[Andrew Pielet]

The thing that annoys me most about these forums is there is always somebody to say "you can't hear the difference". That is BS. I can always hear the difference. D-77, D-777, Meta42 is my system, it is by no means top o' the line. I can hear a difference in burning sources. I can also hear the diffences of the Ipod and a MD and my D-12. The Ipod does not stand up to my PCDP, and I like MD better than an Ipod as well. If you think I am out of my mind, and the human ear can't hear these things, hopefully I will see you at the next Chicago head-fi meet.

 

[Anders]

"I can't hear the difference" is a better expression, which can be true and makes discussion easier.

 

[Magic77]

Quote:

Originally posted by Andrew Pielet The thing that annoys me most about these forums is there is always somebody to say "you can't hear the difference". That is BS. I can always hear the difference. D-77, D-777, Meta42 is my system, it is by no means top o' the line. I can hear a difference in burning sources. I can also hear the diffences of the Ipod and a MD and my D-12. The Ipod does not stand up to my PCDP, and I like MD better than an Ipod as well. If you think I am out of my mind, and the human ear can't hear these things, hopefully I will see you at the next Chicago head-fi meet.

Andrew,

I agree with you. I beleive that if "YOU" hear a difference then there "IS" a difference. When you really think of it; every component; amps,cables,headphones,speakers etc..... are all made differently in some way. Different equipment and components use different parts, or some may use some parts that another uses. So, in my opinion; anything can make a difference.

 

[Andrew Pielet]

I agree. I am not flexing my ears either, its funny when people tell me what I can't hear. It also makes me want to show them in person, cause I feel most people can hear the difference in the right setting/situation.

 

[plainsong]

That's what's confusing to me about trying to describe here what we hear, and then having people tell us we're wrong.

In my first really serious voice lesson with a "real" voice teacher, we talked about this. She'd ask how that sounded to me, or how that felt. I searched for the right words, and she told me "There's no right answer." She was just developing that shorthand abstract language that we could use to communicate in a lesson.

But that's one-on-one, and here we are trying to describe the sound in our own shorthand to many. We can't ever call anyone else wrong because they hear what they hear, and perhaps it's the same as you hear, just they're using different words.

And meanwhile we have a thread with two people duking it out over words that can't be right or wrong by very definition.

So yeah, saying "I don't hear a difference" is a better phrase. If you hear a difference, no one can accuse you of being wrong unless they know your ears inside and out, and unless you have a teacher that teaches you an instrument one-on-one, there's no one here that knows your ears that well.

 

[scrypt]

Reminds me of what used to happen when I was a wee brat and my mother would slip wheat germ oil into my orange juice.

Me: Mom, my orange juice tastes like crap!

Moth: There's nothing wrong with your orange juice.

Me: Yes there is, for the love of pulsating Jesus!

Moth: Good God, what language!

Me: Admit it and stop driving me insane! You know you put what germ oil in my orange juice!

Moth: Just a tiny amount. No one could possibly notice the difference.

Me: *I* notice the difference! I notice and it tastes like utter hell!

Mother: (clicking her tongue) You *can't even tell*.

Me: What the hell do you *mean* I can't even tell!? IF I COULDN'T TELL I WOULDN'T BE BITCHING ABOUT IT!

Moth: Well, you'll have to drink it. It's all the orange juice we have.

Me: That's OK. I'll pick up some orange juice at school.

Moth: Oh, hell! That school is terrible about nutrition.

Me: That's right -- their OJ doesn't have wheat germ oil in it. But don't worry -- you *won't be able to tell* I didn't drink it!

 

[Audio-Me]

There are people that really can't discern differences, yet they tell themselves that they can, it's rather funny.

 

[mlchang]

Quote:

Originally posted by Audio&Me There are people that really can't discern differences, yet they tell themselves that they can, it's rather funny.

But if you tell yourself you can, then really in a way you are.
Perception is a tricky thing. There is no way the you and I can ever see the exact same thing. Sure, the physical anatomy and chemistry and workings of the eye are the same. The ear is too pretty much (with some variance from genetics, etc). However, everything is processed by the brain and the synaptic connections in every single person's brain is a bit different. You learn through experience which then causes a synapse to form. For example interpretation of color...you can measure the wavelength of light and say from here to there it is blue. But say you took a kid and forever from day 1 you said to him from here to there is is "Green" instead of blue it will be green. Which brings up the second problem...you may be able to measure a physical characteristic and define something, but then you have the barrier of the symbolic nature of language. No one word will have the exact same meaning to everyone, because words in English are symbols for ideas and represent something else. So the interpretation of symbols is exactly that interpretation. So now audio...well the characteristics that can be measured don't exactly tell you that one cable has more "air" or "pace" or speed or whatever. Then couple that with using words that in truth are quite meaningless like "air" and "pace" to describe sound and you have a real problem.

plainsong's vocal teacher had the right idea...develop a shorthand get on the same page as much as possible and then you can talk.

Going to a head-fi meet is great thing. Having gone to toddathan's with kelly and dparrish and listening to high end equipment after them...then I could understand what they meant when something was darker, blacker, quicker or whatever adjective they used. This let me get in on the same language.

So I guess basically I agree no one should say "you can't hear the difference."

That and 2+2 = 5 if you really want it to.

 

[skippy]

so if a person listened to a particular setup, and then was told the setup was changed, even though it wasn't. the person shouldn't hear a difference, even if they do percieve one. did they hear a difference, or just imagine one?

 

[radrd]

Ah, placebo versus perception. Theres a reason why the cables section is DBT free.

 

[Ebonyks]

Bah, i believe in DBT, assuming that the same cables are thrown in enough times to make it difficult to guess randomly which is which.

Otherwise, the placebo effect to some extent drives the industry, however, if people are happy with their purchase, does it really matter that much to any of you? just my feeling on the subject