Anyone in the pursuit of sonic greatness knows that nagging feeling, that ever present inner voice that whispers, speaks, or shouts. "This can sound better." I'm that individual.
I'm always demanding to have the best possible stage sound; not to use my equipment to listen to the music, but to use my music to listen to the equipment.

Music is a language all of its own, and every person with a functioning set of ears, an open heart, and the receptive brain responds to it.

Music is a universal language which binds us all together. Music is the soundtrack of our life, and it’s the sonic motion of emotion. The musician creates music in a certain way, and they want us to hear the intent of its creation.

Music is the most popular art form in the world. It heard in public places, in retail stores, in performance venues, in your car, at home, in iPhone and iPod, and an underscore to movies, TV shows, and YouTube videos.

Music is undeniably one of our human species most basic means of expression. For many, it is an essential part of life, not merely a background soundtrack to one’s everyday activities.

Music is everywhere. It serves as a centerpiece to many of our most important celebrations. Weddings, birthdays, funerals, and communal celebrations of all kinds include music because of its inherent beauty, ability to make our bodies move, and expressive quality.

Music has a unique ability to bypass the analytical left half of our brains and stimulate our emotions and intellect directly. It can make you uncontrollably tap your foot in time with the beat or haunt you with a memorable melody long after the music has stopped.

For thousands of years, music making could only be experienced when professional or amateur musicians gathered and performed. Whether it was an elaborate group of highly trained performers, a traveling minstrel, solo pianist in a parlor, a hundred-member symphony orchestra, or an amplified garage rock band, you had to be in attendance to enjoy and appreciate the performance.

Since Scott de Martinville in April, 1860 first captured and imprinted a rotating cylinder of aluminum with the sound of young french children singing "Au Clair de la Lune", the french version of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".

and then Thomas Edison recorded nursery rhyme, "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and played back the recorded sound in 1875, the fidelity of reproduced sound has caused an unprecedented shift in the way music was conceived, consumed, and commercialized with each evolving generation.

We cannot separate the media (our systems, room acoustic, media format, etc.) from our ability to experience the music.
The musical experience is a delicate and complex equation, but we can tune our music systems and room acoustic to balance the equation better.

An audiophile's journey is about passion; passion for music, and for how accurate the music can reproduce. As an audiophile, my quest is to recreate the musical message of the composer or artist with the maximum realism, emotion, and intensity.

The path from the acoustic cylinder and lacquer discs, through electrically amplified 78s, vinyl LPs, and analog tapes has brought us ever closer to the fidelity of a live performance.

High-end audio is about uncompromised music capture and reproduction. In its highest realization, high-end audio can deliver sonic realism, emotional intensity, and intellectual stimulation equal to that of live music experience, elaborate studio production, or anything in between. In fact, with the right sensibility and production techniques, today’s technology can eclipse the fidelity of a live music event.

Today, we live in the digital age. Digital music, internet distribution, downloads, streaming, and music file sharing are challenging more familiar formats like CDs, SACDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray Pure Audio Disks. Streaming services like Apple music, Pandora, Spotify, Deezer, and Tidal may replace these physical formats.

Audiophiles love to debate the relative merits of audio formats, headphones, cables, amplifiers, speakers, analog vs. digital, and some dubious accessories and it’s effect on fidelity.

Defining fidelity is challenging. Fidelity is having when the sound of a live performance is captured and subsequently reproduced. Entire sound stage (All of the instrumental/ vocal timbres, dynamics, subtle details, spatial distribution) and ambient cues are maintained and recast in your playback environment. Hence Audiophile’s goal is to substitute a live experience with a recorded version in the privacy of your own home, in the car, or through a set of headphones.

Audiophiles enjoy their music through high-end audio, and high-end audio is a combination of wonderful equipment reproducing a high-quality music recording in a fashion that causes the technical realities of the experience to melt away.

It can be accomplished using digital or analog hardware and software. It can be delivered through two speakers or a complex array of custom drivers, a small beam-forming sound bar, or even through a set of headphones.

It can be sourced from a stylus riding in the groove of a vinyl record, from an optical pickup reading the pits of a spinning poly-carbonate disc, or from a solid state USB stick delivering millions of ones and zeroes to a digital-to-analog converter.

High-end audio; is not the exclusive domain of one format or another. It is a moving and elusive target subject to continuing experimentation by contributors all along the production chain.