Waldrep "Who Can You Trust?"

[Sal1950]

Mark Waldrep's latest blog post, Who Can You Trust?
Looks like Mark is looking to stir the pot of High End marketers again.
I love when he gets in these moods. He always adds some interesting and insightful positions on things.
And pisses people off. LOL
http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=6345

 

[restorer-john]

Oh my goodness, I just spent some wasted minutes I will never get back on that 'streamthestudio' site.

I should have played with my cat or made a paper plane, that would have been more constructive.

 

[Sal1950]

Lately I've began to feel like there is a small but effective push-back against the high end BS peddlers. Places like this site and the rest have taken on momentum that they are beginning to felt. Small things like Atkinson showing up in various posts at CA to defend his position on MQA, Lowe vs Waldrep, Ethan vs McGowan, the large increase in members and action here, etc. Maybe it's just that being active on the pro-objectivist side I'm more aware of the goings on and think it's more than it is?
What do you guys think? Is our work on illuminating audiophiles to some of the ridiculous claims by the snake-oil peddles starting to be heard and have a tiny but noticeable effect? Audiophool land seems nervous to me.

 

[Ron Texas]

The short answer is nobody.

 

[Dogen]

Too bad “High Resolution” doesn’t include hi-res dynamic range in recordings. That would mean something!

 

[svart-hvitt]

Lately I've began to feel like there is a small but effective push-back against the high end BS peddlers. Places like this site and the rest have taken on momentum that they are beginning to felt. Small things like Atkinson showing up in various posts at CA to defend his position on MQA, Lowe vs Waldrep, Ethan vs McGowan, the large increase in members and action here, etc. Maybe it's just that being active on the pro-objectivist side I'm more aware of the goings on and think it's more than it is?
What do you guys think? Is our work on illuminating audiophiles to some of the ridiculous claims by the snake-oil peddles starting to be heard and have a tiny but noticeable effect? Audiophool land seems nervous to me.

I like to think ASR means something. For sure, Norwegian Hifisentralen.no contains several links to this site these days.

You cannot convince too many of the old guard, the cable guys, but there may be some light for those who are uncertain and younger people.

 

[Soniclife]

Lately I've began to feel like there is a small but effective push-back against the high end BS peddlers. Places like this site and the rest have taken on momentum that they are beginning to felt. Small things like Atkinson showing up in various posts at CA to defend his position on MQA, Lowe vs Waldrep, Ethan vs McGowan, the large increase in members and action here, etc. Maybe it's just that being active on the pro-objectivist side I'm more aware of the goings on and think it's more than it is?
What do you guys think? Is our work on illuminating audiophiles to some of the ridiculous claims by the snake-oil peddles starting to be heard and have a tiny but noticeable effect? Audiophool land seems nervous to me.

I hope so, but I'm not so sure. What will eventually work is if people like Amir just keep testing stuff, eventually there will be so many measurements out there they get hard to ignore, or more importantly miss. It used to be that your could hang out on hifi forums for years without hitting much in the way of measurements, you only saw subjective stuff. The more references on subjective sites to measurements the more people may question things long term, people don't change their mind overnight, all you can do is give them the information and wait.

 

[Sal1950]

You cannot convince too many of the old guard, the cable guys, but there may be some light for those who are uncertain and younger people.

Completely agree. The hard core subjectives are too entrenched in their beliefs. But the newer people can be reached, that's were the focus should be.

 

[JJB70]

I am not sure it even matters. Most people now recognise that you don't need expensive hi-fi to enjoy good sound and most of the market has shifted to BT speakers and soundbars. And I actually think some of those soundbars offer pretty good sound quality. The high end bubble is a micro niche that exists inside its own echo chamber and manufacturers need to make high margins from a small number of sales. As with any vocal group of obsessives the voice of hard core subjectivists is loud but to most people it is utterly irrelevant. 30 years ago it was different, when hi-fi systems were a mass market item but these days I don't think many are really interested.

 

[Blumlein 88]

So where are these AQ difference files and how did they manipulate them? Or do they show differences at mhz?

 

[Willem]

Which goes to show that stupidity and wealth are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Anyway, I did post on Audiogon for a while, but the comments became too abusive for my taste, not to mention idiotic.
Really high quality audio was never a very common thing, I think. Also, at the high end the sound quality has not improved dramatically. I own two Quad systems, my current one with Quad 2805 speakers (plus a good subwoofer with room eq) driven bij a Quad 606-2, and my first serious system from my student days, with Quad ESLs and a Quad 33-303 amplifier. The new system is better, but to be honest not dramatically so. The biggest improvement in my audio history was the introduction of digital audio when I bought my first Philips cd player in the early eighties. The recent addition to the system of a subwoofer with dsp room eq was another big improvement, but one that only made sense after digital had replaced vinyl.
For the vast majority of the population the need for any fancy stuff has disappeared. Budget disc players are excellent and so are internet radio, or the Chromecast Audio. A few hundred dollars will buy you an excellent amplifier, and even budget speakers are much and I mean much better than they used to be. So what matters now is to incorporate that 'good enough' technology in a convenient life style system for people who are also happy to spend pretty big on their new IPhone every other year or so. Sonos got it dead right. Get their new 2x125 watt AMP, put it out of sight, stream music and radio from Spotify, Qobuz,TuneIn etc, connect it to your tv screen for great tv sound, and add a pair of decent speakers, or even superb ones like the Harbeth M30.1, and you are all set. So what is there to agonize about? For many, the answer is: nothing.

 

[Ron Texas]

Don't worry about what others are doing. Just be concerned about your own values and stick to them!

 

[Dialectic]

Don't worry about what others are doing. Just be concerned about your own values and stick to them!

That's not a viable approach. The market for high-performance audio equipment has drifted toward the grotesque. Someone has to push the industry toward making devices that are well-engineered and reasonably priced.

Thanks to Amir, Thomas, the late Siegfried Linkwitz, Mark Waldrep, Ethan Winer, and many others over the years for doing that.

 

[Ron Texas]

That's not a viable approach. The market for high-performance audio equipment has drifted toward the grotesque. Someone has to push the industry toward making devices that are well-engineered and reasonably priced.

Thanks to Amir, Thomas, the late Siegfried Linkwitz, Mark Waldrep, Ethan Winer, and many others over the years for doing that.

There's lots of good stuff around at reasonable prices. I agree that all on your list of people have been a great help. Whether they can change an entire industry which has lost it's sanity, I don't know. They can certainly point those of us with an objective outlook in the right direction. I have found some nice surprises here, like the interest in JBL Pro or that transparent DAC's can be had for around $100.

 

[Ron Texas]

If Amir's measurements have demonstrated anything, it's that there's not much well-engineered equipment at any price! If one buys an audio product without seeing the measurements first, one is likely to have bought a dud, as I did in buying the Mytek 192 DSD to serve as a headphone amp.

You are saying the cup is half empty. I say it's half full.

 

[sergeauckland]

If Amir's measurements have demonstrated anything, it's that there's not much well-engineered equipment at any price! If one buys an audio product without seeing the measurements first, one is likely to have bought a dud, as I did in buying the Mytek 192 DSD to serve as a headphone amp.

'well engineered' doesn't necessarily mean State of the Art. To me, it means adequately engineered to meet the published design specification. Overspecification isn't Good Engineering, it's Marketing or specsmanship.

What Amir's measurements show is that there are lots of perfectly decent products around at sensible prices, a few superb products, not all expensive and a few duds, not necessarily cheap. This is a superb service to have available.

S

 

[Sir Sanders Zingmore]

You are saying the cup is half empty. I say it's half full.

An engineer of course, would say the cup is too large by a factor of 2

 

[mansr]

So where are these AQ difference files and how did they manipulate them? Or do they show differences at mhz?

The 1-metre AQ Tower has a 14 dB dip at 47 MHz:

 

[Blumlein 88]

An engineer of course, would say the cup is too large by a factor of 2

Or that it has a 100 % margin of safety.

 

[Sal1950]

The question is, why the hell are they so entrenched? Is it that the embarrassment of having spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this worthless crap would be too devastating? Or is it internalized buyer's remorse? There can be few people wealthy enough to buy a $100,000 power cable who are also stupid enough to believe, contra all the evidence, that it makes the sound better.

That about covers it. It's just human nature to not be willing to admit when you chose a very expensive product that turns out to be crap.

So where are these AQ difference files and how did they manipulate them?

That was my question also

Which goes to show that stupidity and wealth are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Anyway, I did post on Audiogon for a while, but the comments became too abusive for my taste, not to mention idiotic.

You have to kind of pick your site and keep the language at a reasonable level.
But I have been banned at WBF and a couple others for simply putting out a objective point of view in a thread. I've been warned at Head Fi for some very minor attempts to be objective. I find the most tollerant at CA (now Audiophile Style), Chris will allow a debate to go on as no one gets out of hand. I am concerned what the moderating team he's bringing in soon will be like, things may change there.
I do vastly enjoy the times when things like the AQ video come along, a time you can most effectively shine the light on the bogus marketing many manufacturers will stoop to. Great opportunities to make the newer people scrach their heads and really question what's being fed to them.