How many times have some of us sat with friends discussing wine only to discover that they claim that they cannot tell the difference between diffent reds/merlots/cabernets, etc. Many times I found it was because they never really cared or tried to determine the differences in the first place. To many, a red is a red. And mostly because they haven't really ever tasted a really good wine in the first place. So all wines taste the same to them. Same is true for audio equipment and sound. I don't try to tell people what they like. That to me is the very definition of a snob. I try to find out what they know first. Do they have any knowledge or experience with sound, musical instruments, etc.? Do they know what a real cymbal, violin (yes, they all sound different), piano, really sound like or are they used to digitized musical machine sound. Do they know depth, dimension, soundstage? real questions. When demostrating equipment, one must make sure that the gain level is absolutely the same so that diffenences can't be simply caused by a change in volume or gain. My Daughter is a classical dancer, and I played classical violin, oboe, sax, etc. I was first chair violinist. I know what the instruments are supposed to sound like. I know what a real concert live sound like. When I demo equipment, I use her young ears to help me determine differences. I play music with dimension, soundstage, multiple instruments and depth. I ask her where the artist are on the stage, how deep in her mind the soundstage is, etc. Then I change the piece of equipment and make sure the gain is the same and play the same music and we listen deeply. She has become very good at determining differences or no differences as it were. What I don't know is what the recording engineering and sound engineer actually recorded and mastered. Which may be totally different that what I expected. My point is, do the people we are dealing with actually know what they are suppose to hear in the first place. many times one must be educated in this. Wine, cars, music, audio, etc. Everything is a science. I have been part of and have also done demonstrations where simple changes in interconect cables were made and there were as I am sceptics in the crowd and we heard dramatic differences in sound. Apples to apples. proper costs point in auditioning equipment, making sure the gains are matched before critical listening and agreeing on what we are trying to identify. Just grabbing someone off the street for a quick demonstration may not be an accurate way to do it either. My questions above still apply. Do they know what they are listening for? Are they raised on compressed digital music from drum machines and digital reproduction of music instruments? So that when they hear the real thing, they prefer the artifical sound over the real because that is all they know? Have they very heard a sound stage or dimensions in reproduction? I take comments about cables, and differences in equipment with a grain of salt. I don't the person talking and don't know their background enough to determine if they can tell the differences. Time with that person or back and forth about known equipment, cables, sound, or music gives us common ground. Better yet. Going to a store, sitting in the same room, listening to the same equipment and music and comparing notes, works wonders. But, cables unfortunately do make a difference. Until cable manufactures make cables with zero impedance over the frequency range, there will be differences. And yes, they are getting close with the extremely expensive cables that have electronic R-L=C filter networks designed to cancel the inductance and capacitance impedances over a frequency range. Stupidly expensive.
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