[Rajikaru]

 
what I always found ironic is seeing how many hirez fans are also tube fans. when hi-res is supposed to bring all the ultrasonic sounds and "precision". while tube's "house sound" is most commonly known for rolled off high frequencies and distortion.
and those kind of contradictions are everywhere in the audiophile world.
 
we all make choices and don't have to justify anything to anybody(unless it's a crime and you're poor ^_^). it's when some try to pretend that their own subjective preferences are the better sound(more natural, warmer, real, like the live concert..) that the nonsense begins. the distortions so important that we all need to buy a 1000+$ DAC, the unbearable -90db noise from bad jitter and the ugly -96db quantization noise of a redbook track are an everyday problem to real audio quality, it seems from reading headfi. but suddenly the -50db distortion from the tube amp I like isn't a problem at all, let's talk about my new usb cable instead, the improvement is "audible"...
I don't know when subjectivism became a magic pass for irrational arguments? "I can say what I want because audio is subjective". just a sad joke of an excuse to avoid thinking or admit to ever be wrong.
 
 

I see struggle with Sound Science is that it tries to explain, using rationality, science, and engineering know how...
...what is essentially a systemic psychopathological and sociological phenomenon. 

Like in the Matrix, there are 'programs' like the Merovingian, the Oracle, the Architect, there are persistent agents in the audiophile community whose main function is to alleviate pre-and post-purchase anxiety of people who want to spend money on expensive gear. They service a segment who really couldn't care less about DBT results or if something even makes rational or engineering sense. That's why they are persistent. There's always a need for that. 

After all, Audiophile equipment is not a basic, life or death need in the Maslow Heirarchy.  'Belonging', on the other hand...This would explain why there are certain cliques which exhibit behavior  similar to high school gangs, college fraternities, and sports fans (i.e. 'Back me up bro!!!!' woot woot!!! Sabre sucks!!! O2/ODAC sucks!!! Go...whatever!!!) 

One doesn't need a degree in Psychology to realize how juvenile that all is. 

On one hand, "We never free a mind once it's reached a certain age. It's dangerous, the mind has trouble letting go." - Morpheus. That and 'hey, it's their money.' On the other hand, there are still many who care about sound and go into this hobby armed with a healthy amount of skepticism. 

IMO, Sound Science also has an absolutely essential systemic function.  Ever watched the film, Snowpiercer? If this forum was a train, Sound Science is the back of the train.  It's about balance. 

 

[KamijoIsMyHero]

Snowpiercer didn't seem to explain the point of the back of the train thoroughly enough IMO. From what I gather, those were people brought on the train based on mercy. Their existence didn't seem to have a purpose. It didn't seem like they were doing anything helpful other than living. Those guys could have easily been left off and the train would still function.

The sound science section is a place to discuss science of sound and other technical stuff. It has a purpose.

 

[bigshot]

  I see struggle with Sound Science is that it tries to explain, using rationality, science, and engineering know how...
...what is essentially a systemic psychopathological and sociological phenomenon. 

 
People always overthink things and let OCD get the best of them. The purpose of "sound science" as it exists here isn't to split the atom or find the cure for cancer. It's to make your stereo sound better. That is actually a pretty straightforward goal. These are basic principles that make complete sense if you don't surrender to the temptation to artificially inflate the importance of trivia. It isn't hard at all to go out and buy a very reasonably priced system that does the job and sounds great.
 
The problem is that the audiophile press is devoted to obfuscating and mystifying something that isn't at all difficult or magical. Why do audio magazines and web sites deliberately make it hard on their readers? Simple. They care more about their advertisers than their readers. They want the readers to believe spending more money means better sound. They want them to feel insecure about their system... They try to convince people that MAYBE if you buy a different DAC or a fancy cable it will improve things you don't even know needs fixing.
 
All of this is a fairly recent thing in the overall history of sound reproduction. Before digital audio, hifi sets and stereos were put together by practical people who knew how everything worked and could make judgement calls based on facts instead of vague worries. They grabbed a soldering iron and a schematic and went to town. Digital audio introduced sound quality that met and exceeded all of those practically minded hifi nuts' dreams. Perfect sound forever. The problem is, the average Joe no longer understood how sound reproduction worked. It was a strange technology that consisted of chopping sound up into little bits and turning it into patterns of 1s and 0s.
 
Lack of understanding the fundamental principles leaves the door open for the mystical charlatans to come in and obfuscate and herd people toward spending too much money on things that don't make a lick of difference. The thing that really puzzles me however is the people who understand how digital audio works, but get bogged down in minutia like jitter or inaudible noise floors. Why do they fuss so much over things that ears can't hear? The only answer I can come up with is that to them, the hobby is about noodling with technology, not listening to music.
 
Ultimately, music should the end goal. Assemble a kick ass system and stop worrying about it- focus on music from there one. But no one seems to do that. They churn through equipment and blow through money like water. Me? I spend a LOT more time building the music library on my music server than fussing about the equipment. That's the way it should be.

 

[Rajikaru]

The sound science section is a place to discuss science of sound and other technical stuff. It has a purpose.

 
If you ignore the class warfare implications in the movie and think opposing ideologies (objective vs. subjective, consumerism vs. practicality), that would be my analogy. Other than that, I agree with what you wrote. 

 

[Rajikaru]

   
Ultimately, music should the end goal. Assemble a kick ass system and stop worrying about it- focus on music from there one. But no one seems to do that. They churn through equipment and blow through money like water. Me? I spend a LOT more time building the music library on my music server than fussing about the equipment. That's the way it should be.

 
Agreed.
 
Personally, right now between a STAX, a planar, and an Audio Technica M50...
Clearly different sound signature and presentation? Yes.
One technically better than the other in some areas? Yes. 
Can I enjoy music with any of them? Yes, actually.
 
It's also more about the music with me these days. 

 

[bigshot]

Just get one really good pair of headphones and an equalizer and you can have any of them you want.

 

[ab initio]

  Just get one really good pair of headphones and an equalizer and you can have any of them you want.

Just get one really linear pair of headphones and an equalizer and you can have any of them you want.
 
Cheers

 

[anetode]

  Just get one really linear pair of headphones and an equalizer and you can have any of them you want.
 
Cheers

 
So the M50 is out of the running.

 

[Kaffeemann]

  Just get one really linear pair of headphones and an equalizer and you can have any of them you want.
 
Cheers

 
I wish there was something like that 

 

[Huggtand]

I just want so say a BIG thank you to all the people at sound science who takes time to explain audio for the rest of us.
 
Before I joined Head-Fi I never thougt I would sit and read a 129 pages thread how digital audio functions (24bit vs 16bit, the myth exploded!), and enjoying it

 
Keep up the good work!

 

[davidsh]

You can't quite have the same kick ass bass from a stax lambda model as many of the modern planars in my experience. EQ or not.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

What do you guys think of the sound mastering theory that there should be an optimal general frequency response to music? I've added a reference line to my spectrum analyzer modelled after the frequency response of good-sounding pop to my ears and tried shaping the "taste-shaping" equalizer on the left to push other music closer to the reference line. (whereas the equalizer on the right is for correcting the speaker system.)

Of course, this only works for those genres like pop and rock that have something like a semi-constant wall of sound, but it's arguably these genres that are most often in need of such shaping anyway?

 

[SilverEars]

Joe, I was thinking the same for different genres of music as I was even thinking that some headphone work better with wider genre vs other that are limited(and this is based on their FR, which is obvious), so why not have the source be changed accordingly to the type of genre of music which can be predicted to have heavily compressed output?
 
Have you heard of the RWAK mods?  The new RWAK240 mod I believe does two things.  Replaces stock amp with JFET and adds capacitor at the output line to have more power readily available for low end when needed and make it sound with more body(I'm assuming this counters the "clinical" aspect) when needed according to the RW site.  The mod is $500.
 
I believe people that would seek this mod are those that don't like the "clinical" sounds they get from a source that is more revealing to the master.  The "clinical" sound they are referring to is probably of modern genre of music which was produced without a revealing setup in mind.
 
Why spend $500 on hardware mod?  Why not do this in software?  Have a setting that would make these revealing source more forgiving of the dynamic compression of the master.  

 

[bigshot]

Before I joined Head-Fi I never thougt I would sit and read a 129 pages thread how digital audio functions (24bit vs 16bit, the myth exploded!), and enjoying it

 

 
It really doesn't take 129 pages to explain, but we get some pretty nutty people through here occasionally that require more hand holding.

 

[bigshot]

  You can't quite have the same kick ass bass from a stax lambda model as many of the modern planars in my experience. EQ or not.

 
The headphone has to be capable of producing the frequency in the first place. You can't EQ what isn't there. But if you find a headphone that can produce as low as the Stax, you could certainly make it sound more "kick ass". (But if that is important to you, speakers would blow the Stax away.)