To hear or not to hear, that is the question.

[thesurfingalien]

Folks,

 

The world of audio is a wonderful hobby, but mainly (I hope!) a hobby that allows us to enjoy our favorite music to the fullest.

 

Audio is also a much debated issue, especially when it comes to hearing differences between various components.

 

What I am interested in is what made you a believer or what made you a non-believer. Or a skeptic, for that matter. Obviously the (non)believer term is not meant to be disrespectful towards religion.

 

Although this is not a topic that is directly related to computer-based audio-systems I hope Chris will allow this.

 

I also hope that what people write in this topic can give a little bit of an insight and understanding of "where people come from" in current or future arguments.

 

In this topic discussions are welcome as long as mutual respect is maintained!

 

Post away & have fun!

 

Regards,

Peter

 

 

 

[esldude]

Well, hearing some truly fine high end equipment vs. mass market stuff started it all. This was early Maggies, driven by GAS amp and Audio Research pre-amp (why does your pre-amp not have tone controls I asked). This was simply another level of awesome musical reproduction. Didn't hurt that it was all cool unusual looking equipment too. What did hurt was the cost. I decided right then and there I wanted a similarly good system for myself at my own house.

 

I took up reading TAS at the local library and later subscribed to Stereophile. In the process of getting and trading used gear I got to know several other audiophiles in my area.

 

Now I remember seeing those annual equipment listings with specs in Stereo Review. Just perusing them I wondered why Maggies in particular cost so much, topped out at 15 khz and only claimed something like 45 hz on the other end in those days. This before I had heard them. Yet having heard them clearly specs and what something sounds like didn't mesh. Along with the high end credo that listening is the final arbiter and the idea specs are usually inadequate if not often deceptive well I fell into the average high end way of going about things.

 

This resulted in some unusual, but usually musically satisfying systems. Laymen hearing them would always think they were terrific. A few wanted advice on getting something similar. Since the results were good I assumed the methodology if you will was sound.

 

However, just my nature to be curious and to find out why things work like they do. Eventually resulted in getting a degree in industrial electronics not related to my occupation. Just to learn how this stuff worked. And that knowledge is helpful. Also let you see how some equipment worked well sometimes in spite of mediocre design often because of very high quality components in use.

 

DBT (double blind testing) is of course contentious. I naturally fell in the usual high end camp that listening was the final arbiter. But having learned a good many of the buzz words, and 'special' design in the high end electronics was so much hooey I was starting to be a bit skeptical. Not that most high end design is hooey much of it is exceedingly excellent in design, materials, workmanship and performance. But some designs are not all that.

 

I argued on early forums and newsgroups against a scientific approach that insisted you could only too easily fool yourself. In time I wondered why I would agree with and think best the scientific rational approach in other areas of life, but not audio. Once having learned some basic electronics some claims for what mattered didn't pass muster. As in no matter how I thought about it I couldn't figure out how it could possibly matter. True we don't know everything, but how likely is it something like audio (extremely simple and low bandwidth vs. other electronics) would have all these areas where unknown effects were hidden?

 

So I took some advice from James Johnston, and studied a few college texts on psycho-acoustics and hearing. Now some effects in sound that people automatically think don't matter in fact do and it is known by experts truly knowledgeable in the field. A good many masking effects, and known signal processing artifacts of human hearing fit with what happens in home audio. It just isn't understood or talked about in those terms by many people in the mainstream of the high end. Some of these have lead people wildly astray with why things happen when in fact the why is pretty well known. This lead me to think we in the high end audio world likely had lead ourselves astray in a good many areas. Some that likely do matter though not the way it is generally thought. Some in ways that simply cannot matter in any rational way that can be proven in the real physical world we live in.

 

So I feel many heard effects were real, but often the why was badly misinterpreted. A better understanding of psycho-acoustics would really help here. Magazines could do a world of good having regular series explaining such things rather than the already done over and over articles on basic electronic circuitry or basic speaker design. Other times 'heard' effects aren't real, but placebo. Like USB cables in my opinion, or that FLAC and WAV files sound different. Without some kind of objective testing it is not at all clear which is which on a purely subjective basis no matter how earnest, honest and serious we are. Of course sometimes heard effects are due to simple technically known and understood reasons.

 

I think events just happened to lead audiophiles to where they are. Early digital was judged poor quality. Really it wasn't too bad (some of the first 50 CD's sound great) it was more of the same old problem of poor mastering. Mastering for analog and CD is different. A revival of tube gear occurred then mostly to tame digital. In those days it did need taming and tubes helped. I also think tube gear is subjectively an improvement much of the time. Was a happy coincidence. Tube gear is often colored and sounds so good because of this coloration. Euphony it is sometimes called. I have nothing against euphony, we listen for enjoyment after all don't we? I do think rather than thinking it has some special extra quality when it is a coloration we simply need to find out what coloration is most pleasing and apply it on purpose. We don't need huge, hot expensive tube amps for that. (Yes, Bob Carver was right, his SS amp can mimic a big CJ tube unit) It could be wonderfully done as a digital algorithm. An algorithm that also could be tweaked for personal preference at that.

 

Currently my opinion is digital systems are almost beyond reproach when done properly. A good many power amps come close. Though interactions with difficult speaker loads make the amplifier's job the second toughest in the audio reproduction chain. So amps will not always be audibly transparent. The hardest job, and the last place for large improvements in audio is with the speakers. Or I should say the speaker/room/human hearing interface. No speakers are transparent the way digital systems or amplifiers are. Less time should be spent, and less money wasted on cabling and more on improving speakers, developing DSP for room correction, and figuring out just what is needed out in the room to please the audiophile where the sound meets the ear.

 

Finally whenever DBT comes up it seems some take offense. I know I did too at one time. "You can't tell me I am not hearing what I am hearing etc. etc." Well, sometimes you aren't hearing what you are 'hearing'. It is a well known property of humans, all humans. You can be fooled. Not calling anyone dishonest, or less talented at listening or crazy for believing what they hear. But all of us can be fooled, and sometimes are fooled. I find it a conundrum personally. I think we all have trouble getting over a gut feeling, a definite overall seeming perception of something when told it isn't. It is more than just saying yes I hear it or don't. It is an overall gestalt with feelings, and emotions together that make it hard to accept, "huh, I was just fooling myself or I was just fooled." We all feel sheepish and diminished at such times. If we can step back and look at it we have no reason to feel that way (yes we still will though). Such accidental perception is perfectly human.

 

 

 

[Mark Powell]

I am VERY much a cable skeptic. Some, but not nearly so much, in other areas. Not in any order -

 

So many people say different, few say improvement. I am not a skeptic about differences, I have heard them. One cheap piece of wire can sound different from the next cheap piece of wire. The difference in the sound between cheap and expensive is often less than cheap-cheap or expensive-expensive.

 

But improvement is what would matter to me.

 

Measurements from the cable companies seem designed to mislead. Testing their great thick power leads at 300 amps for example and claiming a lower volt drop than a regular cable. (Can only to this test momentarily of course.)

 

Charging considerably more for two shortish lengh of speaker cable than my computer/DAC setup, my Naim CD player, my McIntosh amp, and my large Tannoy speakers cost added together.

 

Selling 7 meter or longer USB cables when the specification says max 5 meters.

 

Charging high prices when many of the manufacturers, not all, buy their cable at low prices from 'Asia Inc'.

 

Bleating about copper prices going up. Affects the specialists no more than the generic manufacturers.

 

'Our high priced thin cable is best'.

 

'Our high priced thick cable is best'.

 

The claimed 'improvement' seems to be directly related to the increasing price.

 

Our balancer synchronises the mains. What is 'synchronise' supposed to mean? They do not, and won't, tell us.

 

Will that do?

Regards

 

[thesurfingalien]

Two post so far, and hopefully more to come!

 

Thanks guys!

 

Peter

 

[BobH]

can we re-phrase the question?

 

Our systems are, largely, driven by electricity. There are a number of well documented properties that govern the way electricity behaves under certain conditions. That is to say, stuff can happen to stuff and the boffins know about it.

 

Increasingly on this forum, we seem to be almost frantically distracted by the question of whether or not 'stuff' can make a difference. (I use the word 'stuff' deliberately so as not to get bogged down in specifics)!

 

My contention is that the boffins will have/will be looking after the stuff. That is as it should be - they are the boffins, after all, and are supposed to look after our 'stuff'.

 

Now, if we were to assume that all stuff makes a difference we could get on with the important questions about how much the difference matters.

 

We should be talking about synergy, about what goes with what, about things that can make a big difference, things that can make a bit of a difference, things that really don't make much difference at all.

 

In it's current 'state', the interesting parts of this forum are the guest contributions and recent blog entries. Intelligent stuff, presented by intelligent people, who have some good advice on how we might make our systems sound better.

 

The reason I mention that is because all of the recent 'x vs y' stuff in the main forum is tedious in the extreme. Just about every single one of these threads ends up as a public platform, for the same group of people, who simply seem to enjoy bitching at each other. The rest of us look on and wonder whether a thread is worth reading or not - mostly it isn't, but then we miss something worth knowing because we can't be bothered to wade through all the verbal diarrhoea to get to it!

 

It is illogical, in most cases, to say that a 'stuff' would have no effect. If it is in any way conductive then it will have an effect - or at least an effect will be strongly argued for it. In my, sometimes, not so humble opinion, we would be much better served by asking, given a set of circumstances and/or equipment, how much of an effect a 'stuff' is likely to have.

 

Everything has an effect, but the type of speakers you choose for your room, where you put them and what you partner them with is a much better discussion to have than whether or not you feed them with flacs or wavs. That is not to say that the flac/wav question does not become important, for some people at some point in time, but in the grand scheme of things, if we measure importance on a scale of 1 to 100, it has an IR (importance rating) of 0.001.

 

So, what do you think, is that fair? Is 'How much does it matter' a better question than 'What's the difference'?

 

[barrows]

My uncle and my father were both audiophiles back in the late seventies. My father had Dahlquist DQ-10s, and my Uncle rocked a pair of Quads. As a senior in high school I had a mostly passed down system consisting of a Dynaco preamp, Dynaco amp, a Technics turntable, and a pair of the Cizek speakers. I think the cartridge was Grado, or maybe Shure?

I listened to a lot of music back then, and all of my friends did as well. In fact, listening to music was a major activity of everyone I knew back in High School and College days. And I mean real listening, not music as background, but close listening, and perhaps discussing the music as well. It is a shame that most people, especially young people, seem to think of music as something which is in the background, as an accompaniment to other activities, these days...

 

[thesurfingalien]

Hi Bob!

 

Thanks for the input!

 

I fully agree with you that "How much does it matter" is a far better question than "What's the difference". Especially your remarks about loudspeaker/room combination makes complete sense to me.

 

However...

 

My main interest is to let people express themselves with regards to their experiences that lead to their way of thinking about audio.

 

In that respect the topic title was probably not the best, but it was the best I could come up with.

 

May I suggest you open your own topic (maybe "Things that matter the most" or something like that?). I would follow it with great interest, and contribute to it as well!

 

Regards,

Peter

 

[thesurfingalien]

Hi Barrows,

 

I am pleased with your contribution to this topic, especially since we had a "not to well" first encounter. For which I was to blame, at least for the most part :-)

 

Thanks!

 

Regards,

Peter

 

[Brian A]

There were three things that lead me toward becoming an audiophile.

 

First, my father, whose hobby was woodworking, built himself a big monaural hifi cabinet and fitted it with a record player and a big loudspeaker (15 inch, I believe). To a 6 year old, the bass was magnificent. He played repeatedly Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, which I grew to love.

 

Second, while I was in University, solid state amplifer technology came of age and bands began exploring the details of sound within their music; from Pink Floyd to Doobie Brothers. I heard the sound and was hooked. Eventually I bought a stereo system. I can still recall my hieroglyphically named cartridge: ADC XLM MK2 P.

 

Third, after graduating, there was an old man at the same company I joined who was an old time audiophile. I stopped by his office often to talk about the good ole days of audiophile; just how good the sound was even then, how a bright preamp could offset a soft pick-up, etc. He phoned me at home one night, apologized for pulling my name from the phone book, but said he phoned to tell me he was retiring. He wanted to let me know how much he enjoyed our conversations too, and that he had found the old Dynaco Stereo 70 power amplifier that he had been so proud of. He and his wife were moving to a small condominium so he said I could have the amp if I wanted it. That amp is still my main power amp despite me also owning a big solid state one. I lost touch with John when he retired, but I still think of our conversations and the influence he had upon me. John recently passed away.

 

 

[Paul R]

My attitudes come from a engineering bent, but with the ultimate judge being how it “sounds.” Two complementary approaches.

 

First, if the darn system doesn’t please you, it doesn’t sound good. Ever seen some fool who paid a fortune for a system, and he or she has to grit their teeth to listen to it? While the guy in the next house has a Lloyds All-In-One stereo with 8-track and is grooving out listening mostly to FM radio?

 

Okay, extreme example, but I’ve seen that. And the guy who way back in the 1970’s taught me about stereo would point at those people, call the fool a fool and then spend twice as much time getting the guy with a Lloyds into a Pioneer SX Receiver, AR Turntable, and Advent speakers. Even to the point of subsidizing some of the purchase cost with part time jobs.

 

Yep- I was the guy with the Lloyds. Still have parts of the darn thing, namely that add on 8-Track player.

 

I got involved, though this same connection, with the sound system that went into the Jacksonville Children’s Museum Planetarium, and I lost count of how many “Cosmic Concerts” I went to. Mostly with my girlfriend - who is also my wife of 30+ years and sitting here reading this over my shoulder.... (ouch!)

 

Not that I had anything more to do with that system design than helping run cable, and getting paid off with a Shure V15 cart. on that AR Turntable.

 

Anyway, what came out of that was the absolute utter conviction that a “good” sounding system would amaze you. It didn’t hurt my idea of amazing was listening to Alan Parson Pyramid while the sky whirled about me at impossible speeds, through the amazing system Mr. Hoyt designed. Trust me, that open a whole new vista of amazing.

 

Intervening years have developed the engineering side of me, which says, find a theory, test it to death, and drop it the second the facts conflict with it and/or someone else comes up with a better theory. ( I got that from a well remembered meeting with RAH, who got it from Doc Smith, and got it pounded into me by cigar chewing hard cussing engineering types at more than one goat rodeo...

 

Examples? Theory- all comparable cables should sound the same, and 12 guage power cable should sound as good as the expensive cables.

 

Busted when I ran into Nordost cable. My system sounded better - or to be more exact - it amazed me more. I listened for more than a little while before coming to that conclusion, worried that maybe it was just “different” - but not better. Wrong, it was better, and not just a little better, but a LOT better.

Time for a new theory.

 

Theory - ALAC/FLAC files are expanded before they are played, and should the same as AIFF/WAV files.

 

Busted.

 

On some systems, with some music, I can easily hear the difference between compressed ALAC files and AIFF files. Not all systems. Not all the time. Damn, another theory to be revised.

 

 

 

Theory - Oversampled DACs much sound better than NOS DACs. Another train wreck, initiated by listening to a Wavelength Proton. Yet another theory to drop or revise.

 

I was basically taught that when one of my theories is faced with contradictory facts, and those facts are compelling to me for whatever reason, drop the theory and go with the facts. The facts must be compelling for me to change my mind, and it doesn't much bother me if other people think differently.

 

I guess having worked for so darn many people smarter than I am, I have found myself wrong enough times to not let it be a terribly big deal anymore. Just pick up and go on.

 

So, I suppose you could call me a “default” skeptic, but one willing to be convinced if you show me different. I am repelled by people like the amazing Randi, who make it their life’s mission to prove everyone else wrong. I am perhaps, even more repelled by the mystic camp who feels no need to explain anything.

 

Balance is, I suppose, what it is all about. If I really enjoy a system, and it goes against my theories, I am going to drop the theories and find new ones.

 

-Paul

 

Yeah, I used the word "theories" loosely in that. Replace it with hypothesis or whatever word is appropriate in any given situation. "Belief" works in some cases.

 

 

 

[esldude]

I am repelled by people like the amazing Randi, who make it their life’s mission to prove everyone else wrong.

 

The amazing Randi's mission is not at all to prove everyone else wrong. It is to find out what is real. Yes, that often involves proving people wrong or at least submitting claims to some test.

 

[Paul R]

I used to think the same as you, but he crossed swords with other people I know whose opinions I respect, and that was enough to make me change my opinion of that guy. YMMV though, and that's cool.

 

I am still a big fan of Consumer Reports though!