What is wrong with audiophiles?
Something that has happened countless times happened again last night. Ordinary people over for a party listening to some music easily hear things audiophiles argue endlessly don't even exist. Oh, its worse even than that- they not only easily hear but are stunned and amazed at what they hear. Its absolutely clearly obvious this is not anything they ever were expecting, not anything they can explain- and also is not anything they can deny. Because its so freaking obvious! Happens every time. Then I come on here and read one after another not only saying its impossible, but actually ridiculing people for the audacity of reporting on the existence of reality.
What is wrong with audiophiles?
Okay, concrete examples. Easy demos done last night. Cable Elevators, little ceramic insulators, raise cables off the floor. There's four holding each speaker cable up off the floor. Removed them one by one while playing music. Then replaced them. Music playing the whole time. First one came out, instant the cable goes on the floor the guy in the sweet spot says, "OH! WTF!?!?!"
Yeah. Just one. One by one, sound stage just collapses. Put em back, image depth returns.
Another one? Okay.
Element CTS cables have Active Shielding, another easy demo. Unplug, plug back in. Only takes a few seconds. Tuning bullets. Same thing. These are all very easy to demo while the music is playing without interruption. This kills like I don' know how many birds with one stone. Auditory memory? Zero. Change happens real time. Double blind? What could be more double blind than you don't know? Because nobody, not me, not the listener, not one single person in the room, knows exactly when to expect to hear a change- or what change to expect, or even if there would be any change to hear at all. Heck, even I have never sat there while someone did this so even I did not know it was possible to hear just one, or that the change would happen not when the Cable Elevator was removed but when the cable went down on the floor.
We're talking real experience here people. No armchair theorizing. What real people really hear in real time playing real music in a real room.
I could go on. People who get the point will get the point. People who ridicule- ALWAYS without ever bothering to try and hear for themselves!- will continue to hate and argue.
What is wrong with audiophiles?
Something almost all audiophiles insist on, its like Dogma 101, you absolutely always must play the same "revealing" track over and over again. Well, I never do this. Used to. Realized pretty quickly though just how boring it is. Ask yourself, which is easier to concentrate on- something new and interesting? Or something repetitive and boring? You know the answer. Its silly even to argue. Every single person in my experience hears just fine without boring them to tears playing the same thing over and over again. Only audiophiles subject themselves to such counterproductive tedium.
What is wrong with audiophiles????
What is wrong with audiophiles?
Okay, concrete examples. Easy demos done last night. Cable Elevators, little ceramic insulators, raise cables off the floor. There's four holding each speaker cable up off the floor. Removed them one by one while playing music. Then replaced them. Music playing the whole time. First one came out, instant the cable goes on the floor the guy in the sweet spot says, "OH! WTF!?!?!"
Yeah. Just one. One by one, sound stage just collapses. Put em back, image depth returns.
Another one? Okay.
Element CTS cables have Active Shielding, another easy demo. Unplug, plug back in. Only takes a few seconds. Tuning bullets. Same thing. These are all very easy to demo while the music is playing without interruption. This kills like I don' know how many birds with one stone. Auditory memory? Zero. Change happens real time. Double blind? What could be more double blind than you don't know? Because nobody, not me, not the listener, not one single person in the room, knows exactly when to expect to hear a change- or what change to expect, or even if there would be any change to hear at all. Heck, even I have never sat there while someone did this so even I did not know it was possible to hear just one, or that the change would happen not when the Cable Elevator was removed but when the cable went down on the floor.
We're talking real experience here people. No armchair theorizing. What real people really hear in real time playing real music in a real room.
I could go on. People who get the point will get the point. People who ridicule- ALWAYS without ever bothering to try and hear for themselves!- will continue to hate and argue.
What is wrong with audiophiles?
Something almost all audiophiles insist on, its like Dogma 101, you absolutely always must play the same "revealing" track over and over again. Well, I never do this. Used to. Realized pretty quickly though just how boring it is. Ask yourself, which is easier to concentrate on- something new and interesting? Or something repetitive and boring? You know the answer. Its silly even to argue. Every single person in my experience hears just fine without boring them to tears playing the same thing over and over again. Only audiophiles subject themselves to such counterproductive tedium.
What is wrong with audiophiles????
Showing 25 responses by mahgister
I dont look for differences in sound for differences in sound... I dont pick differences for differences with no clues about the way music must be experienced...I educated my hearing with my music... I look for the music experience... I created it bit by bit with my ears and little money, and homemade solutions... I listen now music with a smile...I can appreciate differences in sound but without being obsessed by costly products anymore because of frustration and incapacity.... Takes the sound experience in your own hands and makes music happen... Dont buy anymore, think first....And think with your ears not only the brain... |
Good ! I will wait for your opinion and impressions tough.... I will give you mine about the Black S.G.... I am amazed by it, I dont know if it is because it is the 7th one in my room, or because this Black S.G. is more precise and costly, but it work wonders near my skull and computer.... Is it possible to add too much chocolate and cherries to the ice cream? It seems not at all, the sound imaging of each voices or instruments is more organically linked and separated at the same time... I for sure add a small "golden" plate to it. :) Thanks Geoff for the tip about the black S.G.... |
I dont want to play hardball, I feel guilty for your dissatisfaction with the experiment....I dont want it free because of that... And I already wait for an order from Russia with all that I will need ….Perhaps someone will grip to your kind offer... But I would like that you speak about your impression, even negative, about this shungite+ copper experiment.... :) It is more difficult to extract impressions from you than from my wife.... :) |
Then the experiment with it audiowise seems to be negative for you ? It is so cold coming from outdoor that I will use the S.G. in an hour... :) I dont want to profit from your disappointment in the shungite experiment, then I thank you for the offer, but I feel too guilty to accept that....It is because of my advice that you buy the shungite… And I am sorry for your disappointment ….By the way I dont understand that this "golden" plate gives me so much, and nothing in your case ? |
Ok I understand better your point Geoffkait...For sure being right or wrong about audio tweaks or science has nothing to do with money at all... But the lack of money push you to be creative, on the right or wrong track anyway, but creative you must be, if you want some sound quality results with your audio system... ( money for sure is not the warrenty of Hi-FI " per se" but money can be a more "economic" means to obtain it without too much work). And i must not reinvent the wheel also and i must listen to basic known facts of science for sure… But it is not a necessity to be a scientist and someone can use his own ears to obtain a relatively good results, without resolving any equations... For example to treat a room without a computer,or make empirically homemade cheap Helmholtz bottles... Sometimes, in a particular situation, the best possible, is, in someway, the enemy or in some mindset, the obstacle for the better... |
The lack of fund is not "an argument" it is a fact that you can use in your rethorical construction... I only said and want to say, that we can enjoy a relatively good Hi-fi system at any price, modulo homemade solutions... The obsession with sound is a compulsion without relation to the purse of someone... We can address this obsession with money only or creativity only , or with a mix of money and creativity together. |
There is 2 species of "audiophile" for me... The one with money and the one with no money.... The 2 look for a "good sound"...But the one with money may have no limits linked to their musical hobby or in some case their obsession with sound... Some in these 2 categories indeed are the same kind of people, obsessed, more with sound for sure, than with music... Some like me are relatively "poor" and dreamed yesterday, to owns tomorrow, a Hi-Fi system to enjoy music at last, without thinking : " this cd or files sounded bad, or worst than these other one I owns"... When your audio system is, at " his level of price", (there is 3 level) at his relatively optimal top possibilities, than you enjoy your music for the first time, all files does not have the same audiophile qualities but they all sound good ...I created my audio system without much money for that with all my homemade cheap cost solutions... The rest of the story is "obsession" if you go back to listening only the sound...I enjoy music without being obsessed by sound, interested by sound is not being obsessed necessarily... |
rvpiano Yes and at some variable degree we are all in the same situation, tentation, experience...My best to you... |
lol.... I know for a fact that my "illusory" ectasy is only that, a "real" illusion...But you know that seeing a "real" rainbow is the same kind of illusion that listening to an audio system and labelling that a"real" "musical experience"... Thanks then for the occasion you gives me to precise my "illusory and real experience" at the same times, for me illusion and reality participate in one another...Science begins with that fact and also ends with it...Like Art....The 2 are born from the free human spirit...Pick the one you are ready to pick: illusion or reality? Perhaps a mix of the 2? Naming this process of choosing, I will call it a continuous education of self... Blind test can be very interesting indeed...Not to debunk anything, but to educates ourself about ourself...But who need a blindtest to listen to Haydn like he has never been heard like that before, because of change in his audio room or system ? |
To reach the heart of music sometimes a high end sound can help...I listen now to Haydn quatuors, which I never listen to in the last years because the sound was acidic in my audio system and these works were never in my top list of first choice listening preference to begins with, like Bach or Scriabin for example... Guess what? For the last months, I reach my audiophile goal, with my homemade room treatment, and low cost homemade tweaks, and now I not only like Haydn quatuors but I love them , because the acidic sound is no more, and the holographic imaging and separation makes me able to go with the musicians individuals instruments playing and forget the sound... Labelling people " audiophile" with contempt, because we are scientist or musician or any other qualifications, is childish and superficial thinking...Each one of us is unique and different with his own history...My best to all brothers... |
I can entertain a reciprocal relation with a living subject, for example Boris my dog, and Boris my dog can entertain a relation with me...In the universal memory field of morphic resonance of Sheldrake (the living part of the information field) this relation is there transforming itself for eternity... The relation I have with a table or an amplifier does not transform itself for the eternity and is not reciprocal...This is a passive external relation that works only one side, it is an illusory relation...The relation with Boris is not illusory...It is a conscious individual... I can entertain a relation with my amplifier, but my amplifier cannot entertain a reciprocal relation with me, then this relation is not in the living part of the information field, and is not there primarily for the eternity... The morphic resonance field is in the living part of the information field, and is linked internally to the universal memory field directly...If you apply this theory directly to object like to a living consciousness you go too far away... An audio gear, amplifier, dac, etc cannot be connected to a consciousness the same internal way a living subject is... This is the difference between the morphic resonance theory of Sheldrake and magical thinking...And there is one... G.K. your interpretation of the theory of morphic resonance make it magical... The science fact behind this theory that must be verified by experiment is "the internal reciprocal link" between all living consciousness on earth and in the universe, be it me and my dog for example... With this interpretation I think that this theory is valid and falsifiable...Not with your interpretation...Things dont exist forever for eternity, you did, and all conscious being did....Hence things (pre-conscious being are not autonomous INDIVIDUALS) dont entertain internal reciprocal relation with you and me and our consciousness...We differ on that... Tweaks cannot be explained by morphic resonance theory directly in the first place...Not my tweaks at least... My best to all... |
Thanks millercarbon Very interesting voice of Alan Watts that was unknown to me but I read it a lot young...It was the first voice for me that made me thinking about my link with the world...My best to you.... |
Are you perchance related to Descartes? If yes, congratulations, Descartes is a real genius! But I am by no way related to him.... By the way if you are a " prof" you certainly had read Whitehead, or Husserl that settle that problem for good before me, and Goethe, reader of Spinoza, in a more profound way before them...I am, perchance, related to Goethe...For teo_audio I am afraid that you will be in the obligation to ask him...And my "strawman sense" also is tingling by the way.... If you cannot understand Husserl or Whitehead, try Charles Sanders Peirce, who also settle the problem perhaps not for good but in his own particular way ( he reformulate it more than he settle it)....But I doubt that any reader of Richard Dawkins can easily navigate between Husserl, or Whitehead or Peirce...It is not strawman argument of my part anyway, only my opinion, a stupid opinion perhaps, but anyway only an opinion or a philosophical prejudice...:) I wish you the best... |
«Oh, that! Why didn’t you say it earlier? Is is possible to have an object without any potential link to consciousness? Isn’t everything related on some level?» In the cartesian dualism there is a subject external to the things...Most materialistic science are born of this ideology...This ended after Max Planck...But some (Richard Dawkins for example) are slower to understand...:) No object is possible without a consciousness that are implicated with it and more than that always constitutive of it...All is related on another level yes...in pure mathematics, reality is totally revealed, it is a pure field of signification for the consciousness...I love mathematics not because I love to calculate, but because numbers are more real than a table for me.... And music is only sensible mathematics agitated by the heart for the ears... Sometimes I am a bit too enthusiastic, I apologize for my zealous philosophical rant...But it is more interesting than insults...I wish you the best Glupson... |
My apology and salutations Glupson... I only want to say that it is impossible to understand things at the end without some implication of the observer and the phenomenon... The eye-brain-mind for example and some phenomena... For example the rainbow is nowhere to be seen without this participation of the conscious eye... At another level in quantum mechanics an object totally external to a consciousness without any potential link to it, is a thing impossible to think of in quantum terms... By the way I am a heavy reader not a scientist.... |
There is nothing more wrong with audiophiles than which is already wrong also for other social category of human beings...For example audiophiles stick to their own prejudices and limited experiences ( I am one myself) and speak with their strong bias, but anyway most politicians, philosophers, and man at works in general act the same...To takes an other direction and walk on an another way ask, from us all, some self-effort ... The search for truth with good faith, the openness of the mind to new possibilities beyond what we know already, the capacity to differentiates a sound logical argument from a sophism, the self restrained attitude to prevent one self to use ad-hominem arguments are the main guide for an ethic of dialogue...Did I forget something for this recipe for a wise informative and, with the essential humor seasonnings, entertaining thread ? Yes, silence in front of blatant bad faith or stupidity is sometimes the best politic... |
An audiophile , this is a large encompassing concept for sure! For me a self educating process of hearing in the context of a self experimenting creative process of implementing material conditions for a better hearing....Upgrading bias to achieve this goal is the caricaturing process.... A true audiophile is born only when the man stop to buy in a compulsive way, and begins to listen through the conditions of his homemade room and audio system trough an increasing investigative and creative process toward improve S.Q.... No placebo effect explain or can even explain years of constant improvement, because of the creative investigation of all means to gain high quality....I am only interested in this creative process and the step toward it...Money cannot buy that....Money only buy the illusion of perfection, not the self educating process and joys of hearing by our owns experiments...If not, gives me a million bucks I will bought the best system in the world and called myself the greatest audiophile...For sure the assh… always pointed to his ass... I apologize for my last sentence, I speak about nobody in particular and only want to describe a general human attitude that is in all and each one of us....My best to all.... |