The psychology of blue LEDs on audio equipment

Emilio_2024_NL

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Oct 16, 2024
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Audio is about sound and your ears, blue LEDs are a visual thing.

It sounds a bit whiny at first, but in another sense there is a remarkable psychological aspect to it: why do devices in a setup have blue LEDs and why do they sometimes shine so insanely bright that they light up the whole room? Oddly enough, even media players placed under a screen can have annoyingly bright blue LEDs. You have to cover them to watch a movie. Among audio (and car) enthusiasts we use the term 'blue LED disease'.

Personally, I would like to be able to turn off all the lights on all media equipment, especially for audio. Perhaps a modest, functional, unobtrusive, non-disturbing light next to the power switch. Sound only please. In fact, I don't want to notice or see any equipment at all. (In my setup you don't see any equipment, only inconspicuous speakers that don't create visual attention. Instead, let the speakers create their beautiful audio experience in visual absence.

Light is cheap and blue LED looks cheap to stand out in the store with Christmas lights, yet that is on a 5k or 10k cartridge like DS Audio. So there must be something attractive for the designers or marketers to do this. Do we all have some form of synesthesia? Perhaps our brains can't completely separate the senses?
In other words, how is our audio brain influenced by the visual design of the equipment in our setup?
 
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Gray

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Audio is about sound and your ears, blue LEDs are a visual thing.

It sounds a bit whiny at first, but in another sense there is a remarkable psychological aspect to it: why do devices in a setup have blue LEDs and why do they sometimes shine so insanely bright that they light up the whole room? Oddly enough, even media players placed under a screen can have annoyingly bright blue LEDs. You have to cover them to watch a movie. Among audio (and car) enthusiasts we use the term 'blue LED disease'.

Personally, I would like to be able to turn off all the lights on all media equipment, especially for audio. Perhaps a modest, functional, unobtrusive, non-disturbing light next to the power switch. Sound only please. In fact, I don't want to notice or see any equipment at all. (In my setup you don't see any equipment, only inconspicuous speakers that don't create visual attention. Instead, let the speakers create their beautiful audio experience in visual absence.

Light is cheap and blue LED looks cheap to stand out in the store with Christmas lights, yet that is on a 5k or 10k cartridge like DS Audio. So there must be something attractive for the designers or marketers to do this. Do we all have some form of synesthesia? Perhaps our brains can't completely separate the senses?
In other words, how is our audio brain influenced by the visual design of the equipment in our setup?
Blue LEDs were the holy grail....but there's no doubt they've been overused since:
View: https://youtu.be/AF8d72mA41M?feature=shared
 

SallyB

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Jan 18, 2022
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An interesting question; many years ago I owned a B&O Beocentre. When people saw it they invariably said “that looks fantastic, it must sound brilliant” (the sound was a little disappointing actually!!).

Incidentally, my Innous music server has an LED light on the power button. You can change its colour to one of about eight choices (yes, including blue!) and, I think, you may be able to turn it off altogether! The unit is otherwise black and more or less featureless!
 

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