How I feel when I download an album in flac format

Still too low-end. I built my own nuclear reactor to get the cleanest power possible.

*"The 82 year old retired lawyer"* yep, this guy can do anything he wants.

That's it? I would have watched an hour documentary about these dudes.

In all honesty. I kinda get the first guy. Retired, holds a passion for music, has thousands of dollars worth of equipment. Why not spend your free time to improve upon this....the second guy is just nuts

Imagine how under pressure the sound technician must have felt recording this

I love that they threw in the shot at 1:20 where the guy looks like he's about to pass out for some reason. Like this guy is living on the brink of death in his tiny apartment.

I've travelled down the audiophile path. When you first make the decision to get audiophile headphones and equipment it's absolutely mindblowing listening to your favourite albums, it's like you're hearing them for the first time all over again such is the difference in quality. You hear things you've never heard before, putting a completely different spin on interpreting and enjoying the music. When you first make the leap you'll marvel at the fact that you can close your eyes and feel like the lead singer is singing right in front of you live (like they're singing into your ear), you can actually hear where the different musicians are 'on stage' and it's like you're at a little mini concert just for yourself. That might sound exaggerated however it's one-hundred percent true, listening is believing. However if you're not careful you can fast forward a few years and find yourself with maxed-out credit cards, no personal life and a house designed entirely around the movement and reverberation of air. Your life has become about fretting about the exact placement of a component because of some esoteric pseudoscience that says if your balanced cables touch the floor at any point, clarity will be attenuated 0.00000000001 percent and you'll lose a touch of your midrange. You'll be spending £2000 on special, magical pagan cultist cables blessed by Reznor, the audiophile god that have gold wiring wrapped in platinum threads and coated in a patented diamond spray that ensures excellent low-end performance without compromising on the mids and highs. You'll also have £50,000 Sennheiser HE-1 electrostatic headphones and £250,000 speakers AND bailiffs chasing you down for the unpaid balances on the 234 different credit cards, overdrafts and loans you're struggling to repay. You won't have a wife, girlfriend or children because that flesh will dampen the way the sound waves reach your ears. Most importantly, however, is the realisation that you no longer actually LIKE music anymore because all you hear is the 'flaws' in your rig. Instead of sitting back and enjoying The Downward Spiral or Dark Side of The Moon you'll be fiddling with knobs and EQ settings, whilst slightly adjusting the placement of your adamantium woofer. I beg you, IF you decide to experiment with audiophile grade sound equipment/hi-fi's PLEASE DON'T PROGRESS INTO THE LATTER! You'll turn into a hi-fi cultist who hates music (which is exactly the opposite of why you got into audiophile equipment to begin with). This has been a public safety announcement.

I don't know whats more shocking……that the 2nd guy paid $100 grand for his speakers, or that he has a girlfriend

when will audiophiles finally understand that acoustic treatment of your room is at least equally important as the speakers themselves

This man has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on audio equipment, lives in a 250 square foot apartment, hasn't bought clothes in 15 years, and still he manages to get a girlfriend and I can't. I'm clearly doing something very wrong.

This is way too short. I want more details on how these guys think and live.

"I'm a complete audiophile, i strive for perfection with my music" *Grabs record by grooves*

Right on with the isolated power transformer. Audiophile rule of thumb #1 *NEVER SHARE YOUR ELECTRONS!!!* Last time I shared audio electrons with the neighbor's toaster, my tweeters got yeast infections....

I've personally have been accused of being an audiophile but they could never prove it and the charges were dropped.

Seriously? A 1 minute report. This could easily be a Netflix documentary.

A tip for all you audio enthusiasts, never turn your equipment upside down, the electrons fall out and it will never sound the same again.

Dude must be untouchable on the Steve Hoffman forums

“I found that I had long listened to music filled with noise” *merzbow plays softly in the background*

“Personal source of pure electricity”? Without a dedicated power plant?

And here i'm contemplating whether 99€ is a bit too much to splurge out on a new cartridge.

A good pair of headphones in a dark room at 3am will always be the best hi fi setup for those with no room.

Plot twist : Nobody tells him he's 80% deaf.

I applaud both these gentlemen. I share their passion. I'm retired and aside from my audiophile hobby my life is rather mundane. Divorced, never hear from my children and most of my family has passed. Music is a lover that never leaves. Looking forward to the next stereo purchase gives one a sense of purpose. One side note. They both need to improve their room acoustics.

He is crazy, my audio system is more important than my girlfriend.

If he was a real audiophile he would've bought or built a small house with a dedicated room free of electrical interference and outside noise. Instead of spends $100k on speakers and rents a tinyass apartment. Wtf is this guy smoking

I have learned to use the rotation of the Earth to play my records and the orbit of our earth around the Sun to play my Albums. The sound is simply superb.

1:32, an audiophile whose turntable is directly in front of his HUGE loudspeaker. And look at all that garbage on top of the speaker.

His underwear is 15 years old. For a guy that’s normal.

Isn't the bass wavelength longer than his apartment?

I just bought my first vinyl record yesterday, but maybe I should quit while I'm ahead before I end up like one of these guys

First dude needs to angle his speakers, I'm crying.

Surprised the first guy is keeping his records in paper sleeves if he's that obsessed. Hello surface scratches and paper flakes.

You know, if you makes you happy and you are not asking anyone for anything...fine by me. These guys clearly worked hard, saved money, and live day to day being happy with their audio gear. Hell, I bet if you go out to Hollywood and find some of these so called "A List" actresses out there you will find then with 75 purses that average $900 each and 50 simple strap high heals at $450 a pair. Hell I would rather have, and be much happier with, $95,000 of high end stereo than those purses and shoes, but most don't call that fanatical. Many envy that purse and shoe collection. Not to mention, a vast majority of this high end stuff does not lose much in value. They can enjoy this stuff for 15 years and sell it for close if not more than they paid for it. I guess some fanatical stuff is just more accepted than others because clothes and shoes probably have many more fanatics then high end audiophiles lol.

I would love to see the results of a hearing test on these two. Statistically, they are paying big money to reproduce frequencies that they haven't been able to hear in years.

I don't understand how people who would spend these hundreds of thousands on audio equipment and powerlines wouldn't have even the most basic acoustic treatment. That second guy had 200k+ spent on equipment and is probably getting insane resonances in that basement apartment.

I was going to joke that they should build a Faraday cage around their flat. But I'm worried they'll actually do it.

Whatever you do, don't tell these guys about reel to reel.

I cracked when the second man said both audio and his girlfriend are equally important to him and laughed right after.

When I went to Japan, I took a Airbnb for a couple of days, and the hosts were a retired couple. They had the craziest sound setup I ever saw in my life, even better than the ones we see in this video, and I'm not kidding, I would post pictures of it but it's a KZfaq comment.. I had obviously no idea about that when arriving to the house, and as an audiophile myself, seeing such a dream-like system was mind-blowing. Sadly with the language barrier we couldn't exchange much on any of the technical aspects, but the wife served us some hand made tea and the husband played some of his favorite songs for us. It was such an awesome experience, I could close my eyes and feel all the instruments.

Japanese taking a fad, sport, hobby, etc. to the extreme? I find that hard to believe.

Well, is it really any more crazy than spending 500k on a monet painting and just sticking it on a wall lol. Get joy where you get joy from. Period lol.

"maybe my girlfriend" Absolute madlad lol

I wish I had something I appreciated that much. Maybe not to an obsessive degree, but a passion would be cool.

I am electrical engineer and have great passion about audio sounds and high fidelity (20+ years of exp). I would say these extremes are just pure BS. However, if this makes you happy, by all means go ahead, but there is no scientific advantage of having your own utility pole or buying $800 cable, basically you can have a super great home theater (Audio) setup just by spending $4000-$5000, anything above that is just placebo effect and falls under diminishing return theory.

I had audible interference on the electric line I plug my guitar amps into. It was pretty darn noticeable. So I bought a power conditioner on Amazon for like $60. Problem solved. Maybe I should have bought my own utility company?

Love the opening scene. This is where I want to be at 82 years old. Just chillin with the dopest set. Kudos to you sir.

Japanese people have a synonym/metaphor for everything. Makes stuff so relatable

as he stares at his 50,000 doller turntable i can tell he still not happy!

In Hamasaki's apartment, speakers that size are completed wasted on a room so small. Big speakers belong in big rooms, not tiny apartments.

The Second guy is just Japanese Z Reviews.

After illnesses, marriage breakdown, relationship breakdown, job losses I find myself in complete agreement with these gentlemen. My LP , CD , Blu Ray and DVD collection still fill me with joy and pleasure and not to mention wonderment ( where did Abbey Road come from ? A wonderful piece of art ) All those other things come and go but a music collection and beautiful technology to play them on are simply unsurpassable. God bless you gentlemen. You have a kindred spirit in Australia

and my parents call me crazy for buying those high end headphones

Aging audiophiles are cute. Due to presbycusis, most of them probably can't hear frequencies beyond 8kHz and here they are worrying about high-fidelity sound!

Quick save by the second guy when talking about his girlfriend lol

I keep coming back to this clip every few months. I look around and I see a similar view...

This is just super counter productive. The second guy spent such a huge amount of money on those gigantic speakers that barely fit the room... I bet that in the end the space limitations and acoustic of the room will ruin the listening experience. He would be better off with a much smaller (and cheaper) set.

I just want something that works. But once you start researching which one to get, you somehow got convinced to spend 500% of your budget.

i have a friend in Japan just like these guys. I had a chance to sit down and listen to it once. I cannot recall ever hearing that quality of sound before. it was as spiritual experience.

there are times when music grabs me so intensely my family looks at me like I am crazy, and indeed, in those moments, I am completely in my own high intensity world.

Everyone has their own personal ideas on how things work, but in reality and research, results are proven. For instance, the AC that feeds all of his audio gear is changed inside each individual piece to DC, or "direct current," through a thing called rectification. This is then sent too some large filter capacitors (hum and noise removal) then out to the rest of the circuitry. The AC is completely changed to DC and filtered internally in each unit. This is common with most electronic items in your house. If you think the noise will get through that filtering system, your ears are better than most pieces of test equipment that can see and hear well beyond what our analog ear drums can. If you think the noise from your power source (AC line to pole) is bad, you should see what the switch mode power supply in most all modern audio equipment produces. This hash and noise is also filtered out with capacitors and inductors (also known as reactors) internally in each unit. Once the magic is removed, things are pretty straight forward..... Some want to hold on to that magic, and I respect that! Take care.

Of course all of this totally negated by sitting a turntable, which is a vibration sensitive electromechanical device, a few feet in front of speakers fitted with 15" bass drivers. But I'm sure his $1500 IEC mains lead sounds amazing!! 🙄

99% of audiophiles are just needlessly obsessive.

it doesn't matter what hobby you get into you always find a sizeable fringe of people who take it to the wild extreme. They always have to have the most expensive Kevlar, fan braced, oxygen-free, einsteinium coated, gizmo available. Marketing people love them!

And his hearing can detect poor electric signals at his age ?

Blood = Electricity in Japan. Good to know.

we need a longer version of this

1:27 Spoilers: the girlfriend is his audio system

If he switched to CD the noise level and quality would be way better than from his Vinyls. Also: 99.9% of all music in the past 20 years is being produced digitally. Pressing the master on a vinyl does not make the quality better, it makes it worse.

Audiophiles: cant hear over 5khz...

I love it, I'm nowhere in this league but I understand and appreciate high levels of passion.

Admire the dedication ~great story!

See and the interesting thing is if the first guy (very simply mind you) could have rectified AC to DC and then Back to AC again he would get purer electricity than being on a separate grid for a significantly lower cost

I spend all my money on guitars. I relate to the guy who doesn’t buy new clothes.

1:26 nice save, bro!

Appreciate this and the passion. I am a music lover and “second base” audiophile. Budget is everything. And with that said, at some point- good enough is good enough

As an audio expert who has worked in the field for decades I'd like to point out that the industry is teeming with snake oil and that under scientifically controlled conditions claims that one's source of electricity matters are shown to be baloney.

*strictly listens to Baby Metal and Nickelback*

Listens to music recorded on tainted electricity... witj "clean" electricity. Gold

Beautiful!

Complains about noise, listens to vinyl. My kind of humor lol

Am I the only one who wonders how an audiophile can play "I'm in love with my car" at the wrong speed?

Awesome, love it!

We need more coverage with these two, especially the second guy, haha. That guy is awesome. I had a $32,000 stereo in a 580 sq ft studio apartment that I assembled for over 17 years, and I thought I was nuts. The second guy makes me feel normal. :D

These guys living the life and doing what they love. That's the kind of life I want to have.

Well that was one of the most incredible stories ever. Thanks for sharing !

Audio gives you emotions....it worth to buy it....I understand their passion...

Compressed music on a vinyl record 🤪

1:02 looks like he's loving every minute of it

This appears more to be high-end hording than true enthusiasm.

WSJ, this is f** too short! Make a full 1-hour documentary on this!!!!!

It's actually this sort of fanaticism that makes the Japanese good craftsmen.

Why buy 100,000$ Speakers when you can't turn the volume up, because of your neighbours?

The "electrical" interference is likely just a grounding loop / 60hz hum issue.

Considering the second guy hadn't bought new clothes in 15 years, his clothes looked pretty fresh.

I’ve taken this route. I used to be addicted to a sound perfection. Buying extremely expensive gear, exchanging it all the time, listening to the sound instead of music. It’s very toxic. I really undestand those people but i also know that in the end it will drive you mad as there’s no such thing like a perfect soundsystem....i’m very happy i’ve given up this sh.....

Music is like the ultimate drug of choice for me too!!

Unfortunately they´re listening to that high-end music through their cheap 5 Dollar hearing aids... ;D

I am totally envious.

Audiophiles would buy tickets to hear that system for an hour.