Which trap will catch more mice ... the one that is empty or the one which has visible bait?
Really? Then why are they there, and what do they do?
For people over 70, I suppose this is true. For younger people, definitely not.
Sort of contradicted yourself there, didn't you?
I've never seen a level-matched demonstration, even at a good dealer. A close approximation, perhaps, but never a scientifically matched level. OTOH, a bad dealer knows which merchandise gives him more profit, and that's the merchandise that he sets up to impress the customer. If he gives the customer the volume knob, the customer sinks his own ship, so to speak.
I know how you feel! I used to have tubes, long ago! I am soooooo happy to have moved on!
An "accurate" system simply transfers the information on the recording to your room. There is a tremendous variance in rooms, both in surfaces and dimensions. Not only that, but certain poorly-designed components can add or subtract information on the recording. But if you don't like a recording on an "accurate" system, it's because of the recording, not the system.
There are recordings that some listeners don't like. Perhaps they are "too bright". As Dr Floyd Toole has said, that problem can be ameliorated through the use of tone controls. When the listener moves on to the next recording (which happens to not be bright), then the tone control can be reset to neutral.
However ... if the audio system has a permanent characteristic that allows "bright" recordings to play comfortably, then "normal" recordings will sound dull.
Far best to have an accurate system as a baseline. If you then wish to modify the sound of different recordings, less or more, tone controls can be used. More power to you. There is, after all, no gainsaying preference. But a permanent affected sound may gratify you (or someone else) on a few recordings ... but deprive you of the enjoyment the mastering engineer intended for you on the rest.
Silly people do silly things, every day in all places in the world. One of the facets of the so-called "High End" of the audio world is people who continually trade in their gear for different gear, all in a futile attempt to chase the ephemeral, primed by the flowery sales b.s. on the websites that you say doesn't exist and the coaching by the salesmen who know how to handle naive customers who exhibit FOMO.
As for Hong Kong ... I've lived in the Orient, and such fallacious testimony doesn't impress me.
I think I was pretty clear - Websites are the modern-day "product brochure" but I never met anyone who picked up a brochure and was "sold" on the product because they read a page about the designer's history or pretty pictures. I mean that might work for jewelry and fashion or even cars but stereo equipment? And even if it works for Bose and B&O these are lifestyle products and the former often had orders in place that dealers were not allowed to have A/B comparisons.
No one is sold Audio Note because of their "words" - hell I get it - if I read their words first I would be put off not turned on - to buy anything from them. If anything they are better off NOT saying anything. The look of their gear is absolutely nothing to write home about - they don't have "Diamond" tweeters to sell you or Bulletproof Kevlar drivers (because you never know when you'll need your speaker to jump in front of a bullet to save you). There is nothing sexy about their cabinets and most of their tube amps don't even show off the tubes for some "aesthetic cool factor" and the ones that do are butt ugly. I could see a cool factor to McIntosh or Jadis or Conrad Johnson or the bling from China but Audio Note? Please.
The way most people listened to music at dealers in my parts in the 90s and 00s was to bring a bunch of CDs sit, be given the remote and listen to their music. As one would do at home they would adjust the volume between albums or within albums. Then they would do the same things for the second pair of speakers and the third. Some speakers would need to be played "louder" to "come alive." Level matching is generally much harder with speakers for obvious reasons as you might level-match at 1khz but if speaker B has 20hz deeper bass - you're going to hear that. When Hi-Fi Choice did their blind listening speaker sessions - the AN J beat all the other standmounts in the test. It was such a drubbing that they elected to put the speaker in the floorstander test - a different panel of listeners still chose the AN J. Okay so it's not the perfect set-up DBT but it's still blind and level matched and everyone gets to pick what they felt was the best without knowing what speaker was what.
One of the reasons my dealer let people take the stuff home was because he said "Most people view audio dealers like used car salesmen and that they're crooks" It is quite easy for them to wire them up improperly or not account for speaker sensitivity. Salespeople play into emotions - they do this all day every day. The consumer buys only a few cars in their life, same for stereo equipment. This was rated the safest car on the road - your car was given only 3/5 stars and is a death trap in comparison - "You do care about your family don't you?"
"Tube amps are warmer" and offer a "richer/fuller sound envelope"
"SS measures better and is more accurate - you want your system to be accurate or else you're a gullible moron - here is graph"
"This wire lifter will vastly improve the noise floor and give you a blacker background"
"Class D sounds like the best of what tubes offer but also the best of what SS offers with way more power and a lower price - booyah why would you ever buy SS or Tubes?"
"Panel speakers are the best because there is no 'box colouration' as any speaker with a box is junk compared to a panel"
"Boxed speakers are way better than a panel because they have 'meat on the bones bass' and drive.
"Open Baffles are actually the best because they have the best of panels, low distortion, better bass and around 100dB sensitivity."
"Active pro-monitors are the best because of short signal paths and you don't need to buy an amp"
"actives suck because if the amp blows you also have to send the speaker in for repair not just the amp - also stuck with the amp on board"
And that's all before you get into things like cables, power conditioners, energized equipment platforms etc.
The dealers just need to figure out which tactic they need to use on the customer walking through the doors.
The better dealers, of which are few and far between, simply carried ALL those types of gear. It's much easier to be an "order taker" than a salesman. Many dealers would hard sell you - sounds like you have that experience as well. B&W is the Mercedes of Speakers I was told. What I owned was of course mediocrity in comparison. B&W is the biggest-selling high-end speaker manufacturer, used at Abbey Road Recording Studios, used at Lucasfilm (Star Wars modern editions were made with B&W. See the Award plaques - speaker of the year - Editor's Choice, Class A in Stereophile - look at the full-colour Brochures and advertised in every issue of every magazine in full-page colour. How could you NOT buy a B&W?
Meanwhile that first dealer I mentioned also carried the B&W line - There was no need to hard sell B&W to people because their livelihood was not in selling the 4 brands they carried. They didn't need to hard sell you because they carried so many other brands - they "got you covered" - you want Apogee, Quad, Magnepan, Finale, Martin Logan well they have all of them - and that's just panels. You want SS or push-pull tubes or SET or Class D or surround sound - they carry that too.
If you want to take the KEFs home and the Audio Notes home and compare them go ahead. You can then set up a blind listening session.
Lastly, when it comes to SS vs. tubes - I am not either camp - I have owned more SS amps (I grew up in the SS/CD era). I currently own four SS amplifiers - one a SS stereo power amp, and Class D Monoblocks (250 watts 8 ohms 430 watts 4 ohms), I have had Benchmark and Bryston in my home systems among many others for review. I have auditioned the amplifiers from D'Agostino, Krell, Mark Levinson, Plinius, Sugden, Analog Domain, Boulder, Electrocompaniet, Naim, Gryphon, etc.
Tubes? Meh. I like SOME tube amps. I find far more variance in tube amps. I like a great many SS amplifiers over a great many tube amplifiers and own class D because I liked it more than most of both. In a DBT with most tube amps, you will be able to distinguish a difference between Tube vs SS - so if you distinguish a difference and you LIKE that difference better then at least you are spending your money for something you can hear. OTOH many salespeople are trying to sell Benchmark and Bryston that in a DBT you won't be able to distinguish from a Monoprice amp or 15-year-old used Arcam's and Rotels for $300. They sell numbers and measurements that no one can hear.
