@charles1dad
@nonoise
Because all these listening impressions are done knowing the brand/price/looks.
Unless you are doing double-blind, quick-switching, level-matched comparisons, it is scientifically impossible to thoroughly compare the sound of two different products. So Michael Furmer’s story of how he heard a difference in his $18,000 speaker cables when he was in another room working while another person wired them up, cannot he taken as there truly being a difference, even if he believes so.
I could make my own speaker cables for $100, give a BS description, charge $5000, and I gaurentee you if I do a demo at an audio show, I will get positive reviews and maybe even a customer or two.
There is no way the Benchmark DAC could remove the soundfield information of being recorded in a church, the placement of the musicians, etc. Those comments easily show that it’s all in his mind. You can talk about tonal balance, distortion, noise floor, channel separation, etc., but saying it removes the church walls is just ridiculous.
And again, the Benchmark is proven to be not cold, regardless of sighted listening impressions. Being cold is a rolled off bass (or emphasized treble; kinda the same thing if volume matched), and the Benchmark is dead flat. It could only have rounded off bass if your speakers were made with tube amps in mind, very few exist today (I only recall seeing 1 brand), but maybe if your speakers are from the 60’s.
I hate to repeat this, but a speaker at an AES myth busting talk gave a story of how he tricked people into thinking a McIntosh tube amp was playing when in fact it was a solid state, and the people described it differently than the same solid state amp it was supposedly being compared against. If doctors have to give sugar cube placebos to make sure drugs work, you can bet our ears can be fooled in what we are hearing (just like our eyes were fooled with the color of the dress a while back).
@nonoise
Because all these listening impressions are done knowing the brand/price/looks.
Unless you are doing double-blind, quick-switching, level-matched comparisons, it is scientifically impossible to thoroughly compare the sound of two different products. So Michael Furmer’s story of how he heard a difference in his $18,000 speaker cables when he was in another room working while another person wired them up, cannot he taken as there truly being a difference, even if he believes so.
I could make my own speaker cables for $100, give a BS description, charge $5000, and I gaurentee you if I do a demo at an audio show, I will get positive reviews and maybe even a customer or two.
There is no way the Benchmark DAC could remove the soundfield information of being recorded in a church, the placement of the musicians, etc. Those comments easily show that it’s all in his mind. You can talk about tonal balance, distortion, noise floor, channel separation, etc., but saying it removes the church walls is just ridiculous.
And again, the Benchmark is proven to be not cold, regardless of sighted listening impressions. Being cold is a rolled off bass (or emphasized treble; kinda the same thing if volume matched), and the Benchmark is dead flat. It could only have rounded off bass if your speakers were made with tube amps in mind, very few exist today (I only recall seeing 1 brand), but maybe if your speakers are from the 60’s.
I hate to repeat this, but a speaker at an AES myth busting talk gave a story of how he tricked people into thinking a McIntosh tube amp was playing when in fact it was a solid state, and the people described it differently than the same solid state amp it was supposedly being compared against. If doctors have to give sugar cube placebos to make sure drugs work, you can bet our ears can be fooled in what we are hearing (just like our eyes were fooled with the color of the dress a while back).