[aimlink]

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I am going to go out on a limb and say if the evidence came along, they would change their stance. Its like believing in Bigfoot. I don't believe in him, but if there were evidence to prove without a doubt he was real, I would change my stance. 

What I meant really was whether or not it would be worthwhile going after uberexpensive rigs when it wasn't the case before.  If you're having difficulty differentiating high end from low end equipment, does it really matter if a dbx or any other objective test demonstrates that it's possible?  Somehow, I think this is more for discussion than for practical and genuine enjoyment of gear.  It could also be about justifying or seeking solace in one's limitations where obtaining expensive gear is concerned.

 

[muad]

sorry, i made a stupid reply

 

[eucariote]

Quote:

What I meant really was whether or not it would be worthwhile going after uberexpensive rigs when it wasn't the case before.  If you're having difficulty differentiating high end from low end equipment, does it really matter if a dbx or any other objective test demonstrates that it's possible?  Somehow, I think this is more for discussion than for practical and genuine enjoyment of gear.  It could also be about justifying or seeking solace in one's limitations where obtaining expensive gear is concerned.

 
On the contrary, the more expensive the endeavor, the more important is the data.  Take NASA for example.  Or medicine, where the human life is involved, and DBT is the *only* accepted source of bias-free data.  Personally I'm not shy about spending on headphone gear ($6k and counting) so am interested in putting it where it counts.  And my goals are purely aesthetic, which are actually furthered by my (our) intellectual and scientific standards for valid data.

 

[aimlink]

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On the contrary, the more expensive the endeavor, the more important is the data.  Take NASA for example.  Or medicine, where the human life is involved, and DBT is the *only* accepted source of bias-free data.  Personally I'm not shy about spending on headphone gear ($6k and counting) so am interested in putting it where it counts.  And my goals are purely aesthetic, which are actually furthered by my (our) intellectual and scientific standards for valid data.

It's a hobby man.  It's about the music and whether or not YOU like what you're hearing.  Not what everyone else is.  Your music and the gear that run it are for YOU.  If your hobby is about discussing and researching whether or not different components of an audio chain make the difference many subjectively believe, then great.  However, if you're not hearing a difference, how will the data change your personal behaviour on the issue?  Should it? 
 
This isn't medicine.  I wouldn't compare the two.

 

[Prog Rock Man]

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I don't get it.  What would you do if the evidence came along?  This is downright amusing.

At first (buying hifi, pre-internet and forums) I wholehearted accepted the advice, form magazines that I would hear differences. Then as I spent more I became disappointed at the returns I was getting. I then discovered forums and again wholeheartedly accepted that I would benefit from new cables and kit. But again I was disappointed with the returns, which in the case of cables was nil. So I did some research and hunting about and found that the arguments of the audio sceptics was actually backed up by evidence in the form of blind/ABX testing. Then I made my own cables and realised I could not tell the difference between them and others. So now I am a sceptic.
 
But I am also open to new evidence that either shows all blind tests are wrong, or the majority show people can reliably hear differences. If either appear, I will revise my view.

 

[AVU]

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Do you have some strong **empirical** evidence for this "synergy" and that it is not just one of these subjectivist audiiophile terms that cannot be tested. If for instance you have evidence that a given CD player has a non-flat FR with some amps but not with others (measured of course) I would accept that. Did you notice the name of this subforum ?

No, I freely admit that I do not, it is purely a claim accepted from other people whom I believe are more experienced and knowledgeable than myself having tested hundreds of headphone / amp / dac combinations.  It just seems like a reasonable possibility - and thus something to factor in to any tests.
 
The only completely arbitrary, non-scientific data I have is the comparison between my apple dual driver IEMs and my Senn 580s against my Sparrow and IBasso D4.  The one sounds better with the one and with the other, and I get that over and over, and I'm not sure why.

 

[eucariote]

Quote:

It's a hobby man.  It's about the music and whether or not YOU like what you're hearing.  Not what everyone else is.  Your music and the gear that run it are for YOU.  If your hobby is about discussing and researching whether or not different components of an audio chain make the difference many subjectively believe, then great.  However, if you're not hearing a difference, how will the data change your personal behaviour on the issue?  Should it? 
 
This isn't medicine.  I wouldn't compare the two.

 
 
What I/we mean is that people generally hear differences *too* easily, where none may really exist.
 
In both audio gear and science,
 
a- human bias and expectation intrude upon perception, along with values and impressions from other senses.  Evaluations of audio gear are also affected by the endowment effect, which biases people to (irresistibly and irrationally) prefer the gear they own.
 
b- the best control for minimizing these confounds are blind tests.
 
The only difference is that in science, these factors are taken to heart and sighted studies are
rejected without review and never published- meaning that the flaw is considered so deep that such data is not worth reading, considering, and entering the dialogue of plausible 'factual' phenomena.
 
Of course audio gear cannot all be subject to such high standards, but the lessons still hold- blind tests are immensely valuable and have more weight in expensive/important decisions among people inclinded towards empirical data over hype and confusion.
 
So I would not agree that people who care about psychology and methodology lack the ability to make distinctions (indeed, we all make those too easily) and are not just seeking excuses for buying cheap gear, as suggested earlier.

 

[grokit]

Hard science is necessarily objective as it relies entirely on empirical evidence, once you get past theorizing.
 
Sound science has to make room for subjectivity, because what sounds good to one person will not necessarily sound good to the next.
 

 

[aimlink]

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So I would not agree that people who care about psychology and methodology lack the ability to make distinctions (indeed, we all make those too easily) and are not just seeking excuses for buying cheap gear, as suggested earlier.

 
Of course, you don't.

 

[aimlink]

Quote:

What I/we mean is that people generally hear differences *too* easily, where none may really exist.
 
In both audio gear and science,
 
a- human bias and expectation intrude upon perception, along with values and impressions from other senses.  Evaluations of audio gear are also affected by the endowment effect, which biases people to (irresistibly and irrationally) prefer the gear they own.
 
b- the best control for minimizing these confounds are blind tests.
 
The only difference is that in science, these factors are taken to heart and sighted studies are
rejected without review and never published- meaning that the flaw is considered so deep that such data is not worth reading, considering, and entering the dialogue of plausible 'factual' phenomena.
 
Of course audio gear cannot all be subject to such high standards, but the lessons still hold- blind tests are immensely valuable and have more weight in expensive/important decisions among people inclinded towards empirical data over hype and confusion.
 
So I would not agree that people who care about psychology and methodology lack the ability to make distinctions (indeed, we all make those too easily) and are not just seeking excuses for buying cheap gear, as suggested earlier.

I have no problem with the grounding principles and general opinion that you've stated here so eloquently.  As always, it's pretty easy to outline them.  It's another thing to apply them in a way that exercises a healthy level of balance and pragmatism, without importantly, losing the essence of what the overall effort is all about.   It's about music.... not about medicine. 

 

[Currawong]

Quick thoughts: 
 
"Synergy" is probably either of balancing the tone of different components against each other so the combined result is pleasant to the ears or impedance matching.
 
Likely if Carl had the OPA Moon in there, which is distinctly not tonally neutral (due to the stereo crosstalk) then he would have likely passed the blind test.  Maybe also with a variety of well-recorded music of a suitable variety of types. I've said this before though.  I suggest the freely downloadable recordings done by Costas Metaxas of various artists, or wait until the recordings done at Canjam are published.  However, Carl might not like the music and might not make any effort to pay attention to the music or become familiar with it enough, resulting in it "sounding the same" to him out of different gear regardless.

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

Quick thoughts: 
 
"Synergy" is probably either of balancing the tone of different components against each other so the combined result is pleasant to the ears or impedance matching..

Ah, now I understand. Though I always thought that kit should not have its own tone and just faithfully reproduce what is thrown at it, but I am old fashioned like that

,it always seems a bit haphazard buying kit with different tones to be mixed and matched to taste when you can get a nice digital Equalizer for a couple of hundred $s

 

[Ypoknons]

Until I am satisfied as to the contrary, I will stick with the idea that the FR of individual components is constant between combinations. Synergy should therefore be interpreted as preference, e.g. where a given person prefers a neutral sound, a neutral headphone with a neutral source has synergy, and bad synergy would be say, dark amplifier to dark source. The equalizer option is viable, however, if a person prefers to do this with hardware matching, that's fine with me. It does seem a little bit excessive, but on the other hand, I like gear *shrug*

 

[Ruffle]

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But if you can't hear the difference, definitely don't pay for it!

This is pretty much the only good thing said in this thread.  Regardless of other people's opinions and what others say, if you can't hear the difference, don't pay for it!
 
People get worked up a bit too much.  Agree to disagree, these are all opinions.
 
And yeah I do think DBT is far more objective than 99.99% of the reviews on Head-Fi.  But how a test is conducted is important as others have said.  
 
This is just a hobby, if you're not having fun or not hearing a difference, save your money.  Enjoy the music.

 

[ULTRA-HARMONICS]

IBTL.....