Are Non-believers happy with their systems? - Page 5

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