Hydrogenaudio don't like us (Head-Fi) very much? - Page 5

Very well stated, Febs. I completely agree

in an attempt to branch out i joined hydrogen audio and a few other recommended high-end audio forums. ugh. i have never seen so many supposedly educated and mature people treat eachother like scum over really minor issues. the experience made me all the more grateful for the tone jude sets for head-fi: "yes we know headphones but we are all also a little nuts too". once an audiophile starts to take the hobby too seriously their priorities can get seriously skewed.

+1 for redshifter.

My thought in general (not related to HydrogenAudio)

I think one of the feature of headphones is the difference between them.
The first question we usually ask newbie is what music you listen to and will match the headphones.

All this eventually lead to the finding your sound signature quest.

By doing this we acknowledge that not everyone listen the same and not everyone like the same thing.

Opinion are subjective in nature. And this forum encourage people to have different opinion.

What I see here, is that we can have different flavor of headphones therefore it's acceptable that some people don't like the same thing we do.

But when you try to input false objectiveness. Some people tend to view opinion as fact.

Now "fact" can be argued about not opinion. When someone take his opinion as fact because he introduce pseudo objectiveness that when thing start to go wrong. He is convince that his "fact" are true; therefore ready to start a heated argument to defend his "fact"

Here a very bad analogy I came up with

Arguing opinion is pretty much useless. Like If I said apple pie is much better than sugar pie. Other user can say OK. I like sugar better. End of the discussion. That when you are aware that different people like different stuff.

Now if we introduce opinion as pseudo fact and the goal of an ultimate perfect pie. Apple pie should be baked at 350 F because of the following reason. Then someone come and said No it should be bake at 400 F Then they can get into an argument each with it's own reason. they start to quote "fact" like water content evaporation at which temperature. Dryness whatever. They both try to achieve the mystic perfect pie. But they forget that maybe someone prefer it's pie crispier and the other prefer it moister.

The same thing happen when your goal is this mystic perfect system and you introduce fact as why this component is better than the other one.

Concur.

Very nice post, Dan.

The choice of someone's headphones, amplifiers, etc are very subjective since everyone has their own set of ears that may not be like another. To try to do this objectively in this regard is beyond pointless since there is no common and firm standards to work with.

Hehehe

Shigzeo greases up horses!

Yet another "what Febs and james_bean said" post.

IMHO, requesting that a statement like "the difference between lossless and LAME 3.97 @ 320 kbps is so obvious" be backed up with ABX test data is perfectly reasonable. ABX tests can be easily self-administered and, if the difference is that obvious, should not be much of an issue anyway. On the other hand, you may prefer lossless from a peace-of-mind perspective, and ultimately that's fine: every lossy codec has "killer samples" and won't encode every piece of sound transparently. I would expect any reasonable HAer to acknowledge this although they may emphasize the rarity of such samples. If you're willing to use up extra disk space to ensure yourself that you hear everything, go for it. For the moment, I choose not to and only use lossless for archiving.

Another possibility for blind/ABX hardware testing using a PC source: find a lossy sample that is 'barely' transparent on your system (cannot ABX the difference but can ABX at 16-32 kbps less). If you change a piece of hardware and can ABX the difference with your 'barely transparent' sample, does that not objectively prove a difference caused by the hardware change? Yes, closed/IEMs lend themselves better to testing in a normal environment than open cans, so that's something to consider, but for the moment I'm speaking theoretically... NOTE: there is a Windows command-line utility to set up ABX tests for the iPod, so it may be more feasible than you think.

QFT.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Apparently so does a decent portion of this community. "If it sounds good to you it is good." This is why I find myself being a super lurker 'round these parts. From a new member's perspective, I like Head-Fi because there is enough sibling rivalry to bring out meaningful discussions and enough mutual respect (most of the time) to let people be with whatever floats their boat.

Personally speaking I buy what I buy because it inspires me both visually and sonically. Usually visually first. I shy away from defending the technical prowess of my purchases for the sake of saying hey it makes me happy. But, I'm glad there are technical folks out there like the HA guys/gals because without those types of people my audio experience on the whole would certainly be less fulfilling. After all it is these types of folks who created playback equipment to begin with. I'd have a hard time understanding how a CD converts pits into sound, moreover I don't really care. Numbers, charts and technical discussions are not enjoyable to me, music is. I am willing to bet both are enjoyable to them.

I think it is safe to say that this hobby, like most others, is enjoyed differently by different folks. Audio has a bunch of different aspects that appeal to different people. I'm artsy and I appreciate the technical folks input. I just hope that feeling is mutual and they can tolerate, maybe even appreciate what I have an eye for.

Great paragraph. Not too bad analogy

Anyway, I have never thought HA was particularly at odds with head-fi. HA deals primarily with codecs and they have very good techniques for finding problems with them. Things like subjective differences between headphones lie outside their concern, since there is no "standard". With codecs, the lossless is the "standard" and people can put on their headphones and ABX them mightily to discern problems with the codecs etc. whereas with headphones, sure you can measure them, you can point out that the frequency responses differ and so humans can distinguish between the headphones; that there is a difference. But you can't say which one is better.

Now with regard to cables I think every so often audiophiles attempt to set up a test for them and the result is invariably negative but that hasn't stopped anyone from buying...

Actually HF is as effective as HA when it comes down to scientific measurements. Each of us know exactly how much we spent on our gear, and we include the figures in our signature.

Hehehe..........

Trust your ears, they will lie right to your face...lol

If I want to know music I'll read the score.


Anybody into Sight-Fi?

I say if placebo works then it works and I'm glad. Why not take advantage of our built-in processor?