Is that the only distinction? Distorted sound and 'audiophile' so something not distorted is immediately audiophile quality?
Sorry! "Distorted sound" was probably a poor choice of phrasing on my part. Sorry again for that. I should have simply said "distortion", or "audio with too much distortion".
By distortion, I generally mean
any added sound to original source material. For example, excessive THD (total harmonic distortion), or too much hiss, cracks and pops. Or clipping where the high-end frequencies are chopped off or the amplification just chops off the signal peaks. Or when the sound across the spectrum just sounds muffled. Or when it sounds like the speaker itself is about to destroy itself. Even wow and flutter!
I am reminded of cars you hear thumping down the street blocks away and the closer it gets, the more you hear the door panels, fenders, the dash, windows in the doors, rear deck, the hood, and trunk lid rattle so loudly, you expect to see chunks and pieces of the car falling off as it drives by. That's 99.9% distortion and .1% music - if that much.
These are sounds many folks with poor hearing can still easily detect and discern clearly.
OF COURSE this depends on their type of hearing loss, and how extensive that loss is.
Using me as an example, I spent 24 years working on Air Force bases, on or next to military flight-lines where military aircraft were constantly taking off. The military aspect is important because military aircraft (especially fighter jets) and bases tend to be LOUD as they are exempt from noise abatement laws, as compared to civilian aircraft and civilian airports. I also worked most of those years in radio and computer facilities where high-speed cooling fans were constantly buzzing in our heads. Seeing live, The Eagles, Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Santana and several others over the years didn't help. Then there's the fact I am no spring chicken. Clearly, my hearing is not what it was when I was in my early 20s.
Yet I can still clearly hear (not to mention "feel"
) the difference in the "fidelity" of the reproduced sound between a $400 pair of
Polk Audio ES20 speakers (which are excellent for the money, BTW) and a
pair of B&W 603 Ss that cost $1250 -
each! And that's when using the same source material, with both sets of speakers driven by the same decent Onkyo receiver.
I hope that explains what I meant by distortion.
