Les creative edge,
Well said!!!!! I concur. The "purist" audiophile approach is just a flawed ideal and like other sacred things, some use it to extort or out of ignorance. I'm personally not "holier than thou" as I was there once myself but once the blinders where removed, it became a more enjoyable, less expensive, and a more intelligent world! |
Wikipedia. It's in print, sort of, so it has to be correct. Right? ;-) |
Ralph, I think that you missed the gist of the article. It was not an analogue versus digital, which sound better? article; but rather and article concerning why added distortion, by way of phase manipulation and harmonic enhancement/restructuring, has pleasing effect that many qualify as sounding "better". I have said it once (actually many times here and on Audio Asylum) and I'll say it again: In a nut shell, my position is that: The one-shot trial and error substitutions that are the current basis of the audiophile doctrine can be replaced by predictable, systematic, repeatable, scalable and defeatable operations.
The power of convolution processors, linear-phase filters, sampled reverbs and spatial matrixing is much more compelling and efficient than power-cord, speaker-cable, interconnect, cleaning solution, fuses, isolation/coupling devices, tonearm, cartridge or even source component swapping.
A simple way to test this approach for free is to listen to two different mastered versions of the same recording or to an original version compared to a re-mastered edition. Even XRCD's and K2HD CD's are products of re-mastering and see how much difference the process makes as compared to cable or fuse swapping, for instance. |
Yes I was once one of them audiophile types. It was out of some hope I could rectify all sonic anomalies if I just spent more money. Though I have done a lot to build a nice system and I have educated myself on speaker placement and room treatment. I also am now more of an audio enthusiast, trying to enjoy my gear and learn more about the fun of the hobby. I still want to get better performance but I realize perfection is IMPOSSIBLE. I just want to play around with my gear, maybe buy new stuff of even vintage gear from time to time and then enjoy listening to my music and watching movies. |
Interesting thread.
My theory is there are lots of ways to make good soup.
Also thank God not all soup tastes the same, no matter how good it may be. |
