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Great article about "Audiophoolery"

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I really enjoyed reading that. Thank you. Somethings I totally agreed with and some things went against my personal experience. But all in all a well written piece. I can see where it could invoke some response out of some here and I only hope if it goes down that path that it stays meaningful.
 
"If a device has noise and distortion too low to hear, a response sufficient to capture the entire range of audible frequencies, and time-based errors small enough to be insignificant, then that device will be audibly transparent to music and other sound passing through it."

If true, then the stereo system in question would sound like a real instrument, in your room. But it doesn't.
 
JohnVF said:
"If a device has noise and distortion too low to hear, a response sufficient to capture the entire range of audible frequencies, and time-based errors small enough to be insignificant, then that device will be audibly transparent to music and other sound passing through it."

If true, then the stereo system in question would sound like a real instrument, in your room. But it doesn't.
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No, it would sound like the signal that was encoded on the source media. As soon as you record using a microphone you lose vector data and reduce it to a single scalar number. That can't (currently) be undone.
 
RayW said:
No, it would sound like the signal that was encoded on the source media. As soon as you record using a microphone you lose vector data and reduce it to a single scalar number. That can't (currently) be undone.
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Hello Ray,

Good to see another person that understands vector and scalar information as applied to our hobby and the reproduction of music. :thmbsp:

In the article the author goes to some length about timing errors.

The human auditory system is able to resolve timing differences of less than 10 uS and some tests have indicated less than 5 uS.

This is part of the set of audio cues that our auditory system uses to recreate an illusion of the original music, based on our auditory memory.
 
"A related legend is that cables and electronic devices must be “broken in” for some period of time before they achieve their final highest fidelity."

Yes! I love this guy!
 
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RayW said:
No, it would sound like the signal that was encoded on the source media. As soon as you record using a microphone you lose vector data and reduce it to a single scalar number. That can't (currently) be undone.
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His points:

"Only four parameters are needed to define everything that matters for audio reproduction: Noise, frequency response, distortion, and timebased errors."

Are incredibly vague, but he makes it out to be a simple thing to accomplish all of these at levels that exceed the point where you can't hear them. And he also paints a broad brush stroke across all audiophiles- attacking first the typical 'audiophool' stuff like wire and whatnot, but then acting as if basically anything is audiophool material. Yet if you go into an actual studio- they are loaded with very expensive, high performance gear that often attempts to do just what he says is audiophoolary (is that a word? Ah, who cares, I've been drinking).

He says stuff like:

"As an audio pro, I know that $1,000 can buy a state of the art power amplifier. So it makes no sense to pay, say, $17,000 for an amplifier that is no better and may well be worse. "

Yet, studios are loaded with multi-thousand dollar amplifiers. Bryston, Chord, you name it. They also have VERY expensive monitors. And they aren't wired with lamp-chord, though he says they might as well be. So who infected all those Bryston customers in the studios with the audiophool virus? This must be some potent stuff. Even worse if they have Chord amps or use Meitner ADC/DACs (which are apparently studio-standard- sorry Fisher- and which go to great lengths to eliminate jitter below the levels that Ethan here thinks are necessary- those phools).

And as much as he cries for science- he doesn't list a single reference for any opinion he spouts off. He's no better than the cable companies in that.

I guess, basically- even though I agree with about 85% of what he says, including his comments on vinyl LPs, he sounds like a another know-it-all a-hole. "I'm going to save you from yourself". Thanks but no thanks, Ethan. I'm capable of enough rational thought to get me through the incredibly complex task of listening to music at home with a beer.
 
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Vinyl records and vacuum tube equipment are very popular with devoted audiophiles who believe these old school technologies more faithfully reproduce subtle nuance. There’s no question that LPs and tubes sound different from CDs and solid state gear. But are they better? Not in any way you could possibly measure. Common to both is much higher distortion; LPs in particular have more inherent noise and a poorer high frequency response, especially when playing the inner grooves. I’m convinced that some people prefer tubes and vinyl because the subtle distortion they add sounds pleasing to them. Adding small amounts of distortion can make a recording sound more cohesive, for lack of a better word. Recording engineers sometimes add distortion intentionally to imitate the sound of tubes and analog tape, and I’ve done this myself. Simply copying a song to a cassette tape and back adds a slight thickening that can be pleasing if the instrumentation is sparse. But clearly this is an artificial effect, not higher fidelity.
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That's gonna leave a mark.
 
He manages to be mostly right about tube gear and Vinyl and still it should not matter. I switched from reference gear to a Scott tube integrated. For me its simply a matter of taste, I actually like the way the Scott sounds. Its my preference, nothing more. Alot of aspects with in this hobby of ours is subjective and highly personal. I will say though that I have yet to visit a recording studio that uses lamp cord for speaker wire and free bee out the box RCA's to connect the gear, and I have been to a number of recording studios before. Just saying.
 
"But are they better? Not in any way you could possibly measure."

The notion that a lot of our claims just can't be quantified seems profound sometimes, even though it shouldn't be, at all.

Before actually taking a microscope to an internet newsletter, I realized that it's just an internet news letter! When you have to write about such a huge broad topic in a small space you're going to end up making claims that could stir up some controversy. Lack of citations make me feel like I'm reading something that was written purely for entertainment purposes and not academic use.

One thing the author did great was use very general and vague terms and concepts. While that translated to readability problems over here on our end it means that the regular laymen can, for the most part, understand what he's writing. Hey, maybe this will help convince a regular consumer somewhere not to buy all of that retarded expensive wiring.
 
Regardless of which side of the fence you’re on, this article is about sound quality issues, not build quality issues.

It stands to reason that if you own or are working in $15 million studio you don’t want to use lamp cord with Radio Shack connectors or cheap gray unshielded interconnects. You don’t to want spend hours tracking down a problem with one of them when there are 600 yards of cable in the studio. You don’t want to use electronics that will malfunction or fail either.

Is there a difference in sound quality? ….I don’t know.
 
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As the OP, I agree with a lot of what the author of the article says. However, this is about a hobby. As with any hobby, if the hobbiest wants to invest in expensive or inexpensive, functional or esoteric (?) equpment, or anthing else, that's his or her prerogative. It's a hobby, it's for enjoyment, it's what filps the switch for the hobbiest. On the flip side though, if one hobbiest hears a difference with teak cable elevators and another hobbiest doesn't, that's fine too. It's an individual taste issue. There should be no "looking down their noses" from either or any side. Enjoy the music! Just sayin...
Mike
 
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