being an audiophile has given my friend brain rot :(

[jinjuku]

Re: being an audiophile has given my friend brain rot :(

The person that would like to try these things and can not afford to, but continues to post about the stupidity of the audiophile.

Who would that be? I've had MIT, Pangea, AudioQuest in my possession (brought the Pangea to the 2012 CKY GTG). Most of this can be had from places that let you return them. Next time I hear some moron talking about expensive HDMI cables, well a $500 AQ is literally 5 minutes away from me at BB.

Still have yet to see an Audiophile Nancy step up. But they do shut up pretty quickly which is nice.

[doctormorbius]

Re: being an audiophile has given my friend brain rot :(

Unfortunately a good part of the audio industry is awash with misinformation and magic potions all designed to get people to take out their wallets and part with their hard earned cash. Madison Avenue makes billions every year for a reason.

The ultimate goal of all speaker cables and interconnect cables is to be TRANSPARENT! They are not supposed to EQ one's system. I wonder how many so called audiophiles will buy boutique cables to tweak their systems but never touch the bass/treble knobs. That's just silly.

I happen to know what industry Titans like Ken Kantor and Andrew Jones think about all of this cable silliness. I'm more inclined to believe what they have to say than I am somebody that stands to gain financially from selling me love potion #9.

Just keep things in perspective. A fool and his money are soon parted.

[billfitzmaurice]

Re: being an audiophile has given my friend brain rot :(

I happen to know what industry Titans like Ken Kantor and Andrew Jones think about all of this cable silliness. I'm more inclined to believe what they have to say than I am somebody that stands to gain financially from selling me love potion #9.

+1. You can't cheat a well informed consumer. The problem with oddiophools is that they get their information from exactly the wrong sources, those who either have a financial interest in snake oil, or those who have themselves partaken of the kool-aid and now suffer from the gear equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome. We're all subject to placebo effect. It's those of us who know that we can be fooled who are most likely not to be.

[craigk]

Re: being an audiophile has given my friend brain rot :(

I guess with the sarcasm of your post it would apply to you. i do not get caught up in the snake oil products that many companies are pushing. i do not own any "magic pebbles," or jumpers that cost as much as the speakers. do i think cables sound different, yes. if you can hear the difference good, if you can not, you just saved yourself some money. while on cables, just because you add a 250.00 pair of cables to your system does not mean the a heavenly host of voices will come forth from your speaker boxes. i have been playing with high end audio since the late 80's. i have made an effort to go to shows and see new products, go to stores and listen, go to live musical events and hear what "real" music sounds like, etc. there are many gimicks out there, there are many things that look stupid that make a real difference. but when all is said and done i have still never heard a DIY speaker made with goldwood and celestion drivers that can comes close to the "audiophile" speakers put out by Rockport, Kaiser, Magico, and a dozen other audiophile companies. the interesting thing about this topic is i have yet to see an audiophile type ranting or telling anyone else how stupid they are for not purchasing a product, nor have i seen anyone trying to push any product onto someone else. Yet at every corner there is someone ready to attack and "audiophile" type. this board is suppose to support open minded thinking and creativity within a group of people that appreciate music. i just do not understand the endless cheap shot attacks on other members of the music community. especially when it cost you nothing, and really does not involve you in the least. i really do not care what you spend your money on. if the person that is spending the money is happy with the product, good for him or her.

[Simon Moon]

Re: being an audiophile has given my friend brain rot :(

Audiophile - a person enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction.

Doesn't the pretty much describe everyone on this forum?

[mzisserson]

Re: being an audiophile has given my friend brain rot :(

a few years ago there was a "yell test" which indicated that audible noise in a datacenter could slow i/o operations on a hard drive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDacjrSCeq4

And aside from vibration. You get gross bit errors. ones when there should be 0's etc. Solid state delivers the media without these errors, which ultimately become noise. Good DAC's go though extensive stages of error correction and some esoteric CD players dump the disc to a SSD, read it 3 or 4 times and compare the data to error correct the data. Like it or not: It works. On paper and subjectively for most. I have heard a couple and they were very good, not sure if they justify their price just yet.

Sorry boys, All cable exhibit capacitive, resistive, and inductive effects which add up to reactance. This can have a profound effect on matching to amplifiers and more specifically the low level, high impedance signals between components. Price matters little here, but matching does in most cases.

They're both as helpful as cancer.

+1, a very big +1. As stated, I find that given the opportunity, most would rather have better equipment all around. It is easy, however, to try and disprove differences to justify not having it than to say "hey-outta my leage, I have the best I can have and that's good enough for me". That mentality added to unscrupulous manufacturers and items like magic pebbles have really made it easy why not to own good equipment. I see some other people's hobbies and likes, and if you can afford them, you can afford good equipment to back your speaker up, it's just a choice, and a harsh reality is for most "music lovers" what is on a Best Buy shelf to slightly above is usually "good enough" because that extra 20% just ain't worth it... That's ok. Does not mean people are loony (within reason) because they are looking for a good match to their system or want the extra 20%. I rarely hear “audiophiles” bad-mouthing “ music lovers” or “audio enthusiasts”….

[carlspeak]

Re: being an audiophile has given my friend brain rot :(

Audiophile - a person enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction.

Doesn't the pretty much describe everyone on this forum?

I think that definition is quite dated. IMO, these days, an audiophile is a person obsessed with eeking out that last 0.00001% of sound out of their system. They go to great lengths to acquire the latest snake oil tweak, no matter how expensive.

[SirNickity]

Re: being an audiophile has given my friend brain rot :(

do i think cables sound different, yes. if you can hear the difference good, if you can not, you just saved yourself some money. while on cables, just because you add a 250.00 pair of cables to your system does not mean the a heavenly host of voices will come forth from your speaker boxes.

See, this is the problem. An audiophile will tell you: "Well *I* can hear the difference. Maybe you can't because your hearing isn't as good, or your equipment isn't up to par, or your source material is crap." Sure. Let's assume that 12" of super oxygen-free, gold-plated (Is gold even the best conductor? No.) whatever brand of interconnect is the weak link, and not the nickel / tin / copper leads on alllll the through-hole components on the PCB, or the lead-free solder on the surface-mount ones. Or the 20-foot Hosa or Proco cables that connect the LA-3A compressor in the recording studio to the patch panel, where there's another 2-foot generic Bantam patch cable connecting it back to another 12-foot cable to the Pro-Tools interface. Or the 30 feet of mic cable from the drum kit to the preamp.

Yes. Absolutely. That 1-foot RCA cable between your $20,000 CD player and $40,000 tube amp is the real problem. Thumbs-up dude. You nailed it.

Yeah I know... "it's cumulative". OK, well the wad of cash you blew on a trivial margin of difference will be absolutely swamped by the change in sound you'll get from moving your head 1" to either direction.

And power cords? COME... ON... Did you have the power company create your very own audiophile-quality substation? I can't even fathom how the last 3 to 6 feet of copper is going to significantly change the performance of miles of overhead lines and big-*** transformers hanging from utility poles.

i have made an effort to go to shows and see new products, go to stores and listen, go to live musical events and hear what "real" music sounds like, etc.

That's another one that makes me roll my eyes. Your stereo is supposed to sound like a live event? The recording engineer probably tried very hard to make it sound different. Yeah, there are a small percentage of recordings that truly attempt to capture the exact sound as heard from the audience, but usually, the instruments are close-mic'd, often individually, then processed and EQ'd so they have their own "sonic space", then mixed together and the whole thing processed yet again. It doesn't sound like live music, it isn't supposed to sound like live music, it never will.

It reminds me of an interview with an author I heard on NPR the other day. She said that writing natural-sounding dialogue between characters is an art-form. If you just wrote down what people said to each other on the subway, it would read like crap. So you have to invent the sort of speech that sounds like what you would hear in casual conversation, but is in fact not at all that thing. Then it sounds right. That's how recording works too.

the interesting thing about this topic is i have yet to see an audiophile type ranting or telling anyone else how stupid they are for not purchasing a product, nor have i seen anyone trying to push any product onto someone else. Yet at every corner there is someone ready to attack and "audiophile" type. this board is suppose to support open minded thinking and creativity within a group of people that appreciate music. i just do not understand the endless cheap shot attacks on other members of the music community.

That's a fair point. They have the right to do whatever they'd like with their money. OTOH, we have the right to find it a stupid, wasteful practice. I won't personally hold it against someone for taking part in that nonsense, but I will tell them I think it's a stupid and wasteful practice, and why. Not just "well, I didn't hear it, thus it's not real", but with as much logical debate as they're willing to suffer through. At some point, you're right, time to agree to disagree.

Now, I know this probably reads harsh because I'm not a subtle person when it comes to opinions, but I don't get angry about this stuff. An argument is an exchange of ideas, and when it has no personal effect on me or anyone I care about, it holds no bearing on my opinion of the person contrary. I can be exhausted by their nonsense, and still fist-bump a brother in audio over a cool tune. :blues:

[craigk]

Re: being an audiophile has given my friend brain rot :(

That's another one that makes me roll my eyes. Your stereo is supposed to sound like a live event? The recording engineer probably tried very hard to make it sound different. Yeah, there are a small percentage of recordings that truly attempt to capture the exact sound as heard from the audience, but usually, the instruments are close-mic'd, often individually, then processed and EQ'd so they have their own "sonic space", then mixed together and the whole thing processed yet again. It doesn't sound like live music, it isn't supposed to sound like live music, it never will.


you make my eyes roll with a response like this. must people that listen to music have no idea of what "real, live music" sounds like. no where did I say anything about the recording studio etc. if you have red my post in the past I have stated the same thing you just did many times, that we have no idea of what the music on a cd sounded like in the studio, before it was mixed. you still need a reference to compare what you are listening to, and that is why you need to hear live music. if you have never heard an acoustic bass, a trumpet, flute, etc, how do you know what music is suppose to sound like ?

[johnnyrichards]

Re: being an audiophile has given my friend brain rot :(

Since it seems none of us can agree on what constitutes high fidelity, it seems moot to key the definition of audiophile to those terms. The classical fans will roll their eyes when the "true to the source regardless" types show up, and those types will be all like "LOL you are faking Seat A at a symphony thats not high fidelity LOL" and the classical guys will roll their eyes and be all like "LOL you listen to studio music what do you know about it LOL" and then they will both gang up on the guy listening to CD's and beat him with a record while a small contingent from both camps will attempt to strangle him with a $7000 power cord.

I guess one thing we all have in common is finding a concept and hiving around it - for me that is the amusement I get out of the rejection of DBT on high end gear.

[dstmbgh]

Re: being an audiophile has given my friend brain rot :(

(tongue-in-cheek alert) Oh how I love threads like this that help me to reassure myself about myself, for I would never be so silly as to foolishly spend so much for such things! $2000 for Brazilian hookers? Ha...I don't think so! (see post #3)

[craigk]

Re: being an audiophile has given my friend brain rot :(

do not be to quick there. Might be audiophile quality

[Simon Moon]

Re: being an audiophile has given my friend brain rot :(

I think that definition is quite dated. IMO, these days, an audiophile is a person obsessed with eeking out that last 0.00001% of sound out of their system. They go to great lengths to acquire the latest snake oil tweak, no matter how expensive.

What about a person that is obsessed with eeking out that last 0.00001% of sound out of their system, yet do it without the latest snake oil tweak, instead they use testable, verifiable methods?

What would they be defined as?

[SirNickity]

Re: being an audiophile has given my friend brain rot :(

you still need a reference to compare what you are listening to, and that is why you need to hear live music. if you have never heard an acoustic bass, a trumpet, flute, etc, how do you know what music is suppose to sound like ?

Why do you need that? Is a recording "supposed" to sound like an acoustic bass, trumpet, or flute in an isolation booth? Or a hall? Or a living room or garage? Does a guitar sound wrong if it has gone through an amp first? Does the amp sound wrong 1" from the grill as opposed to 20 feet away?

This is the inherent wrongness of the live music argument. The content is "supposed to" sound like the content. That content may or may not sound like what it sounds like on stage at the Philharmonic, or from the mosh pit at a concert. I've been in a crappy band, I know what music sounds like on stage. I prefer how it sounds after going through a bucket load of electronics and software. Less ear ringing. ;) I also prefer a good orchestral recording to being in the audience, hearing some of the sound reflected via acoustic panels, and other sounds reproduced at various time/phase relationships through a PA.

And aside from vibration. You get gross bit errors. ones when there should be 0's etc. Solid state delivers the media without these errors, which ultimately become noise. Good DAC's go though extensive stages of error correction and some esoteric CD players dump the disc to a SSD, read it 3 or 4 times and compare the data to error correct the data. Like it or not: It works. On paper and subjectively for most. I have heard a couple and they were very good, not sure if they justify their price just yet.

Hard disk drives have bit error rates, but so do SSDs. Reading MLC flash memory isn't error-free either. Either way, there's ECC built-in to catch those read errors and recover the original data. Is it perfect? No, that's how you get bit rot. (Well that and buggy filesystem drivers, or bad RAM, either of which can also happen.)

Any storage medium is susceptible to decay. HDDs nor SSDs are a cure-all to this, however I have a lot of media on my NAS with no special care to reduce environmental disturbance, and the few times I've bothered to compare the data with MD5 sums of the originally-recorded file, I've never had it differ.

CDs are the worst, though. The error-correction scheme is not as resilient as modern algorithms, although it was originally meant for the player to make stuff up -- I mean, interpolate data -- in the event a few bits couldn't be read. The designers knew you wouldn't hear a few bit errors here and there, and having audible errors is preferable to no sound at all. Afraid to say, gold discs don't do anything to overcome this aside from less chance of substrate rot. It's still crappy RSC error correction, so any surface or optical pickup imperfections still apply.

Not to mention the sector alignment issue, where the standard only requires the reader seek accuracy to be within 1 frame (1/75 of a second.) Thus the big controversy over read/write offsets and whether EAC is correct, or if it imposes a fixed error by default...

[Liberator of Magic Smoke]

Re: being an audiophile has given my friend brain rot :(

The coat hanger thing is pretty darn funny.