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    The Computer Audiophile

    By The Computer Audiophile •

    Editorial: What's Wrong With You?

    I'm not a fan of writing editorials because this site isn't about me or any ministers of information. It's about the community and everyone who has helped, over the last 11 years, create what this site is today. Perhaps a couple forum posts have irked me enough to need this cathartic outlet. 

     

    Anyway, what's wrong with you? If you listen to people online or at audio shows you'll think you need medication quickly. Since I started this site I've often wondered what's up with all the audiophile hatred, judgement, and categorization. It usually takes this form:

     

     

    1. Audiophiles like gear more than music.
    2. Audiophiles don't listen to music, they listen to gear.
    3. Audiophiles are always looking for the next piece of gear.
    4. Audiophiles are foolish because ...
    5. There's music audiophiles and gear audiophiles.

     


    Wait what? Why do people care? I submit that if you're judging people by their motives for increasing their own enjoyment in life, if you're categorizing groups of people based on what they enjoy, or if you just dislike audiophiles, then you're the one with issues. There's nothing wrong with issues, I have plenty, but stop projecting yours on to audiophiles. 

     

    The ole gear loving audiophile "just doesn't like music" thing. Again, who cares? I don't care at all if someone is happy collecting HiFi gear. Jay Leno owns 150 cars including a 1994 McLaren F1 valued at $12,000,000. Oh the horror. What a loser, he must just love cars and not the experience of driving them like all the people with pure motives for purchasing cars. Only kidding. Who cares if he has 150 cars and some that are priced outrageously? I bet it isn't the same person who cares about audiophile motives because cars are cool man (said tongue in cheek).

     

    When I first started writing about HiFi I was told by a publisher that he knew a guy with six CDs and a million dollar system. This million-dollar-system-guy was the butt of many jokes and was even blamed for many problems in HiFi. Heck, this specific publisher had an infatuation about guys like this and always talked about himself as being "in it for the music man." As if there should be a podium for music loving audiophiles that anyone else who enjoys this hobby equally or more shouldn't even look at. 

     

    In fact, the snobbish level of people who view themselves as superior audiophiles because they like music more than gear is no different than the people who just rail against audiophiles for the heck of it. 

     

    Then there's the infamous Alan Parsons quote.

     

    "Audiophiles don't use their equipment to listen to your music. Audiophiles use your music to listen to their equipment."

     


    Talk about pompous. Sure, we can purchase his works of art, but god forbid if we listen to them in a way he doesn't approve or for reasons with which he doesn't agree. Who cares if what he says is true for some people? Who is anyone to judge how others have fun in life. I feel very excited for people who increase their enjoyment in life through HiFi. Whether that's because of a gear fascination or music fascination of a combination of the two. If you're happy, I'm happy for you. 

     

    This also brings up the black or white issue. As if audiophiles can only be gear enthusiasts or the so-called better audiophiles, the music enthusiasts. Like politics and the endless objective / subjective debates, there's a continuum on which audiophiles land. On one end is the gear junky and on the other end is the music junky. Based on no objective data, I'm willing to bet most audiophiles fall more toward the center than the extreme poles. I don't care where one is on this continuum, but let's not succumb to those who like to categorize us as music or gear or music first, gear second. The world is gray, many of us like both well designed audio components and well played music. 

     

    Speaking go well played music, do you only listen to Scottish nose whistle recorded at 32/384 or DSD1028? If you're happy doing that, I'm happy for you. Wasting precious brain cycles to think about or judge someone in the Scottish nose whistle camp is the epitome of foolishness. Life is too short. Crank some Rage Against the Machine and move on.

     

    Oh shoot, I forgot Rage isn't a certified group for the other end of this preposterous judgmental spectrum. Like the dealer who laughed at me because I purchased MartinLogan ReQuest speakers to play Pink Floyd when I was fresh out of college in 1999. That's a great way to win over new customers and encourage a younger audience to value and understand dealer markup. Yeah right. That's perhaps a story for another editorial that I'll never write. 

     

    OK, lastly before I get off my editorial soapbox, why do people also care about audiophiles who value fine craftsmanship, made in country ABC production, and limited editions of products? When it comes to cars, watches, houses, or even alcohol that goes down the hatch only to be pissed out an hour later, all the elements of craftsmanship are highly desirable. It's even OK to love the bottle in which one's Booz is transported. However, when it comes to audio, if you like the big McIntosh meters or the copper D'Agostino amplifiers or the bling of Mbl, you're somehow a lesser audiophile not worthy of those who value music first. 

     

    I say bring on the bling, bring on the breadboards, bring on the Patricia Barber, and bring on the Beatles. It doesn't matter to me what you like or why you like it. I don't believe it should matter to anyone else either. Gear collector? Fine with me. Music collector? Fine with me. Both? I hope you live in a big house. 

     

    I'll close with a quote from Sheryl Crow, "If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad."


    P.S. Along similar lines is the judgement of those who spend "outrageous" amounts of money on HiFi components, by people in the same music first group (not all but some). Speakers that cost $250,000 or even $700,000. Amps that cost $100,000 or $250,000. I can hear it now, you can get better performance for a fraction of the price! Let me repeat, who cares? It's the buyer's money to spend however she wants. I certainly don't want someone going through all my receipts and telling me I could've purchased far better peanut butter for less money. I can't afford a million dollar system, but I don't care if you can. I enjoy finding bang for the buck products, but I don't care if you don't enjoy the same.

     

    P.P.S Where am I on this continuum? Smack in the middle. I love great gear designs, both inside and out, both cosmetic and electrically engineered, and I love music. I'll take Pearl Jam on an AM radio if that's all I can get, but on a beautiful HiFi system that sounds spectacular, all is right with the world. 

     

     

     

     

     

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    Confused

    I very much enjoyed Chris' article, and it got me thinking about events very many years ago.  

     

    As a child, I was taken on a family holiday to Blackpool.  (My father had family he liked to visit living in the Noth East of England and Blackpool was the nearest place that resembled a holiday destination)  The one thing I remember about this holiday was a jukebox in the hotel's function room.  During the day the jukebox was on "free play", and every morning my older brother and I would race down there and start selecting our favorite songs.  A degree of brotherly competition ensued with each of us trying to get our favorite tracks lined up first, with my top tune at the time being Hawkwind's "Silver Machine".  Silver Machine was in the UK charts that year and I would have been about six years old.  I can actually recall a conversation with my brother at the time, I was puzzled about something, and asked him why "Silver Machine" sounded so different on the Jukebox versus the Dynatron music center we had at home.  My brother had no immediate answer to this, but a couple of days later he advised that he had worked it out, the Jukebox was mono and the Dynatron at home was stereo.  I can remember thinking, no that's not it, it's the bass, it just sounds much richer, nothing to do with stereo.  OK - looking back it is obvious that the Dynatron had little 5" full range drivers or something and the Jukebox a nice big flabby 12" or 15" driver.

     

    The point being, at six years old I had no idea what an audiophile was, or that there might be some reason that being one might make me less of a music lover.  Yet here I was in my formative years being obsessed with playing the tunes I wanted to hear every morning on this jukebox, and at the same time with my childlike curiosity wondering why that jukebox sounded quite like it did.  I was a six year old music lover for sure, and a six year old audiophile at the same time.  Not much has changed here in the following four and a bit decades.

     

    I have another, even older, brother who was telling me about a friend that he has who collects generalisations.  Many people collect many different things, football cards, china cups, vintage JBL speakers, all sorts.  This can become obsessive and very expensive.  Collecting generalisations seems like an excellent hobby to me.  All you need is a notebook and pen, this is about as low cost as you can get.  Plus there are always more to collect, this is not one for completists.  So why does he do it?  He finds it to be great fun, apparently.  If you collect enough of them, then as a set they start to be almost comical, and yet more keep arriving every day, from politicians, in popular culture, general conversation, they are everywhere.  I am a self-confessed audiophile, and a music lover, but when I hear or read generalisations as to what an audiophile might be, I am with generalisation collecting man, I just have a chuckle and move onto the next one.🙂

     

    I still play "Silver Machine" from time to time, and still, love it dearly.  I very often behave like a six year old too when I get the chance, but that's off topic here.  Perhaps more on topic, I still love Jukeboxes.  If I find myself in a venue that has one I will break off conversations with loved ones or long lost friends just to line up some favorite music, irrespective of what the actual sound quality might be like.

     

    As to the relevance to this forum, I can say that I have personally benefited enormously from the information and advice that I have received here and elsewhere.  I also like to think that I have contributed and helped others where I can.  Threads that descend into an argument between three or four people about cables, 24bit files, clocks or whatever tend to be pointless and the arguments are never resolved.  To put it another way, in the last couple of weeks the UK politicians have agreed on nothing regarding Brexit. The only thing they have agreed on, and indeed positively voted for in parliament, is to further procrastinate.  It has also been the week where a group of scientists were able to announce that that had successfully taken a picture of a black hole, a staggering achievement when you consider just how difficult this is to achieve.  It is a simple point, humans can achieve very great things, bordering on the impossible, when they choose to collaborate and cooperate.  They don't achieve very much when they endlessly argue the same point though, other than wasting much precious time, or war perhaps.

     

    I think I will go back to some music now, or maybe I will try swapping a few cables around, I'm still not sure if they make any difference...

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    Tin
    7 hours ago, Confused said:

    maybe I will try swapping a few cables around, I'm still not sure if they make any difference... 

    Luckily, trying them yourself provides the best results in figuring out if cables matter to you. 😉

     

    My theory is that it is more about shielding than about the cables themselves, and that results differ much depending on the abundance of cable spaghetti, EM noise and the sensitivity of equipment used.

    It is the only explanation I can come up with that explains why people have such different experiences and strong opinions about them.

     

    Obviously this is debatable as well, so I'm already bracing for impact.

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    Ralf11

    General Guidlines:

     

    use Balanced components & interconnects - that will greatly reduce some types of noise

     

    use well-designed components - that will reduce the effects of any noise

     

    cross cables at 90 degrees & try to keep them away from each other

     

    worry about conducted noise more than RFI

     

    worry about circuit design more than noise injection

     

    test using single or double blind, levels matched - that will eliminate the effects of confirmation bias (or just buy big phaat cables with a groovey lookin' design on them and be happy)

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    fas42
    4 hours ago, Tin said:

     

    My theory is that it is more about shielding than about the cables themselves, and that results differ much depending on the abundance of cable spaghetti, EM noise and the sensitivity of equipment used.

    It is the only explanation I can come up with that explains why people have such different experiences and strong opinions about them.

     

    Obviously this is debatable as well, so I'm already bracing for impact.

     

    Even a positive one, :) ...

     

    Cabling between the components I take terribly, terribly seriously; if I didn't, I would be stuck, always, with relatively mediocre sound - a less favourite outcome, for me, ^_^.

     

    People get carried away with the impressiveness of blingy looking setups - and think this solves all problems ... ummm, no. You still have to do boring things like checking the tyre pressures in a Ferrari, just as much as for a Kia - in fact, some might say it's a touch more important with the fancy unit :).

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    Tin
    10 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

    use Balanced components & interconnects - that will greatly reduce some types of noise

    I have read that plain RCA provides better S/N over (very) short distances. The writer being the chief engineer of a well known equipment brand.

    So this general guideline is already debatable.

    Quote

    use well-designed components - that will reduce the effects of any noise

    Well sure, but less-designed equipment will provide so much noise that you may not hear the contribution of cables.

    So this guideline is debatable as well.

    Quote

    cross cables at 90 degrees & try to keep them away from each other

    I agree full heartedly.

    In my case, I have 14 RCAs, 9 power cables, a lot of speakercable, UTP, HDMI etc, so I have a severe shortage of 90 degree angles. Keeping them away from each other worked pretty well, considering the challenge.

    Quote

    worry about conducted noise more than RFI

    With my setup, and all the cables, RFI is more of an issue. The quality of components is high enough not having to worry, much, about conducted noise.

    Once again, debatable. 😊

    Quote

    worry about circuit design more than noise

    Again this depends on the reality you live in, but as a general guideline, sure.

    Quote

    test using single or double blind, levels matched - that will eliminate the effects of confirmation bias (or just buy big phaat cables with a groovey lookin' design on them and be happy)

    I can't debate either, being happy being the most important. A lot of people are unhappy and start projecting their misery on the equipment of others.

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    Tin
    6 hours ago, fas42 said:

    People get carried away with the impressiveness of blingy looking setups - and think this solves all problems

    You really worry to much about the choices other people make.

    If someone enjoys their bling looking setup, just let them enjoy it.

    Everyone makes choices.

     

    I'll give a simple example; if you have a budget A and an amount of spare time B, you have to decide how much time you are going to spend on listening to equipment before buying. Travelling to dealers and shows cost money too, it it will consume both time and money.

    Everybody has different amounts of money and time and it may be more difficult to get access to brand C over D, or the other way around, so, outcomes will differ.

     

    I bought most of my setup when I had little time, as I was working abroad most of the time. The upside being that that increased my budget significantly. So I made my choices based on those parameters.

    Nobody should judge me about that, nor will I judge others on their choices.

     

    And no, my setup isn't 'shiny',  but if it would, it would be my business alone.

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    Confused
    10 hours ago, fas42 said:

     

    People get carried away with the impressiveness of blingy looking setups - and think this solves all problems ... 

     
     
     

    That sounds like a generalisation.

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    fas42

    My apologies ...

     

    Some people get carried away with the impressiveness of blingy looking setups - and think this solves all problems ... 

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    Tin
    18 minutes ago, Confused said:

    That sounds like a generalisation.

    I think you're Confused. 😇

     

    It is more than a generalisation. Most of our history and all but a few cultures revolve around the collection and exchange of shiny objects.

     

    We have several senses and to me it seems weird to deny one sense when feeding another.

    So, enjoy the comfort of your room and favourite chair, the way your equipment looks, your favourite music, while drinking your favourite beverage.

     

    It's a hobby, it should be enjoyable me thinks.

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    Tin
    3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

    My apologies ...

     

    Some people get carried away with the impressiveness of blingy looking setups - and think this solves all problems ... 

    So what if they do?

    Who are you to deny them their hapiness?

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    The Computer Audiophile
    2 hours ago, fas42 said:

    My apologies ...

     

    Some people get carried away with the impressiveness of blingy looking setups - and think this solves all problems ... 

     

    I don’t think I’ve ever met such a person. 

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    kumakuma
    47 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

     

    I don’t think I’ve ever met such a person. 

     

    It's because you don't live in Frank's alternative universe.

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    Tin
    1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

     

    I don’t think I’ve ever met such a person. 

    Opening a very shiny can of worms here, but I couldn't resist.

     

    I'll be leaving now. 😇

     

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    Axial

    Living life is a hobby, it should be enjoyed.

    It is a right to be alive and respect life.

    Everything that is good is good to protect. 

    Everything that is bad is bad to protect.

    Knowing the difference between good and bad is this life's hobby.

    Doing good is doing right, doing right is respect life.

     

    Enjoy the music when played, spinned, sang, rolling, living the hell out of good. 

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    Ralf11

    Where did you "read that plain RCA provides better S/N over (very) short distances. The writer being the chief engineer of a well known equipment brand."

     

    I'd like to see his analysis

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    Ralf11

    Thx - Chord just cites their experience.  I'd like to find out why mechanistically.

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    Tin
    41 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

    Where did you "read that plain RCA provides better S/N over (very) short distances. The writer being the chief engineer of a well known equipment brand."

     

    I'd like to see his analysis

    It was Linn, in a discussion on their forums, but as they closed everything down I can't find the discussion anymore.

    I also can't remember at which distance balanced gets the edge.

     

    Anyway, my point was that it is debatable, which is what is happening.

     

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    fas42
    11 hours ago, Tin said:

     

    We have several senses and to me it seems weird to deny one sense when feeding another.

    So, enjoy the comfort of your room and favourite chair, the way your equipment looks, your favourite music, while drinking your favourite beverage.

     

    It's a hobby, it should be enjoyable me thinks.

     

    Well, an approach that could work would be extremely blingy, "fake" gear in front of you, which makes zero sounds - behind it, an acoustically transparent curtain immediately in front of some ugly, utilitarian audio setup - that delivers the actual, convincing sound ... both senses are now happy, ^_^ ... probably highly cost effective, too. Sorta reminds me of those Porsche body kits that people drop on top of good ol' VW chasses ...

     

    Yes, everyone is entitled to fun whichever way they want ... you could say, as one alternative, "Some people don't use their equipment to listen to music. Some people use music to listen to their equipment." ... hmmm, that feels strangely familiar ...

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    Tin
    5 hours ago, fas42 said:

    Yes, everyone is entitled to fun whichever way they want ... you could say, as one alternative, "Some people don't use their equipment to listen to music. Some people use music to listen to their equipment." ... hmmm, that feels strangely familiar ...

    I'm sure it does, but you can listen to your equipment all you want, and it's nobodys business but yours.

     

    You should seriously read the editorial above this thread and lighten the hell up.

     

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    Don Hills
    13 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

    Thx - Chord just cites their experience.  I'd like to find out why mechanistically.

     

    If the nominal signal voltage is the same for both balanced and unbalanced, unbalanced has an advantage of a few dB due to the noise generated by the additional balanced components, as detailed in the Benchmark paper. But as pointed out, the nominal signal voltage is usually higher for balanced. About the only place where unbalanced has a clear advantage is in the input of phono preamps, where the signal level is so low that noise generating devices in the signal path have to be minimised.

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    Tin
    On 4/15/2019 at 7:44 AM, fas42 said:

    Be as light as you, IOW?

    No, I don't consider myself to be The Measure Of All Things.

     

    That's actually all there is to it.

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    Confused

    I have shamelessly stolen this from HiFiCritic's twitter feed.  However, it is BBC achieve so you could argue that I have helped pay for it, or at least my parents did....

     

    From 1959, a full 60 years ago, and not much has changed.

     

     

     

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    The Computer Audiophile
    21 minutes ago, Confused said:

    I have shamelessly stolen this from HiFiCritic's twitter feed.  However, it is BBC achieve so you could argue that I have helped pay for it, or at least my parents did....

     

    From 1959, a full 60 years ago, and not much has changed.

     

     

     

     

    So good. 

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