Are Non-believers happy with their systems?

[TheAttorney]

Originally Posted by Zanth

Wow, I thought I was the only one! This is such an odd quandary for me as well. Why is it that an underperforming systme is so utterly dissatisfying but a transistor radio isn't? Expectations. With a transistor radio (or the TV, car radio etc) I'm zoned in on the music and I have no expectation that the sound will be anything but adequate. Yet, when I am building an audio system (or listening to a friend's) then there has been time, money and energy spent in building it, with (my assumption) passion and an expectation that it will sound 1) good to great and 2) better than mediocre systems. When it doesn't it lets one down, or at least lets me down...

We could be getting somewhere. I agree with the effect of Expectations, but would also add Memory and Imagination. This has given me an idea for the answer to the universe and everything (well, at least to this thread), so please bear with me:

I was listening to Kleiber’s classic recording of Beethoven’s 5th symphony – and it was moving me to tears. This was partly because I had never heard such a gigantic soundstage and such incredible dynamics. After a couple of minutes I stopped listening because I couldn’t remember the rest of it. You see the sound was entirely in my head. I had caught the opening “riff” on the radio and that was enough for me to replay a memory from years ago when I first heard this performance on my vinyl rig. But now it was sounding better still because my imagination had taken it further.

When people listen to a grotty radio, they are hearing a subset of the total potential sound. But it’s okay because they don’t expect much, and then if the right song pops up, their memory kicks in to fill in the missing bits and sometimes their imagination makes the song just take off. This most readily applies to good simple tunes because the missing bits don’t matter so much if the listener can sing-along. But if they heard an unknown “difficult” piece on the radio, which doesn’t have a strong tune, but has lots of subtle interesting side sounds, then the listener will just change station – there is nothing for their memory or imagination to latch onto and the radio can’t supply enough information to get them engaged.

No big deal so far, but now let’s take this radio analogy back to the OP. Let’s say a non-believer’s system is a posh transistor radio. They are perfectly happy - and if a difficult musical piece comes up they don’t worry – probably a duff recording. Now this non-believer is a bit of a DIY kid, so one day they hook up this new fangled slightly expensive aluminium tweeter because they’ve read that its frequency response extends beyond 40 kHz. They’re sceptical that anything above human hearing range can possibly make a difference and, when they listen, there is extra brightness, but all it does is show up the radio's poor amp section, so they throw the tweeter away as snake oil.

Now a different person also has a posh radio, but this time they hook up a more expensive ceramic tweeter with frequency extending to 60 kHz. The ceramic tweeter is that bit smoother than the aluminium and the listener gets an OMG moment when they hear detail they’ve never heard before. It’s a real thrill, but they also hear faults in the sound that they never noticed before. So they start adding other bits and they get more OMG moments and also more opportunity to notice faults. They become audioholics. In the meantime, the non-believer berates them for being a gullible fool with more money than sense. After all, they’ve already proven that 40 kHz doesn’t improve the sound, so what’s the point of going to 60 kHz?

Now, after spending lots of money, the audioholic realises that frequent upgrading is too wasteful, so starts on a more controlled upgrade plan to get to audio Nirvana. They realise they must get rid of the posh radio and get this exotic sound system that has diamond tweeters that extend to 100 kHz. It’s hideously expensive, but now the sing-along tunes sound like real life and the “difficult” pieces suddenly become interesting. The audioholic turns into…The Attorney .
Of course, the frequency range never had anything to do with the sound quality of the tweeter - the diamond one just had a better cable

[CodeToad]

You 2 guys should be sure to get a prescription for Flomax if you're gonna have a pissin' contest. Then you can pee from across the room at each other and it makes it that much more fun for the rest of us to watch.

[Bullseye]

Originally Posted by olblueyez

Grado + LDI+ + Cowon D2; I haven't updated that but I have some DIY cables, going to get soon some M8100 tubes and the DEQ2496 DAC/EQ

Hypocrite lol

We all know you cant build cables for a 60 cents a set.

3.5mm Mini-Stereo Male to Two RCA Male Speaker Adaptor - Audio Adapters
3Ft RCA M/M x 2 Audio Cable - RCA Dual Male/Male Audio Cables

I guess the DIY cables and the dac with built in EQ would put Bullseye in the "No I am not happy with my system" column.

Maybe we all can suspend belief for a moment when we read your posts so we can get past the part where your actions don't match your writing.

Nonsense again. I bought "audio cable" (with coating, etc...) for 0.78€/m (3 wires), 0.86€/m (4 wires, price aprox, as don't remember now), and lastly "audio cable" (2 wire + coating). Bought neutrik mini jacks for 1.5€ each. Tried to see if by changing the quality of the cable (I had the one that came with the Fiio E5 amp), the sound would change. I built a 10cm mini-mini with the 3 wire cable and another one with only two wires. Compared both in the best environment possible, with same equipment and same output signal. As expected I heard no change.

I also built a jack-RCA cable with the 4 wire cable. "Compared" it with the one from "Choseal" that came with it. Also as expected no SQ difference.
Measurements from posts as the one in my sig, and work like the one Nick Charles did show no audible difference. I have that to back up my "experience".

I keep asking you to back up your experience, You keep failing at doing so.
I could not be able to do a DBT between cables, but I would gladly assist to one.

Originally Posted by Currawong

So, in other words, you have read a lot, but have little to no experience for yourself. Are you happy with your system?

I am happy at the moment. I will, however, buy as mentioned above the Behringer DEQ2496 DAC to use with my system, and:
-external sound card (to use computer as source) --Toslink cable-- DEQ2496--XLR to RCA--LD I+ amp (with 6J1 or M8100 tubes) -- Grado sr225

Using the DAC from the DEQ will supposedly give me better SQ. I hope it does, and if it does I will no longer need to update my system, as I will feel happy (more than now). As I mentioned above I do have some experience, but as I repeat, experience can be FLAWED easily. If I wanted to i could also hear sound differences

Originally Posted by spanimal

Bullseye! or maybe it's ********. Maybe a little more to the left, and up - don't stop shooting now.

Spanimal, "man of science" HAHAH Your "transformation" has been Epic. You, the one of "I live by and for science" have proven more than once to be a troll, nothing else. Anyways no hard feelings. (Just having a laugh)

By the way, I have been playing piano (classical) since I was three years old. I know how to give emotions to a piece of music, play subtle parts, I understand music too, and we can say in some way that my ear has been tuned since little. Does that experience count towards analyzing music and enjoying it??? (either if it is played directly from a piano, or through some speakers/headphones?) EDIT: Maybe I even have more experience with music than you

[spanimal]

Yup, the guardian on the otherside where the grass is greener and the sound is better - you must be the little goat. God must be the big goat - but he has yet to strike me down with lightning.

[nick_charles]

I am perfectly happy with my sources and amp and cheap cables, headphones are something I still like to experiment with though.

As for believer /non-believer , lets just say that I am open to *good* evidence for a positive effect of any class of item , such verifiable cases are rare but they do happen.

[odigg]

Originally Posted by slindeman

What I want to know is this: do non-believers seek for the flattest measuring headphones in their price range or do they let subjectivity take over in headphone choice. Do any non-believers use Grados?

I think you've mixed two separate questions together.

The statement "We SHOULD be looking for neutrally, flat frequency response, hearing the original recording, or whatever else that means this" is more of a school of thought than something that has been established by large scale scientific testing. You could say that people prefer live music to recorded music, but there are a ton of other variables there we would need to discuss before claiming the statement of flat frequency response speakers being the best.

The reason for this is simple. Speakers/headphones with a razor flat frequency response do not exist. Even if they did, it'd be nearly impossible for somebody to do a blind test comparing those speakers to other speakers because they are a lot of other variables (room design, listener position, position of headphone on ears, etc) that conflate the answers.

So supporting DBT doesn't automatically mean you think speakers should have a flat frequency response. I'm a DBT supporter and I like my bass humped up Denon headphones better than the headphones around here that tend towards a flat frequency response (HD600, K701, etc.)

Since I support DBT, however, and from my own experiences, I've concluded all the stuff before the headphones/speakers are irrelevant. A DBT supporter would say that in DBT research people cannot tell the difference between decently engineered amps, sources, dacs, and cables so don't think too much about that stuff when you purchase audio equipment. Focus your money and energy on transducers and just pick equipment that has the technical capabilities (e.g. X watts at Y ohms) to drive those speakers/headphones.

No where in there have DBT supporters stated that flat speakers are the most pleasurable to listen to. If there was a facility where they could perform speaker DBTs with a large number of people and the results said people always rated flat speakers the highest, then maybe DBT supporters would lean that way. However, if the results did demonstrate pople liked flat speakers I'd probably have some serious cognitive dissonance.

I've heard a number of speakers that have about as flat frequency response as you can get. I think they sound bass anemic, dry, and boring.

[BIG POPPA]

You can get 14AWG copper cable about 4 bucks a foot. Made a cable with 3 feet of some silver plated 15AWG cable from Furutech 40 bucks. Where is the 100's I spent on the cable? My wife will like to know?

[Zanth]

Originally Posted by TheAttorney

We could be getting somewhere. I agree with the effect of Expectations, but would also add Memory and Imagination. This has given me an idea for the answer to the universe and everything (well, at least to this thread), so please bear with me:

I was listening to Kleiber’s classic recording of Beethoven’s 5th symphony – and it was moving me to tears. This was partly because I had never heard such a gigantic soundstage and such incredible dynamics. After a couple of minutes I stopped listening because I couldn’t remember the rest of it. You see the sound was entirely in my head. I had caught the opening “riff” on the radio and that was enough for me to replay a memory from years ago when I first heard this performance on my vinyl rig. But now it was sounding better still because my imagination had taken it further.

When people listen to a grotty radio, they are hearing a subset of the total potential sound. But it’s okay because they don’t expect much, and then if the right song pops up, their memory kicks in to fill in the missing bits and sometimes their imagination makes the song just take off. This most readily applies to good simple tunes because the missing bits don’t matter so much if the listener can sing-along. But if they heard an unknown “difficult” piece on the radio, which doesn’t have a strong tune, but has lots of subtle interesting side sounds, then the listener will just change station – there is nothing for their memory or imagination to latch onto and the radio can’t supply enough information to get them engaged.

No big deal so far, but now let’s take this radio analogy back to the OP. Let’s say a non-believer’s system is a posh transistor radio. They are perfectly happy - and if a difficult musical piece comes up they don’t worry – probably a duff recording. Now this non-believer is a bit of a DIY kid, so one day they hook up this new fangled slightly expensive aluminium tweeter because they’ve read that its frequency response extends beyond 40 kHz. They’re sceptical that anything above human hearing range can possibly make a difference and, when they listen, there is extra brightness, but all it does is show up the radio's poor amp section, so they throw the tweeter away as snake oil.

Now a different person also has a posh radio, but this time they hook up a more expensive ceramic tweeter with frequency extending to 60 kHz. The ceramic tweeter is that bit smoother than the aluminium and the listener gets an OMG moment when they hear detail they’ve never heard before. It’s a real thrill, but they also hear faults in the sound that they never noticed before. So they start adding other bits and they get more OMG moments and also more opportunity to notice faults. They become audioholics. In the meantime, the non-believer berates them for being a gullible fool with more money than sense. After all, they’ve already proven that 40 kHz doesn’t improve the sound, so what’s the point of going to 60 kHz?

Now, after spending lots of money, the audioholic realises that frequent upgrading is too wasteful, so starts on a more controlled upgrade plan to get to audio Nirvana. They realise they must get rid of the posh radio and get this exotic sound system that has diamond tweeters that extend to 100 kHz. It’s hideously expensive, but now the sing-along tunes sound like real life and the “difficult” pieces suddenly become interesting. The audioholic turns into…The Attorney .
Of course, the frequency range never had anything to do with the sound quality of the tweeter - the diamond one just had a better cable

Excellent post. I agree. Some changes will be subtle others not so subtle but ultimately it depends on synergy among components across the board.

One way to curb all this is to simply stick with the cheap transistor radio and never hope for better.

Another way is to set a price point and figure out what makes the biggest difference and plunk the most money there. My list:

Transducers, Source, Amp, Tubes, Cables. With recording mastering being tops but that is outside of gear.

[nick_charles]

Originally Posted by Zanth

but ultimately it depends on synergy among components across the board.

Synergy ?

Can you explain this ?

[Bullseye]

And proove the explanation as well?

[JaZZ]

Originally Posted by nick_charles

Synergy? Can you explain this?

Originally Posted by Bullseye

And proove the explanation as well?

Synergy means a configuration of components providing better sound than the single components in different configurations. E.g. an overly warm headphone combined with a very clear and rather cold sounding amp or source -- or vice versa. There are a lot of other characteristics possible which would benefit from contrasting attributes with the other components. So one could speak of compensating flaws.

No need for «proofs» -- the scenario is self-explaining.
.

[Bullseye]

Originally Posted by JaZZ

Synergy means a configuration of components providing better sound than the single components in different configurations. E.g. an overly warm headphone combined with a very clear and rather cold sounding amp or source -- or vice versa. There are a lot of other characteristics possible which would benefit from contrasting attributes with the other components. So one could speak of compensating flaws.

No need for «proofs» -- the scenario is self-explaining.
.

Thnks for the explanation, Jazz

However what determines (scientifically) an amplifier or source being "cold" or "warm"?
By that I assume you are talking about how much distortion or jitter each piece of equipment adds to the whole, right?

Sorry to say, but for me that is not enough proof, as the scenario is not clear enough (from a scientific point of view)

[JaZZ]

Originally Posted by Bullseye

However what determines (scientifically) an amplifier or source being "cold" or "warm"?
By that I assume you are talking about how much distortion or jitter each piece of equipment adds to the whole, right?)

Distortion may be a decisive ingredient, but since SS amps have so little distortion, it's hard to base the effect on it if you want «proof». I can only say that the sonic characteristics of my amps, as I hear it (and those I have listened to), makes them more or less suitable for a certain headphone. Or, when it comes to cables: the HD 600 sounds better with the Silver Dragon, the HD 650 sounds better with the Zu Mobius. Both cables are on a similar sonic level, but have different synergetic effects.
.

[Uncle Erik]

What's surprising is that people who are so derisive of test equipment and procedures think of themselves as adequate test equipment.

Humans are terrible test equipment. Biases, emotions, physiologic changes, and a laundry list of other problems cloud our every judgment. Hell, even animals are better judges because they're not influenced by marketing or other things we're susceptible to.

Humans are unreliable to the point that our perceptions should be discounted without supporting evidence from something non-human.

If evidence, aside from human perception, turns up, I will accept it. I have for many other things, too. I will believe in space aliens, bigfoot and ghosts if the evidence turns up.

Another remarkable thing about cables is the trust and belief supporters put in the manufacturers. Do you really think tha manufacturers are non-profits, in business to advance scientific understanding, and to provide products from the goodness of their hearts?

Cables are no different than any other business. Products are designed to sell at as high a profit as possible and manufacturers play straight to your emotions, fears and status seeking. Everyone is like that and manufacturers of all products employ those techniques to sell products. At as high a margin as possible. Claims of "cheap" cables ruoning sound play to your fears. Fancy sleeving, etc. etc. plays to vanity and status seeking. The price is a function of status seeking and extreme profits.

The manufacturers are not in business to help you. They exist to make money. If they can make money selling a product with inflated, and likely false, claims, they will. Lok at the entire marketplace of all goods. How many of those duplicate something less expensive, but with overstated marketing claims? The list would go on forever. If a profit can be made selling the unnecessary, it will be brought to market.

One good thing about this economy is that it will force everyone to take a hard look at purchases. Why buy a very expensive cable when the stock one actually works? When you take a hard look at the cable claims, they fall apart. They don't stand up to even the slightest investigation. I think that as more people weigh their purchases (or just have less to spend), they will turn away from the cable market and realize that cables are a con. A lot of the manufacturers will disappear as this happens.

[dharma]

Originally Posted by nick_charles

Synergy ?

Can you explain this ?

synergy: Definition, Synonyms from Answers.com