How To Be An Audiophile On The Cheap You love music, but even if you consider yourself a true audiophile, the cost of high-end sound can be, frankly, a little absurd. We talked with a handful of audio experts to find out how to get audiophile-calibre sound without emptying your savings account. Here's what they had to say. Simply put, an audiophile is a person obsessed with sound. Most often, they're people interested in a stereo system that sounds as close to a live performance as possible. Audiophiles are a picky bunch, and while a number of the tweaks we look at here will increase the sound quality and listening experience on your system, you still may not get a full-blown audio-nerd seal of approval. But that's OK, because you'll have a great-sounding stereo and won't have to blow your life savings. Before we move on to how you can tweak and upgrade your stereo, let's get a better understanding of what an audiophile is listening for and what components they often use. What Does an Audiophile Listen For? To understand how to upgrade a stereo system, you have to know what to listen for. I talked with experts to see what they tune their ear to. For home audio, I asked Michael Fremer, Senior Contributing Editor for Stereophile and Editor at Music Angle what he listens for in a good home stereo: You should be listening for accurate instrumental timbre, dynamic range (squashed out of too many modern recordings),