[delllapssuck]

You're right about one thing: evaluation of audio qualities is incredibly subjective. In a word, it comes down to "preferences".

If I really want to "hear things I've never heard before" in recordings I've heard countless times in countless environments, I choose loudspeakers and headphones with a flat frequency response. I've come to prefer a set of near-field studio monitors over "audiophile" brands, without hesitation. This shifts the subjectiity to the sound engineers who produced the recording, instead of the "hifi" manufacturer targeting "audiophiles".

If these recordings need to be "fixed" to adjust to my preferred perception of the audio - and needless to say, there's a lot that needs to be fixed these days - then that needs to be done at the recording and mastering stages ("the input"), by recording and mastering engineers, not at the reproduction stage ("the output"), by those who design and manufacture "audiophile" stereo components. This is the conclusion I reached many years ago.

Of course, it is subjective conclusion. Audio qualities will alwys be a matter of preference.

Sincerely,

A Former Audiophile

[actsasbuffoon]

Yes, highly subjective. The following has happened to me more than once:

I'll sit down to put the finishing touches on a song. The drums are always tricky to EQ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parametric_equalizer), especially the snare. I'll easily spend 20 minutes carefully dialing in the exact sound I'm looking for. Sometimes I'll spend over 5 minutes on a single frequency band, agonizing over the effect of a single decibel boost or cut. Finally, after I've gotten it to sound perfect, I realize that the frigging bypass button is on. In other words, the equalizer wasn't even on. I was completely imagining the changes, yet for 20 minutes I was certain that my delicate adjustments were really doing something.

I'd be embarrased about it, but it's happened to nearly every recording engineer. IMHO the placebo effect applies more strongly to sound than any other sense.

tl;dr: Audio nerds sit around in darkened rooms by themselves uselessly twiddling their knobs for hours on end.

[delllapssuck]

I laughed at this. You are so right.

I am a recovering DAW user, i.e. knob twiddler.

Manipulating spacial environments (acoustics, not knobs) is, to me, the true "art" and the most interesting skill. It predates all this gear. And it seems to be something that some people have "mastered" without necessarily being experts in, say, the the science of acoustics at the same time. (Picture all the pseudo-scientific literature the "audiofile" industry churns out as part of their marketing. I confess in my younger days I totally fell for it. Sadly I know many older folks who still do.)

Ever read TapeOp?

[actsasbuffoon]

I've been less involved with music for the past few years. It's still a hobby that I have great affection for, but I'm lucky if I find the time to record something once a year lately. Too many things to do, not enough hours in a day.

As for acoustics, I agree. The acoustics of the room you record in is the #2 factor (only behind the skill of the musician). Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of AD/DA converters, pre amps, and microphones aren't going to fix crappy acoustics.

I've seen some great pseudo-science from audiophiles. I remember the site for a recording studio advertising that they suspended their computers in the air because of something to do with vibrations from the floor hurting the audio quality of burned CD's or some such nonsense. It was the best example of Poe's Law I've ever encountered (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law).

I've read a few issues of TapeOp, but it was a number of years ago.