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Matrix HiFi – Blind testing high end full equipment

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Re: Matrix HiFi – Blind testing high end full equipment

#51

Post by wodenokoto »

golergka wrote: post #45
rikkus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently, thanks to comments on Hacker News, I've learned to think about where money is being made. In this situation, there are companies competing for business in the studio market, where equipment needs to be functional (easy to move, install, plug stuff into, etc.), not alter the audio signal in a way which is undesirable and - generally - be worth the money in terms of real benefit. The home market is entirely d…

Your distinction works with Beats example (which are a great product for it's audience, by the way). But it doesn't really explain the HiFi speakers niche: Beats are not marketed at audiophiles, they are marketed at the market that doesn't care about flac files or good cables, as HiFi buyers do. Don't people who buy HiFi speakers and amps want to recreate the "original" sound? Why then they don't just buy the same st…

No they don't. Why, I never really understood.

I used to read a lot of studio audio magazines and reviewers would often say "these speakers are great studio speakers, but I would never use them at home"

Part of the explanation, I suppose, is that an album is supposed to sound as good as possible on $5 speakers and $5000, so the studio sound might not be the "optimal" sound

Re: Matrix HiFi – Blind testing high end full equipment

#52

Post by radialbrain »

spyder wrote: post #42
caramel wrote: post #36

What these sort of tests always ignore is that placebo effect really works. I refer to a recent study by the University of Manchester in which people who believed that they had better hearing aids objectively scored better on hearing tests. If you spend time and money on a nice high-end system, the love that you put into your setup will be returned to you as better hearing experience.

What placebo? It's a bind test.

I think that was his point. The test doesn't consider any placebo effects, whereas placebo effects may have an actual effect in real life.

Re: Matrix HiFi – Blind testing high end full equipment

#53

Post by rikkus »

wodenokoto wrote: post #51
golergka wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your distinction works with Beats example (which are a great product for it's audience, by the way). But it doesn't really explain the HiFi speakers niche: Beats are not marketed at audiophiles, they are marketed at the market that doesn't care about flac files or good cables, as HiFi buyers do. Don't people who buy HiFi speakers and amps want to recreate the "original" sound? Why then they don't just buy the same st…

No they don't. Why, I never really understood. I used to read a lot of studio audio magazines and reviewers would often say "these speakers are great studio speakers, but I would never use them at home" Part of the explanation, I suppose, is that an album is supposed to sound as good as possible on $5 speakers and $5000, so the studio sound might not be the "optimal" sound

I haven't paid much attention to the way studios work recently, but people used to record using flat response headphones (which make music sound, well, flat - great for hearing everything but not pleasant for music) and mix using Yamaha NS10 speakers, which were considered to be a good simulation of the average (slightly rubbish) kit that listeners might have.

If people say 'these are great studio speakers but I would never use them at home', perhaps they're using speakers designed to have a flat response.

Re: Matrix HiFi – Blind testing high end full equipment

#55

Post by [deleted] »

ghshephard wrote: post #38

People buy $10,000 handbags without any more functional purpose. Why not luxury electronics? Seriously, if it looks beautiful, and the main purpose is for people to feel good about it, and feel good about other people seeing it - is there any real difference between a luxury handbag (luxury watch) and a luxury HiFi system?

[deleted]

Re: Matrix HiFi – Blind testing high end full equipment

#56

Post by sjwright »

anentropic wrote: post #50
sjwright wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Headphones are great for minimizing issues of room acoustics, but they are not eliminated. Many people swear by various headphone amps and DACs, but the magnitude of difference these components could possibly impart are still pitiful compared to the improvements made possible by controlling the noise floor of the room you're listening in. This is why in any situation with ambient noise (e.g. planes, trains and open p…

you're not going to hear the 'room acoustics' on headphones surely. you may hear some ambient noise from the room if it's not sound-proofed, but that's not the same thing at all

Acoustic treatments also involve sound insulation. An acoustically poor room can also accentuate environmental noise through excessive reflection and transmission.

Re: Matrix HiFi – Blind testing high end full equipment

#57

Post by M4v3R »

ghshephard wrote: post #38

People buy $10,000 handbags without any more functional purpose. Why not luxury electronics? Seriously, if it looks beautiful, and the main purpose is for people to feel good about it, and feel good about other people seeing it - is there any real difference between a luxury handbag (luxury watch) and a luxury HiFi system?

The difference is, nobody is arguing that their luxury handbag can carry more stuff and than acheap handbag. On the other hand audiophiles will swear that they are systems sounds better than others.

Re: Matrix HiFi – Blind testing high end full equipment

#58

Post by corv »

wodenokoto wrote: post #49
corv wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Active noise cancelling headphones are hardly an audiophile's first pick. Almost all NC headphones introduce audible white noise. They are also ineffective at blocking voices in the background. Earplugs are significantly cheaper and more effective at blocking noise. That said, Bose does make the best NC headphones.

The point is that the sum of added and reduced noise is smaller in the noise cancellation than in non-noise cancellation, unless you are in an optimized environment.

The problem is that voices or crying babies will be more audible in a noisy environment when using active noise cancelling headphones because they only effectively attenuate low frequencies.

Re: Matrix HiFi – Blind testing high end full equipment

#59

Post by radiowave »

golergka wrote: post #45
rikkus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently, thanks to comments on Hacker News, I've learned to think about where money is being made. In this situation, there are companies competing for business in the studio market, where equipment needs to be functional (easy to move, install, plug stuff into, etc.), not alter the audio signal in a way which is undesirable and - generally - be worth the money in terms of real benefit. The home market is entirely d…

Your distinction works with Beats example (which are a great product for it's audience, by the way). But it doesn't really explain the HiFi speakers niche: Beats are not marketed at audiophiles, they are marketed at the market that doesn't care about flac files or good cables, as HiFi buyers do. Don't people who buy HiFi speakers and amps want to recreate the "original" sound? Why then they don't just buy the same st…

On the one hand, the difference can be explained like this: sound engineers want to hear the defects in the source material, home listeners don't.

On the other hand, as a home listener, if you choose a pair of speakers that transform the sound in some way which appears to sound better, how can you be confident that everything you'll ever listen to on them will actually suite this "betterness" that the speakers provide?

On the functional side, there's certainly not as many factors at play with speakers as with headphones, but there are a few: Smaller studio speakers sometimes are expected to be transported, and their surface finish being scuff-resistant is more important than the polished oak finish or whatever that the home listener market might want. Another case is that broadcasters are often very concerned with the support lifetime of the speakers, it's not unheard of for replacement drivers to still be available 20 years after purchase, for example.

Re: Matrix HiFi – Blind testing high end full equipment

#60

Post by CPLX »

golergka wrote: post #37

It always buffles me that people who test HiFi audio don't test studio audio equipment, and vice versa. These two categories of hardware try to achieve practically the same result, but just because they target different people (although in a very similar demographic), they are reviewed by different journalists for different magazines and seldom compared to each other. Why?

I started my career as a recording studio engineer, and was in fact a regular reviewer of professional audio equipment for a national magazine for years, so I fit one of the two groups you mention.

The short answer, honestly, is that the two groups have little in common. The community of people in pro audio are usually very pragmatic people with comprehensive experience and context with audio (i.e. they are musicians themselves, or experts in movie soundtracks, etc) and more to the point have excellent and relatively unbiased "ears" and listening abilities.

Basically any audio engineer with actual real life professional experience and success (i.e. not a "hobbyist") can name half a dozen crappy cheap things that sound way better than the high end alternative in their arsenal. Things like a $80 microphone that is just amazing on harmonica, or a 1980's solid state compressor that is perfect for male vocals, etc etc.

And as a side note, professional engineers almost always have personal audio systems with pretty standard off the shelf equipment. I have never once in my life met a person who makes their living off of pro audio who has a "hi-fi" system of the type you see in stereo magazines. They almost invariably make equipment decisions with their ears.

By contrast, the high end "stereophile" community seems to be more of an analogue to the fashion industry. They are obsessive about concepts, like hand winding of copper, or ground isolation, or Class A or tube amplification, and so on. They care about checking off a list of things that an audio system is "supposed to have" and brand names and so on. Typically listening is a confirmation event for them, rather than a means for making decisions. I couldn't speak to the listening chops of the journalists that cover these things, but the entire sector is based on fashion and spending money and its media reflects those values.

The high end stereophile sector is about a lot of things, but faithful audio reproduction doesn't appear to be the highest priority on the list.

For anyone who actually wants to invest in a really high quality system to listen to audio on without getting sucked into this money bleeding insanity I recommend going to a high end pro audio store (such as B&H in New York or WPS in Washington DC, say) with a budget in mind ($1-3k should be more than sufficient) and getting someone to help you put a system together that will impress your friends.

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