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Message to golden-eared audiophiles posting at ASR for the first time...

Sgt. Ear Ache

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Hello friend. Hey, listen...we know how it is. Believe me, most of us have been there too. You've spent years toiling in the muck of audiophilia. You read ALL the reviews. You watched ALL the youtube videos. You visited ALL the other forums where everything always makes a difference. You bought the cables and the little bridge thingies for them to sit upon and the benefits were magical. You bought the $1000 IEMs that only truly sang after 250 hours of burn-in. Not 200 hours...or 225 hours, but 250 hours! It must be that for the magic to appear! You converted your entire music library to super high res and enjoyed the blissful new details that never were revealed by the awful, cludgy mess that was 16/44 cd. Never have your ears been assaulted by the likes of bluetooth audio or lossy mp3! You searched endlessly for the perfect dac...the dac that truly brought the magic! You bought one after another, each more expensive than the last, searching for the one, true dac that sounded better than all the rest...

And then you arrived here...and posted about your dac discovery, and were told that a dac shouldn't sound like anything at all! Suddenly your audio reality came crashing down around you. How can this be? Why shouldn't a dac sound great?? Why would expensive dacs even exist if they all sound the same??? Wounded, you lash out angrily! It's idiocy! It's retarded! These people have dead ears! It hurts. We understand. It's been a long time and you've spent a lot of money, all for naught. But once the pain diminishes and you've had time to deal with your emotions just give it some thought. Do some reading here and once your ban is lifted, maybe ask a few questions. Instead of locking your eyes shut against the bright light of objectivity...just open them up a little. Just a squint! Let a bit of that light in and bask in a warm, tubey glow that actually means something! Perhaps, as with many of us, a weight will begin to lift off your shoulders. Perhaps there is freedom in this new reality! You might discover that there is a different way...a way that wields real magic. A way that actually answers questions and reveals truth while at the same time leaving your wallet fat and happy! Welcome my friend. Welcome to ASR where the truth shall set you free!
 
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Sgt. Ear Ache

Sgt. Ear Ache

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It's a manifesto! :D

Largely tongue-in-cheek, but there's an honest message buried in there. It is a bit of a jolt when you are confronted by the reality that you can't trust your own ears. But once you really accept it, it does kinda set you free. You can ignore a lot of BS and focus on what actually makes a difference.
 

Purité Audio

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May not set you ‘free’ but will save you some $£€
Keith
 

pozz

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Was this prompted by a specfic thread?
 

dkinric

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I used "tubey" in a thread recently too. I'm going to start using it to refer to long standing beliefs that something is superior in some way, but there is a lack of any objective evidence of its supposed superiority - a long time audiophile "myth" that is difficult to change people's mind about.
"Don't waste your money on those expensive tubey speaker cables, regular ones works just as well."
 

Robin L

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Ten Signs that you may be suffering from Audiophilus Nervosa, the neurotic behavior of the self-described "Audiophile":

#1: You have a box full of line level interconnects but can only use two pair at any given time.
#2: You have multiple LP copies of the same title, being wrapped up in the search for "The Perfect Copy".
#3: You have, at one time or another, used a green marker on your CDs or attached "rings" to said CDs, and can hear the difference.
#4: You have adjusted VTA on your tonearm so many times, you have worn out the screws.
#5: You are "into" swapping tubes.
#6: You have "Upgraded" your electronic gear with "High-End" passive parts.
#7: You have a re-clocking device between your digital source and your DAC, and the DAC set you back $10,000.00
#8: There are scratch marks all over your floor from constantly re-positioning your heavy floorstanding speakers.
#9: You KNOW LPs sound better.
#10: You get into a pointless argument on ASR and then get blocked.
 
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PierreV

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It's a bad pun, but blind tests are eye-openers. Even if they are casual, with a partner or friend and they aren't methodologically perfect.
Those usually lead to significant savings.

Accepting that one doesn't have golden ears (assuming those do actually exist) may be difficult for people who are emotionally involved in the hobby.

That being said, I am of the "live and let die" kind when it comes to hobbies. Proselytism isn't my mission. One may be a very rational person when it comes to DACs and be totally irrational in other areas or in other hobbies (I know I am).

Diversity of opinions and attitudes is a plus, imho.

Consider the moderation of this forum for example: I really enjoyed the spectacular great ax executions carried out by our previous moderator, but current clinical guillotine ones definitely are clean and efficient.
 
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Sgt. Ear Ache

Sgt. Ear Ache

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Hey, I'm still irrational in this hobby! My ears still play games with me on a regular basis. But now I call them on their bullshit. I don't buy what my own ears are selling! There's nothing wrong with feeling like you hear a benefit from one dac or another. The issue arises when you state publicly that one dac (or amp) or another sounds better. If you are going to make that claim here, you need to have something more than just your ears to back it up. Hell, even subjective impressions of transducers need to be taken with a gigantic grain of salt. There's a whole lot involved with getting good sound out of a speaker that has little to do with the speaker itself. Even human preferences are a flakey and unreliable metric and are subject to all sorts of bias.
 
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Phorize

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egg
I love the "after your ban expires" bit :D

I’m wondering whether some sort of quarantine would be better, they can post, but only in one thread where we can send in our most experienced audiophile whisperers to deprogram them without the resultant audiobile spilling over into the wider forum.
 

wasnotwasnotwas

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Some people need a "cause" to give their life meaning. It doesn't matter that it's delusional, what matters is that they have something in which they can take refuge from the world. I guess you could call it a religion, because for these people, faith and mysticism are more important than reality, and anyone who doesn't agree is either a heretic or an infidel.
Yeah, I'd say that explains them pretty well. Jim

Funnily enough, "they" say similar about "us". But swap "faith and mysticism" for "graphs".
 

Ron Texas

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Don't go overboard on the search for the best possible SINAD. There is one very knowledgeable member here who says 72db for the electronics chain is enough for nearly everyone, and 78db for a few. Same goes for speaker preference scores. A little EQ goes a long way.
 

a2lowvw

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I feel a link to this post should be sent to every new user as a welcome/greeting to ASR. Truth be told I found this gem after buying a bunch of gear. At first I was mad at myself for not doing more research on each individual component but after getting 250 hours of burn in my golden ears have come to realize that I have the best system I have ever had and as time goes on I have room for improvements.
 
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