Audiophile
The word audiophile derives from Latin word - audio meaning “I hear” and Greek for “loving” - philos. In reality an audiophile is a person who highly values sound quality and audio equipment which provides the highest sound quality level - high end audio equipment. Audiophile community is extremely diversified which is probably not surprising considering that human sense of hearing is very subjective. On the other hand, audiophiles are the greatest experts when it comes to sound quality and audio equipment because they most often hear the details an average listener cannot.
To achieve the ultimate sound quality audiophiles choose each audio component very carefully. Audiophile equipment can be extremely expensive and is sometimes referred as cost-no-object although the price ranges greatly vary from several thousands to several hundreds of thousands of dollars. The majority of audiophiles prefer the newest sound technologies and sound sources such as Super Audio CDs and digital audio file formats but many remain loyal to vinyl records and believe that a properly configured high end turntable is superior to digital music from CD players.
Besides high end speakers a typical audiophile audio system consists of wide range of audio components all of which are believed to greatly influence the quality of the sound including high end cables, filters to clean the electricity, and variety of other accessories which are commonly known as tweaks. Although all audiophiles share enthusiasm for sound quality they are very divided when it comes to audio equipment and even when it comes to sound sources.