Audiophile Friends: Taking the love for music to next level

Music is an art, some of us take it to an idolatry rank, with no compromise on sound quality. This is a complicated speciality and is appreciated by a group called, Audiophile Friends, in Dhaka. For them, music is the crux of their existence; it is an expression of emotions and they delve into the depths of it to understand the musician's performance. 

A general listener does not get much into the finer nuances of music, as an audience they are superficial, while an audiophile can connect themselves with the musicians.

"Audiophiles simply love to listen to music on a good system. We are a non-commercial group, and listening to good music is our hobby," says Sayedur Rahim Bappi, CEO, Noise Digital Audio and HiFi Digital Audio.

"Audiophiles are an exceptional breed of people who are fascinated by pure audio, motivated by sound quality, and addicted to audio gadgets. They take their passion for music one step further. They're curious about how songs are recorded and the science behind how sounds are reproduced," says Sayeed Siddiqui, an audiophile himself looking for purity of sound.

Audiophile Friends is a group of 12 like-minded people and recently they celebrated Record Store Day in Dhaka for the first time. It was organised by Harun Al Rashid, one of the members.

It is quite surprising for laymen that audiophiles prefer vinyl records over CDs because the record's sound has depth where the bass frequencies and high frequencies are sharp.

Sound quality is still unbeatable and it has a magnetic wave imprint compared to digital recordings. As a result of this love, the collection of the turntable is becoming a vogue within the audiophile cult-like groups in Dhaka.

 The demand for the use of nostalgic vinyl records has recently increased in Dhaka and there is a robust long play collectors and sellers, all closely knit to Audiophile Friends.

 "There is a music lover in all of us. In my case, while growing up in Old Town, a gramophone played through a horn speaker with scratchy 78-rpm records made me fall in love with Rafi, Mukesh, Lata, etc," Siddiqui recollects.

He adds, "Later on, a Phillips record player with much clearer audio introduced us to the 33-rpm vinyl. Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck, Elvis, and the Beatles became part of our lives. With only one TV channel and limited hours of transmission, music became an obsession. And while more companies were bringing systems catering to music lovers, we kept chasing after better and better sound."

Being an audiophile is an expensive hobby, very few can appreciate the frequency ranges of the system and how perfectly and accurately you can listen to a song.

"With streaming audio companies using MP3, compressed audio, and system manufacturers making wireless players, most people shall be satisfied with the sound but audiophiles, with very fine-tuned hearing, are even capable of catching the tiniest of sound in the background, and their choice will be the high-end systems. Just the wiring might cost thousands of dollars," Siddiqui relates. 

"Passionate listeners like to create the perfect ambiance for music and to do it they try to set a sophisticated sound system.  What machine you buy, how your room is equipped to handle the sound, and the interiors -- all matter; a single amplifier's character can vary from room to room," Bappi relates.

After the sixty's music revolution, musicians had the chance to record more harmony, ambiance, and synthetic elements, which were not possible to record earlier because of the lack of technology.

Traditional music has simple arrangements whereas modern music after the sixties is layered music. Layering is the process of combining multiple individual sounds to create a cohesive sound that is more complex and interesting.   There is a pleasure in listening to layering of multiple synth sounds that creates a richer tone in long plays. This passion demands a sophisticated sound system, that the audiophile of Dhaka appreciates.