Totally Ridiculous....Auditions on YouTube!

@ozzy62

A difference is a difference no matter how bad the room or acoustics are. You might not hear a component or speaker perform at its potential, but if you can hear an improvement (or the other way) when something is swapped out, then it exists.

I think so too.

It’s unfortunate that since Google’s acquisition of YouTube in 2006 the highest bitrate offered has been 192kbs (2012/13).

You would have thought that it would been upgraded since then, but alas, no.

As of late 2022 only premium subscribers can get 256kbps, everyone else gets 128kbs.

Hopefully that situation will change in the near future.

Actually, things aren’t as bad as some might like to make out.

Some audiophile channels do offer high bitrate downloads which you can then use to compare any potential differences between playback equipment - or not.

In any case, for better or worse, a YouTube video will always carry considerably more weight than any article written by a reviewer.

That fact alone makes well recorded online demonstrations a serious alternative source of information interested in sound quality.

Even at the lowly 128kbps significant sonic differences can be easily heard through a pair of (hopefully) neutral loudspeakers or even better, headphones.

@the-audiophile-barista

I recently posted a video comparing two loudspeakers. The difference is very clearly audible. If you can’t hear the difference on that video, its not because of YouTube.
So yes, you can hear differences on YouTube.

Well, as they say, the proof is in the pudding.

Even on my smartphone speakers I can hear a clear difference between the Piega and the KEF. Using headphones only made it more obvious.

For better or worse the latter seems to have an elevated treble response.

That is an excellent video and I’d hope that everyone here can hear the difference between these 2 speakers.

I wish you the best of luck with your channel.

@the-audiophile-barista 

The interesting discussion is of course how much worth you should attribute to it, but claiming that differences cannot be heard is just factually wrong.

Of course it is.

To deny that there is an audible difference is disingenuous to say the least.

Maybe just blatantly dishonest.

As someone once said, the truth will set you free.

Perhaps that's the problem here, perhaps some vested interests here might prefer others to not be free?

As for how much worth we should give to these sonic differences, well that's always going to be a matter of personal choice.

However, it is generally accepted amongst most audiophiles that the evidence of your own senses is more valuable than that of someone else's hearsay.

I had a good firsthand experience of this only yesterday when I took my highly regarded PSB M4U1 headphones to compare against a friend's Philips Fidelio, Sennheiser 599 and HifiMan HE400 headphones.

The PSBs were close enough to the Philips and Sennheisers to be considered a matter of taste, but they were all no match for the HE400s.

Somehow, all of the reviewers I had previously read had forgotten to mention just how good planar magnetic headphones could be when it came to transient response and resolution.

@theaudiotweak 

Why hasn’t a magazine or reviewer taken this comparison style on since I started asking for this type of review 20 years ago? I asked several over the years

Everyone would have saved a lot of time, angst, and money if someone had the brains and balls to perform such a service to the audio community.

The audio press today is little more than a standing joke, a mere ongoing entertainment barely propped up by the odd scant technical data here and there.

I'd personally love to read about a direct comparison between the Q Acoustic Concept 500s, the Wharfedale Elysian 4s and the rather enigmatic Pearl Acoustics Sibelius.

Given the unwillingness of the audio press to upset potential advertisers, friends, dealers, manufacturers etc this is never going to happen.

Frankly there's rather more chance of the JFK assassination files being finally released.

The magazine writers themselves are not stupid, they must know that something needs to change but other than move to a YouTube/ online channel, they or their employers, seem to be frozen totally unable or unwilling to take a risk with the printed media.

I would guess that decades of a near monopoly in the printed media has resulted in a shocking level of risk aversion complacency which might now take its toll.

@mirolab 

If I were to then ask, "which color is better?", there's NO way you could assess that, because the photo is tainted by the light in the room, the camera used, and finally the monitor you are looking at.

That's a good point. Things can get very murky without a consistent sonic point of reference.

This has been previously referred to by the likes of Toole and Olive who talk of audios circle of confusion.

Their hope is that that the use of more consistent, better measured loudspeakers in recording studios will go a long way towards eliminating this circle of confusion.

Otherwise, vintage recordings made and mastered on vastly different monitors are likely to sound substantially different when played back on loudspeakers built today.

Thankfully when it comes to colour reproduction we already have a reference. International colour charts such as the British Standards Colour chart linked below.

I became aware of such charts after reading that Morrissey used such a chart to instruct his record company on the exact shade of green he wanted for the Smiths brilliant 'The Queen is Dead' album.

Having such a familiar reference always helps us poor humans whenever we are comparing things as we ourselves seem to be rather more inconsistent than most electronic equipment.

I would agree that you could say Speakers A are slightly brighter than Speakers B.   But SO WHAT!!  

That alone could be an enormous help to someone drawing up a shortlist for audition purposes.

https://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/10/audios-circle-of-confusion.html?m=1

https://britishstandardcolour.com/

@nonoise

Responses have gotten overly heated over such a small matter that it begs the question that there’s an underlying (latent) reason.

There is an underlying reason and you don’t have to have live at 221b Baker Street, London to discern it.

It is certainly no small matter if you are an audio equipment dealer.

Not small matter at all.

In any case, the gates of the dam have been blown wide open and most of us welcome these developments.

There’s simply no going back now, and I believe canny dealers would do well to get on this particular bandwagon before it leaves town without them.

Who knows, if the viewers like the sound of what they hear posted online by a particular local dealer, they might want to check it out in person for themselves.