How can I not accept that? Your perception is what is your perception. But of course I have the right to have the opinion that your perception is a result of many different factors of which the actual sound is one.
There's nothing wrong with this situation for me, and I, and I guess you as well, can happily live with it.
jd
Yes Jan, i have an amasing sound in my home. Many amateurs and professionals visit me and all of them learned something. A Radio Shack 1.5qmm cable is perfect, i know. Still i whould never use it in my system. I just got tired of arguing.
Well, maybe i should use it from now on and tune my system acordingly. Siegfried Linkwitz uses 6m runs of Radio Shack cable by the way. I think one problem with DIYers is that they are not prepared to pay a lot of money for cable and i can understand that. The recording, the acoustics and the speakers do more damage to a signal. What they do not understand is that exeptional sound comes from fine tuning because small problems can be very anoying in the long run. That has nothing to do with inteligence. If i had more time i whould start a thread that inteligence is the enemy of good sound. For me it has more to do with intuittion and experience and a god given talent that can not be measured or quantified. You can play the violin or not.
You can not learn that and i can not teach anybody. Good sound just happens or not. You can not force it by scientific scrutinity.
Well, maybe i should use it from now on and tune my system acordingly. Siegfried Linkwitz uses 6m runs of Radio Shack cable by the way. I think one problem with DIYers is that they are not prepared to pay a lot of money for cable and i can understand that. The recording, the acoustics and the speakers do more damage to a signal. What they do not understand is that exeptional sound comes from fine tuning because small problems can be very anoying in the long run. That has nothing to do with inteligence. If i had more time i whould start a thread that inteligence is the enemy of good sound. For me it has more to do with intuittion and experience and a god given talent that can not be measured or quantified. You can play the violin or not.
You can not learn that and i can not teach anybody. Good sound just happens or not. You can not force it by scientific scrutinity.
Well I hope that in the future I will have an opportunity to listen to your system!
jd
That puzzles me, too, especially because TG has certainly said nothing like that to me, and I can't see anything you've said that I haven't said already. Several times. You just write better than I do.
High End
The term High End definitely sounds better than than Mid Fi or The Low End. But the High End is not really about sound anymore even though it started out that way. I have been looking at a few mags again and I like all the amazing High End products out there, and the high prices don't bother me at all as I don't need to spend that much to have excellent sound. So who does? Obviously those who are buying these products, and there must be a lot judging by the number of products appearing in the expensive looking advertisements. The copy accompanying the lavish photography is equally lavish, but they are now running out of phrases to describe the sound improvements that these products will bring. Whether it is a CDP, cable, preamp, amp or speakers the language is much the same. Of course the audiophile is not fooled or swayed by any of this, or so they think.
But I digress.... It all appears to be about sound quality and the reviewers talk about the sound and the listening experiences they have, with ever more inventiveness. From memory the best phrase for describing how good a sound was is Ken Kessler's "I felt my DNA starting to unravel", (this whilst listening to the Ongaku tube amp), absolutely brilliant writing.
So if it isn't about sound quality what is it about? I think it is really about top quality finish, and visual style, in other words pride of ownership. I didn't include top engineering, as recently I spoke to a tech who had a very very expensive amp (absolutely gorgeous looking and very well put together) with blown op transistors and drivers. He explained that a lot of High End amps won't include any protection mechanisms as they ruin the sound. Well someone still thinks it is all about the sound. IMHO of course.
cheers
The term High End definitely sounds better than than Mid Fi or The Low End. But the High End is not really about sound anymore even though it started out that way. I have been looking at a few mags again and I like all the amazing High End products out there, and the high prices don't bother me at all as I don't need to spend that much to have excellent sound. So who does? Obviously those who are buying these products, and there must be a lot judging by the number of products appearing in the expensive looking advertisements. The copy accompanying the lavish photography is equally lavish, but they are now running out of phrases to describe the sound improvements that these products will bring. Whether it is a CDP, cable, preamp, amp or speakers the language is much the same. Of course the audiophile is not fooled or swayed by any of this, or so they think.
But I digress.... It all appears to be about sound quality and the reviewers talk about the sound and the listening experiences they have, with ever more inventiveness. From memory the best phrase for describing how good a sound was is Ken Kessler's "I felt my DNA starting to unravel", (this whilst listening to the Ongaku tube amp), absolutely brilliant writing.
So if it isn't about sound quality what is it about? I think it is really about top quality finish, and visual style, in other words pride of ownership. I didn't include top engineering, as recently I spoke to a tech who had a very very expensive amp (absolutely gorgeous looking and very well put together) with blown op transistors and drivers. He explained that a lot of High End amps won't include any protection mechanisms as they ruin the sound. Well someone still thinks it is all about the sound. IMHO of course.
cheers
Indeed. Which is exactly what you do in a blind test. Use your ears.
However you don't do this. Instead, you use your eyes, prior knowledge, biases, volume control, etc, etc...and your ears.
So what you "hear" is much more than just using your ears.
Jan if you look at the claims made by DBT testers it seems like almost nothing have an influence on SQ so I guess any mid-fi should sound just as good as any hi-end system if you choose to believe them.
OK I've listened to some 'hi-end' stuff that would be better described as mid-fi
but thats besides the point.
No Andre. A DBT proponent knows very well that lots of things have an impact on SQ. It's just that he would like to be sure that his preference is determined by only the SQ. It's exactly the claim of the DBT that what is tested is ONLY the SQ. So how can that have anything to do with mid-fi or low-fi? I am pro-DBT but I very well know the difference between a good sounding and a mediocre system.
Why is it that you, and before you others, always try to draw down DBT'ers as having no clue about SQ or music? It should be clear that DBT'ers have a strong interest in just the SQ.
jd
No that's not my intention but I've read DBT's where the listeners couldn't even hear differences between different speakers.
Either, it was a poor test setup or the listeners didn't have a clue what to listen for. These 'tests' then get quoted to prove a point. Remember the "all amplifiers sound the same" fairytale? I would rather do my own testing.
I´m sorry, but your claim isn´t supported by the facts.
BTW, it´s really a honest question, let me copy it:
"As this was the original statement:
"Originally Posted by Andrew Eckhardt
The most unhumorous part of the whole speaker wire debate is the 50 feet of 30 gauge wire the signal goes through inside the speaker."
i really don´t get it why the superposition principle makes it more reasonable."
if it´s just basic stuff than you should only need a few short sentences to explain the reasoning.
Wishes
Beside any other possible factors, i always thought that he was right in many respects.
But i wouldn´t blame only one party in the game, i´d think the responsibility has to be taken by all sides. Selfacclaimed objectionists doing test after test, that doesn´t meet the basic requirements; high end companies which are doing no controlled tests at all and reviewers/magazines as well.
And in general i´d agree that the goal to create better and better sound reproduction got somewhere lost in the last two decades (not always, some are still trying there best, but overall), but otoh it might be just a sign for a grown up business that selling and marketing is more important than shere reproduction quality.
Wishes
You are correct, Andre. ABX testing makes it almost impossible to hear the subtle stuff that separates good components from each other. This is for a number of reasons that I have documented. First, the type of test, itself and how the brain processes it. Second, the sloppy approach to the test by the founders of the test procedure, WHEN it helps to keep differences from being detected. And Third, by the statistics that are slanted toward type 1 errors and ignoring type 2 errors.
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