Audiophile

An audiophile (from Latin: audīre, lit. 'to hear' + Greek: φίλος, romanized: philos, lit. 'loving') is a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction.^[1] The audiophile seeks to achieve high sound quality in the audio reproduction of recorded music, typically in a quiet listening space in a room with good acoustics.^[2][3]

Audiophile values may be applied at all stages of music reproduction—the initial audio recording, the production process, the storage of sound data, and the playback (usually in a home setting). In general, the values of an audiophile are seen to be antithetical to the growing popularity of more convenient but lower-quality music, especially lossy digital file types like MP3, lower-definition music streaming services, laptop or cell phone speakers, and low-cost headphones.^[4]

The term high-end audio refers to playback equipment used by audiophiles, which may be bought at specialist shops and websites.^[5] High-end components include turntables, digital-to-analog converters, equalization devices, preamplifiers and amplifiers (both solid-state and vacuum tube), loudspeakers (including horn, electrostatic and magnetostatic speakers), power conditioners, subwoofers, headphones, and acoustic room treatment in addition to room correction devices.^[6][7]

Although many audiophile techniques are based on objective criteria that can be verified using techniques like ABX testing, perceived sound quality is necessarily subjective, often with subtle differences, leading to some more controversial audiophile techniques being based on pseudoscientific principles.^[8][9]