Audiophile hobby is a scam?

[Sokel]

Yes I have often compared it to a cargo cult

Its quite bad almost all information in the hobby is incorrect. Pick any magazine or forum and the test are subjective without controlls IE they are not even wrong , it can not be considered information about the DUT .

And all the mythology ( cargo cults ) that resulted from this approach , cable risers etc

What's worst is what comes within.
I have absolutely no problem paying for a nice casework (if it combines this with helping thermals even better) .
The same for nice,genuine components inside.

And I can cope with the fact that it may have 90db SINAD as far as noise is low.

BUT.
If someone put a scientific curtain above all this (ok,not thermals,that's basic) I will feel bad for him trying to justify what he's not obliged to do.
He can just say "hey!It looks nice!" and that would be ok for me.
As an example take this video (I don't link straight to it,I don't want to offer them free hits) :

Fosi Audio V3 Mono Amplifier Review

they suddenly added the MC101 that no one asked for so i reckon they could add VUs and trim knobs on the next one https://fosiaudio.com/products/fosi-audio-mc101-bluetooth-amplifier Hah, this looks really cool, quite steam punkish

www.audiosciencereview.com

The person there can't help saying that he's a physicist,engineer,whatever only to dismiss it at the next sentence so to say "I like listening,I don't care how it measures" .
Fine,but why the (unused) credentials before that?

Honesty to ourselves is the best way to go.

 

[Alexander Gödde]

So what is the catch here? If we want the best fidelity, we just need a clean amp, a clean dac, and a headphone that has Harman Tuning, and that is it, there's no possibility of getting better science based sound quality? Or my hearing might just gravitate toward the Harman Tuning?

Most of today's (non esoteric) DACs and amps are clean. That part of things is solved.

With headphones frequency response is most likely everything, but it's complicated.
There is the fact that people have different HRTFs (head-related transfer functions), i.e. that the shape and size of our head and ears affect what sound arrives at the ear drum. The closer a headphone comes to this the more natural it sounds. The Harman Curve is a good approximation of what most people find good, no more. Ideally, you add EQ that fits you specifically. Without that it's a bit of trial error to find something that gets close for you. (The only way to get really close is using in-ear measurements and DSP, see e.g. the Symth Realizer.)
I also suspect that fine-grained features of the frequency response play a role in perceived detail, but have nothing concrete to base that on. I expect that channel matching plays a large role in precision of imaging (i.e. how precisely instruments are placed in the stereo soundstage).

I am often surprised at how well the AKG K371 performs for me when I come back to using it after a while. I certainly consider it to be a detailed headphone. But whatever the reason, both the Sennheiser HD800 and Dan Clark Audio E3 outperform it, again for me. The former is more enjoyable, though not really more natural, while the latter adds quite a bit of realism. I'm sure the why is somewhere in the measurements, but I don't believe we know how to interpret it yet.

 

[markus]

What's worst is what comes within.
I have absolutely no problem paying for a nice casework (if it combines this with helping thermals even better) .
The same for nice,genuine components inside.

And I can cope with the fact that it may have 90db SINAD as far as noise is low.

BUT.
If someone put a scientific curtain above all this (ok,not thermals,that's basic) I will feel bad for him trying to justify what he's not obliged to do.
He can just say "hey!It looks nice!" and that would be ok for me.
As an example take this video (I don't link straight to it,I don't want to offer them free hits) :

Fosi Audio V3 Mono Amplifier Review

they suddenly added the MC101 that no one asked for so i reckon they could add VUs and trim knobs on the next one https://fosiaudio.com/products/fosi-audio-mc101-bluetooth-amplifier Hah, this looks really cool, quite steam punkish

www.audiosciencereview.com

The person there can't help saying that he's a physicist,engineer,whatever only to dismiss it at the next sentence so to say "I like listening,I don't care how it measures" .
Fine,but why the (unused) credentials before that?

Honesty to ourselves is the best way to go.

You just don't get it It's for people fascinated by science – "science" like in "science fiction". They don't want to actually "learn science", it would take away the "magic".

 

[Mnyb]

Wonder how close to the reality they must clinge ?

You obviously get away with science fiction advertising that you use silver binding post on your speakers for best sound or cryo treated wires ?

But if we take the science fiction to the limit can i claim warp cores in my DAC if you can’t find them I can use a russels teapot argument and claim that they are very small ?

 

[Sokel]

You just don't get it It's for people fascinated by science – "science" like in "science fiction". They don't want to actually "learn science", it would take away the "magic".

I've met a lot of scientists in this hobby,some related to the subject as well.
What we do up-close is having fun,none of them tries to justify any purchases scientifically,when talking about measurements usually is what our installers tell us about the room (the ones who treated them) ,etc and even that not in depth.
And that's fine.Like any other hobby.

But it would be even funnier if someone come and tell us that he got the 50 kilos,class A amp cause it measures better.
We all know better than that.

(that would be true for a nice Halcro Eclipse though)

 

[mike7877]

I've met a lot of scientists in this hobby,some related to the subject as well.
What we do up-close is having fun,none of them tries to justify any purchases scientifically,when talking about measurements usually is what our installers tell us about the room (the ones who treated them) ,etc and even that not in depth.
And that's fine.Like any other hobby.

But it would be even funnier if someone come and tell us that he got the 50 kilos,class A amp cause it measures better.
We all know better than that.

(that would be true for a nice Halcro Eclipse though)

lol a 50kg Class A amp. I have one of those! - broken at the moment
it's actually more like 30kg, but that's because its transformer is better (a toroid!)

Worst part about the situation is, I was re-capping it - just the power supply (four big honkers 33,000uf 70V + 4x 8,300?uf'ers) on a 1kVA toroid. I thought it was unplugged when I went to solder, using my T12 solder station. Hit the positive, and fried a bunch of transistors :'(

It's definitely not the best measuring amp in the world

8 ohms, 4 ohms, 2 ohms (bottom to top)

Subjectively it's a smooth sounding amp which feels limitless in its power output. It seems to lack a bit of detail, but it's very dynamic, never any compression.

I wish it wasn't broken so I could bi-amp my speakers with it - use it for the woofers, and my Topping LA90 Discrete for the tweets. I broke it too horribly to fix myself, and the guy fixing it is taking foreverrrrrrrr

 

[johny_2000]

AKG K371 is my most enjoyable over-ear too.

Yes, in terms of sound fidelity, without equalizers. But the build quality, the internal dimensions of the earcups, the niceness of the materials, the comfort of fit - they are far from leaders. Plus a very short soundstage, which annoyed me after 15 minutes of listening, after years of getting used to the open-back Sennheiser.