Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

tomshardware.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 153 posts

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

#21

Post by turnsout »

BurningFrog wrote: post #18
turnsout wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but if people believe they can hear a difference in their $1000 cables, and they enjoy purchasing and testing them, I'm inclined to let them enjoy themselves. I have a basic hi-fi setup with rational cables, and enjoy the cost savings, but to each their own. I feel the same way about wine. At a certain point, it's not really about objective improvements, it's about vibes and lore.

I also don't need to storm these people's homes and tear up their expensive audio setups. Life is hard, and if you find something to enjoy, I'll let you have it. That said, think there is value in putting out facts that let people make informed decisions and not spend tons of money on things that don't actually work.

Absolutely. I'm glad the linked article exists! Hopefully it can prevent someone who really can't afford it from splurging on expensive cables.

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

#22

Post by rsynnott »

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.

Magic cables are a _huge_ thing in the audiophile nonsense world.

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

#23

Post by troupo »

bayindirh wrote: post #14
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the (unstated) point of the article is that if banana/mud can’t be differentiated from copper wire then the audiophile/fool level cable is also nonsense, for example: https://www.audiotherapyuk.com/product/oephi-reference-inter...

I have always said and will always say the same thing: 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. For example: I run a pair of Heco Celan GT302s. They are not something exotic. 100W p…

> That set will nail any person who likes to listen to the music to its chair. That's the aim of a good system.

We all know that the aim of a good system is to blow your clothes off ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNZ-nEGHDKk

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

#24

Post by rsynnott »

turnsout wrote: post #13
anonym00se1 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If nothing else it shows those high end $1,000+ cables they buy are nothing but placebo effect.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but if people believe they can hear a difference in their $1000 cables, and they enjoy purchasing and testing them, I'm inclined to let them enjoy themselves. I have a basic hi-fi setup with rational cables, and enjoy the cost savings, but to each their own. I feel the same way about wine. At a certain point, it's not really about objective improvements, it's about vibes and lore.

The vendors of such snake oil often make specific, incorrect claims. Fraud is still fraud, even if the victim enjoys it.

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

#25

Post by bayindirh »

k2enemy wrote: post #20
bayindirh wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have always said and will always say the same thing: 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. For example: I run a pair of Heco Celan GT302s. They are not something exotic. 100W p…

> 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 headphones) only.

Another bad thing is, sound is so subjective and experience changes between brands a lot. For example: headphone "burn in" is considered an hallucination, it mostly is. However I have bought a set of RHA MA750i earphones which changed from "This is not what it says on the box" to "am I sure that these are the RHAs I hated" in a month, because it's sound character changed so immensely. No other headphone I had in my life did that.

So, everything is so muddy, subjective and unreproducible. When a room's organization or floor carpet density can change its frequency response, you can't control anything. Moreover, every human's ear profile is different, so you can't be sure that their ear is hearing that the same (e.g. one of my ears have a notch in its hearing curve around mid frequencies. we don't know why it happened).

If anybody wants to learn some of the tricks which can be done to get better sound, please watch Mend it Mark's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RJbpFSFziI

While the £25.000 price tag on that preamp is literal snake-oil level and the builder has the audacity to erase the model numbers of the ICs (and OpAmps) he uses, some of the methods he uses are legit and Mark explains them exceptionally well.

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

#26

Post by crims0n »

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-fi.

A few things I learned that may save someone time:

(1) Sound quality is in the medium, not the build. Speakers almost always sound better than a pair of cans (headphones), headphones almost always sound better than IEMs, IEMs almost always sound better than over the ears.

(2) The difference in sound quality between something that is a few hundred dollars, and something that is a few thousand is so small that "diminishing returns" as a phrase doesn't do it justice.

(3) The stack of DACs, EQs, preamps, and neatly managed RCA/XLR cables looks cool on your desk - but they take up a lot of space and cost a lot of money for something that sounds maybe 10% better than a pair of AirPods Max (provided you remember to turn on lossless in apple music, which I forgot to!)

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

#27

Post by ungreased0675 »

turnsout wrote: post #13
anonym00se1 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If nothing else it shows those high end $1,000+ cables they buy are nothing but placebo effect.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but if people believe they can hear a difference in their $1000 cables, and they enjoy purchasing and testing them, I'm inclined to let them enjoy themselves. I have a basic hi-fi setup with rational cables, and enjoy the cost savings, but to each their own. I feel the same way about wine. At a certain point, it's not really about objective improvements, it's about vibes and lore.

Yes, but there is a negative societal cost to allowing quacks, frauds, and hucksters to exploit the naive.

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

#28

Post by dylan604 »

RedShift1 wrote: post #12
porcoda wrote: post #8

This seems like a business opportunity. “Ethically sourced organic mud speaker wires for a clean, organic, pure sound.” /s

Forged under blue moon light for perfect electron alignment inside the wires.

Don't forget to use the full moon to recharge the quartz crystals in that analog gear

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

#30

Post by [deleted] »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #9
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 the (unstated) point of the article is that if banana/mud can’t be differentiated from copper wire then the audiophile/fool level cable is also nonsense, for example: https://www.audiotherapyuk.com/product/oephi-reference-inter...

[deleted]
Post reply on HN