Testing audiophile claims and myths

[bigshot]

If you can’t hear the difference it doesn’t matter. If it does matter to you, the sound isn’t why. It has more to do with you than it does the file format.

 

[Ryokan]

They're using their music to listen to their gear, or something like that

 

[bigshot]

They’re using abstract theories of quality to listen to inaudible sound.

 

[castleofargh]

Come on now. @Brahmsian clearly said he cared about objective fidelity regardless of audible improvement. There is nothing wrong with that.
Discuss what you want, and let him do the same. He's not trying to sell DSD, not telling us that we need to do the same, not inventing dubious reasons why everything's audible.
I think it's an interesting subject, if only for the sake of knowing. It's also fine to argue about the issues inherent to DSD and wonder if increasing the sample rate even more finally compensates the mistake of a 1bit encoding. Of course, we know that no DAC will have 24 or more bits of actual resolution, and we know that amps and transducers will crap all over the best signal in ways that make the format not so important. But at the same time, if someone wishes to collect his favorite music in the highest possible quality, what could possibly be wrong about it?

 

[Ryokan]

Come on now. @Brahmsian clearly said he cared about objective fidelity regardless of audible improvement. There is nothing wrong with that.
Discuss what you want, and let him do the same. He's not trying to sell DSD, not telling us that we need to do the same, not inventing dubious reasons why everything's audible.
I think it's an interesting subject, if only for the sake of knowing. It's also fine to argue about the issues inherent to DSD and wonder if increasing the sample rate even more finally compensates the mistake of a 1bit encoding. Of course, we know that no DAC will have 24 or more bits of actual resolution, and we know that amps and transducers will crap all over the best signal in ways that make the format not so important. But at the same time, if someone wishes to collect his favorite music in the highest possible quality, what could possibly be wrong about it?

We're just having us some fun

 

[bigshot]

I’m here to talk about ways to improve the sound of home audio systems. It wasn’t like I was saying DSD had bodily fluids in it, just that it sounds identical to high data rate lossy and every format with more unnecessary data above that. More data isn’t better if you can’t hear it, it’s just more.

 

[BS5711]

Warm fuzzies from using what one perceives to be the best they can do within sensible limits is worth something in terms of enjoyment of music even when we know it doesn't do anything except in our heads.

I have $200 - $300 cables on all my headphones and IEM because they look good and give a bit of extra pride of ownership which is important to me. I know they do nothing except look good and make me feel good but for me that is sufficient to justify the still mostly sane price.

I liken that to Brahmsian's file format choices he has talked about here.

I also download the highest resolution file options from Qobuz despite that I can't tell any difference between 24/192 and a 320 MP3. The downloads take longer but that time is free and I have the data capacity available on the SD cards so there is no down side that I can see.

I acknowledge the psychology of audio perception and use it to my advantage when it is practical and doesn't cost silly money. I see that as a part of the overall science of audio, psychology also being a science.

 

[Brahmsian]

If you can’t hear the difference it doesn’t matter. If it does matter to you, the sound isn’t why. It has more to do with you than it does the file format.

That’s a fair statement as it has a lot to do with my beliefs. For instance: Things that we can’t perceive don’t matter? I’m not sure I agree with that. To me, there’s something to be said for creating the most perfect recordings possible irrespective of wether we perceive everything on them. I’m more concerned that it be done on the recording side, but I will encourage it on my end as a consumer. I keep thinking of that gold LP we sent out into space. No alien life form is likely to encounter it, but it would’ve been nice if we sent a DXD or DSD 512 along with it. I very much think of recordings not just as consumer products but as artifacts, testaments to human innovation and ingenuity.

 

[Ryokan]

If we send up samples of high res they might wipe us out and try to converse with bats or wax moths thinking they must be the creators?

 

[bigshot]

I treasure the music, not the format it’s packaged in if there is no perceptible difference between formats. A clear improvement, like new mastering, a multichannel mix or a better master being used is great. I’ll welcome that. But not just taking the same sound and adding a bunch of redundant zeros and ones to it.

High end audiophilia is all about selling emperor’s new clothes. It’s also about making things complicated for the sake of complication. I’ll never recommend that anyone spend money on thin air. I won’t try to prevent you from wasting money and energy doing that, but I reserve the right to look at you funny and shake my head in amazement.

 

[Metalingus]

I tried several linear amps ranging from $900 to 4 digits with multiple headphones including Caldera, E3, The Composer, HD 6XX and from my experience owning many gears, buying selling in the past 10 years, if it provides adequate volume there's no difference between good measuring $50 dac amp and $5000 one. Same goes for cables. As long as they aren't horrible quality, it's just cosmetics.

If you can hear a difference with blind test, good for you. I'm 27 with perfectly fine hearing, maybe i'll hear difference when i grow older.

 

[BS5711]

I treasure the music, not the format it’s packaged in if there is no perceptible difference between formats. A clear improvement, like new mastering, a multichannel mix or a better master being used is great. I’ll welcome that. But not just taking the same sound and adding a bunch of redundant zeros and ones to it.

High end audiophilia is all about selling emperor’s new clothes. It’s also about making things complicated for the sake of complication. I’ll never recommend that anyone spend money on thin air. I won’t try to prevent you from wasting money and energy doing that, but I reserve the right to look at you funny and shake my head in amazement.

That is of course absolutely fair and accurate, however, you must have had a situation somewhere in your own position as a consumer where you have made a purchasing decision based on something other than only strict technical suitability.

Perhaps you bought amplifier A instead of B despite that it cost $250 more simply because it would match the aesthetics of the speakers and would therefore be nicer to own for reasons that have nothing to do with technical performance.

Even if was outside of audio, do you drive a very basic car that is the smallest size that will transport the number of passengers and luggage that you need or do you drive something a nicer simply because it is nice to have and gives you pleasure not just transports you from one place to another. That is not really a lot different to our man using audio files that do nothing except give him more enjoyment for technically intangible reasons. If you drive a nice car that cost $50,000 there are probably folks that shake their head at you because they see it as pointless money, a $5,000 car would achieve technically the same purpose.

If not, perhaps you should let your hair down

 

[Ryokan]

People like sitting in an expensive car generally for comfort, polished hard woods and soft leathers, a cheap car would have hard plastics and cloth.

 

[bigshot]

I honestly can’t think of anything I’ve ever bought for reasons other than function. Perhaps that’s because I studied design in college. If I’m going to get something for aesthetic reasons, it’s something where the aesthetics are the function, like with art. If I bought an expensive car, it would be because of the way it drives, not how well upholstered it is. Comfort would be a part of the function for sure- who wants an uncomfortable car? But I can’t think of any purpose or use for the extra data in an HD audio track. It’s basically like packing peanuts. It doesn’t add function, comfort or luxury at all. If the added data wasn’t there and it was just a CD that said SACD on it, nobody would be able to tell.

 

[BS5711]

People like sitting in an expensive car generally for comfort, polished hard woods and soft leathers, a cheap car would have hard plastics and cloth.

So long as the seats are padded and the AC works the cheap car still technically provides the same function, wood trim and leather upholstery are the nice things to have that make the owner feel good, just like our man with his DSD, the function is the same, he just likes the intangible feel good from having the big numbers and hi res files.

Not the very best analogy but I think the point I am getting at is obvious enough, he uses it because it make him feel good to do so, same as me with my cables.

I think we should just be thankful that he acknowledges that it makes no difference but just likes using it anyway, that is a refreshing change from the other recent folks.