Audiophiles are not much different than other hobbies or addictions (e.g., Mac addicts, iPod addicts). Sure some audiophiles go way over board (e.g., green markers on CD, $2,000 speaker cables), but audiophiles simply value good accurate sound. Without them, home theater audio would not have reached the state it is in now.
I consider myself an audiophile, although I did not spent a ton of money building my system. To us, "listen to what sounds good to you" is often not a good yard stick. Essentially, one of the common missions audiophiles seek after is recreating very accurate sound to match recording engineers/musicians/filmmakers' intention. Boosting bass and/or treble is a big no no. We use equalizers to merely flatten the sound further (compensating for speaker's weakness and playback environment). We use several tools to tweak our system to sound as neutral and accurate as possible, with minimal distortion, etc.
That said, I am also an iPod user (just replaced the old one with new 5G 30 GB) and no, I did not encode all my music in Apple Lossless format. I am using 256 kbps AAC VBR instead. Although encoding at even 128 kbps AAC would often result in good enough sound on average earphones, on full-range speakers or studio headsets, you can easily tell them apart. Lower bitrate encoding often results in tiny/flat sound with weaker bass or treble.
I consider myself an audiophile, although I did not spent a ton of money building my system. To us, "listen to what sounds good to you" is often not a good yard stick. Essentially, one of the common missions audiophiles seek after is recreating very accurate sound to match recording engineers/musicians/filmmakers' intention. Boosting bass and/or treble is a big no no. We use equalizers to merely flatten the sound further (compensating for speaker's weakness and playback environment). We use several tools to tweak our system to sound as neutral and accurate as possible, with minimal distortion, etc.
That said, I am also an iPod user (just replaced the old one with new 5G 30 GB) and no, I did not encode all my music in Apple Lossless format. I am using 256 kbps AAC VBR instead. Although encoding at even 128 kbps AAC would often result in good enough sound on average earphones, on full-range speakers or studio headsets, you can easily tell them apart. Lower bitrate encoding often results in tiny/flat sound with weaker bass or treble.
