11 hours ago, fas42 said:

Audiophiles do come in different flavours: for example, there are those who are certain that a high percentage of recordings are inferior, and hence will pursue a special version of some album; or those who enjoy seasoning what they hear by adjusting distortion generating areas of their rigs - the "tube rolling" thing. Which are perfectly good hobbies, in their own right.

Fair enough, but do you understand that the above relates to personal preferences, which is a different to individuals actually hearing differently?

As an example, two people might hear sounds very differently but both like jazz.

To other individuals might hear sounds identically, but one likes classical music, the other EDM.

Dup

1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

 

Again, this appears to be something that only you notice.

I think Frank feels he is the only one who can hear things this way and he is right. But his explanations are so full of pseudo-science and non-science ideas, it is a cult of one.

5 minutes ago, botrytis said:

it is a cult of one

Yes, it started that way when he joined this site in 2017... and 2,418 days and 12,425 posts later... it remains that way.

27 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Yes, it started that way when he joined this site in 2017... and 2,418 days and 12,425 posts later... it remains that way.

Dunning-Krugeris all it is...

13 hours ago, Confused said:

Yes, missing the point is bad. Although you did go on to say:

 

Luckily, I skipped the whole jitter craze ... to this day I couldn't give a stuff about jitter numbers - and that hasn't got in the way of the SQ I look for.

Because, "to that day", I had no evidence that jitter was causing an issue - in the systems I was playing with, I always achieved, at times, a standard which was satisfactory. Would the quality have been even better had I looked at improving clock behaviour? Possibly, but the fiddling required just was not enough motivation - as a side note, I did indeed purchase a quartz crystal with exceptional low phase noise, from a local manufacturer, to investigate that side of things - but like many things in life, it moved down to the bottom of the drawer ... where it still remains, .

13 hours ago, Confused said:

Yet the Dutch & Dutch speakers use DSP to adapt its behaviour to the specific requirements of the room using their "RoomMatching" technology. Mindful that these speakers provided the sound that you are looking for, does this not make you rethink that DSP / room correction technology used wisely might be a good thing after all?

DSP to optimise other characteristics is a fine thing to have - but is not essential. Simply put, those speakers distorted less than any other system at the show - not by a big margin, but enough to point out how other setups still showed flaws, at times. As an example, I specifically asked for some opera, with female voices; at room filling levels this was flawless; as good as I could wished for.

Now, you might think a chunk of DSP thrown in can magically make female operatic reproduction less ugly than it often is ... but I don't .

12 hours ago, Confused said:

I sometimes think about what it must have been like for a medieval soldier going into battle. His side is horribly outnumbered, he does not have the best weapons, he does not have the armour that his rivals sport. Yet he still goes in and fights for his cause.

 

I feel a bit like this going up against Frank on an audio forum, but at least here I am not likely to have my gizzards sliced open.

Quite easy to "fight back" ... I regularly mention tracks that are a good test for playback integrity; all one has to is state that your system has no issues playing such tracks ... but a typical reaction is, "How can you listen to that 'orrible stuff!" - which, says it all, .

11 hours ago, Confused said:

Fair enough, but do you understand that the above relates to personal preferences, which is a different to individuals actually hearing differently?

 

As an example, two people might hear sounds very differently but both like jazz.

 

To other individuals might hear sounds identically, but one likes classical music, the other EDM.

Again, the simplest way to describe what I'm after is the "Is it as good as real?" test - behind a curtain, a drum kit, and an audio system: either a real drummer is firing up, or the rig is playing back a recorded session on those drums - which is it, this time? The closer it gets to being impossible to tell, the happier I am. And for those who think such is well out of reach, the previous audio show, which showed a less than OK overall standard had one outstanding exception - I asked to hear a drum solo track, and kept pushing the demonstrator to up the volume ... and that rig delivered. Even at 'thunderous' levels, no flaws showed in the reproduction ...

IOW, accuracy is the name of the game, for me.

6 hours ago, botrytis said:

 

I think Frank feels he is the only one who can hear things this way and he is right. But his explanations are so full of pseudo-science and non-science ideas, it is a cult of one.

You keep wanting to ignore the fact that this has been an interest of mine for nearly 40 years - why can a system 'nail' the SQ at times; and what stops it happening the rest of the time? Yes, accuracy is key - but if the "accuracy" that most audio people are so focused on is all that matters, then why do those systems that have that type of accuracy still fail to deliver? Or even sound awful?

The ear/brain compensates for all sorts of shortcoming, if the right things are in order - there's a whole, ummm, "pseudo-science" investigating this very concept, which started from the ideas of this chap, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Bregman. But the normal audio world just wants to ignore these areas of research ...

8 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

Again, this appears to be something that only you notice.

This is a hilarious response - only I am aware that major chunks of what's on the track are just not audible ... could it, just possibly be, that other people have never heard those missing bits; because, they have never heard it replayed well enough - so to them, "What's your problem??! ... hmmm?

2 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

Did you know there was an expert and he studied for 40 years to prove the world was flat. He built a rocket to prove that he was right and to take pictures, etc. He blew himself up because he wasn't an expert on Rocket design, but he THOUGHT he was. Doesn't matter how long you study, if your premise is built on fallacy, all that time is wasted. A true intellectual would see the actual facts and understand they were wrong. They do not double down on their nonsense like you do. Your behavior is the definition of a cult member. I do that everyday in my job as I have worked as a research scientist for 38 years. I know what I am talking about. Nothing you do is scientifically sound or valid. 

 

Sorry Frank, you are just deluded.

 

Sorry about the bluntness but keep tilting that windmill if it makes you happy. You are not convincing anyone.

 

 

So, guess who is certain that some area of research is nonsense ... because he suspects it could impact some of his personal ideas of "how things work"... ?

5 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

I was referring to this part of your post:

 

 

The fact that you're the only I've ever heard say that almost all high-end equipment is crap tells me everything I need to know about your belief system. 

My "belief system" is informed by the fact that a single "high-end" rig, the one I just noted with regard to drum kits, achieved good accuracy - I don't bother trying with other 'contenders', because they show too many flaws, with far less onerous tests.

I'm sorry, but if something claims to be superior, because, for example, it's expensive - but it's trivially easy to catch it out, demonstrate that it's obviously flawed in some area of its behaviour ... do you think such is worth giving a big tick to?

4 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

My "belief system" is informed by the fact that a single "high-end" rig, the one I just noted with regard to drum kits, achieved good accuracy - I don't bother trying with other 'contenders', because they show too many flaws, with far less onerous tests.

 

I'm sorry, but if something claims to be superior, because, for example, it's expensive - but it's trivially easy to catch it out, demonstrate that it's obviously flawed in some area of its behaviour ... do you think such is worth giving a big tick to?

Again, why are you the only one noticing that all of this equipment is flawed?

And, if you are only one who hears these flaws, why should anyone else care?

4 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

Again, why are you the only one noticing that all of this equipment is flawed?

 

And, if you are only one who hears these flaws, why should anyone else care?

Don't worry, everyone notices the flaws - but it's swept under the carpet with comments like,"Gee, <manufacturer> has such a distinct signature, with everything they do", or, "Garbage In, Garbage Out" - that's a popular one!  - or, "They really need to sort out the room acoustics, here!", or, "Why do they put a  Big/Small system in a Small/Big room?", or, "Well, that's horns for you!" - and so on ...

People should care, because substandard playback continues to be the norm - people note how inferior the presentation is with visual media only a generation or so old; the same should be so with audio media ...

Which reminds me, literally an item on today's morning TV; some new music album that's stirred strong interest - and a clip of Keanu Reeves saying something like, "Gee, I really like the digital version of that album - I can't wait to get it on LP!!" ... oh ... dear ...

Well, I really understand the groove of that track ... which, for me, makes up for everything else, 👍.

Dunno why it's so difficult for people - an accurate system makes for magic; if you don't get magic, it ain't accurate ... I wouldn't be happy with the rig of our good friend, @Audiophile Neuroscience, since it makes his Rolling Stones albums sound rotten - that's a reach too far, for my poor sensitive, 'snowflake' ears .

1 hour ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Its not about the audio !

10 hours ago, fas42 said:

Well, I really understand the groove of that track ... which, for me, makes up for everything else, 👍.

 

Dunno why it's so difficult for people - an accurate system makes for magic; if you don't get magic, it ain't accurate ... I wouldn't be happy with the rig of our good friend, @Audiophile Neuroscience, since it makes his Rolling Stones albums sound rotten - that's a reach too far, for my poor sensitive, 'snowflake' ears .

BECAUSE AUDIO IS NOT MAGIC, Frank. If you make a bad recording sound good, your system IS NOT ACCURATE.

Garbage in, garbage out - that is accurate.

7 hours ago, botrytis said:

BECAUSE AUDIO IS NOT MAGIC, Frank. If you make a bad recording sound good, your system IS NOT ACCURATE.

 

Garbage in, garbage out - that is accurate.

There is no tag on the CD cover that says, "Bad recording!" - the only way you decide whether it is or not is by listening to it, usually on your own system. And you have no way of knowing how accurate that playback system is, apart from some minimal measurement figures that barely scratch the surface ...

Which leads to a, true, story I have probably pointed to before: the sales rep of AVOmeter, the finest multimeter of the day, wanted to convince a concern that they should buy an "accurate!" device by showing how everything they used was all over the place. Trouble was, all the company's measuring devices agreed with each other, and the reading was significantly different from that of the AVOmeter! By chance, just prior to the visit a concerted effort was made to calibrate all the in house units against what they felt was the best - and so the poor sales rep ended up deeply shaken by his unit's lacklustre showing ; they never let on what was the true situation .

So, where is the AVOmeter, properly established as a good reference, that decides how garbagy the recording is, hmmm ... ?