[iquerno]

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.

[JohnBooty]

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]

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_]

Please don't bring the 35 year flamewar on rec.audio.high-end here.

[JohnBooty]

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]

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]

    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-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-standard...

...and/or measurement devices like the Klippel NFS to simulate anechoic measurements: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/u...

...and/or measurement devices like Audio Precision gear: 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]

I asked in good faith and I think we share similar perspectives, however it seems an implicit assumption in your statements is that we know all there is to know about hearing, and we can measure it precisely, thus any claims of audio qualities, for lack of a better word, are by definition psychological biases. Maybe that's not exactly what you mean, but it'll do for here.

Fair enough to consider although I suspect we'll wind up agreeing to disagree. Not interested in flame wars, and thanks for obliging me.

[JohnBooty]

    however it seems an implicit assumption in your statements 
    is that we know all there is to know about hearing

Hearing involves the human brain and I'm absolutely sure we don't know everything there is to know about it. So at least we agree on that!

However, it seems to me that the question is, "can System A reproduce sound with a 'sound quality' relative to System B that cannot currently be measured, but can be recognized by listeners?"

I don't believe we need to know all there is about hearing to answer that question.

    thus any claims of audio qualities, for lack of a 
    better word, are by definition psychological biases

Psychological biases are huge but for the purposes of this good-faith discussion I'm assuming they're controlled for.

I'd put it this way...

A suite of measurements such as those produced by e.g. the Klippel NFS measurement system such as those seen here represent a rather large quantity of data.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/t...

Do you claim that two audio playback systems could produce identical measurements on the Klippel, and yet have audibly different "sound quality" that could be discerned in a repeatable double-blind fashion by human listeners?

[JALTU]

No, you said that, not me! ha ha ha

And as you note below, if it's fun for you to trot out all this "science" then please, don't let me spoil your broth. I'll just contend that science is about testing hypotheses and leave it at that.

Lastly, yes, lots still to learn about hearing and audio. Someday maybe we'll have measurements that allow for certain comparisons to be valid across human aural experience and electrical transducers.

[iquerno]

when I no longer have self professed audiophiles to deal with I will always possess the ability to start audiophile flame wars :)

[JALTU]

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_]

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.

[TurboHaskal]

  > 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.

I wish those would go away. Ditto for the objectivists that tell me I'm listening to music the wrong way because I don't happen to enjoy gear that perfectly matches their averaged response targets.

[JALTU]

Well, you can trot out the green pens and all, but I think there is more to electricity and its role in "audio" that is unknown than is known. Thanks for sharing your point of view. My experience differs. So it goes, cheers.

[iquerno]

as a reminder, this thread started because I was wondering why all those who had hired me couldn't tell a difference between a crapbox and a professional preamp. Of course people have different tastes and likings but not being able to hear a difference between vastly different sources just means that your claims are invalid. and of course, taste isn't something that can be measured or recorded, so it isn't very useful as an analogy of who it is right to crap on.

[mellavora]

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]

> 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