The bestiary of the most common (and debunked by science) audiophile myths

[VintageFlanker]

- An AKM chip sounds warm and musical while ESS sounds neutral, dry and bright (not sure how it can be both neutral and bright, but nevermind).

- Yet, R2R remains the most analog sounding.

- Burn-in works for pretty much everything, from cables to Ethernet switches. Difference is always for the best.

- Your system must be revealing enough to hear a difference... about some tweak supposed to fix an issue to begin with... RIP, logic.

- Class D is Digital. And that way sounds dry and clinical.

- Sometimes, your phono stack is so good that it sounds as clean as digital... Or sometimes, your digital gear (streamer, DAC) is so good that it sounds as good as phono. Go figure.

- Doesn't matter if you're 70 and you cannot hear above 9kHz... If you've been an audiophile for 40 years.

- Sound production is the same as sound reproduction. That way, tube amps and heavy coloration make sense.

- Hearing memory lasts months and hundreds of hours. You can always point an improvement several weeks after.

- You can compare two amps by ear, yet with different speakers in different rooms at different times.

- Measurements do not matter. We listen to music, not to graphs.

- Musicality is not measurable (and has nothing to do with music itself). Only count emotion and pleasure when listening to a component.

 

[mhardy6647]

Fuse chatter (not literally, i.e., not in the sense of a chattering relay ):

Strange Fuse Direction Side Effect.......... - Todd Krieger - General Asylum

Strange Fuse Direction Side Effect.......... - Todd Krieger - General Asylum

www.audioasylum.com

 

[Somafunk]

That one always irks and bemuses me.

For one thing the sonic differences the tweakers describe - lower bass, higher highs, greater dynamics, sharper imaging etc - would be audible on practically any half decent speaker, cheap or otherwise.

For another, audiophiles who own systems at all price points report similar "differences" with cables. You can go through Amazon reviews and see countless folks describing hearing obvious differences with X cables on their modest systems.

The Golden Ears will great any positive claim about cable differences with welcome arms, including all the people with lower quality systems reporting differences. But as soon as someone with even higher end gear reports "I don't hear a difference" then "well, you need a Really Resolving System then!"

You only just have to look at certain threads on headfi where folk talk about silver cables having piercing highs and copper having excessive bass and don;'t get involved in the graphene or palladium cable talk - it really is a microcosm of mass delusion syndrome, and £1000+ cables for iems?......I don't know how folk can afford to justify these things but I think a large part of the allure is buying/having the cable to elevate your likes and garnering positive responses thus inflating the original poster/owner of such things to a headphone supremous, and woe betide you if you ask for any measurements such as impedance or suchlike as you'll get slaughtered by the cable cognoscenti and turfed out/banned from the thread. There is a good "sound science" sub forum thread where its all very sensible and science/measurements, it can be quite informative.

 

[LeShog]

- An AKM chip sounds warm and musical while ESS sounds neutral, dry and bright (not sure how it can be both neutral and bright, but nevermind).

- Yet, R2R remains the most analog sounding.

- Burn-in works for pretty much everything, from cables to ethernet switches. Difference is always for the best.

- Your system must be revealing enough to hear a difference... about some tweak supposed to fix an issue to begin with... RIP, logic.

- Class D is Digital. And that way sounds dry and clinical.

- Sometimes, your phono stack is so good that it sounds as clean as digital... Or sometimes, your digital gear (streamer, DAC) is so good that is sounds as good as phono. Go figure.

- Doesn't matter if you're 70 and you cannot hear above 9kHz... If you've been an audiophile for 40 years.

- Sound production is the same as sound reproduction. That way, tube amps and heavy coloration make sense.

- Hearing memory lasts months and hundreds of hours. You can always point an improvement several weeks after.

- You can compare two amps by ear, yet with different speakers in different rooms at different times.

- Measurements do not matter. We listen to music, not to graphs.

- Musicality is not measurable. Only count emotion and pleasure when listening to a component.

never heard someone say you can compare two amps with different speakers, that sounds rather extreme haha!

 

[Talisman]

- Burn-in works for pretty much everything, from cables to ethernet switches. Difference is always for the best.

I forgot to include this one in mine too.
While I was quite convinced that it actually made sense on the speakers, I always wondered, even without anyone pointing it out to me, what the heck should improve over time in a cable that carries electrical data

 

[Daverz]

I forgot to include this one in mine too.
While I was quite convinced that it actually made sense on the speakers, I always wondered, even without anyone pointing it out to me, what the heck should improve over time in a cable that carries electrical data

Those that wanted to sound scientific would probably mumble something about "dielectric formation".

 

[Audiofire]

I always wondered, even without anyone pointing it out to me, what the heck should improve over time in a cable that carries electrical data

Electrons exercise to get in shape.

 

[Sir Sanders Zingmore]

Anything with “quantum” in its name will improve your system but no one knows why.

Wetting oneself at the latest totally inaudible improvement in SINAD which can be justified on the grounds that it’s a sign of good engineering

 

[antcollinet]

Component matching.

(outside some extremes of poorly specified components, such as those with excessive high output impedance - or matching source voltage/amp gain)

 

[VintageFlanker]

never heard someone say you can compare two amps with different speakers, that sounds rather extreme haha!

Heard this countless time, AFAIC.

Typically :
I've listened to x amp at a store, it sounds dramatically less musical that y amp (that I tested at home).

Not the same room, many times not even the same speakers, and most importantly, not even the same day... But they call it a valid A/B comparison all the same.

The same way, when you sell an amp on the second hand market, people always want to come to your home for a "listen" (I'm not talking about testing if the unit just works). Nonsense, but a true thing for many audiophiles.

 

[Talisman]

Component matching.

(outside some extremes of poorly specified components, such as those with excessive high output impedance - or matching source voltage/amp gain)

No, sorry, you don't know the technical terminology. It's called SYNERGY.
That sort of magical property that makes some amplifiers sound magical with some speakers and terrible on others (always considering correct functioning within the working parameters and tolerances)

 

[MaxwellsEq]

The biggest myth still is that speakers should be toed in by 30 degrees, so they are separated by 60 degrees. Even here on ASR. I have 90 degrees between my speakers (and I know I'm not the only one). Much better sound stage. Of course better separation. Simply closer to listening to a live band close to you. 60 degrees just give you messy sound brooth. I couldn't listen to music like that.

Here's something about it:
https://hifiauditions.wordpress.com/2021/01/29/long-wall-speaker-placement/

This is wrong and the article is wrong. It's mixing toe-in (which is about whether the speakers point at your ears or behind your ears and is dependent on dispersion design), with the angle subtended between you and each speaker.

The angles should all be 60 degrees, since that is the International standard for listening rooms for 2 channel reproduction.

Unfortunately, the diagram confuses people because they get hung up on the diagram also showing a toe-in of 30 degrees, but that's not the point of the specification.

 

[LeShog]

This is wrong and the article is wrong. It's mixing toe-in (which is about whether the speakers point at your ears or behind your ears and is dependent on dispersion design), with the angle subtended between you and each speaker.

The angles should all be 60 degrees, since that is the International standard for listening rooms for 2 channel reproduction.

Unfortunately, the diagram confuses people because they get hung up on the diagram also showing a toe-in of 30 degrees, but that's not the point of the specification.
View attachment 357176

I don’t posses all that techy jargon and don’t know practically anything about speakers, still, I get to understand sound engineers use 60 degrees positioned speakers when they mix albums (?). If that is correct you want to put your speakers at 60 degrees that is if you want to hear like them when they did the mixing. Anything different from that should result in a distorted imaging. That’s low profile low tech low jitter science for you also known as common sense. Still, I don’t see nothing wrong in positioning speakers even at 180 degrees for what it matters if one is enjoying them

 

[thewas]

A couple more:

• Yamaha electronics sounds cold and Marantz warm...
• Full range loudspeakers should placed at 1 meter distance from the front wall (which results to liveless sound due to SBIR in the midbass).
• Changing a 2x50 W to a 2x80 W amp will give a lot more SPL
• Source/player is the most important and should spent most money (that came from Linn's creator Ivor Tiefenbrun)

 

[Audiofire]

Spend 10-25% (depending on which megalomaniac you ask) of the total cost on audio cables. Oh, and silver-plated of course. Nothing beats the continuous waves of vinyl destroyed by stairsteps of sample rate!

 

[beefkabob]

The font of all audio bullshit are ideas that seem like they could work, which is also the font of all pseudoscience bullshit.

 

[LeShog]

A couple more:

• Yamaha electronics sounds cold and Marantz warm...
• Full range loudspeakers should placed at 1 meter distance from the front wall (which results to liveless sound due to SBIR in the midbass).
• Changing a 2x50 W to a 2x80 W amp will give a lot more SPL
• Source/player is the most important and should spent most money (that came from Linn's creator Ivor Tiefenbrun)

you know, I have a dear friend of mine who unfortunately suffers from advanced audiophoolia (a really bad disease if you ask me), he’s a nice person, but he’s been exposed to this pathogen for years (he’s way older than me). Now trying to persuade him that all these things are nonsense would probably result in a broken friendship as he’s in a delusional state in which he probably needs to believe at all these things considered all the money he spent on fancy gear. But neither him ever said that the source is the most important of the chain, that is also very much counterintuitive other than being inaccurate, how can one come up with something like that? You can very easily debunk it also.. This topic has officially reached a peak.

 

[Emlin]

you know, I have a dear friend of mine who unfortunately suffers from advanced audiophoolia (a really bad disease if you ask me), he’s a nice person, but he’s been exposed to this pathogen for years (he’s way older than me). Now trying to persuade him that all these things are nonsense would probably result in a broken friendship as he’s in a delusional state in which he probably needs to believe at all these things considered all the money he spent on fancy gear. But neither him ever said that the source is the most important of the chain, that is also very much counterintuitive other than being inaccurate, how can one come up with something like that? You can very easily debunk it also.. This topic has officially reached a peak.

You can blame Linn for that one, from when they only made turntables...

 

[Brian Hall]

Your system is not revealing enough to benefit from “insert tweak here”

The jokes on them. When I see someone say that I instantly picture them wearing a dunce cap.

 

[Somafunk]

Arghhhhhh it’s always the fingers that freak me right out , and what the actual **** is in that glass jar?