Audiophiles are Full of C***

[abacus]

Here's one person opinion.

Bill

 

[RoA]

There's a lot of angst and paranoia in audiophilia for sure.

I did not watch the vlog as I don't like him.

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

Is it backed up by repeatable scientific evidence?

 

[Gel Man]

I know I like my speakers and amp because I demoed them a lot before buying them at a local home cinema shop, but I don’t care particularly much for other speakers or amps, so what does that make me?

 

[jjbomber]

I know I like my speakers and amp because I demoed them a lot before buying them at a local home cinema shop, but I don’t care particularly much for other speakers or amps, so what does that make me?

Sensible! Always do what's best for you. not anybody else!

 

[Gel Man]

Sensible! Always do what's best for you. not anybody else!

Thanks JJBomber my old friend. 👍

 

[AJM1981]

The only audiophile thing for me to do is killing the heaviest of reverb to a subjective 80 or 90% and create a cozy room that would be ok for a good regular conversation (curtains, carpet blabla). Then just anything goes.

I prefer these kinds of rooms and (let's exagerrate) someone's soundbar over a reverb chamber with an expensive stereo setup.

 

[record_spot]

There's been a proliferation of golden eared nonsense over the years, but thankfully that seems to have balanced out over recent years.

I still find the notion of £10,000 for a metre long cable is abject nonsense, but beyond that, my only tweakery is moving my speakers every now and then when new gear comes in. When the NAD amp was introduced the other week, I needed to move the AVI actives, and moreso when the Mordaunt Short MS10i pair arrived. And that's about it. I don't usually mess around with anything else.

The major downside of all of the nonsense is it often drowns out the good stuff that's talked about in the hobby.

 

[davidf]

The only audiophile thing for me to do is killing the heaviest of reverb to a subjective 80 or 90% and create a cozy room that would be ok for a good regular conversation (curtains, carpet blabla). Then just anything goes.

I prefer these kinds of rooms and (let's exagerrate) someone's soundbar over a reverb chamber with an expensive stereo setup.

Unless you listen to organ music...

 

[Steve983]

It's people telling me what I can or can't hear is what gets me.

 

[matthewpianist]

It's people telling me what I can or can't hear is what gets me.

That gets me too. I have more than enough experience to know that for myself.

 

[Angle Poise-Lamp]

Unless you listen to organ music...

My Dac/head amp and headphones deal well with organ music, helped by them having very deep bass reach.

It's people telling me what I can or can't hear is what gets me.

Only I know exactly how I like my music reproduced, anyone trying to tell me that's wrong, can shove it up where the Sun doesn't shine. My music, my ears, not theirs.

 

[Steve983]

There seems to be another thing where so called 'experts' load up music into some software to look at a display of the waveform of the music track. Apparently this tells them whether it sounds 'good' or 'bad' and they will swear blind that it looks bad so it sounds bad. My experience of this is that it can be completely misleading, I'd rather listen with my ears than my eyes! I'd be interested to hear others thoughts on this.

 

[Angle Poise-Lamp]

There seems to be another thing where so called 'experts' load up music into some software to look at a display of the waveform of the music track. Apparently this tells them whether it sounds 'good' or 'bad' and they will swear blind that it looks bad so it sounds bad. My experience of this is that it can be completely misleading, I'd rather listen with my ears than my eyes! I'd be interested to hear others thoughts on this.

I’ve said similar in this forum, a few times.

 

[abacus]

There seems to be another thing where so called 'experts' load up music into some software to look at a display of the waveform of the music track. Apparently this tells them whether it sounds 'good' or 'bad' and they will swear blind that it looks bad so it sounds bad. My experience of this is that it can be completely misleading, I'd rather listen with my ears than my eyes! I'd be interested to hear others thoughts on this.

The only time you do that is to compare 2 tracks that should be identical, that way you can tell if they are the same or not (Never known it to be used to identify a good or bad track) it it can also be used to see if the track has been compressed to give a loud volume.

Bill

 

[RJW232]

There seems to be another thing where so called 'experts' load up music into some software to look at a display of the waveform of the music track. Apparently this tells them whether it sounds 'good' or 'bad' and they will swear blind that it looks bad so it sounds bad. My experience of this is that it can be completely misleading, I'd rather listen with my ears than my eyes! I'd be interested to hear others thoughts on this.

You can check the dynamics and see if there's (much) clipping in the track. But there's nothing wrong with compressed sound or clipping, as long as it was the intention of the producer/artist. For example: I think the two albums Taylor Swift made with Aaron Dessner sound great. But from a purist point of view I should not like it because it's too processed. On the other hand, most audiophile music sounds boring AF.

 

[Gray]

....there's nothing wrong with compressed sound or clipping, as long as it was the intention of the producer/artist.

The loudness wars had to be of benefit to someone 👍