High-end audio

Not to be confused with High-fidelity audio.

High-end audio is a class of consumer home audio equipment marketed to audiophiles on the basis of high price or quality, and esoteric or novel sound reproduction technologies. The term can refer simply to the price, to the build quality of the components, or to the subjective or objective quality of sound reproduction.^[1][2]

Definition

The distinction between the terms high end and high fidelity is not well defined.^[3] According to one industry commentator, high-end could be defined as, "Gear below which's price and performance one could not go without compromising the music and the sound."^[4] Harry Pearson, founder of The Absolute Sound magazine, is widely acknowledged to have coined the term high-end audio.^[5]

Costs

High-end audio equipment can be extremely expensive. It is sometimes referred to as cost-no-object equipment.^{[citation needed]} Audiophile equipment can encompass the full range from budget to high-end in terms of price.^[6]

Fidelity assessment

The fidelity of sound reproduction may be assessed aurally or using audio system measurements.

The human sense of hearing is subjective and difficult to define. Psychoacoustics is a division of acoustics that studies this field.

Measurements can be deceiving; high or low figures of certain technical characteristics do not necessarily offer a good representation of how the equipment sounds to each person. For example, some valve (vacuum tube) amplifiers produce greater amounts of total harmonic distortion, but this type of distortion (2nd harmonic) is not as disturbing to the ear as the higher-order distortions produced by poorly designed transistor equipment.^[7]

The validity of certain products is often questioned. These include accessories such as speaker wires utilizing exotic materials (such as oxygen-free copper)^[8] and construction geometries, cable stands for lifting them off the floor (as a way to control mechanically induced vibrations), connectors, sprays and other tweaks.^[9]

See also

• Audio noise measurement
• Broadcast quality
• Professional audio
• Stereophile, The Absolute Sound; hi-fi+;^[10] high-end home audio magazines

References

1. Branch, John D. (23 May 2007). "Postmodern Consumption and the High-Fidelity Audio Microculture". In Russell Belk; Russell Belk Jr.; John Sherry (eds.). Consumer Culture Theory, Volume 11 (Research in Consumer Behavior) (1 ed.). JAI Press. pp. 79–99. ISBN 978-0-7623-1446-1.
2. Perlman, M. (2004). "Golden ears and meter readers: The contest for epistemic authority in Audiophilia". Social Studies of Science. 34 (5): 783. doi:10.1177/0306312704047613. S2CID 146545243.
3. "Finnish hi-fi and high-end guide: terminology" (in Finnish). Archived from the original on 2 September 2001.
4. Szabady, Paul (January 2008). "The Rega P3-24 Turntable". Stereo Times. Archived from the original on 21 November 2013
5. Guttenberg, Steve (10 October 2009). "Who invented high-end audio?". CNET. Retrieved 20 August 2020.
6. SOUND; How About a Pair of Loudspeakers Priced at $65,000?, New York Times, 1987
7. Holt, J. Gordon (9 June 2007). "The truth about high end". Stereophile. Retrieved 29 August 2020.
8. A. Colin Flood (July 2014). "Oxygen Free Copper Wire Worthy of the hype?". Enjoy the Music.com. Retrieved 15 January 2016.
9. Cables, Interconnects and Other Stuff – The Truth. Sound.westhost.com.
10. "hi-fi+". hifiplus.com