Thoughts on audiophiles, aging, & live performance

Hi. I'm new to this forum, having just purchased an RR2150.

I thought I'd share some thoughts on audiophiles, aging, and reproduction of live performances.

Some (or all) of my comments may be outside the box, but here goes anyway.

Is this as good a definition of "Audiophiles" as any? "Those of us who try to reproduce the sound in our homes or cars as to sound as close to a live performance as possible" (based on available resources, space, spouse, and technology.) "High end" audiophiles often obsess about every spec of perceived distortion down to .001% that may be caused by cables, jitter, one component or other, or room resonances. Here is what I think about all that:

90% of us who love music and audio experience more "distortion" at live events than we do with a $1,000 audio system. Most live venues have audible HVAC systems, people coughing and moving around, and often maladjusted sound reinforcement systems. Consequently, even with our greater than 0.001% levels of distortion in our home systems, our greater than +/-3db frequency response, and inability to get much below 25Hz, our living room performances are going to sound BETTER than live.

That is why I will not obsess over sound qualities that I might imagine rather than really hear - for another five grand.

This brings me to age. Many of us are over the age of frequency drop offs. By that I mean when we turn 40, most of us lose 5 to 10 db over 10kHz. Those over 50 perhaps 10 to 20 db over 8kHz, and over 60, well, you get the picture. (I'm 68)

Does that mean we should get speakers with psychotic tweeters that sound like a flock of hungry crows to compensate for our HF loss? Or turn up the treble plus daisy chain a few graphic equalizers and turn up the heat on every octave over 3kHz?

Some audiophiles believe the equipment SHOULD be tweaked to compensate for hearing loss. I disagree and here's why:

If an audiophile is as defined, "our attempt to accurately reproduce a live performance", and we are the ones experiencing the live performance, complete with our built in mechanism that cuts most frequencies over 6 or 8kHz by 20db or more, then that is how we hear a live performance. That is the performance we should hear in the living room. That performance does not require elevated treble settings to hear what we heard at the live performance. This is my theory of "old fart" hearing relativity. What we hear live is relative to what we hear in the home. That remains the pure definition of "audiophile": Hearing in the home what we hear at a live performance.

Thoughts? Comments?

I resemble those remarks!!!

OK. Given my previous definition, I might not be an audiophile. I tweaked some treble settings above 4kHZ and I like the sound better. So I might need to change my definition of "audiophile" to one who seeks to make music sound BETTER than what we experiences at a live performance. Apparently our sonic memory of what we enjoyed before high frequency hearing loss is not too shabby.

I would offer a definition that an audiophile is dedicated to reproducing the original recording as closely as possible to the original source. If that involves tweaking the room or frequency somewhat so be it. Ultimately it is what makes each of us happy that matters not what others think is better.

I also agree with the original recording to sound as good as we can make it. As per "live performance" reproduction, I don't know by who's standards live performance should sound like. This "closest to live performance" is a selling phrase to audiophiles who are indeed aging and cannot hear the highest frequencies at original db levels as Clarinet stated in the original post.

So what is "live performance sound" exactly. There is NO exact standard based on perception as people are individuals and as such perceive the "highest quality" sound differently as they taste the highest quality dish. I set my HT system to the director's intent and THEN I tweak it slightly to my room and THEN to my individual taste. On my SVS PB13 Ultra I adusted both PEQs based on my listening preference and set the Q-Factor according to room size and taste on repeated LFE tracks on movies I own.

Buying speakers worth $50k or greater with Plasma Corona tweeters for those of us who's age comes with hair loss and still pursuing the "live performance lie" is assenine at it's finest or worst.

By the time we reach our 70s, who cares about Plasma or Beryllium tweeters.

In my case it was those live performances that gave me some of the hearing loss. I personally don't believe it is possible to accurately reproduce a live performance due to the inherent limitations of our equipment at any price range. I have never heard a live recording that came close to "being there" due to the limitations of the recording equipment and then the mixing and then the RAII curves and the compression and then factor in the equipment we all use to listen. All we can do is make it sound the best way we like it. I think the older we get the more we tend to like bass because you can feel it as well as hear it and we don't hear too much above about 7k hz anyway.