gregorio
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2008
- Posts
- 6,746
- Likes
- 4,035
I completely agree with almost everything you wrote but there were a few points that either weren't quite accurate or deserve elaborating on:
1. TBH, there has been virtually no advancement of digital playback technology in the last 10 years. The late 1980's to the beginning of the 2000's there was a lot of advancement, due to the consumer digital age really taking off (with home computers, cell phones, etc.) a market that had been worth a few billion was suddenly worth trillions, which facilitated rapid development and the huge scale manufacture of digital processing chips, digital storage and digital transfer technologies. My first pro ADC/DAC was 20bit/48kHz in 1992, by the late 1990's 24bit was becoming the standard and that was pretty much the end of any advancement because 24bit far exceeds whatever real world analogue input or output signal can manage. Today's "best" ADCs and DACs are about 21bit devices, the other 3+ bits are just noise.
1a. Sony's DSD (SACD) was effectively a game changer but ONLY for the audiophile world and NOT because it was an advancement of digital technology but because it was an advancement in digital audio marketing. It effectively launched the whole "High-Resolution" marketing nonsense that pretty much all digital audiophile manufacturers still rely on today! It really was very clever though: Essentially take half an ADC (or half a DAC), which obviously is a lot cheaper to manufacture, but charge twice as much for it and market it as higher resolution. Audiophile genius!
In other words, the "advancement of digital playback technology in the last 10 years" is not really an advancement in playback technology but an advancement in audiophile marketing pseudoscience/nonsense. There have been some advancements in multi-channel formats and certainly some advancements in features/functions but not in the playback technology.
2. TBH, I don't believe that's the case. Some are vaguely aware of what is somewhat incorrectly termed "placebo effect", while many others dismiss even that and believe they are somehow immune to all perception biases but I don't recall ever seeing a single post here on head-fi by "people who fully know" how biases/assumptions/expectations affect our perception of hearing. Music itself is entirely reliant on biases/expectations, so if audiophiles are immune to biases/expectations, what are they listening to?
3. The science isn't missing and isn't "desperately needed at this point in history", it's already been done many decades or over a century ago. What is desperately needed IMO is a decent understanding of what science is and therefore prioritising science over the charisma of reviewers or marketers. And, this is not just desperately needed in the audiophile world but in the wider world, with far more consequential/catastrophic issues!
G
1. TBH, there has been virtually no advancement of digital playback technology in the last 10 years. The late 1980's to the beginning of the 2000's there was a lot of advancement, due to the consumer digital age really taking off (with home computers, cell phones, etc.) a market that had been worth a few billion was suddenly worth trillions, which facilitated rapid development and the huge scale manufacture of digital processing chips, digital storage and digital transfer technologies. My first pro ADC/DAC was 20bit/48kHz in 1992, by the late 1990's 24bit was becoming the standard and that was pretty much the end of any advancement because 24bit far exceeds whatever real world analogue input or output signal can manage. Today's "best" ADCs and DACs are about 21bit devices, the other 3+ bits are just noise.
1a. Sony's DSD (SACD) was effectively a game changer but ONLY for the audiophile world and NOT because it was an advancement of digital technology but because it was an advancement in digital audio marketing. It effectively launched the whole "High-Resolution" marketing nonsense that pretty much all digital audiophile manufacturers still rely on today! It really was very clever though: Essentially take half an ADC (or half a DAC), which obviously is a lot cheaper to manufacture, but charge twice as much for it and market it as higher resolution. Audiophile genius!
In other words, the "advancement of digital playback technology in the last 10 years" is not really an advancement in playback technology but an advancement in audiophile marketing pseudoscience/nonsense. There have been some advancements in multi-channel formats and certainly some advancements in features/functions but not in the playback technology.
2. TBH, I don't believe that's the case. Some are vaguely aware of what is somewhat incorrectly termed "placebo effect", while many others dismiss even that and believe they are somehow immune to all perception biases but I don't recall ever seeing a single post here on head-fi by "people who fully know" how biases/assumptions/expectations affect our perception of hearing. Music itself is entirely reliant on biases/expectations, so if audiophiles are immune to biases/expectations, what are they listening to?
3. The science isn't missing and isn't "desperately needed at this point in history", it's already been done many decades or over a century ago. What is desperately needed IMO is a decent understanding of what science is and therefore prioritising science over the charisma of reviewers or marketers. And, this is not just desperately needed in the audiophile world but in the wider world, with far more consequential/catastrophic issues!
G
