Count Dacula
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"Different" isn't better.
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Message to golden-eared audiophiles posting at ASR for the first time...
- Thread starter Sgt. Ear Ache
- Start date
MattHooper
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It is if you want “ different.” 
Count Dacula
Senior Member
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Not necessarily better...
So true.
Fair enough, but with the understanding that wanting distorted or non linear sound is ok for pleasure listening but not so much for use in a studio where one want to know the truth about how a source sounds.It is if you want “ different.”
Not if High Fidelity is your goal.It is if you want “ different.”
Feel free to enjoy any distortion that pleases you.
Accurate sound reproduction of the artists/studios creations has always been the rai·son d'ê·tre for home music enthusiast. (true audiophile)
A sad side result has been the advancement of the audiophool clans magazines/websites and the "sounds good to me" excuse for marketing extremely
overpriced products that distort the source with claims of sounding "better".
A load of BS.
Yeah, it's the claim that gives me heartburn. It's not that there is a moral law associated with more or less accurate reproduction, it's that they lie (often knowingly) by insisting that their less accurate reproduction is somehow more accurate, less distorted, and more "true to the music." They never seem to be willing to own their favored distortion for what it is.
Lying is proscribed by everything from the Ten Commandments to Hammurabi's Code.
Rick "fidelity: tell the truth" Denney
MAB
Major Contributor
Some people just want different, even in many cases when it is a demonstrably worse difference that would have been clear had measurements and data been made available, taking advantage of our inability to actually measure differences with our ears. The result is they tend to spend gobs of money to get what they perceive is different.
Other people want to spend as little money as possible to obtain a difference (performance cost/performance, whatever metric of value is appropriate for that customer). These folks are blocked by their inability to use their ears to judge actual differences and are instead confronted by a sea of misinformation.
Both groups suffer from the inability to measure actual differences by ear in any reasonable way. Both groups get misled by many manufacturers and vendors, knowing that the consumer has no reasonable way to judge truth. I personally feel for the second group, who are often only looking to get their money's worth with respect to differences, what is better, and what is worse. Everybody is owed truth.
Well stated.......
So I think we can distill the advice to newbies down to something like:
People at ASR tend to view good sound as (for electronics) fidelity to signal, and speaker output conforming to Toole and Olive's research. If you like the sound distorted, less accurate, or prefer some other speaker presentation, that's fine, but own it, don't pretend a) lesser fidelity is greater accuracy or b) there must be something wrong with these standards because of your personal preferences or c)you can hear something that can't be measured. There's no need to rationalize your tastes.
Most of us also believe that the way to test for *strictly audible* differences is by properly executed and level-matched double blind procedures, or through taking measurements and recording a result above audible thresholds. The fact that you noticed a difference outside of these conditions simply isn't evidence of a difference in signal quality at your ears. Even if it is a difference in the signal, as opposed to some sighted bias, it is likely to be a difference in amplitude rather than something more subtle.
Finally, all of the above mistakes are simply human. No human being is so "experienced" or "trained', or "sensitive" as to be able to make sighted comparisons objectively.
update: edited for completeness and links
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Many of us do own that. There’s a whole thread of us owning it.
The truth is the truth...... As Neal deGrasse Tyson notes, just because some do not accept science, does not prevent it from being true.
I like it because it is noisy, lacks fidelity and expensive --- but it is fun to twiddle and fiddle with.
To me, the most exciting thing these days is how cheap it is now to listen to absolutely mind-boggling resolution as we play our favorite music these days. I sit here in my office at work, listening to beautiful jazz from my PC (Spotify) on a 15 year old DAC (Arcam rPAC) with Shure SRH1540 cans. It sounds fantastic, and I find it questionable when we obsess about "more, more, more" resolution, SINAD etc etc.
I guess for some it's the thrill of the chase. Getting there spoils the fun.
MAB
Major Contributor
Most of us have some amount of upgrade-itis.
I do for sure. I want to know what I'm trading my time and energy for.back when vinyl was the only game in town , everyone tried to make it sound as good it possibly could
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I don't know what "resolution" means, and have never seen it, or SINAD mentioned in any monitor review by Amir. I am interested in flat frequency response, low distortion and minimal phase issues.
