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I once worked for a PA "contractor" and the thing that blew me away the most was how not one of the self professed audiophiles could reliably tell the differenc

I once worked for a PA "contractor" and the thing that blew me away the most was how not one of the self professed audiophiles could reliably tell the difference between a universal audio preamp with flat presets and a 1.50$ crapbox I built with some scrap op-amps and a soldering iron.

iwillbenice 4y ago
mellavora 4y ago
Well naturally not, because obviously you were using low-quality speaker cable and the cable capacitance would muddy the sound. Also, the speakers were probably the wrong brand. /s
- iquerno 4y ago
  > PA contract work < referred to very very low-quality work with professional gear, because that's what clients assume must be better! I was refferring to a high qualiy preamp vs my 1.50$ crapbox as used when connected to a (I think telefunken) microphone. Self professed audiophiles were listening on headphones
JohnBooty 4y ago
That's awesome. =) self professed audiophiles The positive news here is that in recent years, there has been a growing trend of objective audiophiles who understand things from an engineering perspective and eschew that kind of snake oil stuff. We would find it totally unsurprising that your $1.50 "crapbox" was indistinguishable from the fancy gear. And congratulate you for helping to expose those frauds.
- JALTU 4y ago
  Please cite actual research defining "objective audiophiles"? What is "objective" about sound? Do you realize that all gear is tuned by ear - someone listens to it to adjust how it sounds?
  - dsr_ 4y ago
    Please don't bring the 35 year flamewar on rec.audio.high-end here.
    - JohnBooty 4y ago
      It's only a flamewar on one side. "Objectivists" have decades of controlled research output regarding audio reproduction on their side. After all, audio has been a multizillion dollar industry for well over a century -- certainly it would be surprising if we weren't good at measuring sound and correlating it to listener preference!
      - JALTU 4y ago
        Oh, I'm not interested in the flame war! lol I'll stand by my opinions but won't force them on you. People can use their own ears/brain. Always have, always will. Enjoy the music, ladies and gents.
  - JohnBooty 4y ago
    Please cite actual research defining "objective audiophiles" Sure, absolutely. Hope you've got time to read. First, I want you to consider for a moment how remarkable it would be if we had no idea how to objectively measure "good" sound considering that this is a multibillion dollar industry that has existed for over a century. A world where we can calibrate televisions and movie screens objectively by automated means but not, for some reason, their audio counterparts. As rational minds might expect we don't live in such a world. You'd want to look into research by Sean Olive, Floyd Toole. Here's probably your best starting point: https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reproduction-Psychoacoustics-Loudspeakers-Engineering/dp/0240520092 https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reproduction-Psychoacoustics-Lo... The TL;DR is that it turns out that most people prefer sound reproduction that (like video reproduction) is accurate to the source material, with a bit of a "house curve" that accentuates the bass frequencies that roughly corresponds to the Fletcher-Munson equal loudness curve. In the end, it's signal reproduction. Do you realize that all gear is tuned by ear - someone listens to it to adjust how it sounds? I don't realize it because it's not true. A person's hearing can change rather markedly from day to day due to factors like congestion, humidity, etc. This would be a remarkably laughable and irreproducible way to calibrate audio reproduction devices. Audio technology companies that are serious about high quality sound reproduction make use of anechoic chambers: https://nrc.canada.ca/en/certifications-evaluations-standards/instrument-calibration-services/acoustical-standards-calibration-services https://nrc.canada.ca/en/certifications-evaluations-standard... ...and/or measurement devices like the Klippel NFS to simulate anechoic measurements: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/understanding-how-the-klippel-nfs-works.13139/ https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/u... ...and/or measurement devices like Audio Precision gear: https://www.ap.com/ https://www.ap.com/ Of course, audio companies do tinker with their sound to some extent for subjective purposes. A lot of brands try to achieve a bit of a house sound. Ultimately though, audio reproduction is not wine tasting. We can objectively measure what is good and isn't good. There is also room for subjective personal preference. Everybody's hearing is a little different. And even Floyd and Toole's research reveals average listener preferences. But ultimately... What is "objective" about sound? Well, everything. As you know, "sound" is pressure waves in the air. Those pressure waves can be objectively measured in terms of frequency and amplitude. And those 1's and 0's in a digital audio stream for example have objective meaning. They are not a series of opinions. They represent frequency and amplitude. Anybody telling you otherwise is simply uninformed, or trying to pull the wool over your eyes and sell you something.
JALTU 4y ago
Why is there such disdain for audiophiles? Do you have the same opinion of people who claim to taste notes of honey and oak in wine? Genuinely curious as to why everyone thinks they can hear the same as others when it's clear that humans don't. And why thus it seems it's fashionable to crap on people who like good sound?
- dsr_ 4y ago
  There is no disdain for audiophiles. There is a lot of disdain for audio-fools: people who go beyond the entirely defensible "This is what I like" and enter into counter-factual explanations of why their preferences constitute truth. It's always fashionable to crap on people who waste their money on things which are at best immaterial and at worst actively harmful to sound quality. Drawing with a green marker on the edge of your CDs will not improve the sound. Shun Mook Mpingo disks do not and cannot do anything for audible resonance control of your room. Replacing your volume knob with mahogany might look nice, but will not change the sound quality. Unless you live in a particularly bad region of the world, a line conditioner will not improve your sound; if you do, a UPS does a better job. Under no circumstances will replacing a working, up-to-code electrical outlet with an audio-rated outlet improve anything about the sound. In general, an amplifier does an excellent job of removing noise from the power supply before adding it to the signal, and there's a nice objective measurement you can perform to see how good a job each one does. Ethernet cables are not directional. Speaker cables are not directional. Interconnects are not directional. Anyone selling you one of the above cables and claiming that it is directional is at best a fool and at worst a liar who is selling you a product that is defective. Raising your cables off the floor with expensive blocks may look good to you, but it doesn't change the sound. Paying for gold connectors improves the corrosion resistance, but the going rate varies from quite reasonable to extortionate. Silver cables and connectors are a bad idea; copper is excellent. Lamp cord works well. For short runs, an unbent wire clothes hanger will work in a way indistinguishable from a properly constructed cable. Claims of audibility need to be subjected to measurement, both of the systems and of the people claiming distinguishability. Tests must be double-blind: that is, the experimenter and the subject should both not know what the tested article is during the test. In conclusion: people like to fool themselves. That's fine, as long as they don't fool other people, too.

iwillbenice 4y ago

mellavora 4y ago

Well naturally not, because obviously you were using low-quality speaker cable and the cable capacitance would muddy the sound. Also, the speakers were probably the wrong brand. /s

iquerno 4y ago
> PA contract work < referred to very very low-quality work with professional gear, because that's what clients assume must be better! I was refferring to a high qualiy preamp vs my 1.50$ crapbox as used when connected to a (I think telefunken) microphone. Self professed audiophiles were listening on headphones

JohnBooty 4y ago

That's awesome. =) self professed audiophiles The positive news here is that in recent years, there has been a growing trend of objective audiophiles who understand things from an engineering perspective and eschew that kind of snake oil stuff. We would find it totally unsurprising that your $1.50 "crapbox" was indistinguishable from the fancy gear. And congratulate you for helping to expose those frauds.

JALTU 4y ago
Please cite actual research defining "objective audiophiles"? What is "objective" about sound? Do you realize that all gear is tuned by ear - someone listens to it to adjust how it sounds?
- dsr_ 4y ago
  Please don't bring the 35 year flamewar on rec.audio.high-end here.
  - JohnBooty 4y ago
    It's only a flamewar on one side. "Objectivists" have decades of controlled research output regarding audio reproduction on their side. After all, audio has been a multizillion dollar industry for well over a century -- certainly it would be surprising if we weren't good at measuring sound and correlating it to listener preference!
    - JALTU 4y ago
      Oh, I'm not interested in the flame war! lol I'll stand by my opinions but won't force them on you. People can use their own ears/brain. Always have, always will. Enjoy the music, ladies and gents.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  Please cite actual research defining "objective audiophiles" Sure, absolutely. Hope you've got time to read. First, I want you to consider for a moment how remarkable it would be if we had no idea how to objectively measure "good" sound considering that this is a multibillion dollar industry that has existed for over a century. A world where we can calibrate televisions and movie screens objectively by automated means but not, for some reason, their audio counterparts. As rational minds might expect we don't live in such a world. You'd want to look into research by Sean Olive, Floyd Toole. Here's probably your best starting point: https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reproduction-Psychoacoustics-Loudspeakers-Engineering/dp/0240520092 https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reproduction-Psychoacoustics-Lo... The TL;DR is that it turns out that most people prefer sound reproduction that (like video reproduction) is accurate to the source material, with a bit of a "house curve" that accentuates the bass frequencies that roughly corresponds to the Fletcher-Munson equal loudness curve. In the end, it's signal reproduction. Do you realize that all gear is tuned by ear - someone listens to it to adjust how it sounds? I don't realize it because it's not true. A person's hearing can change rather markedly from day to day due to factors like congestion, humidity, etc. This would be a remarkably laughable and irreproducible way to calibrate audio reproduction devices. Audio technology companies that are serious about high quality sound reproduction make use of anechoic chambers: https://nrc.canada.ca/en/certifications-evaluations-standards/instrument-calibration-services/acoustical-standards-calibration-services https://nrc.canada.ca/en/certifications-evaluations-standard... ...and/or measurement devices like the Klippel NFS to simulate anechoic measurements: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/understanding-how-the-klippel-nfs-works.13139/ https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/u... ...and/or measurement devices like Audio Precision gear: https://www.ap.com/ https://www.ap.com/ Of course, audio companies do tinker with their sound to some extent for subjective purposes. A lot of brands try to achieve a bit of a house sound. Ultimately though, audio reproduction is not wine tasting. We can objectively measure what is good and isn't good. There is also room for subjective personal preference. Everybody's hearing is a little different. And even Floyd and Toole's research reveals average listener preferences. But ultimately... What is "objective" about sound? Well, everything. As you know, "sound" is pressure waves in the air. Those pressure waves can be objectively measured in terms of frequency and amplitude. And those 1's and 0's in a digital audio stream for example have objective meaning. They are not a series of opinions. They represent frequency and amplitude. Anybody telling you otherwise is simply uninformed, or trying to pull the wool over your eyes and sell you something.

JALTU 4y ago

Why is there such disdain for audiophiles? Do you have the same opinion of people who claim to taste notes of honey and oak in wine? Genuinely curious as to why everyone thinks they can hear the same as others when it's clear that humans don't. And why thus it seems it's fashionable to crap on people who like good sound?

dsr_ 4y ago
There is no disdain for audiophiles. There is a lot of disdain for audio-fools: people who go beyond the entirely defensible "This is what I like" and enter into counter-factual explanations of why their preferences constitute truth. It's always fashionable to crap on people who waste their money on things which are at best immaterial and at worst actively harmful to sound quality. Drawing with a green marker on the edge of your CDs will not improve the sound. Shun Mook Mpingo disks do not and cannot do anything for audible resonance control of your room. Replacing your volume knob with mahogany might look nice, but will not change the sound quality. Unless you live in a particularly bad region of the world, a line conditioner will not improve your sound; if you do, a UPS does a better job. Under no circumstances will replacing a working, up-to-code electrical outlet with an audio-rated outlet improve anything about the sound. In general, an amplifier does an excellent job of removing noise from the power supply before adding it to the signal, and there's a nice objective measurement you can perform to see how good a job each one does. Ethernet cables are not directional. Speaker cables are not directional. Interconnects are not directional. Anyone selling you one of the above cables and claiming that it is directional is at best a fool and at worst a liar who is selling you a product that is defective. Raising your cables off the floor with expensive blocks may look good to you, but it doesn't change the sound. Paying for gold connectors improves the corrosion resistance, but the going rate varies from quite reasonable to extortionate. Silver cables and connectors are a bad idea; copper is excellent. Lamp cord works well. For short runs, an unbent wire clothes hanger will work in a way indistinguishable from a properly constructed cable. Claims of audibility need to be subjected to measurement, both of the systems and of the people claiming distinguishability. Tests must be double-blind: that is, the experimenter and the subject should both not know what the tested article is during the test. In conclusion: people like to fool themselves. That's fine, as long as they don't fool other people, too.