I've done that a couple of times but don't worry, I'm alright now.Spending $500 on speaker wires is pretty nutty too, but thousands of people do that.
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Stereophiles editor Jim Austin publicly disagreeing with Kal Rubinson
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Sheesh. I'm in the 100ft spool of 12AWG for $50 class.
you are in the right class. I have a cable and interconnect graveyard in a spare room. It represents an horrific waste of money. I've given a fair few sets away in the last few years and it hasn't even made a dent in the pile.
Right, and it's not like he wasn't told this already: what audience does he think he's preaching to here? People on ASR for awhile -- with a few reliable and ever-ready exceptions -- tend to 'get' the well established roles of subjective reports vs measurements in 'audio science' reviews. They're aware that electronics and loudspeakers are different. That the best we can do re: speakers, because they do sound different, is relate statistical measures of sound preference to measurements of output. Meaning some preferences for speaker sound will be 'outliers', *even in a blind test*. That not all measured differences can be heard. But some gear CAN be predicted to sound identical from measurements alone. Therefore any 'preference' between models in that case is not due to the inherent sound. And they need not witter on about it.
But hey, if he insists on murdering innocent pixels with Hooperian chin-strokers about the danger of discounting the ineffable subjective (about speakers! about speakers!), there's no effing rule against it here. Pity.
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It's a problem when the round ones roll off their stands, though.
For some classes of gear....you can. And you were told THAT already, too.
D
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I’ve admitted here many times that I really like, and preferred, my flat-but-uneven dispersion speakers. Nobody gives me crap about it. They do throw stereotypes around of the alleged typical buyer of my speakers (like in the B&W above), but they don’t condescend to me about it. I mostly get a laugh out of the stereotyping, there’s some truth to it.
Personally, I think B&W (and Paradigm) deliberately emphasize treble frequencies to make their speakers stand out as “revealing” in a showroom. No doubt this has been researched in some way and works for them. But I found if you sit and listen for more than a few minutes, it’s annoying as hell. Probably could be EQ’d out with little harm done, since they tend to be well-put together designs with little distortion. And I do suspect that most high-end manufacturers are working with the assumption that their audience is old men. Because it is. Just like this conversation.
Personally, I think B&W (and Paradigm) deliberately emphasize treble frequencies to make their speakers stand out as “revealing” in a showroom. No doubt this has been researched in some way and works for them. But I found if you sit and listen for more than a few minutes, it’s annoying as hell. Probably could be EQ’d out with little harm done, since they tend to be well-put together designs with little distortion. And I do suspect that most high-end manufacturers are working with the assumption that their audience is old men. Because it is. Just like this conversation.
I believe that the change of the Stereophile editor back in 2019 gradually turned the magazine into a new direction. I don't know if it has anything to to do with the change of ownership and redefined goals, but I noticed that there were a fewer articles I may even have a cursory interest in. A big portion of somehow objective information has been replaced by pseudo intellectual/philosophical rants. Some of the reviews sounded like chemically induced and they slowly became dominant.
For me it is not about Kal or Jim but about what is the real end game of this, once relatively decent magazine
For me it is not about Kal or Jim but about what is the real end game of this, once relatively decent magazine
mhardy6647
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Well -- in fairness, certain forms of chemical induction are completely legal in some (US) states nowadays.
[EDIT: Perhaps] more than relatively decent at one time.
STEREOPHILE: High-end monthly audio magazine beginning 1962
Stereophile is a monthly magazine that focuses on high-end home audio equipment, such as loudspeakers and amplifiers, and audio-related news, such as online audio streaming. It continues to be published.
worldradiohistory.com
At least stereophile is honest about the content. In many ways, it is a bit like an auto magazine or motorcycle magazine - mostly entertainment with a few specs. Fun to read and look at the pictures, but perhaps not something to base a purchase decision.
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You mean like "Juggs"?
I'm sensing a lot of hostility from you. I get this impression based on your continued reliance on profanity to express yourself, and the personal attacks directed at me. You say that you are a biologist, but I've honestly never met any research professional who communicates in this manner. Perhaps you misrepresented yourself, are studying to be a biologist? Undergrad?
JSmith
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Not my experience outside of the "professional" environment... how many research professionals do you know socially? Also, do you realise that that question is far ruder than "effing"?
D
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Ad hominem?
Science can explain it perfectly fine. The prediction is the only problem.
But it doesn't really matter. If a specific sound wave hits your ear, it hits your ear. Your mood or preconceived notions might alter how you respond to the stimulation, but it has no way of changing the sound wave itself. No matter how complex you are as a person, you will always have a baseline criterion for sound wave alterations that are guaranteed to trigger a certain response in you personally. Some alterations will give different responses in different people, but a lot of them will give the same response in practically anyone.
I bet I can predict how you will respond to hearing an amp clipping brutally, or a standing wave that makes all your furniture resonate
Yes, I do agree that how a person hear the sound and perceives it does not alter the sound wave in anyway. As for the baseline criterion. It differs between person. There will be people who have similar criterion, but there will be those who have different baseline. Many factors affect this baseline. Of course, there are certain patterns to behaviour.
Regarding prediction how one will response to ampl clipping or furniture resonate, nope you can't. Feel free to perform this experiment. I can assure you that you will get very different response. Do not assume that everyone knows how an amp clipping sounds like. Don't be surprise if some people think its some sound effects or equipment failure or simply something intentional.
Lastly, I think I will just stop here because its going Off topic. Cheers.
Maybe things are different in your part of the world. I've just not seen it.
Nope, just trying to reconcile what I'm reading. This is an anonymous internet forum. People can claim to be the anyone. He stated he is a biologist, but he also stated earlier that he didn't know that he was a natural scientist. Also, I would have expected someone experienced in a research field to be less defensive of the idea that measurements can completely replace empiric listening tests. And then there's the profanity.
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