The Audio Critic

Avoid noise and distortion and all should sound as good as possible.

Its that simple. Many ways to do it. It takes focus and time mainly.

The rest is largely subjective. But nobody benefits from noise and distortion. Sometimes it is very subtle. Making a change changes that plus other subjective things. Hard to sort through....

Just focus on minimizing noise and distortion and it will all be OK. Need not cost much. However good full range performance on a larger scale will always cost more than on a smaller one.

Without having ever heard of this guy before, if the facts are as Larryi represents, then that should be all one needs to dismiss his opinion as untrustworthy. Not saying he is right or wrong, but such a person has no credibility. I'm not going to get into the great wire debate but I do have a quibble with Geoffkait's post

You do realize that many audiophiles DO hear differences in wire, no? The person that can't hear differences either (1) has a problem with his system, (2) has a problem with his hearing, (3) lacks experience in what differences to listen for, or (4) his system is fine but not revealing enough for him to discern the differences.

There are at least two other possibilities, Geoff:
1. The person who heard a difference was mistaken.
2. The "test" was flawed.

Before you flame my butt, remember I'm questioning the logic of the argument, not the truth of it. And per my comment above, I would not place any weight on statements made by someone whose ethics/honesty/integrity are as reported.

Mapman wrote,

"GEoff what you just said is logically consistent but logic alone achieves nothing without facts.

The fact would be that there are differences possible and that any individual may or may not hear it in any particular case. One case means nothing other than two different outcomes with two different people.

Now expand the scope to consider many similar cases, and then at least statistically there is a basis perhaps to draw some conclusion. Still does not prove anything though about any particular case. Only that something expected might be likely or not."

Mapman, as the kids say these days, What ev. I suspect intentionally or unintentionally you're over thinking it.

Rock, don't you know that nobody can demonstrate anything? If anybody could there would be no more audio debates as you suggest. This way we'll never run out of things to argue about. There would be no arguments about wire purity, cable geometry, conductor material, dielectric material, fuse direction and alternating current, Mpingo discs, the best material for audio feet, whether CDs are better than cassettes, whether a portable CD player really better than a high end player, is quantum mechanics a hoax? Things of that nature.

I don't think Aczel or anyone else ever said that "all wire sounds the same". I believe the statement was that any differences in wires can be attributed to their electrical characteristics of resistance, capacitance and inductance. In other words, wires with the same electrical properties will sound the same. In fact, TAC has a lengthy article on the huge changes in frequency response resulting from cables with different electrical characteristics.

While we're here, Aczel also never said all amplifiers sound the same. He said that amplifiers of similar design, ie, modern solid state, will sound the same when operated below clipping and level-matched to within some percentage of 1 DB.
So a 100-watt SS Bryston and an 8-watt 300B SET will not sound the same, even by Aczel's rationale.

At least that's how I remember it.