[kwkarth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif Here's my intent. When I started out in hifi, my brother and a bunch of his friends took the time to show me how things worked. They gave me advice based on their years of experience putting together stereo rigs, pa systems and designing speakers. They told me what mattered and what didn't. Because of this, I made some very good choices of equipment very early on. I'm still using my first turntable and the first speakers I ever bought. That solid advice saved me a LOT of money... money I was able to spend on other things- like music. The guys who mentored me also shared with me their philosophy of being a hifi nut. They told me it wasn't about fancy equipment to impress your friends, it was about making your music sound great. It's all about the music. They taught me how to do a systematic and organized listening test. I can tell you that I have irritated many stereo salesmen when I plunked myself down in a listening room with a yellow pad and a pile of CDs and spent half a day deciding on what I was going to buy. But I've never been disappointed with any of my purchases. Logical thinking and systematic approaches to comparing equipment is the way you efficiently determine the weaknesses of your system so you can address them. Randomly chasing theoretical and anecdotal improvements get you nowhere except broke. I hope that my ability to share what I've learned in the past 30 years helps someone make smart choices on their own. The audiophile press and sales community is doing a criminally bad job of guiding people. Someone has to do it. See ya Steve

Steve,
This is an awesome post! Why can't we keep it on this level? I can guarantee you will genuinely help many, many people with advice like this.

Even though it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, I agree with everything you said. Gosh, how did we get off on the wrong foot? FWIW, I'm sorry for my part.

For the record, there are many here who feel they've done all of the big improvements they can and are now chasing down the elusive last 5%. We have to respect those who choose to do so. It's their choice and they, for the most part, clearly understand that they're chasing the last few tiniest grains of sand to fill the glass. If I choose not to pursue that last 5%, that's fine. The folks who pursue the last 5% have to respect my decision too.

Cheers!

 

[kwkarth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sir Nobax /img/forum/go_quote.gif I always love these "YES" "NO" "YES" "NO", discussions. It is very easy to test if cables make a difference, just ask headroom to re-test the frequency (+ all other) graphs with a other cable. Until the day I see such results I think all is in your head. Btw, it is fun to see that a metal with a warm color (amber/orange), "sounds" warmer then a metal with a cold color (white/silver). What a coincedense!!!!

Rather than lending intelligence to the discussion, you appear to be attempting to stir things up again. I am going to ask you to refrain from taking your overly simplistic view and imposing it upon others. Respect others.

 

[Sir Nobax]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kwkarth /img/forum/go_quote.gif Respect others.

Don't get me wrong, i really do respect all your opinions.

And i am only pointing to the fact that a theoretic explanation isn't that hard to create and would get rid of such 'objective' threads.

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kwkarth /img/forum/go_quote.gif For the record, there are many here who feel they've done all of the big improvements they can and are now chasing down the elusive last 5%.

They're probably wrong. You can't be anywhere close to great sound with just headphones. And you can't have good sounding speakers without equalization and room treatment. I've been working for thirty years, and there's still plenty of important stuff I need to work on. I see way too many people recommending high end cables to beginners for their portable rigs. That's just lousy advice any way you slice it.

Some things matter... well recorded music, great speakers, an amp that can push the speakers properly, proper equalization and a good room to listen in. Some things just don't matter, no matter how fantastic your system is. Cables, as long as they are of reasonably good quality, just don't matter. Radio Shack makes great cables. No need to spend a penny more.

Being a hifi nut shouldn't be a pissing contest. No one should wrap their ego around the cost of their equipment or the refinement of their ability to hear. The things I value myself are isolating and identifying problems and solving them, and getting the most bang for the buck. Bling bling and "connoisseurship" is for saps.

See ya
Steve

 

[philodox]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif They're probably wrong. You can't be anywhere close to great sound with just headphones.

Having heard high end speaker setups in professional installations and high end headphone setups, I can say that you are probably wrong here.

I agree with kwkarth though, that was a nice post.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif I see way too many people recommending high end cables to beginners for their portable rigs. That's just lousy advice any way you slice it.

Agreed.

As for the rest of it, I'm not going to bother arguing with you about it. I know where you stand and you know where I stand. We've been here before.

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sir Nobax /img/forum/go_quote.gif And i am only pointing to the fact that a theoretic explanation isn't that hard to create and would get rid of such 'objective' threads.

The differences between cables has already been measured and quantified. It just isn't audible in a normal hifi rig. There's no need to keep going back and proving it all over again. I just state opinions based on my experience and evidence and stand on that. If someone disagrees, they will have to produce stronger experience and evidence. When it comes to cables, I wish them luck. That ship has sailed no matter how many anecdotal reports claim to still see it in the port.

See ya
Steve

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by philodox /img/forum/go_quote.gif Having heard high end speaker setups in professional installations and high end headphone setups, I can say that you are probably wrong here.

You should hear MY system when I've got the 5:1 tweaked just right!

See ya
Steve

 

[philodox]

Yes, and you should hear my headphone rig.

 

[kwkarth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif They're probably wrong. You can't be anywhere close to great sound with just headphones. And you can't have good sounding speakers without equalization and room treatment. I've been working for thirty years, and there's still plenty of important stuff I need to work on. I see way too many people recommending high end cables to beginners for their portable rigs. That's just lousy advice any way you slice it. Some things matter... well recorded music, great speakers, an amp that can push the speakers properly, proper equalization and a good room to listen in. Some things just don't matter, no matter how fantastic your system is. Cables, as long as they are of reasonably good quality, just don't matter. Radio Shack makes great cables. No need to spend a penny more. Being a hifi nut shouldn't be a pissing contest. No one should wrap their ego around the cost of their equipment or the refinement of their ability to hear. The things I value myself are isolating and identifying problems and solving them, and getting the most bang for the buck. Bling bling and "connoisseurship" is for saps. See ya Steve

Again, I agree with most of what you say, but you still have to respect those who choose to pursue something that you choose not to pursue.

I too, value getting the best bang for my buck in most cases, but if someone chooses a different path, we must respect them and not denigrate their decision.

 

[kwkarth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif The differences between cables has already been measured and quantified. It just isn't audible in a normal hifi rig. There's no need to keep going back and proving it all over again. I just state opinions based on my experience and evidence and stand on that. If someone disagrees, they will have to produce stronger experience and evidence. When it comes to cables, I wish them luck. That ship has sailed no matter how many anecdotal reports claim to still see it in the port. See ya Steve

Throughout history there have been many, many times where respected scientists of their day had taken the position that alll that could be discovered had been discovered. They were all wrong. I submit to you, that all is not known about ways to actually measure what we hear. I am confident that there are more discoveries yet to come. The only ship that has sailed is the ship of opinion. Any good scientist will tell you that there is much we still do not understand about our world.

 

[kwkarth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif ... It just isn't audible in a normal hifi rig....

For discussion's sake, I have not been able to hear differences between cables in my normal Hi-Fi rig either. I can, however, hear them with my good Headphone rigs, although not with all headphones.

 

[kwkarth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sir Nobax /img/forum/go_quote.gif ... And i am only pointing to the fact that a theoretic explanation isn't that hard to create and would get rid of such 'objective' threads.

Actually, today, with existing methods, no one has been able to demonstrate and measure the differences that people hear. This can mean a couple of different things. Either we have not yet learned how to measure all that we hear, or all people who hear differences are delusional. Having done a lot of single blind testing myself, I personally feel we see a lot of both cases demonstrated.

 

[tourmaline]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif The differences between cables has already been measured and quantified. It just isn't audible in a normal hifi rig. There's no need to keep going back and proving it all over again. I just state opinions based on my experience and evidence and stand on that. If someone disagrees, they will have to produce stronger experience and evidence. When it comes to cables, I wish them luck. That ship has sailed no matter how many anecdotal reports claim to still see it in the port. See ya Steve

Your own experience isn't stronger evidence then people Hearing differences between cables. That's their experience.

As i stated before, cables are sometimes also very tricky on certain systems. I personally heard the same cable sound bad on one rig and sounding wonderfull on another.
So, synergy and matching is important. But i constantly heard differences between cheap and higher end cables.

Nobody is saying you need the most expensive cable around, but a decent cable will give you more of the good stuff.

What is decent and what is good, is in the eye of the beholder; some are only satisfied with the most expensive gear, some with an ipod and some with a rig in between.

 

[dura]

I love measurements by qualified engineers. rather then doing something subjective like listening they measure, and the insightful conclusions they reached with measurements: in the 70-s they measured cheap Japanese transistoramplifiers had far less distortion then tube-amps, so they were better. Audiophiles claiming tubeamps sounded better were ridiculed, called selfdeluded, cheated on by cunning salesmen, placebo-fooled, etc. At the best they were addicted to euphonic distortion.
a decade later Cd cames, and CD measured far better then vinyl. People who preferred vinyl were resolutedly pointed out they were completely wrong, same reasons.
We all ended up with systems nobody cared to listen to, but at least they measured great.

The conclusion could be made that although it is easy to get figures from measurements, it is hard to figure out what figures to get and how to interpret them, so looking down on people who prefer a subjective method seems a little arrogant to me.

Part of the problem is, the difference between f.i. ugly and beautiful sometimes can't be put into numbers, and if you can, that number can be surprisingly small, take red wine f.i. What substances are you gonna measure, and how are you going to interpretet what you measure? Nobody knows.

But if you don't believe that here is a tip how to get the best red wine possible: take the percentage of alcohol on the etiquette and divide that by the price.
The higher the outcome the better the wine, the rest is all placebo and selfdelusion and theft, as can be easily proved by DBT's.

 

[Andrew_WOT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dura /img/forum/go_quote.gif a decade later Cd cames, and CD measured far better then vinyl. People who preferred vinyl were resolutedly pointed out they were completely wrong, same reasons.

Really?