How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

4 minutes ago, mansr said:

There are, however, many who insist that the expensive gear sounds significantly better than cheaper products. Let's assume, for sake of argument, that they are right.

 

Who cares what people insist. Why would you assume they are right? If it measures well isn't that the answer?

 

4 minutes ago, mansr said:

Some of the expensive stuff does use unusual circuitry too, so it's not entirely implausible that it at least sounds different. The problem I see is that you can't get the supposedly good electronics without paying through your nose for the bling casework etc.

 

Why should we be caring about supposedly good electronics. It's objectively good or not. Are you saying that objectively good electronics only occur inside bling casework?

 

[ShawnC]

2 hours ago, Nordkapp said:

A la Dan D'Agostino products. My God. 

Now exclusively sold at Tiffany & Co.

[Jud]

3 hours ago, Nordkapp said:

A la Dan D'Agostino products. My God. 

 

On the other hand, for at least some folks a bling factor as part of overall house decor is important.  Not my thing, but can’t blame someone for wanting to be surrounded by beauty (that also plays music) either.

[Jud]

3 hours ago, mansr said:

I never said anything remotely like that. There are, however, many who insist that the expensive gear sounds significantly better than cheaper products. Let's assume, for sake of argument, that they are right. Some of the expensive stuff does use unusual circuitry too, so it's not entirely implausible that it at least sounds different. The problem I see is that you can't get the supposedly good electronics without paying through your nose for the bling casework etc.

 

As with other hobbies, there are a couple of different approaches to this.  If you’re a car nut you can take the brute force approach and buy a Ferrari (expensive casework!), you can mod your Honda (Fast and Furious, anyone?), or you can go high tech and blow both off the line with a Tesla.

 

What I particularly like about computer audio is that for a little knowledge and a relative pittance you can get equal or superior digital filtering to what you’d formerly have to pay dCS or MSB money for.  In that way software has been a tremendous democratizing force in this hobby.

[mansr]

13 hours ago, sandyk said:

Do you also have an interest in things like hi res video and perhaps hi res audio on Blu Ray ?

I prefer watching films/TV in hi-res, if that's what you mean. I've also done some work on codecs and other software. Here's something I built together with TI some years ago:

 

 

[mav52]

2 hours ago, ShawnC said:

Now exclusively sold at Tiffany & Co. 

 

NO way

[ShawnC]

2 minutes ago, mav52 said:

 

NO way

J/K

[mav52]

3 hours ago, ShawnC said:

J/K 

 

Well I wouldn't put it past them ?

[Ralf11]

some people buy useless table items made of silver

 

just to look at *or to impress relatives or neighbors*

 

at least the Dogasstino stuff plays music - and does it well

[Solstice380]

9 hours ago, 4est said:

Well of course, but then why are they here? This site is at least partially about equipment/upgrade paths after all...

 

There are participants at CA who only post in the Music forum, and some who only post in Hardware.   And then there are those who live here! ?.  All are audiophiles.  

 

I bet there are a lot of audiophiles who haven’t even heard of CA.  

[gmgraves]

20 hours ago, sandyk said:

Then how about I send you a bunch of cables to test ? 

Sure, go ahead. Send me all the cables you want to. Although, I can tell you without all the trouble that none of them will pass anything akin to a square wave at 1 GHz! Not even Nordost Valhalla at >US$2000 for a one meter pair! ? 

[GUTB]

Listened to the extremely high-end Dan D’Agostino room. Bi-amping a pair of YGs with a total of 4 Momentum monoblocks. The cool thing about this room was the use of the Stromtank, a massive panzer-sized German battery AC supply which they claim could run a system for 6 hours and completely isolate the system from the mains network. Probably has a high end anaolog AC waveform generator.

 

Sound through an Innous -> Aqua ladder DAC / AR Ref 10 is extremely transparent. Not the slightest hint of grain, digital or fatigue. Center image is completely separate from the speakers, so during vocals the speakers disappear completely. I couldn’t get much depth in what I heard though. It’s warm...perhaps too warm for my tastes. Bass is way too much...its cool being able to hear the synthetic bass cycling, but its too much and detracts from the presentation IMO.

[sandyk]

6 hours ago, mansr said:

I prefer watching films/TV in hi-res, if that's what you mean. I've also done some work on codecs and other software. Here's something I built together with TI some years ago:

 

 

Very interesting.

Good to see that you are across so many different areas, as audio by itself doesn't have quite the same impact as high quality video along with the same attention to the audio area. That's an area where YouTube falls down badly as when you watch the highest resolution video version( perhaps even a lower bitrate 4K, or even a higher quality .webm version) the audio quality is substantially downgraded compared with that with the 1280 res. version also available.

 If you wish to save the best available quality you need to DL both the 1280 version and the higher res . version and re-mux. the best video and audio together.

 

[sandyk]

16 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Sure, go ahead. Send me all the cables you want to. Although, I can tell you without all the trouble that none of them will pass anything akin to a square wave at 1 GHz! Not even Nordost Valhalla at >US$2000 for a one meter pair! ? 

 

 Not RG59U properly terminated either.

[gmgraves]

20 hours ago, mansr said:

I can comprehend such explanations for the behaviour. At the same time, I think it's unfortunate that this has become a defining trait of audiophiles. GUTB is a caricature of an audiophile, yet the attitudes he represents have poisoned the marketplace, both by driving up prices on quality equipment and by legitimising all manner of snake oil to the point that it's difficult to find a manufacturer or vendor who isn't complicit in the grand scam, even if not actively participating in it.

I can't argue with that sentiment in any way, mansr. You are quite correct. The GUTBs of this world coupled with the nuveau riche who just want to show off to their peers how much their trophy wives/trophy cars/trophy homes/trophy stereo systems cost. There are lots of them, and very few are audiophiles or even like music (beyond what they listened to in high-school and college). I've known a bunch of them. They are anything but audiophiles. They call-up an A/V specialist that I know, and tell him that they want the costliest audio system money can buy and my acquaintance provides it. Once these guys have the costly system installed, they rarely (if ever) play it except to show it off. I have nothing against the rich enjoying their money, were I among them, I'd do many similar things. I'd have a great sports car (a stable of great cars, actually) and I'd have a megabuck stereo system and great room to listen to it in. The difference is that I will have picked every piece of gear in that room for their performance, not because they cost the most. I find the rich dilettante disgusting and I do blame the audio community for pandering to that market instead of focusing on their core clientele, we who will buy audio equipment because it's our passion, not because it cost a small (or a large) fortune!

[phosphorein]

31 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Sure, go ahead. Send me all the cables you want to. Although, I can tell you without all the trouble that none of them will pass anything akin to a square wave at 1 GHz! Not even Nordost Valhalla at >US$2000 for a one meter pair! ? 

 

Indeed! But I do have a couple of coaxes with N connectors that will pass up to 11 GHz.

[gmgraves]

10 hours ago, mansr said:

Some of the expensive stuff does use unusual circuitry too, so it's not entirely implausible that it at least sounds different. The problem I see is that you can't get the supposedly good electronics without paying through your nose for the bling casework

I think a perfect example of that are the MSB Diamond series DACs. They are incredibly expensive and they use ladder DACs (also called R2R, and Multibit DACs) of their own design and executed in discrete components. Then the whole megellah is potted in epoxy and housed in a gold-plated aluminum "brick". I read in an online forum, recently where somebody tested an MSB Diamond V DAC against a Benchmark 3 with the new Analog Devices SabreDac Pro, and found that the Benchmark both measured and sounded better. It seems that all of that "unusual circuitry" buys one (at least in this case) is an astronomical selling price! with today's semiconductor technology, one shouldn't assume that discrete circuitry is better than ICs. It was once true, for sure, but you can't assume that it still is anything other than more expensive. 

[gmgraves]

4 minutes ago, phosphorein said:

 

Indeed! But I do have a couple of coaxes with N connectors that will pass up to 11 GHz.

Yeah, but will it pass a perfect square wave at those frequencies? Sure, you can buy data probes from Tektronix that are "frequency compensated" to pass those kinds of high frequency square waves, but they are more than simple pieces of coax terminated with BNC or N RF connectors.

[gmgraves]

23 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 Not RG59U properly terminated either.

Absolutely not!  But at audio frequencies RG59U is fine. As long as the runs aren't more than a few meters, RG59 (or 58)U will pass a perfect 500KHz square wave. That's more than high enough for audio.  

[Nordkapp]

1 hour ago, GUTB said:

Listened to the extremely high-end Dan D’Agostino room. Bi-amping a pair of YGs with a total of 4 Momentum monoblocks. The cool thing about this room was the use of the Stromtank, a massive panzer-sized German battery AC supply which they claim could run a system for 6 hours and completely isolate the system from the mains network. Probably has a high end anaolog AC waveform generator.

 

Sound through an Innous -> Aqua ladder DAC / AR Ref 10 is extremely transparent. Not the slightest hint of grain, digital or fatigue. Center image is completely separate from the speakers, so during vocals the speakers disappear completely. I couldn’t get much depth in what I heard though. It’s warm...perhaps too warm for my tastes. Bass is way too much...its cool being able to hear the synthetic bass cycling, but its too much and detracts from the presentation IMO.

Awesome. Wish I could experience everything. Too busy working to pay off all my crap. Whaa.....

[mansr]

31 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

I think a perfect example of that are the MSB Diamond series DACs. They are incredibly expensive and they use ladder DACs (also called R2R, and Multibit DACs) of their own design and executed in discrete components. Then the whole megellah is potted in epoxy and housed in a gold-plated aluminum "brick". I read in an online forum, recently where somebody tested an MSB Diamond V DAC recently against a Benchmark 3 with the new Analog Devices SabreDac Pro, and found that it both measured and sounded better. It seems that all of that "unusual circuitry" buys one (at least in this case) is an astronomical selling price! with today's semiconductor technology, one shouldn't assume that discrete circuitry is better than ICs. It was once true, for sure, but you can't assume that it still is anything other than more expensive. 

ICs have a huge advantage in component matching as well as thermal coupling, both very important for an R2R DAC. There is no way a discrete design will get even close to an IC in this application.

[mansr]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

Very interesting.

The video wall was a fun project.

[sandyk]

23 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Absolutely not!  But at audio frequencies RG59U is fine. As long as the runs aren't more than a few meters, RG59 (or 58)U will pass a perfect 500KHz square wave. That's more than high enough for audio.  

 But despite this, it does NOT mean that all 75 ohm Digital leads (Coax SPDIF) MUST sound the same, even though their bandwidth is many 100s of MHZ.

 Like you, I was a sceptic there, but got quite a surprise when I used a fairly cheap Digitec cable instead of my DIY one using a quality double screened 75 ohm cable from a damaged  Telstra Carrier system patch cord. ( (broken plug)

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

10 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Quote

@mansr said

The problem I see is that you can't get the supposedly good electronics without paying through your nose for the bling casework etc.

 

Why should we be caring about supposedly good electronics. It's objectively good or not. Are you saying that objectively good electronics only occur inside bling casework?

 

So in this "game" I was playing the hard line "objectivist" which by the way I do not consider to be truly objective nor reflect my actual views.

 

The point is that good electronics, however that is addressed, can be found in blingless versions at value for money prices. If you accept that then the argument about "afflicted" audiofools pushing up prices for regular folk is moot. There is a choice available. Granted your choices may be far narrower because many manufacturers have catered to the expensive end of the market and will charge whatever they can get away with. So Mans I partially agree with you but as said before I find the whole scam and con thing a bit of a yawn. Others seem to be on a mission to clean up the industry and all power to them.

 

 

Edit- Oh yeh, some high end stuff are quite minimalist in appearance, even industrial looking. No lights, knobs, glittery stuff at all...maybe VTL, Pass, Gryphon come to mind.

 

8 hours ago, Jud said:

 

As with other hobbies, there are a couple of different approaches to this.  If you’re a car nut you can take the brute force approach and buy a Ferrari (expensive casework!), you can mod your Honda (Fast and Furious, anyone?), or you can go high tech and blow both off the line with a Tesla.

 

What I particularly like about computer audio is that for a little knowledge and a relative pittance you can get equal or superior digital filtering to what you’d formerly have to pay dCS or MSB money for.  In that way software has been a tremendous democratizing force in this hobby.

 

 

Yes exactly, the choice is there.

[Ralf11]

16 minutes ago, mansr said:

ICs have a huge advantage in component matching as well as thermal coupling, both very important for an R2R DAC. There is no way a discrete design will get even close to an IC in this application.

 

what about getting the resistance correct?  is laser trimming as good or as cheap in ICs?