audiofooled
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So, if all of the other industries aren't obliged to be honest, why would audio be any different?
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At 15:07, "The point is with design and styling there is no best, there's only different."
So, if all of the other industries aren't obliged to be honest, why would audio be any different?
Source 2007 email correspondence: https://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/1107awsi/index.htmlQuote 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.
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.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.
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.Late stage capitalism - most industries are frauds beyond the production of basic foodstuffs, energy, direct health and social care. Everything else is superfluous.
Those Pohl books are indeed marvelous. He certainly wrote some great stuff.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.
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.Late stage capitalism - most industries are frauds beyond the production of basic foodstuffs, energy, direct health and social care. Everything else is superfluous.
Rip off is rip off regardless of wallet thickness.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?
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?Rip off is rip off regardless of wallet thickness.
No not a fraud just incompetent.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, the builder has convinced himself that his product is superior in construction and in performance.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
Dishonesty is dishonesty, no matter the scale or price.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?