Audiophiles can't distinguish audio sent through copper, banana or mud • Hacker News Board

Re: Audiophiles can't distinguish audio sent through copper, banana or mud

#41

Post by phil21 » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 6:44 PM UTC

nkrisc wrote: post #3

ungreased0675 wrote: post #2

While I believe a significant portion of audiophile gear is unscientific nonsense, in this case it’s not clear how adding different materials into the circuit would add distortion or change the audio in any way.

I think that’s the point, that according to audiophile “lore” higher quality materials enhance the sound, thus mud should sound bad under that assumption, but they (apparently) can’t tell the difference.

I'm not sure it's a really great experiment though?

Outside of the hyper-crazies, no one is really stating that a 6-12 inches of conductor is going to make a giant difference in audio quality. Yes, I'm aware of the super-premium-gold-plated-platinum-encrusted 12" audio patch cords available. But almost no one really makes serious arguments those do anything.

I don't think running a 50ft banana is going to have similar performance to a 50ft properly-sized copper conductor though.

Where you get into the "debate" is the difference between buying a spool of 12ga stranded copper wiring from Home Depot, or buying the same thing only with de-oxygenated or whatever silliness some audiophile brand is selling for 10x the cost.

There are levels to things. I imagine copper speaker wire to be essentially fungible. Just size it to your length of run and max power needs. Calculate the total resistance for your wire run and done/done. All professional level sound installations for venues and what-have-you do this already.

This sort of test just seems to prove nothing in either direction other than provide bait for folks to point and laugh (or defend) in comment sections. Consider me baited, I suppose!

Re: Audiophiles can't distinguish audio sent through copper, banana or mud

#42

Post by crims0n » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 6:44 PM UTC

alexchantavy wrote: post #35

crims0n wrote: post #26

Probably going to make some people mad... but I went down the Audiophile rabbit hole last year before ultimately coming to the conclusion that it just isn't worth it. I understand the appeal, especially someone who values a nice piece of hardware. There is so much to choose from... DACs, DAPs, amps, fancy looking balanced cables in quality braiding, headphones with solid wood accents, IEMs that look straight outa sci…

Dumb question but what's the difference between headphones and over the ears? I looked it up but I'm still confused

Not a dumb question... I phrased it badly. I was referring to over the ears as something like Koss Porta Pros or similar.

Re: Audiophiles can't distinguish audio sent through copper, banana or mud

#43

Post by cbg0 » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 6:45 PM UTC

crims0n wrote: post #26

Probably going to make some people mad... but I went down the Audiophile rabbit hole last year before ultimately coming to the conclusion that it just isn't worth it. I understand the appeal, especially someone who values a nice piece of hardware. There is so much to choose from... DACs, DAPs, amps, fancy looking balanced cables in quality braiding, headphones with solid wood accents, IEMs that look straight outa sci…

For 3) I would argue all that stuff is where you should spend the least of your money. The biggest improvement comes from the speakers or headphones themselves.

Re: Audiophiles can't distinguish audio sent through copper, banana or mud

#44

Post by input_sh » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 6:47 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #29

The perfect speaker system is indistinguishable from having a live band in the room with you (when blindfolded). Can today's audio systems do that? How much money do I have to spend to get there?

The sound system isn't the limiting factor there, the recording itself is. If the input wasn't recorded with that in mind, no amount of money wasted on the outputting system can fix that.

Usually you only get some specially-crafted demo files that are capable of fooling you.

Re: Audiophiles can't distinguish audio sent through copper, banana or mud

#45

Post by AngryData » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 6:48 PM UTC

The biggest problem with audio hardware businesses is 95% of what they say about their products is marketing bullshit. It doesn't take a lot of money to get really good gear, if you put in the research, but its very easy to get ripped off if you don't, spending multiple times more than you need to get a worse result.

Just look at the boxes for half this stuff, quoting peak power for speakers instead of RMS, which is the equivalent of saying "This LED hits 50 watts for .00001 seconds during startup! Wow so amazing! (but don't look at the average 1 watt of output past that)"

The speakers, the cables, the AMPs, even digital source cables nearly all have 90% marketing budgets which drive up the price of many products without increasing quality at all.

Re: Audiophiles can't distinguish audio sent through copper, banana or mud

#46

Post by k2enemy » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 6:49 PM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #25

k2enemy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Up to a point, there's an easily distinguishable sound and detail difference between cheaper and more expensive gear, given that you don't cheat (i.e. put cheaper gear in expensive enclosure), but that difference indistinguishable well before these "true audiophile" level stuff. I don't understand how that is cheating. Isn't it a better controlled experiment if the equipment looks the same?

No, I mean "cheating at the market". Some companies sell literal snake oil for 10x the price, then they make the market unreliable for everyone, and nobody believes a company which really uses more expensive components can get better sound. If you want a good controlled experiment, create a literal black box, without any distinguishing features, or lose the box completely and give them an output (speakers or headphon…

Got it, thanks for the explanation!

Re: Audiophiles can't distinguish audio sent through copper, banana or mud

#47

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 6:49 PM UTC

wtallis wrote: post #33

kelipso wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the experiment done… You need every intermediate point between the wires to be low distortion too. As in, audiophiles cannot distinguish between distortion and distortion+distortion is not really an interesting result. You need source, digital to analog conversion, pre-amp, amp, speakers to have low distortion too, and you need the room to be appropriately treated too. I didn’t look at whether they did…

Did you really mean to say that audiophiles can distinguish between no distortion and some distortion, but cannot distinguish between more distortion and less distortion?

[deleted]

Re: Audiophiles can't distinguish audio sent through copper, banana or mud

#48

Post by bayindirh » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 6:53 PM UTC

k2enemy wrote: post #46

bayindirh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I mean "cheating at the market". Some companies sell literal snake oil for 10x the price, then they make the market unreliable for everyone, and nobody believes a company which really uses more expensive components can get better sound. If you want a good controlled experiment, create a literal black box, without any distinguishing features, or lose the box completely and give them an output (speakers or headphon…

Got it, thanks for the explanation!

Always! Don't mention it. :)

Re: Audiophiles can't distinguish audio sent through copper, banana or mud

#49

Post by onli » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 6:54 PM UTC

crims0n wrote: post #42

alexchantavy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumb question but what's the difference between headphones and over the ears? I looked it up but I'm still confused

Not a dumb question... I phrased it badly. I was referring to over the ears as something like Koss Porta Pros or similar.

Then I think I disagree with the specifics of that statement, or am I reading this wrong? The porta pros have to sound better than the average IEM, or think of the KSC 75 for another quite nice option in that space. Especially for the price. And I'm not even sure that speakers sound better than headphones most of the time.

+1 though for the thought that the medium makes the biggest part of the sound quality.

Re: Audiophiles can't distinguish audio sent through copper, banana or mud

#50

Post by lich_king » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 7:04 PM UTC

It's fashionable to dunk on audiophiles because many of their beliefs are silly and there are businesses that prey on them selling them "oxygen-free" cables and stuff like that. And some of their beliefs are auto-suggestion. But here's another way to look at it: some audio setups will sound better than others in your living room, because of a million variables you can't really control for. Maybe one manufacturer compensates for speaker characteristics in a different way and that accidentally works better with the speaker you have and the room you're in. Maybe it's the deficiencies of the amplifier that prevent resonance from a nearby bookshelf. Or a ceiling lamp. Or maybe they cause resonance that actually sounds good to you.

So yeah, audiophiles are in over their heads and tend to attribute near-mystical properties to individual electronic components, but the only tool they can rely on is trial and error. So if you can afford it, and if some of it seemingly sounds better... have fun? You're going to make mistakes, but that's not the end of the world.