Is the entire audio industry a fraud?

[audiofooled]

So, if all of the other industries aren't obliged to be honest, why would audio be any different?

 

[Mr. Widget]

Ok, so most audiophiles don't or won't accept simple logic and science. Is that a surprise where we have just had a magnificent test of the acceptance and understanding of science? Look how the world has dealt with COVID-19.

 

[MAB]

So, if all of the other industries aren't obliged to be honest, why would audio be any different?

At 15:07, "The point is with design and styling there is no best, there's only different."
I agree.

 

[insektmute]

It's not universally a fraud, but it is heavily weighed down by absurd claims, bad engineering and genuine ignorance. A few too many 60-70 year old men who think they have preternatural hearing and deep secret knowledge, but still don't understand the difference between file compression and dynamic range compression, think FLAC and WAV sound different, and don't notice they think mostly everything sounds how it looks (copper is 'warm', silver is 'bright', digital amps are 'cold', etc), and on and on.

That's not to say no $$$$ gear is worthwhile, but for every product that's demonstrative of legitimately superb engineering, where you can at least see a clear distinction in capability, there are dozens of outright garbage products that capture a lot of attention.

Hi-fi can't learn to get out of its own way, but the flip side is, we're also pretty spoiled for good choices these days. Tech advances aside, I think a lot of that has to do with objectivity and science gradually doing damage to the snake oil industry, and people are taking notice of just how much that nonsense has been holding everyone back from real progress.

 

[BinkieHuckerback]

Late stage capitalism - most industries are frauds beyond the production of basic foodstuffs, energy, direct health and social care. Everything else is superfluous.

 

[Jmudrick]

Quote from JGH who founded Stereophile. The publication that more than any other helped create the subjective audio press. Even he realized if you divorce it from honesty controls, it becomes unmoored from reality and boy did that ever happen.

Do you see any signs of future vitality in high-end audio?

Vitality? Don't make me laugh. Audio as a hobby is dying, largely by its own hand. As far as the real world is concerned, high-end audio lost its credibility during the 1980s, when it flatly refused to submit to the kind of basic honesty controls (double-blind testing, for example) that had legitimized every other serious scientific endeavor since Pascal. [This refusal] is a source of endless derisive amusement among rational people and of perpetual embarrassment for me, because I am associated by so many people with the mess my disciples made of spreading my gospel. For the record: I never, ever claimed that measurements don't matter. What I said (and very often, at that) was, they don't always tell the whole story. Not quite the same thing.

Remember those loudspeaker shoot-outs we used to have during our annual writer gatherings in Santa Fe? The frequent occasions when various reviewers would repeatedly choose the same loudspeaker as their favorite (or least-favorite) model? That was all the proof needed that [blind] testing does work, aside from the fact that it's (still) the only honest kind. It also suggested that simple ear training, with DBT confirmation, could have built the kind of listening confidence among talented reviewers that might have made a world of difference in the outcome of high-end audio.

Source 2007 email correspondence: https://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/1107awsi/index.html

 

[Blumlein 88]

personally, I don't see any achievement in being an audiophile. To me it is kinda like dedicating your time to finding the most comfortable chair to put your butt in. It is understandable but nothing to write home about. Nowhere near being a semi-decent musician or music expert or audio engineer in my book.

Most audiophiles I know don't go around proclaiming some achievement other than mildly to each other. It really is like saying I've got the most comfortable chair for me. Nothing wrong with that. When some get on forums or people have youtube channels claiming special expertise it is a different matter.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

It's easy to forget how far domestic test capability has come. When I first was fixing kit, I had access to professional signal generators and CRT oscilloscopes, but I could not have afforded them for my home use. Even in the lab, real-time, high resolution spectrographic analysis was not something we had access to (frequency sweeps were plotted by hand). Noise was just a number, I could not plot a spectrum analysis of its nature. Now, I can do almost all of these tests at home for only a few K.

HiFi grew up without owners able to test anything. Now they can. Perhaps this will change the industry? I'm an optimist, so I hope so

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Basicly, it's the best of times and the worst of times. There are incredibly performant products which can be had for what old timey audiophiles (like myself) would once consider to be mere chump change. Look at the Topping, SMSL, and even the latest Schiit Dacs! Also look at the Hypex and Purifi amps. And look at highly performant PCs and streamers to use as sources. All that stuff replaces the super expensive vinyl and early digital systems with stuff that handily outperforms what were once state of the art systems costing tens of thousands of dollars. Today, a system like a RPI4 plus Camila DSP with a Topping DAC can be put together for l.t. $500 and will outperform anything. Likewise, a $600 Hypex based NC 252 power amp can be had which will outperform anything other than a Purifi or a Benchmark, and all of the older tube and solid state designs.

And then there are the speakers. Erin just reviewed a $5300 Mesanovic CDM 65 monitor which has cardoid bass, can play loud, is nearly full range and has exemplary spins. Likewise Amir reviewed a Neuman KH 150 monitor for $3500 with many of the same attributes. Both of those have their own internal power amps, so no need for anything but a DAC/Streamer. And there are many other great products out there for relatively modest (by audiophile standards) costs like the Kef LS 60s, D&D 8Cs, Ascend Sierra LXs, GGNTKT M1's, Kii 3s, and others which in most instances cost far less than most traditional audiophile offerings and have the meassurements to back up their claims of audio superiority.

So you could opt into that branch of audiophilia, get superior performance, and save yourself a ton of money and grief, or you could listen to the subjectivist non-measurement based crowd who proclaim without evidence that multi bit, FGPA, ladder Dacs are audibly superior with no data, that cable risers, and cryogenically treated caps and resistors take you to another level, that huge multi kilobuck speakers painstakingly hand tuned by ear with super dead cabinets made of proprietary materials are life changing (again without data, n'est pas?, Wilson), and that tube amps, Class A, et al impart dimensional realism not found in well designed Class AB and Class D designs. And therein lie the ripoff artistes. The Paul McGowans, the Wilson Audios, the Nordosts, the Audio Technicas, and all the rest of those clowns who charge more for a pair of speaker cables than you need to pay for an entire edge of the art audio system.

So you can follow the objective data from sources like ASR, Erin, Archimago, et al or pay attention to what you read in the slicks. If you do the former you will experience the best of times, and if you do the latter the worst of times.

Your ears, your money, and your choice.

 

[sergeauckland]

Late stage capitalism - most industries are frauds beyond the production of basic foodstuffs, energy, direct health and social care. Everything else is superfluous.

I would exclude genuine artisanal artefacts like hand-made furniture or bespoke suits, both of which arguably are not necessary, but are designed to last a lifetime, if not handed down to descendants. Much that is hand made in that fashion can be objectively better made and definitely cheaper by mass production, but that's not designed to last 'forever', indeed obsolescence is essential to keep mass production turning over. I go for longevity over fashion every time.

As an example of something similar in the Audio business, Quad in the Peter Walker days ran their products for 10+ years and only introduced a new product when there was a genuine technical improvement over the predecessor regardless of fashion. They didn't survive against 'flavour of the week' competitors. Bristol cars didn't survive either, although happily Morgan are still going.

S

 

[Ken1951]

Imagine a world in which shoppers had a decent appreciation for science versus emotion (and I shall include ideology and rhetoric under the heading of "emotion"), and applied it to all aspects of their lives: I figure that they'd work less, spend less, a big chunk of the economy would collapse, and we'd be facing technological stagnation, albeit, maybe a happy stagnation. It would differ from Soviet-style central planning in the sense that it'd still be a market-driven economy, but there simply would be no real demand for hypercars, tube amplifiers, R2R DACs, fat cables, designer handbags, and the like.

Some of my favorite consumerism-themed science fiction tales include The Space Merchants by Frederick Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth, The Merchant's War by Pohl, and The Midas Plague, also by Pohl.

Those Pohl books are indeed marvelous. He certainly wrote some great stuff.

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

Late stage capitalism - most industries are frauds beyond the production of basic foodstuffs, energy, direct health and social care. Everything else is superfluous.

Never in history has the human race been subject to a bombardment that’s constant and unrelenting. We are all manipulated into buying far too much stuff we don’t need and are convinced we must have. HiFi is only a small part of it, kids so brand savvy they won’t wear unbranded clothes. They want trainers costing hundreds of $ or risk losing street cred. It’s a sad indictment of modern western society.

 

[egellings]

Do you consider taking less money from more people, is somehow better than taking more money from less people?

Say a far eastern company blatantly lies about power output on a US$200 amplifier which only produces a quarter of its rated power in real terms. But they sell 10 million amplifiers.

Or a US manufacturer who produces a US$3000 amplifier that sells maybe a thousand units, all of which do not meet their specs either.

Which is worse? The company that has ripped-off millions of customers who can least afford it, or the brand that has ripped off well heeled audiophiles with an already fat wallet? And why do we care anyway?

Rip off is rip off regardless of wallet thickness.

 

[Mr. Widget]

Rip off is rip off regardless of wallet thickness.

If a guy hand builds speaker cables with expensive machined terminations and beautiful construction yet have no measurable or audible improvement over standard mass produced cables and he honestly believes that his cables sound better, is he a fraud? Is he ripping people off?

This is not a science question. It is one of semantics and ethics.

While I personally feel far too many audiophiles waste money of cables, if it makes them happy to buy into the magic show how is that fraud?

 

[Purité Audio]

If a guy hand builds speaker cables with expensive machined terminations and beautiful construction yet have no measurable or audible improvement over standard mass produced cables and he honestly believes that his cables sound better, is he a fraud? Is he ripping people off?

This is not a science question. It is one of semantics and ethics.

While I personally feel far too many audiophiles waste money of cables, if it makes them happy to buy into the magic show how is that fraud?

No not a fraud just incompetent.
He should have verified they sound at least different, convincing some poor sap that they ’improve’ sq is fraudulent.
Keith

 

[dshreter]

I think part of this comes from the large gulf in experience between the hifi shop and your home. Decent hifi shops have rooms that sound good with speakers placed in the right location and that really unlocks the magic of a system. At most homes, the room is overly reflective, speaker and seating locations are subject to practical compromises, and the sound is not great.

Even amongst electrical engineers or others that understand science and objective methods, very few are knowledgeable about room acoustics in sound reproduction. So that magical experience which they know exists never makes it home. And it would seem SURELY there must be something they can buy to remedy the situation. Few realize their open plan living room and kitchen will never actually sound very good.

 

[egellings]

So long as the 'phile knows it's a magic (not science based) show and then decides to go with it, then I see no fraud. It's when there is no magic and the buyer believes there is that the fraud occurs.

 

[Mr. Widget]

No not a fraud just incompetent.
He should have verified they sound at least different, convincing some poor sap that they ’improve’ sq is fraudulent.
Keith

No, the builder has convinced himself that his product is superior in construction and in performance.

Delusional perhaps, but not incompetent... not to mention he is about to IPO the company.

 

[Purité Audio]

A simple unsighted comparison would have shattered that particular illusion hence incompetent and then fraudulent.
Keith

 

[Vacceo]

Do you consider taking less money from more people, is somehow better than taking more money from less people?

Say a far eastern company blatantly lies about power output on a US$200 amplifier which only produces a quarter of its rated power in real terms. But they sell 10 million amplifiers.

Or a US manufacturer who produces a US$3000 amplifier that sells maybe a thousand units, all of which do not meet their specs either.

Which is worse? The company that has ripped-off millions of customers who can least afford it, or the brand that has ripped off well heeled audiophiles with an already fat wallet? And why do we care anyway?

Dishonesty is dishonesty, no matter the scale or price.