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Dylan Winter went undercover and met with some Audiophiles in the basement of a dealers’ shop to swap tall tales of soundproofing excellence…

Stewart and Susan and the Hi-Fi have been living together for thirty years. He’s a mobile motor mechanic and drives a thousand pound banger, but spends more than you would ever think possible just on bits of wire. Stewart provides an example of the high prices involved, "A good mains lead will cost you in excess of £1,000. I have one and I’d like many more."

Susan suffers from a problem common to those living with audiophiles. " Quite often I can be listening to something and he’ll turn it off and start again and adjust something and put it back on again and I’ll think, ‘Oh God!’ And that can happen about ten times during a CD or something. He never ever just sits and listens."

David is a 20 year old student trying to live off three separate overdraughts. "I spend all my money on my Hi-Fi. Some people think that I’m mad. I often get told that I’m mad. I’ve heard the comments before--£1,000 on a mains lead! But, for some people, that brings as much enjoyment and fulfilment as spending £100,000 on a Ferrari."

Aside from amassing top of the line audio kit, audiophiles have come up with some rather bizarre ways to improve the sound they so love. One suggestion is to put your CDs in the ice box. Stewart recommends, "Play them cold. Put them in there for twenty minutes then take them out and play them. It makes a difference." His wife explains it with a simple equation: Hi-Fi = warm, CDs = cold.

Another suggestion is colouring the edge of your CDs green, which is meant to assist the laser in reading the disc. David is a bit sceptical about this method however. "I think that it perhaps worked, I don’t really know. I think, in the end, you convinced yourself that it did."

So, when is a real audiophile’s collection complete? Stewart and David agree on this one. "When the money runs out…or you die."

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