In the 1980s, the term "audiophile" flowed into the mainland from Hong Kong and Taiwan, used to describe people who were fascinated by playing audio. I always think that "fancier" is a derogatory term with ironic meaning, but it has been used as a commendatory term by many people to this day. Later, "record enthusiasts" came out. "Enthusiasts" soon became popular in other fields of interest, such as "camera enthusiasts", "car enthusiasts", and so on.
The origin of "enthusiasts"
It's normal and good for a person to show a special obsession with something they are interested in. However, obsession with rational obsession and irrational obsession. Fever belongs to irrational obsession.
In foreign countries, the term maniac is usually used to describe a fanatic, which means that he is infatuated with something and behaves in an abnormal way. And enthusiasts use enthusiast, which means that they are infatuated with something, the passion burns to the extreme, but they are still rational.
In my opinion, "audiophiles" refer to those who do not understand the audio knowledge and only pursue the sound effect. They only pursue the low frequency and high frequency brought by the sound blindly, and they must achieve extraordinary effect. At the same time, I have no patience to learn about acoustics, just blindly follow the trend and burn money to play with acoustics. They either follow suit or stick to their own ideas.
Music is a software tool to help them play sound effects. They determine whether a sound device and a set of sound devices are good or not. They mainly depend on how the sound device can play back this or that record, and look for the imaginary sound effect in the record. They don't have the patience to listen to a record quietly and completely, only listening to sound clips, only listening to some records or some kind of records, and still listening to clips.
From the sound playing, when listening to singing, you need to hear the sound of saliva, when listening to the piano, you need to hear the hammer on the piano's stringer have the "texture" of knocking in your own ear, when listening to the violin playing, you need to hear the friction sound between bow hair and strings, and pursue the physiological response caused by this - hallucination, smell of pine, so-called "wood" taste. When listening to brass music, you need to hear the smell of copper caused by olfactory organs, and when listening to percussion music, you need to hear the illusion of pain of being knocked on your body, etc.
When describing equipment and records, these enthusiasts often use words such as "loose fragrance", "noble breath sound" and "air sense", which are neither sound terms nor music terms. This kind of audiophiles are very extreme and stubborn in their judgment of things. Once they meet people who disagree with their own views, they will argue excitedly, or even turn their face because of the dispute. Either blindly follow a fever celebrity in a fever circle and listen to whatever he hears; or blindly follow the "fever Bible" and so on, play and listen to the sound according to the God in the book.
Don't follow the sound commentator blindly
Enthusiasts often follow some editors, but some editors are neither experts in designing, producing and studying acoustics, nor musicians or people who have a deep study of music. He is a person who plays more equipment (not his own equipment) and listens to records. He has a fever in introducing equipment and records, so he is regarded as a fever idol pursued by fans. This is the behavior of enthusiasts, and for some editors this is business. So many people pay to buy his experience of playing stereo and listening to music.
Playing stereo, listening to stereo and listening to music are my hobbies. After all, I also listen to the stereo when I buy it. The fun is to feel and discover. I'm not against the pursuit of equipment. After all, it's always a little pursuit of life to be colorful, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't take time and money to copy others' feelings. For such irrational behavior, the word "fever" is really accurate, because people with high fever will talk nonsense.
I think that as a healthy audio enthusiast (player), they are calm, rational and knowledge-based people, they know the audio related knowledge, and also know how to match and use audio devices. There are many players who can make their own sound devices, at least can debug a set of expensive or inexpensive sound devices to achieve the best sound performance. They test the quality of a set of sound to see if it can show the music appeal of a record, or maximize the appeal of live performance. This kind of sound players, basically, love to listen to live concerts, and take the sound effect of live performance as the aesthetic basis for music playback sound effect.
Do you love music or sound effects?
Similarly, the people who buy records are divided into Philharmonic record collectors and audiophiles. The former is basically out of love for music to buy records, the latter is to show the sound to buy records. The former may not care about whether the sound effect of the recording has a fever because they want to listen to the music. They pay attention to the story behind them. They will listen carefully and feel the emotion brought by the author, or be happy or sad. The story inside is worth savoring carefully. The latter requires that the record must have a fever of the sound effect in order to listen to the sound effect, and the low frequency must "vibrate to the chest" The high frequency should be "ear scraping", and even for the sake of buying sound effect fever disc, it doesn't care about the price.
When music lovers buy records, they will treat a record as a book to understand: from the performer (singer), conductor, orchestra, detailed background introduction of repertoire, music interpretation, etc., of course, they will also understand the production of recording. This kind of audio or record lovers will patiently and attentively listen to a record, or even listen to a record repeatedly, or collect different versions of the same track (rather than different recordings) for comparison and listening, to taste the different artistic aesthetics of the performers. The record consumers care about what technology and how to record, who is the recorder, and the details of the recording, but they only have a general understanding of the music related cultural background and musicians. They have the pursuit of sound effect, but they have no aesthetic pursuit of music sound and music.
Interest and hobbies are the good things we should have and indispensable in our life, and they are the place of life fun. However, if you lock yourself in your hobbies, obsession, neglect many other equally important things in your life, lose communication and communication with people, because hobbies affect your normal life and physical and mental health, that's fever! That's the forbidden area that I have not advocated and I have always avoided entering by mistake. We should advocate the spirit and passion of fever, but not the lack of fever. Otherwise, as many people do today, they will not use online chat as an effective tool for information exchange, but only obsessed with swiping the screen.
Listen to the scene
No matter how good the sound playback can be compared with the excellent live performance listening, no matter how good the record can be compared with the excellent live performance. With the aid of sound, listening to records is to eat tins, while listening to live reality shows is to eat fresh meat, which is essentially different. Listening to music, whether listening to the scene or listening to records, we should first pursue the appeal of music. No music appeal of the scene or recording, again fever is lifelike boring.
Good sound is helpful to capture and restore vivid live performances, but sound is not equal to the scene, sound is not equal to music, sound is a tool and means, not the purpose of listening to music. We listen to music with sound, not in music. If we use irrational fever behavior to explore a thing rationally and to explore and experience beauty according to aesthetic rules, we will definitely get much more than blind fever.
Whether it's fever or infatuation, it's up to reason to check and decide, rather than irrationality to rule their own behavior, blindly follow others and let others decide.
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