio/headphone forums.

I take music listening WAY more serious than anybody should. :grin:

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As a melophile who has ended up adding audiophilia to their repertoire of hobbies, I think it depends on both your approach and how you already experience, subjectively, the music you listen to. A misconception that I had prior to seriously experimenting with audio gear was that the upper-echelon of audiophiles (whatever that was) wanted the purest, unadulterated experience or “studio-level” sonics.

The reality is that producing, mastering, and mixing never targets for a specific chain, but for sounding generally “right” on an aggregate of audio-production & commercial gear, and on the audiophile-end we’re basically chaining different gear with certain distortion characteristics (or lack thereof) to create synergies, “pure” or “impure”, that come off the most euphonic to us.

To answer the question, I think audiophiles who aren’t deluded by the idea of true sonic “perfection” are simply accentuating that delivery of music they already listen to, to their tastes with a combination of objective and subjective improvements. The same, but better (to the listener.) I think while critical listening is aided by higher end gear, I think that method/interest comes before you tinker with audiophile gear, the mass-market stuff is enough.

I do think the chifi end largely consists of over-spenders with an itch, and with the upper-end I feel like I’m walking on a tightrope of my own subjective experiences (+ collective) & noticed improvements while dangling over misguided science and pseudoscience on each end. Though, it’s whatevs since it’s not like we hunting for ivory or something, to each their own. I digress.

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There are actual studies that some people hear sounds and music in the ways it gives actual physical pleasure and full body goosebumps or chills. Some music or sounds that the listener likes.
So these people experience sounds differently befault.

SO if these people are or later change to so called audiophiles. Sure and they actually feel the experience differently to a person that does not experience this.
Its not even audio gear related or does not correlate to have this experience.
BUT
Having better gear just deepens the experience it can last nearly the full song. Like with really good speakers and just the right amount of volume. Aaaaahhh its so nice like a euphoric effect. Full body chills that lasts minutes.
It can even be repeated with the good songs and the good ones hit always.
Like to call these moments eargasm’s

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