Spending your life savings on high end audio has to be the only thing worse than a restaurant serving your idea of what everyone wants to eat.
I share Jack Caldwell's enthusiasm. I drive older cars, live in a rent controlled apartment, buy the cheapest cognac that I can 'enjoy', etc, in order to optimize my audio system, and to work in audio design. I don't know why anybody would want to criticize a person's interest in a subject, perhaps beyond the average. That is what it takes to make something 'special' and that is appreciated by some, perhaps not most here.
Audio seems to be a very peculiar industry. It has engineered itself a very comfortable corner of the commercial world, where price is inversely proportional to specification, and where its customers sometimes even know they are being sold a placebo, but fiercely fight against the wool being lifted from their eyes. How else could they fill their time?
The industry is 90% marketing, and driven by the spreading of 'memes', like cables having an effect on the sound, cables being directional, cables having to be be made of exotic materials, cables needing burning in. It's all good fun and very funny for people like me, but I personally know two people who don't have very much money and whose families most certainly suffer because of the husband's addiction - and it is not short of being an addiction like drugs or gambling. In other walks of life, consumer watchdogs exist to prevent people from being ripped off (even if willingly), but in audio anything goes.
Audio in general? No, the vast majority of audio is done just like any other consumer electronics. You're only talking about a minuscule and rapidly shrinking niche in "high fashion" audio.
I was listening to "The Wall" on the weekend at Higher than normal levels doing power test (using a power meter to see how much power the amp was actually drawing from the mains). I was surprised to notice vibrations seemingly coming from the floor.
Our unit has a suspended concrete slab floor, carpeted, all walls (internal and external) are rendered concrete block. This really surprised me considering the solidity of the unit, and more importantly the fact that it was only my MTM's playing (dual 5" drivers each in separate 5L volumes) nearfield F3 of 90Hz.
Also they are not on the floor! they are about 1M off the floor, have spike feet and are sitting on top of my old 3 ways which are sitting on the floor.
I think the track I noticed this on was another brick in the wall part one, probably around the "Daddy what else did you leave for me" part.
Anyhow I know this is completely anecdotal, and I wouldn't have joined in if I hadn't noticed this on the weekend (perhaps there's some cosmic significance in that 🙄 ) but I thought since everyone was taking pot shots at SY I'd join in 😀
Tony.
We build things more solid-like heah in Texas. You Third Worlders are in real trouble when the earthquakes hit.
You're not wrong about that SY! I suspect (but don't know) that there aren't any earthquake provisions in the building code here in Aus. It will only take one big one to change that though 
The fact that we are in the centre of a continental plate is the main reason we are not prone to earthquakes, but it certainly doesn't mean a big one couldn't happen. You only have to consider how much damage was done by the 5.6 magnitude Newcastle quake in 1989 (I felt that one in Sydney around 150Km away) and it is pretty obvious that our building standards don't include earthquake provisioning! The scary thing is the unit I'm in is unusually strong! Most of the stuff in Sydney is pathetic....
anyway back on topic. I've thought for a long time that monitoring of brainwaves of "experienced/trained" listeners and trying to correlate these to subjective impressions would be a very interesting study to perform. It is bound to be prone to interpretation bias, but it might just uncover some interesting phenomena, and could lead to a better understanding of what we hear, what we think we hear, and what our brain simply makes up!
Tony.
The fact that we are in the centre of a continental plate is the main reason we are not prone to earthquakes, but it certainly doesn't mean a big one couldn't happen. You only have to consider how much damage was done by the 5.6 magnitude Newcastle quake in 1989 (I felt that one in Sydney around 150Km away) and it is pretty obvious that our building standards don't include earthquake provisioning! The scary thing is the unit I'm in is unusually strong! Most of the stuff in Sydney is pathetic....
anyway back on topic. I've thought for a long time that monitoring of brainwaves of "experienced/trained" listeners and trying to correlate these to subjective impressions would be a very interesting study to perform. It is bound to be prone to interpretation bias, but it might just uncover some interesting phenomena, and could lead to a better understanding of what we hear, what we think we hear, and what our brain simply makes up!
Tony.
Of course SY is incorrect - it's not solidity that is needed for earthquake resistant buildings - maybe that's why he can't feel the bass in his feet (or else his B12 levels need checking?)
I don't think there's earthquakes in Ireland.
Tony, the issue of interpretation bias is an important one- however, like other forms of experimental error, there are straightforward ways to prevent it using basic experimental design.
Tony, the issue of interpretation bias is an important one- however, like other forms of experimental error, there are straightforward ways to prevent it using basic experimental design.
OK, then you don't have a Humor Fairy there. Or you once did and she was clubbed to death by a shillelagh-wielding leprechaun.
edit:
As a former Californian, I can attest that a 2.7 is the earthquake equivalent of near beer.
edit:
As a former Californian, I can attest that a 2.7 is the earthquake equivalent of near beer.
LOL, SY but could you use emoticons next time as I find most of what you say hilarious & I missed your attempt at humour this time?
Seriously, maybe you can't sense low vibrations from whatever source, earthquakes or bass vibrations?
Seriously, maybe you can't sense low vibrations from whatever source, earthquakes or bass vibrations?
2.7 is so wussy, they couldn't even call it an earthquake. It was a "seismic event." And the first in recorded history there. The ground there is apparently quite stable.
I've only been to Ireland once (Belfast), and any shaking of the ground we felt was attributed to political activity or our own consumption of local beverages.
I've only been to Ireland once (Belfast), and any shaking of the ground we felt was attributed to political activity or our own consumption of local beverages.
2.7! Here we had a 4.8 and only the observant noticed. I was passing a truck at the time and it felt like wind blow by except it was after I was in front.
How could a normal human even notice a 2.7?
I have been in L.A. when the hotel had free magic fingers for everyone for a few minutes. (Also when they celebrated the police officers being found not guilty in the Rodney King case.)
(For those who did not visit a U.S. motel in the 60's "Magic Fingers" was offered as a coin operated whole king size bed vibrator. It was advertised as a massage machine to relieve the back stress of long distance driving. The operational time for your money was long enough for couples to share the experience. I just came of age too late for a first hand report of the supposed improvement.)
Since the Richter Scale is logarithmic, the record-breaking "seismic event" in Ireland was 100 times smaller than the quake that you managed to survive.😀
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