Are we cursed geeks?

[CN211276]

https://www.howtogeek.com/being-an-audi ... -blessing/

[karatestu]

To quote the article "ignorance is bliss". In my case it definitely is.

[Fretless]

I disagree with some views from the article - mainly ' you can't be an audiophile on a budget'!

If you know what you're doing it is not difficult to get great, audiophile-pleasing sound out of affordable components.

The road to this experience is, however, relatively expensive due to the trial and error needed to get there.

[CN211276]

The article does not distinguish between music lovers and what can best be called equipment junkies. The former enjoy listening to a wide selection of music through any device hifi equipment being the best means to enhance the pleasure. The latter tend to restrict themselves to a limited selection of well recorded music and constantly change components in search of something. sounding better. We are not all the same and I am firmly in the former caogary with a Sonus system, DAB radio, Bose bluetooth speaker, ear buds and flash drives.

[CN211276]

Gear should be able to get out of the way of connection with the music.

A DAB radio is great for singing along to in the kitchen while I'm cooking. In an undemanding scenario, it doesn't do too much that gets in the way.

When I'm sat in the front room on an evening, and I want Jacqueline Du Pre to play the cello for me...I need something that can make that deep emotional connection, and that's not going to be DAB / Sonos/ Bose etc. The distortion, weak dynamics and lack of separation and detail are all going to piss me off very quickly.

It's difficult not to sound pompous about it, but more demanding listening and the desire for greater connection do require something better, imo. But once I've got that, I forget about the gear. It just sometimes takes us a long time to get to that point, and audiophiles often go off on wild goose chases along the way. Marketing departments and snakeoil sellers know this, and they are skillful at exploiting it.

[CN211276]

An audiophile is someone who wants the highest-fidelity audio

Go on other forums or go to hi-fi themed meetings and you'll see that many people spend a lot on audio equipment and sacrifice highest fidelity for looks. And the convenience of buying from their local dealers. Or the perceived cachet of owning certain brands.

And then there's cost. Amongst those that prioritise sound over looks / convenience / brand loyalty - there's a considerable proportion for whom price is more important than the highest-fidelity. So that for them it's a challenge to get the best sound for the pound. And having gotten something decent, they're happy to stop at that.


So any "enhancements" to a recording which may make the music sound more pleasing would not appeal to an audiophile, because it makes the reproduction less faithful to the original sound recording, or to what the creators of the recording intended audiences to hear.


What specific enhancements is he talking about? Talking in generalities means nothing.
There's a lot of music biz executives and technicians that don't have a fucking clue. With their over reliance on compression and echo machines.
Compression pleasing? To some maybe. Because it's easier to hear low level detail. To me I hate it.
Echoes may sound pleasing. But usually I'm happier with a cleaner non-echoey sounding recording - assuming the musicianship and vocals are good enough.

Invariably, this stuff is expensive! It's not uncommon for audiophiles with the means to spend literally thousands of dollars on equipment and room acoustics.

I agree with Fretless. Complete bollocks to say that Invariably it's expensive. Used and DIY kicks sand in the face of this statement.
I'd agree that it's common for audiophiles to spend thousands. However an important point is the possible investment aspect.
There's a huge difference in buying £10k speakers from a dealer that will be worth £1000 in 10 years time and spending £2000 on certain vintage components that will be worth £3000 to £10000 in 10 years time.

This is a running theme in the audiophile community, who often claim to hear things that are completely subjective and not measurable by any sort of equipment. So if we non-audiophiles can't hear the additional benefits those huge time and money investments bring, is that a bad thing?
He's talking bollocks! I've not come across any measuring equipment that can measure preservation of dynamics. Nor audio clarity. And yet these 2 things are very easy to hear in bake-offs where you have 1 component or system that's bad at these and 1 that's good.
How subjective is it when everyone in a room that either has integrity or no agenda agrees on what they heard in an AB demo?
Non audiophiles - in my experience - can very easily hear clear differences in equipment when there are clear differences.

What I have come across is eeejeeets with an agenda and no integrity that have come out with revisionist post bake-off rhetoric along the lines of "Well it's all subjective. Component MINE sounded better to me than component YOURS. Waffle, waffle, bullshit, bullshit"
With this shite being spouted sometimes by people that weren't at the bake-off.

Maybe you should start by having a friend help you run a small double-blind experiment using your setup and something less fancy. Can you reliably tell the difference?
I get stressed when put under such a situation. So that I'd be confident of telling A from B where there are large sonic differences. With medium to subtle differences less so, because stressed is not my natural listening state.
However Richard Dunn was very experienced at sighted and blind listening tests. So much so that he used to take the mickey out of hi-fi industry executives at What Hi-fi blind listening test sessions. Especially the ones claiming that their component was the best thing since sliced bread that were then unable to tell which was theirs in the blind test when Richard could.