5 ms·

> We’d suggest that better reviews would come from a truly independent publication giving the only HiFi verdicts that matter, blind tests and measurements from

> We’d suggest that better reviews would come from a truly independent publication giving the only HiFi verdicts that matter, blind tests and measurements from a high-end audio analyser, but we suspect that the industry lacks the courage to do so. It's not a lack of courage. The subjectivity is the point. Copy/pasting a comment of mine from last week: Whenever I think of audiophiles, I imagine a couple of older guys hanging out on a weekend. Because they're the kind of dudes who love maximizing and making numbers go up, it needs to have something to do with optimizing performance. Because they're somewhat wealthy and their success is a big part of their identity, it needs to be something expensive. Then, because they're friends who want to feel useful to each other, it needs to be riddled with inscrutable lore. That way there's always some handy bit of research, some nuggets of wisdom that they can share with each other. That's what this is really about: feeling like they can bond by sharing expertise about some complex hard to optimize problem. The actual problem itself is essentially arbitrary and subjective. In fact, it's better if it is arbitrary. Because any problem that can actually be solved means reaching an end to the ability to kibbitz and geek out. That's why bringing up objective metrics is such a faux pas in the audiophile world: it kills the game. And the whole point is to play the game together, forever.

x0x0 4y ago
There's places like audio science review which are exactly that, I think. eg their review of the Loxjie A30 https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/loxjie-a30-amplifier-review.17547/ https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/l...
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  I can vouch for ASR. A very data-driven, engineering-driven view. The site's owner has several hundred thousand dollars worth of measurement gear - Audio Precision analyzer, GRAS headphone rig, Klippel NFS rig, etc.
  - Godel_unicode 4y ago
    > several hundred thousand dollars worth of measurement gear Isn’t this the point though? Does it actually require that much gear to get measurements that are accurate enough that no human can perceive the difference? With harmonic distortion for instance, we know what is inaudible and yet people keep lauding companies that push ever farther past it.
    - JohnBooty 4y ago
      To be clear, absolutely zero of this is required for a hobbyist. This is all if you want to do professional level, repeatable, objective measurements/reviews. Does it actually require that much gear to get measurements that are accurate enough that no human can perceive the difference? Yeah and no. For speakers, yes, you need some of this sophisticated gear if you want to do objective (as opposed to purely subjective) reviews. The Klippel NFS is an automated rig that measures a speaker's output from many different angles and uses some nifty math to subtract the room's influence, giving results more reliable than a physical anechoic chamber. That rig costs something like $100K; I forget. Getting a 360 degree picture of a speaker's sound output is pretty important. The majority of sound we hear indoors is reflected. You are, essentially, hearing the sum of what your speaker is doing at every single angle all at once so if we're going to characterize a speaker's performance in an objective way we need something like that. Of course, you don't need need a $100K rig. You can measure a speaker in your suburban back yard (or better, an open field) from a few different angles and get a pretty decent approximation of all of that. I've done it quite a few times! All you need is a $60 calibrated mic, a protracter, a tape measure, and some free software. And the willingness to annoy your neighbors with loud tone sweeps. Usually takes me a few hours to measure a speaker; most of the time spent is just dragging things around so I can do 20 minutes of measurements from 5 or 6 different angles. However, if you're looking to do this with large numbers of speakers and have lots of money like Amir does, the Klippel certainly starts to look attractive. For measuring DACs and amps, no, I guess you don't need a professionally calibrated AP analyzer. I think you can spend a couple hundred bucks and get pretty close. Maybe less. For measuring headphones, yeah, I think you need something like the GRAS headphone measurement rigs that are $6K-$13K. Or maybe the $299 one from MiniDSP is just as good. I don't know!
JohnBooty 4y ago
Some people definitely do the hobby that way, but there are at least as many who take a more empirical approach. The hobby is divided between objectivists and subjectivists and I'm in the former camp. The audio industry is over a century old, and we've poured zillions of dollars into it. We know (on an objective, measurable level) what sounds good.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- AstralStorm 4y ago
  And this is why people still use tube amplifiers with design from 70s, just with modern high quality power supplies and EMF practices, right? /s (Actually SET is a valid topology and can be done well. As can be a pure transformer amplifier, transformerless tube, BJT, FET, current mode in a variety of classes. Even open loop, funnily enough. They have different strengths and sometimes applications.) The challenge to "mr. objectivist" is always the ABC-HR test. It's similar to ABX (or double blind randomized controlled trial) but you also assign comparative number rating at each pairwise comparison like in MUSHRA. It detects people who cannot rate things or detect a difference but lie about it too. Preferably with a known total garbage device as a low anchor or two to keep the rating scale honest. Needs a digitally controlled relay switch box for amplifiers, a bit of programming, a lot of amplifiers, potentially multiple loads and a lot of time with material that may expose flaws. The test has been used to tune psychoacoustic codecs with great successes. (It's easier with software only.) It's next to impossible to run one of these unless you're super rich and/or an audio shop. If you have not done that, you are a number chaser not an objectivist. A Pythagorean. Amplifiers are often enough roughly audibly different based on their topology, especially when driving weird loads, even if our minimalistic measurements show they supposedly should not be. And on the other hand, people have made amplifiers that pass the number checks but produce sound with an obvious annoying signature. (And the fun part is, these are either chip amps or sold as random audiophile equipment to people who are supposed to have ears and know what high fidelity means.) We don't know what to measure and how, besides a few total fail checks.
  - 4y ago
IIAOPSW 4y ago
I kept reading expecting there to be some sort of metaphor, a literal thing in your story that they were both working on together. Like show me what old-dude Calvin-ball actually looks like.
ajmurmann 4y ago
I love your comment. I think it could apply to any number of hobbies and probably says something about how we build community. Maybe your description in large part applies to every successful community.
- 10729287 4y ago
  I've been thinking a lot about that lately and a lot of communities, especially those with users lying to themselves labelling their will to always buy more stuff as "Hobby", are just big Circle Jerks. I've been part of it, and still am, but let's face the reality, those forums became the field of brands playing with consumers.
  - mellavora 4y ago
    Fortunately Hacker News is different
pelagicAustral 4y ago
> play the game together, forever. Basically, the story of every Gentoo userbase.
- freitzkriesler2 4y ago
  I feel attacked ( ╬ д ⊙ ) ⊰ ⊹ฺ
- michaelsbradley 4y ago
  Gentoo is rice?
esperent 4y ago
I'm happy your wealthy older male friends have found a way to waste money that enables them to play the status game and bond. No really, it sounds totally harmless. The problem is, for the rest of us, who just want to buy decent audio equipment and don't have lots of disposable wealth, their hobby fills the space with so much noise. Try searching for reviews of a pair of decent bookshelf speakers. Even add the word "budget" to your search. You'll get all these WhatHiFi style mags who are also playing this inscrutable status game trying to convince you that you'll need to spend thousands of dollars on speakers, even budget speakers. And they're experts so of course most people believe them. The reality is that once you go over a few hundred dollars for small home speakers you'll get massively diminishing returns. I would say basically zero return in fact between 500 and 10,000 dollars. You should spend money on furnishings to make the space sound better instead.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  The problem is, for the rest of us, who just want to buy decent audio equipment and don't have lots of disposable wealth, their hobby fills the space with so much noise Amen. Soooo much noise. While not perfect, and while they don't provide as much objective data as I'd like, I have always sound Wirecutter's coverage of audio equipment to be of a very high caliber. No snake oil. On the hobbyist side of things Erin's Audio Corner and Audio Science Review have some great data driven reviews. I would say basically zero return in fact between 500 and 10,000 dollars Wow! That's a spicy take. Are we assuming that these theoretical speakers will be properly crossed over to a subwoofer or two, and properly EQ'd? If so, then yeah, I think I'm almost on board with you. My main system is basically a pair of < $500 JBL studio monitors crossed over to a couple of subs. If not, then bass and total output are definitely going to be lacking with that $500 system. Most $500 small, commercial speakers are going to struggle to hit 40hz with any kind of authority. Another thing that a lot of speakers get wrong is off-axis performance. Most of the sound we hear is reflected so it helps if speakers are doing the right thing in as wide of a cone as possible. Paying more tends to get you better performance in this regard but it's a rather weak correlation.
  - AstralStorm 4y ago
msla 4y ago
That's the nice version of all of this. The less nice version is that it's all marketing and for-profit woo: Buy these gold cables with 20% nitrogen and your MIDIs will sound crisper! Buy these fiber optic cables made with Genuine Himalayan Sea Salt and your bits will be better-formed! Buy my optoelectric isolator or you might as well be hooking your speakers to your turntable with a rusty wire coat hanger! "Riddled with inscrutable lore" is a prime diagnostic feature of all this; it recurs in pseudoscience of all kinds, and the audiophile experience is pseudoscience-adjacent at least whenever it makes claims about reality. It's motte-and-bailey, to some extent: This sounds "Better", where "Better" is either completely subjective, or the result of objectively untrue and blatantly impossible claims they make about the gear they're selling. If everyone knows it's just pretend, sure. But false advertising and lying are morally wrong.
- munificent 4y ago
  I try pretty hard these days to seek the most charitable interpretation for human behavior. It's a useful counter-balance to all of the outrage click-bait, bad news survivorship bias, and other emergent forces in play in the modern world that make people look horrible. It makes me less anxious and pessimistic. In general, yes, I agree with you that false advertising and lying are wrong. I'm also a pretty rational, skeptical person who is "anti-woo". At the same time... in the past couple of years I've become much more open-minded about the positive psychological value of just choosing to believe some shit in the absence of evidence. It's good to know that you've chosen that belief for non-evidentiary reasons. Maybe put it in a different mental bucket. But I no longer believe that the "things I believe but can't justify" bucket should be empty. The world is huge and scary and uncertain and awful things can happen without any notice or any ability to control it. I could get a traumatic brain injury. My wife could realize she no longer loves me. My kid could get hit by a car. I have no evidence to justify a belief that those things won't happen. But I need some level of faith that things are gonna be OK (even if they might not) so that I can function. If someone is selling kelp and claiming it cures cancer, that's a deep evil because it prevents someone from seeking an actual effective cure to a real material problem. But if someone has some disposable money and wants to spend it buying the subjective illusory experience of better sound and the identity of a person who is really into audio, I won't judge a company who wants to satisfy that demand. We all just need some fucking comfort sometimes, you know? And if a $400 HDMI cable gives it to someone, I sure as hell won't judge them for it.
m463 4y ago
All this reminds me of a FUN product review I read in Consumer Reports, the magazine. It was a review of shampoo. Basically lumped all those high end shampoos and the common brands you find in the grocery store together. It basically said to me -- shampoos really don't matter, many get your hair clean and shiny. EDIT: hmmm... I think it might be September 2000 issue of consumer reports magazine. Can't seem to read it on archive.org.
- AstralStorm 4y ago
  Unless you happen to have an atopic skin condition, psoriasis, etc. A bunch of the "shampoos" are combined with conditioner which means they're neither a good shampoo nor a conditioner. (Because those two are contradictory. Shampoo is to remove stuff from hair and skin, conditioner is to deposit.) It also happens that quite a few shampoos have a lot of aggressive alcohol or phenolic preservatives. Certain people are sensitive to these (most are not). Some "men" shampoos also have wrong pH, way too acidic, causing skin and hair problems in the long run. Some even with pH of < 3. (Properly should be between 3.5 and 5.5) And then there is the difference in strength of surfactant (SLS etc.) but that should affect just the dose. So yes, they're definitely all the same. /s The actual grift there is using weird oils, fruit additives which do nothing or just make the shampoo worse.
  - m463 4y ago
    sorry, should say: I interpreted *the article* to say shampoo didn't matter. Not that I buy into that conclusion myself. I buy shampoo (and toothpaste) without SLS.
  - News-Dog 4y ago
    >"men" shampoos also have wrong pH, way too acidic 'pH of dog shampoo'
thinkpad13 4y ago
So is a mechanical keyboards snobs
dogleash 4y ago
> Then, because they're friends who want to feel useful to each other, it needs to be riddled with inscrutable lore. That way there's always some handy bit of research, some nuggets of wisdom that they can share with each other. That's what this is really about: feeling like they can bond by sharing expertise about some complex hard to optimize problem. > The actual problem itself is essentially arbitrary and subjective. In fact, it's better if it is arbitrary. Because any problem that can actually be solved means reaching an end to the ability to kibbitz and geek out. That's why bringing up objective metrics is such a faux pas in the audiophile world: it kills the game. And the whole point is to play the game together, forever. Oh, so it's just like sports or politics. Makes perfect sense in retrospect.
tlb 4y ago
And by all objective metrics, there are many $500 sound systems that sound as good as any system at any price. You can't be both objective and high-end.
brailsafe 4y ago
I'm convinced this is the same with coffee. Everyone is watching the same YouTube videos and buying the same expensive shit, but nobody actually knows what they're talking about and probably can't make good coffee or explain how to.

x0x0 4y ago

There's places like audio science review which are exactly that, I think. eg their review of the Loxjie A30 https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/loxjie-a30-amplifier-review.17547/ https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/l...

JohnBooty 4y ago
I can vouch for ASR. A very data-driven, engineering-driven view. The site's owner has several hundred thousand dollars worth of measurement gear - Audio Precision analyzer, GRAS headphone rig, Klippel NFS rig, etc.
- Godel_unicode 4y ago
  > several hundred thousand dollars worth of measurement gear Isn’t this the point though? Does it actually require that much gear to get measurements that are accurate enough that no human can perceive the difference? With harmonic distortion for instance, we know what is inaudible and yet people keep lauding companies that push ever farther past it.
  - JohnBooty 4y ago
    To be clear, absolutely zero of this is required for a hobbyist. This is all if you want to do professional level, repeatable, objective measurements/reviews. Does it actually require that much gear to get measurements that are accurate enough that no human can perceive the difference? Yeah and no. For speakers, yes, you need some of this sophisticated gear if you want to do objective (as opposed to purely subjective) reviews. The Klippel NFS is an automated rig that measures a speaker's output from many different angles and uses some nifty math to subtract the room's influence, giving results more reliable than a physical anechoic chamber. That rig costs something like $100K; I forget. Getting a 360 degree picture of a speaker's sound output is pretty important. The majority of sound we hear indoors is reflected. You are, essentially, hearing the sum of what your speaker is doing at every single angle all at once so if we're going to characterize a speaker's performance in an objective way we need something like that. Of course, you don't need need a $100K rig. You can measure a speaker in your suburban back yard (or better, an open field) from a few different angles and get a pretty decent approximation of all of that. I've done it quite a few times! All you need is a $60 calibrated mic, a protracter, a tape measure, and some free software. And the willingness to annoy your neighbors with loud tone sweeps. Usually takes me a few hours to measure a speaker; most of the time spent is just dragging things around so I can do 20 minutes of measurements from 5 or 6 different angles. However, if you're looking to do this with large numbers of speakers and have lots of money like Amir does, the Klippel certainly starts to look attractive. For measuring DACs and amps, no, I guess you don't need a professionally calibrated AP analyzer. I think you can spend a couple hundred bucks and get pretty close. Maybe less. For measuring headphones, yeah, I think you need something like the GRAS headphone measurement rigs that are $6K-$13K. Or maybe the $299 one from MiniDSP is just as good. I don't know!

JohnBooty 4y ago

Some people definitely do the hobby that way, but there are at least as many who take a more empirical approach. The hobby is divided between objectivists and subjectivists and I'm in the former camp. The audio industry is over a century old, and we've poured zillions of dollars into it. We know (on an objective, measurable level) what sounds good.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
AstralStorm 4y ago
And this is why people still use tube amplifiers with design from 70s, just with modern high quality power supplies and EMF practices, right? /s (Actually SET is a valid topology and can be done well. As can be a pure transformer amplifier, transformerless tube, BJT, FET, current mode in a variety of classes. Even open loop, funnily enough. They have different strengths and sometimes applications.) The challenge to "mr. objectivist" is always the ABC-HR test. It's similar to ABX (or double blind randomized controlled trial) but you also assign comparative number rating at each pairwise comparison like in MUSHRA. It detects people who cannot rate things or detect a difference but lie about it too. Preferably with a known total garbage device as a low anchor or two to keep the rating scale honest. Needs a digitally controlled relay switch box for amplifiers, a bit of programming, a lot of amplifiers, potentially multiple loads and a lot of time with material that may expose flaws. The test has been used to tune psychoacoustic codecs with great successes. (It's easier with software only.) It's next to impossible to run one of these unless you're super rich and/or an audio shop. If you have not done that, you are a number chaser not an objectivist. A Pythagorean. Amplifiers are often enough roughly audibly different based on their topology, especially when driving weird loads, even if our minimalistic measurements show they supposedly should not be. And on the other hand, people have made amplifiers that pass the number checks but produce sound with an obvious annoying signature. (And the fun part is, these are either chip amps or sold as random audiophile equipment to people who are supposed to have ears and know what high fidelity means.) We don't know what to measure and how, besides a few total fail checks.
- 4y ago

IIAOPSW 4y ago

I kept reading expecting there to be some sort of metaphor, a literal thing in your story that they were both working on together. Like show me what old-dude Calvin-ball actually looks like.

ajmurmann 4y ago

I love your comment. I think it could apply to any number of hobbies and probably says something about how we build community. Maybe your description in large part applies to every successful community.

10729287 4y ago
I've been thinking a lot about that lately and a lot of communities, especially those with users lying to themselves labelling their will to always buy more stuff as "Hobby", are just big Circle Jerks. I've been part of it, and still am, but let's face the reality, those forums became the field of brands playing with consumers.
- mellavora 4y ago
  Fortunately Hacker News is different

pelagicAustral 4y ago

> play the game together, forever. Basically, the story of every Gentoo userbase.

freitzkriesler2 4y ago
I feel attacked ( ╬ д ⊙ ) ⊰ ⊹ฺ
michaelsbradley 4y ago
Gentoo is rice?

esperent 4y ago

I'm happy your wealthy older male friends have found a way to waste money that enables them to play the status game and bond. No really, it sounds totally harmless. The problem is, for the rest of us, who just want to buy decent audio equipment and don't have lots of disposable wealth, their hobby fills the space with so much noise. Try searching for reviews of a pair of decent bookshelf speakers. Even add the word "budget" to your search. You'll get all these WhatHiFi style mags who are also playing this inscrutable status game trying to convince you that you'll need to spend thousands of dollars on speakers, even budget speakers. And they're experts so of course most people believe them. The reality is that once you go over a few hundred dollars for small home speakers you'll get massively diminishing returns. I would say basically zero return in fact between 500 and 10,000 dollars. You should spend money on furnishings to make the space sound better instead.

JohnBooty 4y ago
The problem is, for the rest of us, who just want to buy decent audio equipment and don't have lots of disposable wealth, their hobby fills the space with so much noise Amen. Soooo much noise. While not perfect, and while they don't provide as much objective data as I'd like, I have always sound Wirecutter's coverage of audio equipment to be of a very high caliber. No snake oil. On the hobbyist side of things Erin's Audio Corner and Audio Science Review have some great data driven reviews. I would say basically zero return in fact between 500 and 10,000 dollars Wow! That's a spicy take. Are we assuming that these theoretical speakers will be properly crossed over to a subwoofer or two, and properly EQ'd? If so, then yeah, I think I'm almost on board with you. My main system is basically a pair of < $500 JBL studio monitors crossed over to a couple of subs. If not, then bass and total output are definitely going to be lacking with that $500 system. Most $500 small, commercial speakers are going to struggle to hit 40hz with any kind of authority. Another thing that a lot of speakers get wrong is off-axis performance. Most of the sound we hear is reflected so it helps if speakers are doing the right thing in as wide of a cone as possible. Paying more tends to get you better performance in this regard but it's a rather weak correlation.
- AstralStorm 4y ago

msla 4y ago

That's the nice version of all of this. The less nice version is that it's all marketing and for-profit woo: Buy these gold cables with 20% nitrogen and your MIDIs will sound crisper! Buy these fiber optic cables made with Genuine Himalayan Sea Salt and your bits will be better-formed! Buy my optoelectric isolator or you might as well be hooking your speakers to your turntable with a rusty wire coat hanger! "Riddled with inscrutable lore" is a prime diagnostic feature of all this; it recurs in pseudoscience of all kinds, and the audiophile experience is pseudoscience-adjacent at least whenever it makes claims about reality. It's motte-and-bailey, to some extent: This sounds "Better", where "Better" is either completely subjective, or the result of objectively untrue and blatantly impossible claims they make about the gear they're selling. If everyone knows it's just pretend, sure. But false advertising and lying are morally wrong.

munificent 4y ago
I try pretty hard these days to seek the most charitable interpretation for human behavior. It's a useful counter-balance to all of the outrage click-bait, bad news survivorship bias, and other emergent forces in play in the modern world that make people look horrible. It makes me less anxious and pessimistic. In general, yes, I agree with you that false advertising and lying are wrong. I'm also a pretty rational, skeptical person who is "anti-woo". At the same time... in the past couple of years I've become much more open-minded about the positive psychological value of just choosing to believe some shit in the absence of evidence. It's good to know that you've chosen that belief for non-evidentiary reasons. Maybe put it in a different mental bucket. But I no longer believe that the "things I believe but can't justify" bucket should be empty. The world is huge and scary and uncertain and awful things can happen without any notice or any ability to control it. I could get a traumatic brain injury. My wife could realize she no longer loves me. My kid could get hit by a car. I have no evidence to justify a belief that those things won't happen. But I need some level of faith that things are gonna be OK (even if they might not) so that I can function. If someone is selling kelp and claiming it cures cancer, that's a deep evil because it prevents someone from seeking an actual effective cure to a real material problem. But if someone has some disposable money and wants to spend it buying the subjective illusory experience of better sound and the identity of a person who is really into audio, I won't judge a company who wants to satisfy that demand. We all just need some fucking comfort sometimes, you know? And if a $400 HDMI cable gives it to someone, I sure as hell won't judge them for it.

m463 4y ago

All this reminds me of a FUN product review I read in Consumer Reports, the magazine. It was a review of shampoo. Basically lumped all those high end shampoos and the common brands you find in the grocery store together. It basically said to me -- shampoos really don't matter, many get your hair clean and shiny. EDIT: hmmm... I think it might be September 2000 issue of consumer reports magazine. Can't seem to read it on archive.org.

AstralStorm 4y ago
Unless you happen to have an atopic skin condition, psoriasis, etc. A bunch of the "shampoos" are combined with conditioner which means they're neither a good shampoo nor a conditioner. (Because those two are contradictory. Shampoo is to remove stuff from hair and skin, conditioner is to deposit.) It also happens that quite a few shampoos have a lot of aggressive alcohol or phenolic preservatives. Certain people are sensitive to these (most are not). Some "men" shampoos also have wrong pH, way too acidic, causing skin and hair problems in the long run. Some even with pH of < 3. (Properly should be between 3.5 and 5.5) And then there is the difference in strength of surfactant (SLS etc.) but that should affect just the dose. So yes, they're definitely all the same. /s The actual grift there is using weird oils, fruit additives which do nothing or just make the shampoo worse.
- m463 4y ago
  sorry, should say: I interpreted *the article* to say shampoo didn't matter. Not that I buy into that conclusion myself. I buy shampoo (and toothpaste) without SLS.
- News-Dog 4y ago
  >"men" shampoos also have wrong pH, way too acidic 'pH of dog shampoo'

thinkpad13 4y ago

So is a mechanical keyboards snobs

dogleash 4y ago

> Then, because they're friends who want to feel useful to each other, it needs to be riddled with inscrutable lore. That way there's always some handy bit of research, some nuggets of wisdom that they can share with each other. That's what this is really about: feeling like they can bond by sharing expertise about some complex hard to optimize problem. > The actual problem itself is essentially arbitrary and subjective. In fact, it's better if it is arbitrary. Because any problem that can actually be solved means reaching an end to the ability to kibbitz and geek out. That's why bringing up objective metrics is such a faux pas in the audiophile world: it kills the game. And the whole point is to play the game together, forever. Oh, so it's just like sports or politics. Makes perfect sense in retrospect.

tlb 4y ago

And by all objective metrics, there are many $500 sound systems that sound as good as any system at any price. You can't be both objective and high-end.

brailsafe 4y ago

I'm convinced this is the same with coffee. Everyone is watching the same YouTube videos and buying the same expensive shit, but nobody actually knows what they're talking about and probably can't make good coffee or explain how to.