How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

[gmgraves]

12 hours ago, Jud said:

 

But not the science?  

 

A friend who won an award a few years ago for best civilian engineering project for the Department of Defense has many stories of fellow engineers who felt various factors could be safely ignored in their work, and were proved wrong when the end product failed.

 

Of course those make the best stories; I'm sure there are also  plenty of examples of people obsessing over things that ultimately don't matter.

Engineering is like anything else. Some failure is inevitable. Same with medicine. We count on our physicians to make the correct diagnosis and we rarely question his/her sage advice. But mis diagnosis is actually fairly common. When engineers err, buildings collapse and bridges fall down in strong winds because the engineer on the project failed to take into account the strong winds in the Tacoma Narrows and designed his bridge span accidentally to resemble an upside-down airfoil. Bernoulli's principle then took over and a dog died! 

[sandyk]

7 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

That's neither here nor there. The question is, do these audiophiles CARE whether what they believe they are hearing is REAL or not? At this point, your assertion has left the area of hobby or interest, and has crossed over into a religion, or at least it has a acquired many of the trappings of a religion. By that I mean that these audiophiles are assigning characteristics of religious belief whereby truth and facts are replaced with faith. Faith that no matter what the scientific or engineering knowledge says, they prefer their belief in their empirical observations, no matter how unlikely that belief system might be. 

I suppose that it's good for commerce that so many audiophiles are so zealous about this subject. It keeps companies like AudioQuest, Kimber and Nordost in business selling extremely high-profit (crazy profit, actually) cables to the unwary and the deeply committed.  

 

You conveniently ignore the fact that most C.A. members didn't come down in the last shower, and many use NON SIGHTED listening methods for evaluation !

[gmgraves]

12 hours ago, mansr said:

Science gives us the tools to calculate everything in minute detail. The trouble is that for real designs, such a detailed analysis is unpractical. Engineering is all about simplifying the science to make it practical while still resulting in a working product. For example, a complicated calculation can often be replaced with a much simpler approximation guaranteed to be greater (or smaller) than the exact value. Suppose the task at hand is to choose a wire capable of carrying the current required by some apparatus. Calculating the exact current might be hideously complicated, so instead we use an approximate value that is at least as large as the real one and pick a wire accordingly. If the wire gauge we arrive at is still practical from a mechanical (and cost) perspective, we're all good. It doesn't matter that a slightly smaller wire could have worked.

 

A famous case of ignoring the wrong thing is, of course, the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse of 1940:

 

Modern bridges include damping elements to prevent such uncontrolled oscillations.

 

Yes, this forum is full of them.

Often when I think of the exactitude required in engineering, I'm reminded that it was not that many years ago when everything (including the Tacoma Narrows bridge design) was calculated using a slide rule. When I was in college, the slide rule was still a major part of the curriculum. Unlike scientific calculators, and computer programs, slide rules give the engineer, at best, an approximate answer, and I have often noticed with awe, how some engineers can look at a slide rule and extrapolate very little actual information into 5 or 6 figures! It's a lot like measuring something with a yard-stick graduated in 16ths of an inch and from looking between the graduations, coming up with a measurement out to a 10 thousandth of an inch! That inexactitude might be why common engineering practice is to over-design almost everything. Look at the hundreds of thousands of miles of interstate highway built in the 50's and 60's. All done with a slide rule and material stress specifications gleaned from a materials handbook chart. Very few overpasses in this vast network have ever failed (the ones that did fail, failed due to seismic activity, not engineering errors). Look at the Boeing B52. Designed with slide rule accuracy and still in service 60 years (this year) after the last one rolled off the assembly line. Now that's engineering for the ages!   

[Ralf11]

here is your problem -- many, many members say that a mac with iTunes is far superior

 

 

33 minutes ago, sandyk said:

... I am using Windows 

[Ralf11]

19 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Engineering is like anything else. Some failure is inevitable. Same with medicine. We count on our physicians to make the correct diagnosis and we rarely question his/her sage advice. But mis diagnosis is actually fairly common. When engineers err, buildings collapse and bridges fall down in strong winds because the engineer on the project failed to take into account the strong winds in the Tacoma Narrows and designed his bridge span accidentally to resemble an upside-down airfoil. Bernoulli's principle then took over and a dog died! 

 

I thought it was resonance that they did not consider

[gmgraves]

8 hours ago, mav52 said:

cool. I know a couple people that are using the Jelco arms with nice results. https://www.jelco-ichikawa.co.jp/products/tonearm.html

I have Jelco SA-750-9 and I find it to be better than most arms I have owned. When I first got it, I thought that it looked an awful lot like something that came attached to a Pioneer direct drive turntable, but upon closer inspection, I found that the materials used and they way they were finished were head and shoulders above an inexpensive DD table from Japan. Many don't know this but the manufacturing company that makes Jelco arms is called Japan Jewel. They specialize in high quality jeweled thrust bearings. The  build quality on my SA-750-9 is actually better than that of the beautiful SME 3009 and I have been happy with it for about 8 years. It's a gem (no pun intended). 

[gmgraves]

7 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

I thought it was resonance that they did not consider

What got the bridge moving was ignoring the high winds and the affect of those winds on the span itself which was acting like an airfoil. Of course, once it started swaying because the span was being lifted by the wind, the problem became highly exacerbated by the resonance frequency of the structure. It's a classic study of a "perfect storm". 

[gmgraves]

28 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

You conveniently ignore the fact that most C.A. members didn't come down in the last shower, and many use NON SIGHTED listening methods for evaluation !

So you are saying that most CA members never see the cable that they are listening to? Does that mean that they don't KNOW what they're listening to; I.E. nobody even told them: "Hey Joe, I've got a new cable I want you to hear!" and they didn't insert the cable in question into their own systems with their own hands? Both of those scenarios would give rise to expectational and confirmational bias. The term "sighted bias" does not literally have to mean eyes-on, it merely means prior knowledge of. In Pharmaceutical tests for instance, the subjects see the pill they are given (for instance) but it's still double blind because neither the subjects nor the medical personnel know what's in the pill they are given, or the syringe inserted in their bodies. So eyes-on is not really a criteria for "sighted bias", it's more of a verbal short cut for the test subjects KNOWING what they are testing.  

[GUTB]

I’ve read somewhere that IQ has gone up over the decades (correcting for factors like changes in economics, ethnic demographics, etc). But when I look at the technology developed with nothing but slide-rulers and scribbled math I can’t help but wonder if our measure of IQ is full of crap.

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

I have seen the same stuff from you on many occasions.  So you would prefer to believe that your hearing was suspect, over the fact that DBTs are RARELY performed as well as they should be, and that differences may be masked by the methods used for the comparisons, including software, or perhaps the use of hardware switching devices using perhaps additional plugs and sockets, as well as involving the use of additional cabling ?

It disappoints me that so many rely on using methods such as the Foobar comparator to prove these things, when so many C.A. members can attest that the degradation caused by Foobar software player is extremely obvious in comparison with other players such as JRiver's later version, when not only using ASIO, but more importantly using the play from System Memory option now included.

C'mon Alex. Your attempts to obfuscate the simple facts of this debate notwithstanding, the question is very simple. Flying in the face of electronics theory, and ignoring the fact that it is HIGHLY unlikely that short lengths of coax can alter any low-frequency AC signal passing through it and even more highly unlikely that something can affect a low-frequency signal such as audio and yet have absolutely no observable effect on higher frequency signals or more complex waveforms, what is the probability that cable sound is real? Casual, empirical evidence to the contrary, I'd say that the odds against it are astronomical. How, for instance is the wire to "know" that it must alter the audio signal it's carrying but not alter that video signal or that radar scope images at the airport, or that target acquisition data on that missile system? 

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, sandyk said:

 It would appear that you haven't been listening to me either. Nowhere have I personally claimed that I can hear differences between Analogue  interconnects of a similar length and type of construction.

However, many members have, and unlike you, I am not willing to dismiss these numerous reports outright.

Well, I must admit that this bit of personal information about you has escaped me, and I certainly apologize for not picking up on it, but you have to admit that you do argue the "other side" of this debate as if you were a true believer! 

I feel that I can dismiss these numerous reports outright because there is enough information about both coaxial cable characteristics and the human capacity for unconscious self delusion, coupled with the irrational nature of the phenomenon that I'm 100% certain that the traditional wisdom on this subject is accurate.  

[sandyk]

40 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

here is your problem -- many, many members say that a mac with iTunes is far superior

 

 

 Yes, "Looney Tunes"  is apparently quite good for ripping CDs without worrying about errors during the process.

The problem here appears to be that so many members refuse to accept that the SQ of Audio from a typical SMPS Laptop is substandard due to internal electrical noise, and benefits greatly, not only from the use of cleaner power , but also from using software that plays from system memory.

After all, that is the CLAIMED advantage of using the PC solution over a typical cheap CD/DVD/BR  player, and the reason for being of Computer Audiophile forum.

MANY Mac owners in this forum have found this to be true too.

[sandyk]

14 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

but you have to admit that you do argue the "other side" of this debate as if you were a true believer! 

 

I do however support claims about audible differences between Power cables, which really surprised me , as a result of a listening session at the house of a friend of Audiophile Neuroscience (David) under non sighted listening conditions. All those present heard the same differences, which were in favour of the very expensive power cables.

 As I have previously reported, I have heard differences between Coax SPDIF cables of a similar length, but different amount of shielding in their construction. 

 I have also heard differences after changing the plug and socket at the DAC end to genuine 75 ohm BNC connectors. It's not always practical to replace the plugs and sockets at the source device though.

[elcorso]

27 minutes ago, GUTB said:

I’ve read somewhere that IQ has gone up over the decades (correcting for factors like changes in economics, ethnic demographics, etc). But when I look at the technology developed with nothing but slide-rulers and scribbled math I can’t help but wonder if our measure of IQ is full of crap.

 

Of course it is, especially in those who can not accept that our senses are above and are more developed than much of what the oscilloscopes (and other instruments) tell us may not be right...

 

Much of the construction of scientific theory is based on measurements with these devices unfortunately, until then another scientist arrives and changes everything.

 

We are in this in the hands of us men and not Gods as some claim ...

 

I would be more inclined to measure emotional intelligence. EI instead of IQ ... !!! And also the hearing ability, why not?

 

I have seen many audio and AC cables that do a horrible job (and others that do not), regardless of their price ... For my ears, of course!

 

Roch

[gmgraves]

5 hours ago, accwai said:

It's interesting something that's widely known to be able to blow both Ferraris and modded Hondas off the line (as a Tesla Model S) would be doing 10 minute lap time at Nürburgring's north loop, if it finishes a lap at all. That's the kind of lap time for delivery vans. What would sleight of hand like that be called around here at CA? Two word term starts with 'S' and 'O', can't quite remember the whole thing... 

I've driven a model S and while it's acceleration is incredible (and due to the fact that all of an electric motor's torque is available at ZERO RPMs) the car is quite heavy and the electric motors play no part in the lateral acceleration characteristics of the car's chassis. Truth to tell, the car is a bit of a pig on the road. While automotive engineers, with the help of sophisticated computer programs have done much in the last several decades to "bend" the laws of physics when it comes to automobiles suspensions, they have yet to break those laws. Before computers, many things were designed by formula. Camera lenses, for instance were all either triplets or so called "Tessar" 4- element designs as well as several others. Designers used the same formulas for everything merely replacing parameters for focal length and aperture. The first zoom lens, designed for TV sports events and called a Zoomar, took lens designers months to get right. Today, lens makers can build high performance zoom lenses in computer simulations in minutes. Likewise, for decades, car manufacturers used a very few variations on suspensions to design all cars and some suspension designs go back hundreds of years (like elliptic and semi-ecliptic leaf springs). Today, cars have levels of suspension sophistication that would flabbergast a designer of Buick suspensions in 1955. Today, very heavy cars (like the Bentley Continental, or the Porsche Cayman, for instance) are very stable at extremely high speeds (the Bentley will do over 200 MPH). and while this seems miraculous, it really is just the result of being able to quickly and accurately model chassis dynamics on a computer. While a 5000 pound Bentley might be safe and stable on a German Autobahn cruising at 160 MPH+, it probably wouldn't do so well on the Nordschleife (I'm guessing. I don't know what the Continental's lap times are). And it wouldn't surprise me if it's lap times were, like the Tesla, very white-van like. As I said, one can bend the rules of physics, but you can't break them.   

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

8 hours ago, mansr said:

In addition to this, many of the claims put forth are in direct contradiction to one another. Until they can at least get their story straight, I see no reason to pay any attention whatsoever to them. Other than for entertainment. obviously.

 

The claim can be right but for the wrong reasons.

 

6 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

A typical Audiophile simply does not feel the need to have physics and math of any kind.  There are large numbers of C.A. members who hear confirmation bias between cables of various kinds etc. and don't care if their perception is rooted in reality or not.

 

C'mon Ralph not everyone is like Frank.

 

 

2 hours ago, sandyk said:

So you would prefer to believe that your hearing was suspect, over the fact that DBTs are RARELY performed as well as they should be, and that differences may be masked by the methods used for the comparisons,

 

 

+1

 

3 hours ago, Richard Dale said:

Yes, that sounds about right to me. I find listening to music on my HiFi systems and tweaking them to hear music better is a fun hobby. If people like yourself want to it to be a 'science experiment' instead that is fine with me.

 

Good for you. And until such time as the results of the science experiment suggests you are wrong, it is just that, an experiment.

 

2 hours ago, mansr said:

Would it surprise you to learn that I have recently been sketching out a simple USB widget that could improve things in certain situations? No, not the power monitor I already posted about.

 

Gone over to the dark side of the confidence game playing audiophildom fraudulent art and wine culture have we?....oh, sorry that's Crenca's thing

Good for you Mansr and look forward to hearing about it.

 

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

My method..

 

 

 

We know your method Frank !

 

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

 We count on our physicians to make the correct diagnosis and we rarely question his/her sage advice.

 

Indeed you should !

 

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

But mis diagnosis is actually fairly common.

 

Excuse me ! ?

 

 

50 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

here is your problem -- many, many members say that a mac with iTunes is far superior

 

 

 

No problem. They are delusional.

 

17 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 I can’t help but wonder if our measure of IQ is full of crap.

 

measurements can be like that.

[gmgraves]

19 minutes ago, sandyk said:

Under non sighted listening conditions.

 But did you KNOW you were listening to an inexpensive vs a very expensive mains cable? Like I said, non-sighted just means totally without the testing group KNOWING what they are listening to. You have to be very careful on this slippery slope. any prior knowledge can have expectational or confirmational bias raising it's ugly head.

 

[gmgraves]

14 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

54 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 I can’t help but wonder if our measure of IQ is full of crap.

 

measurements can be like that.

No, it's not full of crap, but it does have two problems. 1) it's relative and conditional. and can change, yet it is used to category people for military service, college entrance even high-school and primary school grouping. 2) It is only one measure of a very complex dynamic. I.Q. measures someone's ability to solve problems AT THE INSTANT THE TEST IS TAKEN. It does no take into account personal variables such as performance under stress, how one feels on the day of the test, and this one I tend to discount as a factor in first world nations, and that is cultural bias. It does not take into account so-called common sense, limiting factors such as Asperger's Syndrome or other types of autism. It's not full of crap, but it does result in a very limited view of someone's intelligence and It's relied on by society much too much. Don't believe me? Go to a Mensa party! You will run into people who should be kept in cages, but are out and a bout because they have high I.Q.s

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

3 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 But did you KNOW you were listening to an inexpensive vs a very expensive mains cable? Like I said, non-sighted just means totally without the testing group KNOWING what they are listening to. You have to be very careful on this slippery slope. any prior knowledge can have expectational or confirmational bias raising it's ugly head.

 

 

Blinding removes the bias of knowing which is the expensive vs cheap item. There still remains an expectation for difference, as you say, but that's where statistical analysis comes in to compare results to guessing. As there is no known valid methodology established for audio DBT's they are inherently unreliable. I still do them for fun, I just don't claim they're scientifically valid or reliable.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

1 minute ago, gmgraves said:

No, it's not full of crap, but it does have two problems. 1) it's relative and conditional. and can change, yet it is used to category people for military service, college entrance even high-school and primary school grouping. 2) It is only one measure of a very complex dynamic. I.Q. measures someone's ability to solve problems AT THE INSTANT THE TEST IS TAKEN. It does no take into account personal variables such as performance under stress, how one feels on the day of the test, and this one I tend to discount as a factor in first world nations, and that is cultural bias. It does not take into account so-called common sense, limiting factors such as Asperger's Syndrome or other types of autism. It's not full off crap, but it does result in a very limited view of someone's intelligence and It's relied on by society much too much. Don't believe me? Go to a Mensa party! You will run into people who should be kept in cages, but are out and a bout because they have high I.Q.s

 

hey, I've been to  Mensa party at Uni ! They referred me down the corridor, to the Densa party - the girls were way more better looking anyway !

[gmgraves]

1 minute ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Blinding removes the bias of knowing which is the expensive vs cheap item. There still remains an expectation for difference, as you say, but that's where statistical analysis comes in to compare results to guessing. As there is no known valid methodology established for audio DBT's they are inherently unreliable. I still do them for fun, I just don't claim they're scientifically valid or reliable.

I agree with you for the most part. But I feel that interconnects are so simple, that those tests are pretty hard to misinterpret. You AB two specimens to a group who has no idea what they're comparing (except for the knowledge that they're comparing interconnects) and when they're switched, the sound either changes or it doesn't. That, I feel, is pretty straight forward. If no change is detected by those taking part in the test, then one can pretty much figure that the point is moot because whether the cables have a sound or not the fact that instantaneous switching between the two test sample showed no immediate, identifiable difference demonstrates that even if there is a difference, it's too small and or subtle to mean anything in the real world!

[sandyk]

Come on George, everybody present was an experienced audiophile, and most of us did NOT believe that it would be possible to hear any differences, given that the 2 big Nelson Pass  Class A monoblocks were plugged into a cheap power board from a Bunnings Hardware store !!

It doesn't matter a damn provided that we did not know what we were listening to at the time, as long as the results are repeatable. 2 of us present were also widely experienced DIY people from a technical background.

 Who cares if we knew in  advance , that say one of the pieces of gear was a cheap Class D amplifier, or a cheap I.C. type  "Gainclone" LM3886 amplifier like Peter favours, and the other was a humongous Class A room heater ? 

 Don't you think that experienced people like yourself and others are capable of overcoming those petty limitations ?

 

[gmgraves]

4 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

hey, I've been to  Mensa party at Uni ! They referred me down the corridor, to the Densa party - the girls were way more better looking anyway !

LOL! Yes, I never saw many great looking gals at Mensa parties, but I saw a lot of weirdos of both sexes and the higher the I.Q. the weirder they seemed to become!

[gmgraves]

3 minutes ago, sandyk said:

Come on George, everybody present was an experienced audiophile, and most of us did NOT believe that it would be possible to hear any differences, given that the 2 big Nelson Pass  Class A monoblocks were plugged into a cheap power board from a Bunnings Hardware store !!

It doesn't matter a damn provided that we did not know what we were listening to at the time, as long as the results are repeatable. 2 of us present were also widely experienced DIY people from a technical background.

 Who cares if we knew in  advance , that say one of the pieces of gear was a cheap Class D amplifier, or a cheap I.C. type  "Gainclone" LM3886 amplifier like Peter favours, and the other was a humongous Class A room heater ? 

 Don't you think that experienced people like yourself and others are capable of overcoming those petty limitations ?

 

The evidence says no! The fact that I sometimes hear differences in cables tells me that I can't overcome those petty limitations, and I suspect it's a rare audio enthusiast, indeed, who can.

[sandyk]

1 minute ago, gmgraves said:

LOL! Yes, I never saw many great looking gals at Mensa parties, but I saw a lot of weirdos of both sexes and the higher the I.Q. the weirder they seemed to become!

 

 Are you saying that you have a fairly low IQ and that you are not a little weird ?