audiophile
/ˈɔː.di.əʊˌfaɪl/
audiophile means relating to high fidelity sound reproduction or an interest in it. It carries an Arena rating of 1423, earned across 5 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, audiophile ranks #975 of 13,219 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #5,133 of 13,219 for Most Malleable Words, #6,185 of 13,219 for Most Elegant Words, #6,357 of 13,219 for Most Beautiful Words.
audiophile is pronounced /ˈɔː.di.əʊˌfaɪl/.
Why “audiophile” is a great word
A person with an ardent, sometimes obsessive, devotion to high-fidelity sound reproduction. The term, coined in the mid-20th century, is formed from audio- (relating to hearing or sound) + -phile (from Greek philos, meaning 'loving, dear'). Unlike a 'hi-fi enthusiast,' who may simply enjoy quality equipment, or an 'audio engineer,' who manipulates sound as a technical craft, the audiophile is a secular priest of the listening experience, for whom the medium is an end in itself. It is the ritual of cleaning a vinyl groove with a carbon-fiber brush, the perceived warmth of a vacuum tube's orange glow in a darkened room, and the hushed, almost reverent silence before the first note of a familiar recording played through new cables—a quest for sonic purity that listens past the music, into the machinery of its delivery, seeking the ghost in the machine.
Etymology
From audio- + -phile.
adj
- Relating to high fidelity sound reproduction or an interest in it.“Fortunately, I abandoned the cheap record player and moved into more audiophile equipment once I got into high school.”
noun
- A person with an interest in high fidelity music and/or sound reproduction and its associated technology.“However, almost every serious audiophile or electronics hobbyist already knows that bar/graph displays are close to useless for the application they are most commonly used for, which is the attempt to indicate output power levels of audio power amplifiers.”
Words closest in meaning
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