The burden of proof has always lain with those making questionable claims, and mere anecdotal experiences do not meet that standard. As the late Carl Sagan said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” The interesting thing about MQA is that there was a consensus amongst the experts (in the fields of mathematics, communication theory and digital signal processing) regarding the fallacies presented by the purveyors of MQA. There was no requirement for any formal argument on the issue, yet the self-proclaimed authorities remained invested in their opinions long after the science was litigated, always falling back on personal observations as rebuttals.
The notion of "
there are unmeasured things that affect sound quality" when they push cables (USB, network, power, etc.) that should merely be built to specifications, is essentially indistinguishable from the arguments of anti-vaxxers. These authors don't subscribe to any of the principles of the science that they supposedly follow, but they instead just want to turn their sphere of influence into a regressive theocratic structure with them at the top of the heap. This pulpit that they have preached from is slowly beginning to show cracks in its supporting foundation and the claims proclaimed from thereon are being questioned critically.
There often arises the comment that if one doesn’t find a magazine informative then one must simply not read it instead of spending time criticizing it.
This conveniently overlooks the idea that the criticism isn’t aimed at the absence of information but is, in actual fact, aimed at the presence of misinformation and/or disinformation. There is a duty of sorts to challenge the propagation of disinformation because ignoring it eventually normalizes it, and this eventually leads to the Balkanization of ideas such that discussions based on common acceptable facts cannot occur — precisely because the disinformation propagates alternative realities based on wishful thinking.
Columnists (who don’t appear to live up to the definition of the term journalists) are more than happy to reside in their version of Narnia that has a tenuous connection to reality, but unfortunately, they lure a significant segment of today's audiophiles looking for some easily attainable sonic nirvana that they require to fulfil some need. They manage to get their online page views (and here we must not increase those by directly linking back to the site, because any publicity is literally monetarily beneficial) by running manufacturers' claims as is without any commentary on the *
facts* that disprove these claims. Recent articles could lead some readers to think that the magazines are now mainly in the business of writing merely advertorials and, that, is a far cry from journalism. Journalism has its roots in curiosity despite, sadly, much like the cat, curiosity having killed journalists (
Jamal Khashoggi and
Daphne Caruana Galizia to name but two).
Over the years the public has allowed the members of the mainstream audio press to turn their jobs into
sinecures. The rationale for this charitable statement lies in a paraphrasing of Stephen Fry, “
The only reason [members of the audio press] do not know much is because they do not care much. They are incurious. Incuriosity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.”
