The audiophile hobby is a long standing endeavor that so many people who love both music and technology tend to gravitate towards. Listening to music in the 1970s was as much of a statement on status and culture as it was about sound. Today, audiophiles like the idea of being able to get away from the blue light of their computer screens and perhaps lowering their blood pressure thanks to listening to 15 minutes of John Coltrane.
The Competition Between Audiophile Components Is Fierce…
Today’s audiophile components are better and better performers especially with the rise of semiconductors in modern designs. When Baby Boomers started with the audiophile hobby there were electronics that were based around vacuum tubes. Today, semiconductors are fully superior at amplifying sound as semiconductor amp designs including ones using Pascal chips, Hypex chips or GaN (Gallium Nitride) technology) have the warm sound of tubes but the accuracy of the power hungry class-A amp designs but use barely any power from the wall and create close to no heat.
Today’s audiophile speakers are pretty impressive too. Gone are hard-to-drive impendence loads as you saw with speakers like THIEL Audio designs in the past. Even today’s affordable audiophile speakers are capable of being driving by small, great sounding amps and can make great sound in small to moderate sized rooms. Do you need to spend a fortune on these speakers? No, but you can by all means. Audiophile speakers that are good can cost $1,000 per pair but others that are much more exotic (and absurd) cost $100,000 and much more. $1,000,000 per pair of speakers isn’t unheard of, believe it or not.
In the end...
In the end, don’t let internal competition effect your audiophile journey. Don’t get caught up in keeping up with Jones with your audiophile friends either. There isn’t any real competition when it comes to the hobby as it is more about enjoying the ride along the way. The competition between companies and between new products is real and that has major benefits to you as a consumer so that is a good thing.
Never forget the audiophile hobby is all about having fun.