Audiophile

Audiophile, from Latin audire "hear" and Greek philos "loving," is a person dedicated to achieving high fidelity in the recording and playback of music

Audiophiles are interested in newer higher-bandwidth digital-recording formats such as SACD and DVD-Audio. These formats encode music at data rates of 24-bit / 96 kHz or even 192 kHz compared to 16-bit / 44.1 kHz for CDs, and thus are referred to as high-resolution audio formats. Because manufacturers have failed to agree on a single format, because there are relatively few releases in these formats, and possibly also because audiences consider CDs to be good enough as is, acceptance so far has been limited. The improvements offered by these higher-resolution formats, while supposedly audible to listeners when using equipment that, for the average person, would require a mortgage, have recently been diminished by the continued refinement of the standard CD audio technology, at both the recording/production and playback stages. In particular, higher-quality DACs, analog stages, and upsampling features have elevated the standard CD to near-audiophile levels.