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

[Zensō]

At the time didn't need to, since I could not hear a difference I went with 320 mp3 for storage because you could play it in the car.
Now I listen to Amazon HD which is the best I have ever heard from recordings that I am familiar. I am not fooling myself, I knows what I hears coming from my system.

Being aware of cognitive bias does not make anyone immune from it. It’s a natural and inescapable part of being human.

 

[Deleted member 28849]

Being aware of cognitive bias does not make anyone immune from it. It’s a natural and inescapable part of being human.

As I understand it people who have their sight restored have to learn how to see. We take sight for granted because we have learned how to see from birth. And I'm well aware that are sight can be fooled by optical illusions or magic tricks. I imagine it would be similar for hearing, that we have learned how to hear, and it can be fooled as well.

I've been tweaking recording for 15 years. I can discern when a recording is better, even if marginal. I have no doubt Amazon HD is better than my best tweaks even if only marginal. I learned it, I knows it, but I am not unique to the human race in hearing ability.

 

[Racheski]

I didn't just throw money at equipment. I listened carefully for many hours determining the weakest link in my system. Then I purchased the product based on reviews to get an overall consensus of the product. Then I would listen at the Dealer then purchase. But as I mentioned, for me, it takes approx. 2 weeks of listening for either the equipment to break-in or for my mind to make the adjustment to the new sound. Sometimes I heard the improvement right out of the box.

Yeah I agree, just because something costs more doesn't make it better. Generally though a piece of equipment costs more because it is better quality. than mid-fi.

Just one question...how much do your cables cost?

 

[Deleted member 28849]

Just one question...how much do your cables cost?

I use ordinary speaker wire I think they are 12 gauge. For interconnects I don't use the cheap stuff but will spend around the $200.00 range.

 

[Slayer]

I get so tired of this my hifi sytem over someone's midfi system talk. Either a system is transparent and sounds good or it's not. To call a system midfi just because it cost half or less of someone's so called mega dollar hifi system is just pure stupidity. I actually think it comes from those who knew they spent a fortune on a system and have finally realized they could have had the same or better for far less.

 

[Deleted member 28849]

I get so tired of this my hifi sytem over someone's midfi system talk. Either a system is transparent and sounds good or it's not. To call a system midfi just because it cost half or less of someone's so called mega dollar hifi system is just pure stupidity. I actually think it comes from those who knew they spent a fortune on a system and have finally realized they could have had the same or better for far less.

I don't discern mid-fi/hi-fi based on money spent but on how it sounds. I went from mid-fi to hi-fi, I know the difference. For me though the breakthrough came with an expensive pre-amp processor. The quality of the source recording is also important in order to get to the pinnacle of hi-fi, mid-fi.

 

[Slayer]

I don't discern mid-fi/hi-fi based on money spent but on how it sounds. I went from mid-fi to hi-fi, I know the difference. For me though the breakthrough came with an expensive pre-amp processor. The quality of the source recording is also important in order to get to the pinnacle of hi-fi, mid-fi.

But it does sound like you are equating expensive with sounding better. Your 100x dac comment earlier, Jon Does less expensive system, $200 interconnects and now your expensive pre-amp processor comment. Still seems like your equating expensive with sounding better.

 

[PenguinMusic]

Hi,

Wow, another of those threads with a debate between "I can hear a diffrence" and "There's no diffrence if it cannot be measured".

For a long time I trusted my ears only. I listend. I liked it. I bought it. I never claimed to have golden ears. Just "I like what I hear". Never pretended "This sounds better" than that". Just, I, personally and subjectively liked it. And had the impression it doesn't sound the same, but ready to admit it could be totally biased (looks, features, subjectivism).

Then I came here and read and learned.
A little.
I bought some of the "cheaper" stuff recommended here.
I unpacked it. Sure, it doesn't feel as nicely manufactured and heavy as the stuff I own or owned before. But that is one thing. How it sounds is another thing.
So I plugged it in. And tried to listen to it as objectively as I could. Just closed my eyes. Listen to one, then to another. There might have been differences. MAYBE there were. Maybe there was none...

I came to the conclusion that maybe some equipment has superb results and is the closest to what the sound on the record should be.
Maybe another equipment deviates totally from that.
But after all, if you'd rather listen to the second one, as long as you don't claim it sounds better, but just that YOU like it better, I see no harm in that.

What I can say is that what I learned here is that you can really enjoy superbly good soiund with some really cheap (relatively) equipment.
Got a nice DAC and HP Amp for about 450€ (which is decent even if I could have bought better measuring for even cheaper, but look is IMPORTATN to me and thus this is what I got).

The area I still have to be convinced about measurements, is the headphone and speaker area.
I had several headphones. I listened to all of those carefully.
Difference seemed so huge that I am really convinced they're real.

Now there is something that I would like to see here. The tests are made this way : measures then listening.
Me, I would like those tests to be performed the other way round : listening THEN measuring. First listening : do I like what I hear. Then measuring : explanation as to why Ilike it or not ; confirm that my ears do not fool me. If you start measuring, of course, subjectively, you prepare yourself to hear what the measures say you should be hearing.

Anyways, thanks to this site to allow to broaden my mind and thoughts about hi-fi, sound and stuff...

 

[Frank Dernie]

I don't believe I'm a Golden Ear but I listen for hours at a time for the last 20 years, since I invested in Home Audio. There is divide between mid-fi and hi-fi. Now how should I say this, there was a time where I could not distinguish a difference between a 320 mp3 and a cd. As my equipment improved over the years from progressive upgrades. I can hear the difference.

To say John Doe's mid-fi system is equal to my $40K system is a laugh. Each and every equipment purchase I have made over the years elevated the sound to a higher level. If this were not so I would have been content, without having spent mega bucks for better equipment.

Yes I'm fortunate to have the system I have and not everyone can divert their budget to Home Audio. You can enjoy what you have, I did for years. If you desire to upgrade there is always another level or improvement to audio sound that can be achieved.

I have spent many more times that on equipment and was sure I had made real upgrades until I did some blind, level matched tests about 10 years ago when I stopped work so I had a slightly smaller income and much more spare time.

To my amazement the sound differences I was sure were there disappeared when I didn't know which I was listening to and the levels were very accurately matched

My dCS DAC sounded sufficiently similar the DAC in my digital recorder I couldn't reliably tell which was playing, so I came to the conclusion at the time that even if there was a difference it was negligible.
I am an engineer but had really fallen for the idea that if you could hear a difference that you couldn't measure you were measuring the wrong thing, but looking into hifi in the same way I did racing cars it seemed obvious that since on the electronics side we could measure everything there is (signal level, frequency and phase) to a level beyond the capability of our ears all electronics and cables can be measured sufficiently thoroughly to absolutely know whether they have audible shortcomings.

Checking out the measurements of the dCS and my recorder confirmed later what I had heard, they both have distortion and noise levels below audibility, so no surprise in the end even if there had been at the beginning.

OTOH speakers vary markedly and the ones I have here which vary in price from £800 a pair to around £130,000 all sound obviously different to each other.
The other things making a huge difference to the sound is the position of the speakers in the room, room acoustics and the location of the listening position.
Things making small but audible differences are, in my listening tests, the chair I am sitting on and the acoustic properties of its upholstery, my favourite comfortable high backed leather recliner being one of the worst for sound quality.

I still have a pricy system because I had bought it before I used my own engineering logic to question my past (erroneous) opinions, the most expensive speakers are still my favourites and are in the best room location and most listened to, but I no longer use quite such an expensive dac/pre/amp package and still enjoy it for several hours a day.

My view now is that if one hasn't positioned one's speakers optimally in an acoustically benign room with an optimised listening position the money spent on the rest of the system was more than necessary and expensive kit pointless.

With a record playing system the cartridge, isolation and, again, location of the record player make differences too, I have four record players and they all sound different. I don't listen to them often though.

 

[Mnyb]

I have spent many more times that on equipment and was sure I had made real upgrades until I did some blind, level matched tests about 10 years ago when I stopped work so I had a slightly smaller income and much more spare time.

To my amazement the sound differences I was sure were there disappeared when I didn't know which I was listening to and the levels were very accurately matched

My dCS DAC sounded sufficiently similar the DAC in my digital recorder I couldn't reliably tell which was playing, so I came to the conclusion at the time that even if there was a difference it was negligible.
I am an engineer but had really fallen for the idea that if you could hear a difference that you couldn't measure you were measuring the wrong thing, but looking into hifi in the same way I did racing cars it seemed obvious that since on the electronics side we could measure everything there is (signal level, frequency and phase) to a level beyond the capability of our ears all electronics and cables can be measured sufficiently thoroughly to absolutely know whether they have audible shortcomings.

Checking out the measurements of the dCS and my recorder confirmed later what I had heard, they both have distortion and noise levels below audibility, so no surprise in the end even if there had been at the beginning.

OTOH speakers vary markedly and the ones I have here which vary in price from £800 a pair to around £130,000 all sound obviously different to each other.
The other things making a huge difference to the sound is the position of the speakers in the room, room acoustics and the location of the listening position.
Things making small but audible differences are, in my listening tests, the chair I am sitting on and the acoustic properties of its upholstery, my favourite comfortable high backed leather recliner being one of the worst for sound quality.

I still have a pricy system because I had bought it before I used my own engineering logic to question my past (erroneous) opinions, the most expensive speakers are still my favourites and are in the best room location and most listened to, but I no longer use quite such an expensive dac/pre/amp package and still enjoy it for several hours a day.

My view now is that if one hasn't positioned one's speakers optimally in an acoustically benign room with an optimised listening position the money spent on the rest of the system was more than necessary and expensive kit pointless.

With a record playing system the cartridge, isolation and, again, location of the record player make differences too, I have four record players and they all sound different. I don't listen to them often though.

Speaker measurements seems to get closer to reliable with the latest knowledge ,but its still room for taste and adaption to your special circumstances in room acoustics and listener distance. But you can weed out the duds and recognize concept that does not hold anymore (example no one would design a two way with 8" woofer and non wave guide tweeter these days ).

Headphone measurement ? here is that other factor yourself and your ears literally . Even a good headphone will need EQ and the ones suggested by Amir and oratory for example are good starter templates.

 

[Deleted member 28849]

I have spent many more times that on equipment and was sure I had made real upgrades until I did some blind, level matched tests about 10 years ago when I stopped work so I had a slightly smaller income and much more spare time.

To my amazement the sound differences I was sure were there disappeared when I didn't know which I was listening to and the levels were very accurately matched

My dCS DAC sounded sufficiently similar the DAC in my digital recorder I couldn't reliably tell which was playing, so I came to the conclusion at the time that even if there was a difference it was negligible.
I am an engineer but had really fallen for the idea that if you could hear a difference that you couldn't measure you were measuring the wrong thing, but looking into hifi in the same way I did racing cars it seemed obvious that since on the electronics side we could measure everything there is (signal level, frequency and phase) to a level beyond the capability of our ears all electronics and cables can be measured sufficiently thoroughly to absolutely know whether they have audible shortcomings.

Checking out the measurements of the dCS and my recorder confirmed later what I had heard, they both have distortion and noise levels below audibility, so no surprise in the end even if there had been at the beginning.

OTOH speakers vary markedly and the ones I have here which vary in price from £800 a pair to around £130,000 all sound obviously different to each other.
The other things making a huge difference to the sound is the position of the speakers in the room, room acoustics and the location of the listening position.
Things making small but audible differences are, in my listening tests, the chair I am sitting on and the acoustic properties of its upholstery, my favourite comfortable high backed leather recliner being one of the worst for sound quality.

I still have a pricy system because I had bought it before I used my own engineering logic to question my past (erroneous) opinions, the most expensive speakers are still my favourites and are in the best room location and most listened to, but I no longer use quite such an expensive dac/pre/amp package and still enjoy it for several hours a day.

My view now is that if one hasn't positioned one's speakers optimally in an acoustically benign room with an optimised listening position the money spent on the rest of the system was more than necessary and expensive kit pointless.

With a record playing system the cartridge, isolation and, again, location of the record player make differences too, I have four record players and they all sound different. I don't listen to them often though.

Level matching is very important when comparing. I had a cd player and purchased a dac. Initially they sounded different, the computer I used at the time allowed me to adjust the gain & volume level of the dac. When I had adjusted the gain of the dac to 80% to my ears it sounded the same as the cd player except that it had 2 chips instead of one, so it had better stereo separation. As a result I sold the cd player.

Dac chip technology improved around the year 2006. So even mass market gear made after that date has very good chips that maybe difficult to discern from more expensive chips. I think it has been said that the differences in dacs is not so much the chips used, but the power supply and analog circuitry.

There are many variables in audio that can effect the sound. I make generalized statements but we all have different rooms, acoustics, setups, materials that reflect differently etc.. Like there is the conventional wisdom on how to set up speakers. I use an unconventional set up because a conventional set up won't work in my room. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

In the past when I did use a conventional set up I came to dislike it eventually because the soundstage was to narrow. Now I use the length of the room with wide speaker separation. Reflecting the sound from speakers off the back wall and a accurate stereo image/soundstage projects off the front wall. As far as I know nobody else has tried what I'm doing to confirm that it works. It's like a bee that is not suppose to be able to fly but it does fly. Conventional wisdom doesn't know everything.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Level matching is very important when comparing. I had a cd player and purchased a dac. Initially they sounded different, the computer I used at the time allowed me to adjust the gain & volume level of the dac. When I had adjusted the gain of the dac to 80% to my ears it sounded the same as the cd player except that it had 2 chips instead of one, so it had better stereo separation. As a result I sold the cd player.

Dac chip technology improved around the year 2006. So even mass market gear made after that date has very good chips that maybe difficult to discern from more expensive chips. I think it has been said that the differences in dacs is not so much the chips used, but the power supply and analog circuitry.

There are many variables in audio that can effect the sound. I make generalized statements but we all have different rooms, acoustics, setups, materials that reflect differently etc.. Like there is the conventional wisdom on how to set up speakers. I use an unconventional set up because a conventional set up won't work in my room. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

In the past when I did use a conventional set up I came to dislike it eventually because the soundstage was to narrow. Now I use the length of the room with wide speaker separation. Reflecting the sound from speakers off the back wall and a accurate stereo image/soundstage projects off the front wall. As far as I know nobody else has tried what I'm doing to confirm that it works. It's like a bee that is not suppose to be able to fly but it does fly. Conventional wisdom doesn't know everything.

 

[Emlin]

Level matching is very important when comparing. I had a cd player and purchased a dac. Initially they sounded different, the computer I used at the time allowed me to adjust the gain & volume level of the dac. When I had adjusted the gain of the dac to 80% to my ears it sounded the same as the cd player except that it had 2 chips instead of one, so it had better stereo separation. As a result I sold the cd player.

Dac chip technology improved around the year 2006. So even mass market gear made after that date has very good chips that maybe difficult to discern from more expensive chips. I think it has been said that the differences in dacs is not so much the chips used, but the power supply and analog circuitry.

There are many variables in audio that can effect the sound. I make generalized statements but we all have different rooms, acoustics, setups, materials that reflect differently etc.. Like there is the conventional wisdom on how to set up speakers. I use an unconventional set up because a conventional set up won't work in my room. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

In the past when I did use a conventional set up I came to dislike it eventually because the soundstage was to narrow. Now I use the length of the room with wide speaker separation. Reflecting the sound from speakers off the back wall and a accurate stereo image/soundstage projects off the front wall. As far as I know nobody else has tried what I'm doing to confirm that it works. It's like a bee that is not suppose to be able to fly but it does fly. Conventional wisdom doesn't know everything.

No-one ever thought that bees couldn't fly. All that was lacking was exactly how they do. That's been worked out now. Where is your so-called conventional wisdom in that?

 

[BDWoody]

Each and every equipment purchase I have made over the years elevated the sound to a higher level. If this were not so I would have been content, without having spent mega bucks for better equipment.

Uh huh.

 

[oursmagenta]

I would love to read about that

Maybe just something related to that, but I guess decent speakers can go down to 0.1% distortion in some portion of the audioband.
And 0.1% gives (very roughly) 60db of SINAD, 78db would be (also roughly) equivalent to 0.012% of distortion. So there may be some speakers (more likely headphones) that can get you there.

So based on that, one could argue that (unless you have an imaginary speakers/headphones) being able to hear the difference between a 120 SINAD electronic audio chain, and a 80db SINAD one maybe very difficult.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Maybe just something related to that, but I guess decent speakers can go down to 0.1% distortion in some portion of the audioband.
And 0.1% gives (very roughly) 60db of SINAD, 78db would be (also roughly) equivalent to 0.012% of distortion. So there may be some speakers (more likely headphones) that can get you there.

So based on that, one could argue that (unless you have an imaginary speakers/headphones) being able to hear the difference between a 120 SINAD electronic audio chain, and a 80db SINAD one maybe very difficult.

Quite.
Just reading the numbers can confuse if one is not aware of what they sound like actually, both in loudness and frequency. People often have an odd idea about how deep or high a sound is in pitch and what range of loudness is "normal" from a number in Hz or loudness in dB.
It is definitely worth getting a feel for it by trying out on yourself.

 

[charleski]

Quite.
Just reading the numbers can confuse if one is not aware of what they sound like actually, both in loudness and frequency. People often have an odd idea about how deep or high a sound is in pitch and what range of loudness is "normal" from a number in Hz or loudness in dB.
It is definitely worth getting a feel for it by trying out on yourself.

One thing that irritates me is when people describe high frequencies above a few kHz as 'treble'. The fundamental frequency for a soprano maxes out at around 900-1000Hz, everything above that is just overtones, and almost nothing of any importance happens over 10kHz. Take a look at the spectrogram of any music track and you'll see a bright band of energy happening between 100 and 1000Hz, usually maximal around 400Hz. This is where the music lives.

 

[VintageFlanker]

Each and every equipment purchase I have made over the years elevated the sound to a higher level.

If this is true, then the level should have broken the roof by now.

 

[sergeauckland]

One thing that irritates me is when people describe high frequencies above a few kHz as 'treble'. The fundamental frequency for a soprano maxes out at around 900-1000Hz, everything above that is just overtones, and almost nothing of any importance happens over 10kHz. Take a look at the spectrogram of any music track and you'll see a bright band of energy happening between 100 and 1000Hz, usually maximal around 400Hz. This is where the music lives.

Very much so. That's why I've railed against so-called HiRes recordings, as the only thing above the 20kHz of CD is SMPS and once CRT whistles, fan-noise, and other non-musical sounds.

The 15kHz bandwidth of FM radio is adequate for pretty much any purpose. In my younger days at the Harris factory, I heard 10kHz stereo AM , and yes, doing an AB comparison with the CD, there was a slight reduction in brightness, but without the direct comparison, it wasn't obvious there was anything missing.

There's just so much shit talked about the need for extraordinary bandwidths, bit depths and dynamic range when real life isn't like that.

S

 

[FrantzM]

I didn't just throw money at equipment. I listened carefully for many hours determining the weakest link in my system. Then I purchased the product based on reviews to get an overall consensus of the product. Then I would listen at the Dealer then purchase. But as I mentioned, for me, it takes approx. 2 weeks of listening for either the equipment to break-in or for my mind to make the adjustment to the new sound. Sometimes I heard the improvement right out of the box.

Yeah I agree, just because something costs more doesn't make it better. Generally though a piece of equipment costs more because it is better quality. than mid-fi.

@Born2Run

Stay here for a while, you will realize that those notions are false. Your ears can and shall deceive you. Your brain will not help either. If you are willing and able to spend $40k for a 2-channel or more system, staying here, humble and sincerely eager to learn, shall lead to an audio system the level and quality of which I am certain , you are not achieving now. I am also taking this opportunity to let you know that I have put my flamesuit on .