All of us in the audio community know that audiophiles have their quirks, which is why our “You Know You’re An Audiophile When…” thread in the Forum got to be so popular. Read below to see some of the truest, funniest, and weirdest ones our users came up with.
“You just got a pair of speakers you can barely move yourself” — Vermonter
“You’re on a first name basis with the UPS delivery man” –MarkPhd
“It’s Friday night and you’re adding to or reading a “you know you’re an audiophile if….” on Audiogon.” –Mitchchavis
“When you have so many albums, that you have bought albums at the store that you already have because you forgot you had it.” –tok20000
“The first house you bought cost less than your current stereo investment” — Vermonter
“When your primary guidelines for buying a house is how good the listening room is” –tok20000
“You have a secret bank account that your significant other doesn’t know about.” –MarkPhd
“When you cannot possibly calculate how much you have spent on audio in your lifetime. You also have forgotten how many amps, preamps, digital, and cables you have owned in your lifetime. The all sort of blur after a bit. You can remember most of them, but it would take more effort than you can justify to list them all out.” –tok20000
“You feel you need an audiophile-level system in at least four or five rooms (main room, bedroom, bathroom/walk-in, garage, home office, music room where real instruments are) in your house and at work as well.” –Wireless200
“You have “junk drawers” filled with old cartridges, new cartridges, cables, tubes, etc. that is worth many hundreds of dollars” –Abucktwoeighty
“You have boxes of cables with which you don’t know what to do” — Vermonter
“You attend live music concerts only when the seat in the sweet spot is available” –Syntax
“You spend more on renovating your home to accommodate your equipment than the original price of the home” –Puerto
“You finally finish putting together that perfect system and you already know what you are going to replace each piece of it with in the future!” –Alpha_gt
“You report off sick from work for the day because the system doesnt seem quite right and you need to dial in the sound stage.” –Ozzy
“You audition an amplifier that you really love and it sounds better than all the others but you decide against it because it is not expensive enough. You end up buying the next best sounding one that costs a lot more.” –Davt
“When you dream of your stereo. Or a power cable like last night. A POWER CABLE! The whole time! I need help.” –Tiggerfc
Come up with a better one? Comment below!
Audiogon Blog 
In addition to being the person everyone turns to when another “mystery box” arrives, it turns out that good enough….really isn’t.
When you can’t decide which system to listen to something on.
You have a dealer trying to sell you wires before the front end.
That’s Golden so arrest me or better yet rat me out to the wife!
I consider my UPS & Fedex driver on my side.
You have finally built the system of your dreams and something just doesn’t sould right. Yesterday it was awesome!
“When you get up in the morning and check Audiogon before going to the bathroom.”
When you spend $250,000 on equipment and paying another $300,000 in divorce attorney legal fees.
When all cases and cabinets have to be rebuilt to accommodate your great find in capacitors.
You have a bunch of Eico equipment you can’t part with because you know some day you’ll clean them up. … just after you fix the Carver Receiver which only needs a transistor that isn’t made anymore .. and after you decide what to do with the Outlaw that quit working while you were eyeing that Bryson 4b on Craig’s list that needs work.
I know I’m an audiophile because I complain about things like mixes and section splits on choral recordings.
You know you’re an audiophile when you get a tax refund check and AS in your mailbox on the same day and look at the equipment reviews before opening the check because you want to decide which cables, pickup, or recordings to spend it on.
You know you’re an audiophile when you test drive a vehicle and the salesman cringes as you load a thumb drive or your favorite CD’s into the audio system and keep switching tracks every other mile for at least an hour.
You know you’re an audiophile when you see a pair of AR’s on this site and remember back to when you wanted to find them under the Christmas tree when you were a teenager.
You know you’re an audiophile when you get a text message saying, “WTF is RMS?”
You Know you’re and Old Audiophile when you run into a 20 something at Radio Shack and regale him or her about the great stereo gear they sold 45 years ago.
you know it when your wife says i think you love your sound system more than you love me!D
When your wife leaves you because you bought another pair of six foot speakers you can’t live without…
You find yourself admiring the Hubbell receptacles whenever you visit a hospital.
Love it!
Your willing to buy that used cd player with built in dac because the sound is so fabulous in between the continual dropouts and obvious glitches. In fact, you’ll spend as much or more ( then it cost) at a repair shop in the faint hope they can find the problem and possibly repair it.
when you decide against a component simply because it comes with a attached power cable.
you are incredulous that ANYONE would listen to an mp3 file ever.
Play it through a DAC WOW and seE if you feel the sAME WAY…
When your so broke that you can’t make the mortgage payment, pay the utility bills, or
buy groceries. But you all the sudden come up with a way to afford that $12000 pr. of new speakers.
You are glad because there is no known cure for the very contagious multiple subwoofer feisty…..
Your first system was mono because you couldn’t wait to save enough money for a stereo pair….
When you hear a new pair of speakers, you wonder what a STACKED pair would sound like…..
You still have the electronic crossovers for that tri-amp system you tried decades ago…..
When your user name ends in 20000 and you are so full of yourself that Wayne from the Flaming Lips thinks that you are so full of yourself. That is when you are a true audiophile .. Neophyte… oR whatever.. copper is copper. current is current. Next. Neophytes. Audiophiles.. They slay me. NOT FUNNY..? 😉
you put a bowl in the middle of your system believing it will make the piano sound more realistic
You own several pressings of the same record because each one sounds just a little bit different from the rest.
You’ve run power cables to the listening room that would powe a small city.
You leave your house and tell your just divorced spouse “Don’t touch my books, records, or Hi-Fi. Take anything you want of the rest.”
when Feticism for you has nothing to do with women but with tubes, cartridges, VU meters etc
When you already have the electronic crossover and the cable assortment for the multiamp speaker of your dreams
When your home looks like an audio thru time museum.
You don’t have furniture, because it conflics with your system
You know you are an audiophile when you feel a sense of revulsion at the sight of your neighbour’s audio system and spot the tone controls.
If you remember names like Proton, SAE TWO, SDA SRS, Dragon, direct azimuth auto reverse, Teac, Fisher, etc… When recording you had to just hit 15% in the red on the VU meters, while making sure the last two bands on your 10 band eq weren’t too high. If you bought TDK MAX-90’s instead of SA-90’s. If your cassette deck has HX-Pro. If you had the first digital tuner. If you owned anything Sansui. If you tinned the ends before using banana plugs. If your HT subwoofer or front towers need a dolly to be moved.
Guilty on all counts except tinning the ends of my speaker wires! Also preferred 15 ips on my RTR….
I still have the HX-Pro deck.
when one room of you house is stacked with equipment that is just waiting to make the rotation.
sounds like my house..plus spares for most of the hardware.
When you can describe to and uninterested party the many technical details of your audio equipment and not notice that the uninterested party is uninterested…and certainly not as excited about such things as the type of cabling installed, as you are!
You have a room filled with all the empty boxes that came with your audio equipment just in case you have to sell.
You roll your eyes when one of your friends starts telling you how great his Bose system sounds…………..
501’s my first speakers…. forty years ago, we all had to start somewhere 😉
You downsize to a smaller house. While packing 1 of 3 bedrooms, boxes in the garage, & vinyl in the living room & dining room – you wind up with 84 boxes of just vinyl!
No one believes you when you when tell them you know where all those wires go.
When you own a dozen copies of the same album from different pressings, engineers, etc. for “comparative listening”
When you listen to music more than you watch TV.
You know your air-bearing tone arm is so complicated that it is always out of alignment but so cool to look at and listen to when set up perfectly!
You have a Grado Stereo Cartridge with a radioactive element for record static elimination. The element has a 20 year half life and you have had it for over 40 years. What to do????
You know you’re an Audiophile when you travel on business to a city you’ve never been to and ask the hotel concierge for directions to the high end equipment dealer instead of the best restaurant.
Every apartment you’d ever rented (4 in my case) or house you’ve ever owned (on my 3rd) was chosen primarily due to its possessing a large and suitable room for setting up your main rig (the remainder of the interior is acceptable no matter what).
I read through all of these, and was surprised note the absence of what I thought was the oldest cliche of all (from Santa Barbara, CA) wasn’t here: “You know you’re an audiophile when your stereo is worth more than your car.”
When you can’t leave the house, take a shower, shave, eat, sleep, go to work and or shop for groceries because the next awesome sounding song is coming up next……
Owner’s amp: Dynaco ST70. Owner’s coffee table: Used industrial electrical spool from local construction job.
The advantage of that “table” is that you don’t have to clean up spills.
any speaker wire left on that spool??? LOL
But because you’re an audiophile, it can only be considered if it’s solid silver. LOL
Update…. that would be Solid Silver Alloy!! lol
When you can’t remember your first girlfriend but
you can rattle off every component from your first
1974 system.
Pioneer SX515
Dual 1228 w/Stanton 681EEE
Concord 880 reel-reel
Bose 501
Koss Pro4AA headphones 🙂
I think it was either Kathy.. or Cynthia, maybe it was Patty… point well made sir.
Pioneer PL-512XD Turntable
Audio-Technica AT-125LC Cartridge
Vector Research VR-250 Receiver
Marantz MK-II Speakers
Aiwa AD-1250 Cassette Deck
EDIT: Purchased from Tech HiFi (remember them?)
Long Live Crazy Eddie’s!!!
ElectroPhonic All in One with am/fm….
Damn you could even stack LP’s on it for long playtime…..
Ahhh the 70’s
When you read through all these comments and realize 90% of them apply to me!!
AMEN!!!!!!
When your jonesing for a peice of equipment that you previously owned and sold for that next piece that you jonesing for.
When you can’t bring yourself to part with a few grand for a car. But for a piece of equipment? Hey, no problem!
when you remember the Grand Men of Audio: David Hafler, Lincoln Walsh (Ohm Loudspeakers), John Dahlquist, Roy Allison, Peter Snell, Edgar Villchur, James B. Lansing, Henry Kloss, Frank McIntosh, Irving Fried, Rudy Bozak, Paul W. Klipsch, and more recently Jim Theil, and Brian Cheney (VMPS)… these men inspire those who truly love great sound, and so to Kevin Voecks (Revel), Scott Bagby (Paradigm), and Andy Payor (Rockport Technologies), you are in the company of true greatness. Timeless designs that inspire a generation of audiophiles.
Joe Grado, Peter Walker, and Saul Marantz come to mind as well.
Uh Hello…Bart Locanthi…!!!
My favorite was a guy that converted his kitchen into a subwoofer enclosure.
What your wife calls the “living room”, you call the “Listening Room”, and IF she would let you, there would be ONE CHAIR right in the middle of the floor.
When you own only 12 CDs bought for sound testing with the music as your last concern, cary them with you for touristing around the world with audio shops as exclusive reason for choosing a city to include in your travel. Your sound system is over 25000$. You did not really ear it since there is at least one piece of it that was not there the last time you’ve listen to it.
you are moved to tears listening to your favorite cd.
when you don’t find anything unusual in having a 5kw+ 12 channel home theater system and 6 or 7 or so “spare” amps., or your friends have trouble understanding your love of
low power tube amps “just to listen to music.
You’re disgusted by your friend’s new B&O system, and it has nothing to do with the actual dollar cost, but rather the opportunity cost.
You sort your many thousands of classical records by label first, then chronologically,then alphabetically. Rock records and all the rest, just the last two ways, but in reverse, alpha. then chron..
The first items in your house that get dusted / cleaned is your audio gear.
When you want a 5.0 system in your bathroom thats the size of a shoe box!!!!
you decide against the digital timer because the flourescent blue lights don’t match your other ancient gear.
When you join and read all the audio forums on the internet!
You still own a Dustbuster.
“When your wife tells everybody: I keep asking him: if the house catches on fire, will you rescue me or your speakers first?”
When instead of a car, you own a rolling CD player….
When you spend 4 or 5 hours a day in your privet listing room which has only one chair.
When you have a detailed list of all your Audio gear but can’t remember what you ate for dinner last night. I suffer from most of these you have listed..
It sounds so freaking good you almost get emotional.
I can’t remember how many amps, and cd drives, and speakers I loved and left behind, but I’m sure it was more than women I invited! Thank god I’m married!
You know you’re an audiophile when you have an opportunity to get free stereo equipment to add to your system and your girlfriend asks: “Why do you need another one of those?”
You know you are an audiophile when you think you need to write a letter to your wife and four daughters immediately describing why you have an additional 18 or 24 KT88s or EL34’s in case you die the next day, and you feel you need to provide instructions on all the necessary steps to bias the tubes.
When you justify buying the same album because it’s on vinyl. Even though you have the Cassette and CD!