These people made a big stink over the Red Book Standard's 44.1 (*) kilohertz sampling and some wore t-shirts reading "Stop Digital Madness" to protest a new technology being touted by Sony at CES in 1982.  
Fred Kaplan wrote a Slate article declaring he was one of these people "and proud of it".  In 1962, J. Gordon Holt founded a magazine catering to these people which favored reviews filled with words like "whispiness" and "edginess" rather than bench-tests.  A crowd-funded device manufactured by Ayre catering to these people was announced on Letterman in 2014.  These people made a big stink over the Red Book Standard's 44.1 (*) kilohertz sampling and some wore t-shirts reading "Stop Digital Madness" to protest a new technology being touted by Sony at CES in 1982.  David Pogue panned a device catering to these type of people made by Neil Young called the Pono.  These people were early proponents of the flac format.  In the 1950s, these people were early adopters of new hi-fi technology.  For 10 points, name these people prone to buying high-end cables and stereo equipment.
Fred Kaplan wrote a Slate article declaring he was one of these people "and proud of it".  
audiophiles [or golden ears; accept people who buy high-end audio equipment and stuff like that before the end; prompt on things such as music-lovers] 