Is Audiophiledom a confidence game?

[mansr]

27 minutes ago, christopher3393 said:

Michael Lavorgna, with whom you have a long history of antagonism, which is not, imo, onesided, steps in to say that this industry is far from unique in its problem with corruption.

That fallacy is so common it even has a name: tu quoque (you too).

[mansr]

12 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 Shit Creek ?

Schiit Creek.

[mansr]

9 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

You must by now know, unless just returned from another planet, that a huge number of people  find such comments oscillating between ignorance and arrogance.

Oh, the irony.

 

9 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

By the venom spouted about ML I gather his banning was a much desired bonus ! 

Considering the venom spouted by ML, his banning was most welcome.

 

10 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

You call it moral condemnation but it appears more from my perspective like moral indignation on the part of a small group that feel that their knowledge base and expertise is being threatened by people who dare to see it or hear it differently.

Not threatened, insulted.

 

12 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

People, including Michael L *are entitled* to say exactly what they want about their  experience

Sure, but they're not entitled to do this without consequences. One consequence of saying stupid shit is often, quite rightfully, ridicule.

[mansr]

4 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

It would be interesting to access the full article

aesthetic Theory and Aesthetic Science: Prospects for Integration

http://libgen.io/book/index.php?md5=4F0F6CC8D04AF578BCDEBFFAF3561A37

[mansr]

32 minutes ago, vmartell22 said:

To other people, I call myself "audio enthusiast"  - I want to make a distinction between that and the audiophile which imo is the subset of audio enthusiasts that a) have lots of resources in order to acquire ultra expensive equipment b) Do no consider engineering/science principles relevant to the matter.

[mansr]

15 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

are all Ethernet cables the same configuration as are the AC cables?

Would you expect them to work if they were not?

[mansr]

3 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

maybe - see plisskin's post just above yours

Sure, a shielded cable can be done in precisely 4 ways. Together with unshielded, that makes 5 possible cable constructions. That doesn't even begin to account for the varied reports on how cables supposedly sound.

[mansr]

3 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Me too, exactly. Throws a question over the whole in your face x 30 minute ABX DBT thing.

Nobody ever said a double-blind test, whether ABX or another protocol, must use rapid switching. You're free to wait as long as you please between changes.

 

(Jud, please spare us your standard reply about the limitations of echoic memory; it's not relevant.)

[mansr]

10 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

It is possible to test for audible differences, as human hearing has been studied and measured quite a bit. But that's not my point. If there are no measurable differences found using extremely sensitive instruments, the human ear will not hear any differences, either.

Make that relatively mundane instruments and I'll agree.

[mansr]

30 minutes ago, crenca said:

So, if I may sum up the last few pages - basically, jabbr and company is saying that no one has (and no one likely ever will - Big Science is expensive in both time and $money$) do the rigorous science needed to enable anyone to say with any "scientific" confidence that in spec Ethernet cables can not/do not sound different.

 

Thus, even Big Science is leveraged as part of the Audiophile confidence game, not by its input, but by its absence - all you objectivists don't really understand the very objective ground you argue from.  And the status quo goes on and on and on...

Consider this, though. If cables really had all these strange properties, don't you think Big Science, or the military, would have looked into it by know. DARPA and its ilk have investigated far weirder things, just in case there was something, e.g. the Stargate project.

[mansr]

11 minutes ago, jabbr said:

They have. 

And?

[mansr]

1 hour ago, lucretius said:

Why would anyone use a "grounding box" over an earth ground?

Why do you need earth ground (unless building a radio)?

[mansr]

20 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

At least the Ethernet cable argument has some legs as different cables may affect the Ethernet PHY differently.

Not if the cable is built to spec. Especially Cat 7 and 8, which are widely touted for audio, leave very little room for variation.

[mansr]

13 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Everyone is entitled to opinion.

Indeed. However, not every opinion is entitled to be right.

[mansr]

7 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

The bulk of participants in this nasty thread would demand proof from their own mother !

 It's not just John Swenson that you guys demand proof from. It's virtually every C.A. member who makes a subjective claim that you guys believe is impossible. This is often followed by calling the poster/s delusional.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=POIDH

[mansr]

8 minutes ago, Allan F said:

Not if one starts out with no pre-conceived notion.

Not possible.

[mansr]

30 minutes ago, fas42 said:

The noise, misbehaviour is not below audibility - that's why 'difficult' recordings sound unpleasant on less capable systems: the signal is of a type that 'stresses' the circuitry, misbehaviour is of a high order - and the impact is obvious in the observed sound. If one is familiar with how such a recording comes across with competent playback then it is trivial to discern when an audio system is faulty.

So devise a test signal that "stresses" the system to an extreme extent.

[mansr]

20 minutes ago, Allan F said:

I have no reason to question your experience. But, it runs counter to the experience of every audiophile I know.

Obviously. That's the definition of an audiophile.

[mansr]

39 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

Teresa, I know this has been mentioned before, but it is worth repeating: DBTs do not preclude you from doing long term evaluations. What DBTs do is eliminate one very likely source of bias, confirmation bias. In my experience, blind tests do often produce significant statistical results... but not with USB or ethernet cables.

Someone mentioned a proclivity of people to disregard studies that do not show the desired output. That's exactly what Teresa is doing.

[mansr]

1 minute ago, Ralf11 said:

Ask SankyK under what conditions he would accept that his hypothesis that music files having identical checksums can sound different, depending on his past history, would be demonstrably wrong.  His answer is fairly telling.

I thought his answer basically amounted to "waaaaaaah."

[mansr]

9 hours ago, esldude said:

Not the only method of comparison.  Simply a very convenient one.  

 

A little utility I use gives the MD5, SHA1, and SHA256 values.  What are the odds all of those would match and it still not actually be bit identical?  Wow, I run out of decimal places I think.  

 

Using some other methods will give zero chance they differ.

An MD5 hash is 128 bits. The chance of a random collision is vanishingly small. However, the algorithm has some flaws that make it relatively easy to construct pairs of files with the same hash. Crafting a file producing a specific hash is much harder.

 

SHA1 is 192 bits, so random collisions are even less likely here. Again, however, flaws have been found allowing the creation of collisions, as demonstrated by Google researchers earlier this year. Their attack used over 6000 years of CPU time to produce a pair of valid PDF files with the same hash.

 

SHA256, as its name implies, produces 256-bit hashes. No vulnerabilities are known. A collision has never been found.

 

Hashes are a convenient way to compare if two files on different systems are identical, for instance to verify error-free transmission. There is, obviously, a slim chance of a hash collision. If both files are on the same system, they can simply be compared byte for byte instead.

 

As for audio files, even in the case of a random hash collision, the chance of them sounding almost but not quite the same is even more vanishingly small. More likely, one file would be utterly corrupted, at least in part. For a compressed file, any random corruption would also most likely render it invalid and thus unplayable.

 

I think is is safe to say that the files being discussed here are indeed bit for bit identical.

[mansr]

I'll just throw this into the debate:

http://www.psaudio.com/article/wine-and-chocolate/

[mansr]

9 hours ago, crenca said:

I don't see the use of "Audiophile Taliban" quite like you do

I don't see why it's any worse than "grammar Nazi."

[mansr]

Can we call them the Spanish Inquisition then?

[mansr]

I expected that.