Audiophiles: Dead or Dying?

[firedog]

26 minutes ago, GUTB said:

So, the state of the audiophile "hobby". Essentially all mainstream and mid-market products marketed towards the "audiophile" are trash. Chip amps, class-D, switching wall wart supply consumer shovelware garbage. No one cares about speakers, everything are cheap mass-produced headphones and IEMs. The resurgence of records ended up just being a lifestyle ornament. The pursuit of quality audio seems to be strictly relegated to retirees spending their savings and using up their credit on boutique manufacturers who still make audiophile grade equipment. Have you tried to educate modern "audiophiles" about the hobby? They don't want to hear it. In fact they just don't care about high-quality audio, it's mostly just a lifestyle accessory to them.

 

Is there absolutely nothing to be done about it? Do we just have to accept most people don't care enough about quality audio to support a mass audiophile market? Do we just have to accept audiophile equipment competes for yacht and RV money?

I think your statement is 100% wrong. There's quality equipment of all types in the $200-$3000 range that is great sounding and well made. Including speakers. Hell, you can get great results using a Raspberry Pi as a streamer and that's less than $100. Even $50.

I can get a much better system today for less money (inflation adjusted) than when I bought my first system in the 70's, and the first "audiophile" one in 1981.

It's true that most people don't care about quality audio- it's also true that most people never did. It was more popular to have a decent setup in the pre mp3 days, but most people did it more for status than true love of sound. I can remember lots of pretty good speakers that cost significant money placed in such a way that they couldn't sound good - for convenience and lifestyle. Some things never change.

[firedog]

3 hours ago, sandyk said:

 Ditto..

Firedog brought up streaming with very cheap gear.

 

Yep. And the RPi  4 as a streamer sounds just as good as some equipment costing 5, 10, or 20 times it's price.

You don't have to spend multiple 4 figures to get a very good sounding streamer.

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Albrecht said:

IMO, - you need some more experience with better performing equipment.

 

A Razberri Pi may deliver "great results" compared to a lo-fi $300 POS Sony. But that's not the subject of discussion. The point is, is how the Razberri Pi compares to a Lumin, DCS NB, or Sig Rendu. The former does not belong in a $30,000 type retail system and will sound significantly worse. (Unless, [as several trolls have done here], samabotaged an high performing system in the name of pseudo science. 

 

Nonsense. Only $30000 retail counts as hi fi? And that's exactly the problem with audiophilia: an item like a Pi being dismissed because it doesn't perform like some piece selling for multiple thousands of dollars. And your supposed Sony piece also probably also isn't "lo-fi". Both will produce actual hi-fi-when it's defined as ultra low distortion, low jitter, etc. Of course, if you have no definitions, and restrict hi-fi to hand waving descriptions of the sound of "hi fi" based only on sighted listening, you can dismiss anything. 

 

IMO, you need more experience listening to equipment under unsighted conditions. I bet you and many other audiophiles would fail to differentiate or pick out the the so called "lo-fi", "mid-fi", and some much more expensive pieces in many cases if you did unsighted comparisons: sources, DACs, and amps. It's easy to convince yourself you have golden ears under sighted listening conditions.

 

And I'm not saying everything sounds the same. I am saying that audiophiles both hear non-existent differences when using sighted listening, and also exaggerate very small differences into something that "totally changes the sound" they are hearing. That's what sighted listening does. It's been demonstrated multiple times. For whatever reason, many audiophiles are unwilling to test this for themselves. 

[firedog]

48 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 All of the listening sessions that Audiophile Neuroscience and several friends, including a qualified E.E. have been involved in have been under NON SIGHTED conditions.

Read the Harman research. Even experienced listeners are influenced by sighted listening. Do we all agree speakers sound distinctly different? At Harman they found that even evaluation of speakers and speaker choices changed when listening was unsighted. Even with experienced trained listeners. 

Last year there was even an experiment showing that listeners reported hearing different volume levels from volume matched souces when the color associated with the volume knob in the app used was different. The red knob was associated with the highest reported volume perceived. 

So I'm not really sure what your point is. Are you trying to say biased results from sighted listening don't exist? I'm sorry, those "golden ear" audiophiles can - and do - fool themselves also. The "listening sessions" don't mean much in the face of actual resrearch and multiple demonstrations of the effect of sighted listening over decades.