How much does it cost to be an audiophile? • Hacker News Board

Re: How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

#61

Post by epsylon » Wed, Oct 31, 2012, 8:29 PM UTC

petrilli wrote: post #2

I would disagree with the initial premise that it's about the pursuit of "perfect sound reproduction". There's many people who do that, but that's not what the audiophile world really has become. It's about a bunch of hand waving and big checkbook spending to impress other audiophiles. Oddly, that describes a lot of "hobbies". Nobody who feels that a $4,000 power cable is important has any semblance of sanity remaini…

The best resource I ever stumbled upon on the subject is NwAvGuy's blog : http://nwavguy.blogspot.fr/2011/05/subjective-vs-objective-d...

Re: How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

#62

Post by davidcuddeback » Wed, Oct 31, 2012, 8:58 PM UTC

adamzochowski wrote: post #57

davidcuddeback wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not even audiophiles can distinguish much audiophile equipment from more mundane equipment in a blind test. That's a pretty broad generalization about a large group of people. Do you have any facts to back it up?

http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/03/audiophiles-cant-tell-the...

Let's start by considering the original source for the story. It comes from this forum post: http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/15412-post28.html

First off, that begs the question: how reliable do you consider a comment on a forum? Are you going to condemn an entire industry based on that? But that doesn't really matter. As I mentioned in my reply to mikeash, that's just not enough evidence. I'm not going to repeat myself here. You can read my other comment to understand why one piece of evidence isn't conclusive.

To address the Engadget article, it took one paragraph of that post out of context to make a narrow point about Monster cables. If you read the rest of the post (and probably the rest of the forum thread), it's clear that the author is not advocating that there's no difference between any stereo equipment. In fact, the thread that he's posting in is about how to choose the right loudspeakers. The paragraph that was taken out of context is just part of the author making a point to the other forum participants.

In another post (in the same thread), the author writes: "Some systems sound boring, some are absolutely alive (such as on large horn speakers). Others are polite, compressed, but accurate (Martin Logans, Quads). Then again, others are explosive and extremely good at creating 'illusion' of reality such as Wilson Wamm, and like speakers in the $50,000 to $125,000.00 bracket. They draw you into an altered state of mind (hypnosis)" [1]. It seems to me that he's saying he can hear the difference between speakers, which is exactly contrary to the conclusion that you're using his words to support. "Audiophile equipment" and "mundane equipment" includes more than just speaker cables.

[1] http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/15419-post31.html

Re: How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

#63

Post by Derbasti » Wed, Oct 31, 2012, 9:48 PM UTC

nathan_long wrote: post #59

Derbasti wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you get enjoyment out of expensive stuff and you don't need the money otherwise, what's the harm? Retail therapy works, sadly. I personally think that anything that gives you enjoyment and does not harm others is a good thing. Seeing that expensive tea is just as good as cheap tea will just make me depressed about our economy ;-)

I don't understand what you're saying. The harm is that you're losing money . Even if you're a complete materialist/hedonist and happy with that, this makes sense for you. The money you save on tea can be spent on music, or massage, or sushi. Why wouldn't you want that? It's also possible that you'll find you actually like the more expensive tea better, which is fine. Then you'll know it's money well spent. If you re…

Most times I value my time higher than my money and hence skip the research and enjoy my tea. And don't care one bit if there is a cheaper brand of tea out there that would be of higher quality.

Re: How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

#64

Post by mikeash » Wed, Oct 31, 2012, 10:15 PM UTC

davidcuddeback wrote: post #60

mikeash wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to adamzochowski's hilarious coathanger link, there's some even crazier stuff out there. A review of audiophile SATA cables (yes, the digital connectors that let your hard drives talk to your computer) quickly became infamous: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/dont-buy-into-the-expensi... I can't find the original, because the author took it down. Not because he realized he was wrong, but because he was…

Thanks for the links. They were entertaining. But I'm afraid they don't provide evidence to support the claim that audiophiles can't tell the difference between audiophile equipment and more mundane equipment. You've shown two anecdotes of audiophile reviewers making claims that a high-end digital cable improves audio quality. We both know that those claims are bunk. But picking a couple of anecdotes doesn't qualify…

My comment is really about audiophile equipment. I say that audiophiles can't tell the difference with much equipment in blind tests, because nobody can, because it makes no difference. There are plenty of other examples out there of crazy high-end digital cables like the two examples I showed. People do buy them. I was intentionally vague with the word "much", only meaning to point out that there's a lot of this stuff out there, not make any quantitative statement about just how much.

As for your goal of building a better stereo system, I'd say your best bet is to avoid any community that self-describes as "audiophile". I imagine you know enough about audio to know what makes sense and what doesn't, so see how people evaluate stuff and go for the people who use sane benchmarks. Avoid anybody who talks about stuff being "warm" or similar, especially in the context of changing digital components, and look for people who provide measurement of sensible numbers.

Re: How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

#65

Post by davidcuddeback » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 1:36 AM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #64

davidcuddeback wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the links. They were entertaining. But I'm afraid they don't provide evidence to support the claim that audiophiles can't tell the difference between audiophile equipment and more mundane equipment. You've shown two anecdotes of audiophile reviewers making claims that a high-end digital cable improves audio quality. We both know that those claims are bunk. But picking a couple of anecdotes doesn't qualify…

My comment is really about audiophile equipment. I say that audiophiles can't tell the difference with much equipment in blind tests, because nobody can, because it makes no difference. There are plenty of other examples out there of crazy high-end digital cables like the two examples I showed. People do buy them. I was intentionally vague with the word "much", only meaning to point out that there's a lot of this stu…

You still seem to be hung up on digital. Digital is only a small segment of audio equipment.

> I say that audiophiles can't tell the difference with much equipment in blind tests, because nobody can, because it makes no difference.

That only holds true for digital equipment, but not for analog. If that's your definition of audiophile equipment, then your position makes sense. But that doesn't fit my definition of audiophile equipment, and I think a lot of audiophiles would disagree, too.

> As for your goal of building a better stereo system, I'd say your best bet is to avoid any community that self-describes as "audiophile".

I appreciate you're advice. I mean no offense by this, but I'm going to pass. I'm just not going to avoid an entire group of people because some guy on the internet (who I've never met) has some unsubstantiated claims about that group of people.

Re: How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

#66

Post by nathan_long » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 4:25 PM UTC

Derbasti wrote: post #63

nathan_long wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what you're saying. The harm is that you're losing money . Even if you're a complete materialist/hedonist and happy with that, this makes sense for you. The money you save on tea can be spent on music, or massage, or sushi. Why wouldn't you want that? It's also possible that you'll find you actually like the more expensive tea better, which is fine. Then you'll know it's money well spent. If you re…

Most times I value my time higher than my money and hence skip the research and enjoy my tea. And don't care one bit if there is a cheaper brand of tea out there that would be of higher quality.

OK, I totally agree about the time vs money tradeoff, but in my case I was taking extra time to special order something which 5 minutes' experimentation showed was unnecessary. Same could be said for an audiophile looking for perfect speakers instead of buying whatever is at the store.