Testing audiophile claims and myths

[bigshot]

I believe in informed decisions. If you’re going to spend thousands of dollars I’d hope that one would do a little research and not rely on the word of a commissioned salesperson. This group is a great place to get information on how to make smart purchases. It’s a shame that that info is often shouted down by people who admit they don’t know anything more than sales pitch and gut feelings. Head Fi is missing out on a terrific resource here.

 

[BS5711]

When you are dealing with a mentality that seeks to protect his beliefs rather than potentially learn something nothing he says comes as a surprise.

These are two years apart and he only seeks to explain why blind testing didn’t support his expected outcomes.

 

[Killcomic]

If a cheap cable or audio gear smears the sound due to minute errors in the transient timing, then that's something I haven't heard. Instruments always sound like what they are.

That's because you are not listening with the power of placebo.
When I listen with placebo, I can hear the difference between WAV and FLAC!

 

[Elegiac]

Yeah? Well, you know, that's just like uh, your opinion, man.

 

[bigshot]

With the power of placebo, I see dead people.

 

[castleofargh]

No, I've not read all 1238 pages of this thread. I think each of us has to determine 'value' on our own. Is it wrong for a hardware maker to get the highest price for a product they make or for an individual to decide to spend their money how ever they wish regardless of others perceived value (all rhetorical).

Currently, I have two nearly identical headphone amp, dac, streamers (all in one units) both by the same manufacturer for extensive evaluation. I can stream the same content to both simultaneously. Yes, I can see which device I'm moving the XLR jack to/from but I can clearly and consistently hear several characteristic differences between them. It's not down to just gain matching as I've listened to both extensively over the past couple weeks for hours at a time each and the differences my brain hears is consistent with varying gain used on each. They are $300 and $459, respectively and the only advertised differences are the DAC chip used in each. However, one uses twice the power leading me to suspect it has more class A bias than the other, both are class AB amps. One is not 'better' than the other but to me it's not a subtle difference and I may keep both as the spend is minimal either way.

Anyway, I believe if one hears a difference they hear a difference and to that individual this is all that matters. Measurements do not and certainly others opinions do no matter, unless these do to a particular individual. I do believe measurements are valuable for comparison but certainly not the whole story of how the object will sound for an individual.

I've read many of these AB, ABX, objective/subject discussions over the decades. For me, the question is not one that can be answered by anyone but one's self and yet the circular discussions persist. I suppose new people come along and have these concepts yet to work out for themselves. Perhaps I'm still working it out for myself, so say we all.

Hopefully along the way the music or gear or both is enjoyed otherwise what's the point...

Volume matching is a must! Anybody, thinking about it for 5 seconds, can figure out that having one device audibly louder is not how you start looking for audible difference. You can make excuses for days, if you don't volume match, you're doing it wrong.

Knowing which device is playing is a most obvious problem here. You know it's wrong, you bring those things up on your own and add a rational to excuse not doing it right. What do you expect from us? A pat on the back and me saying you did your best? We both know that's not true.

 

[71 dB]

I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t bother clicking through YouTube videos any more. The ones that get shared here almost always seem to not be worth my time. I imagine there are useful YouTube videos, but it’s a better use of my time to read supporting arguments than to wade through as much as an hour of blather. I’ll let you guys do that.

Very rarely do I watch Youtube videos linked here. I watch so much Youtube anyway from recreational math to poolrooms explorations. One big obsession of mine is people coming to Finland and making videos about their experience here. We Finns are notoriously curious about what foreigners think about us and our country. Since I watch this type of content a lot, Youtube recommends it more and now it recommended me a South-Korean Twitch streamer (Jinnytty), who just visited Finland. Her streams loaded on Youtube are not 20-30 minutes long videos. They are insanely long because she practically streams her life on Twitch.

Video 1 - Day 1 in Helsinki - 6 hours ("short", because it was the day of arrival from Denmark)
Video 2 - Day 2 in Helsinki - 9 hours
Video 3 - Rovaniemi, Lapland, the home of Santa Claus - 12 hours

I have been watching these a couple of hours per day and I am now 2 hours into video 2, which means I have 19 hours of content left! That's why I don't have time for some delusional audiophiles testing $3000 wires.

 

[castleofargh]

I just speed up the videos, not everything works at 2X(bad recording quality or the speaker is himself already fast or eats half the syllables instead of speaking them), but I got used to it over time even as a non native English speaker. It saves wastes less time.

 

[2leftears]

I just speed up the videos, not everything works at 2X(bad recording quality or the speaker is himself already fast or eats half the syllables instead of speaking them), but I got used to it over time even as a non native English speaker. It saves wastes less time.

I do the same. Even Grateful Dead get borderline bearable at that speed (putting on a helmet and taking cover under the table ; sorry Jerry, it's not you...)

 

[bigshot]

I do watch some YouTube… sovereign citizen cases, old time radio marathons, episodes of shows like Hotel Inspector and Kitchen Nightmares… mostly stuff I can play in the background while I work.

Videos on audiophile nonsense by high end audio salesmen aren’t high on my list, I’m afraid. I just can’t muster up any feeling of obligation to watch a video just because someone says “watch this for all the answers” instead of engaging in conversation with me directly. If they want to discuss something they can discuss it with me. If they just want me to give them a view, they can leave a link and invite me to view it, but I’m not going to feel guilty if I give it a pass.

 

[The Jester]

Why bother with YouTube videos indeed, most are plain biased marketing,
Just look here and find that all DAC’s, amps, streamers, sources, cables etc, are all the same as long as they are “transparent” by the standard suite of measurements, just buy the cheapest one you can find of each, job done, then choose the transducers, speakers or headphones whose sound signature is the most personally pleasing, no point in spending weeks, months, years on any forum looking for “improvements” before a little learning on speaker/room setup and optimisations.
I asked the fairies at the bottom of the garden and they agreed …

 

[bigshot]

Smart fairies!

 

[The Jester]

Indeed, they appear very knowledgeable,
They say look to tried and true results from trusted sources like peer reviewed AES white papers that support their dogma while ignoring any others that don’t, just call them out as BS.

 

[Elegiac]

Some real crap can make it past a peer review. Still, it's the best way.

And those who know better, will know it's crap. A better sort of crap than utterly self-published and self-endorsed quackery. Our institutions still function well enough, despite all the overblown identity politics and racial shame.

 

[lairpost]

Volume matching is a must! Anybody, thinking about it for 5 seconds, can figure out that having one device audibly louder is not how you start looking for audible difference. You can make excuses for days, if you don't volume match, you're doing it wrong.

Knowing which device is playing is a most obvious problem here. You know it's wrong, you bring those things up on your own and add a rational to excuse not doing it right. What do you expect from us? A pat on the back and me saying you did your best? We both know that's not true.

Thanks for letting me know I'm 'doing it all wrong'. You've successfully missed my entire point.