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What is wrong with audiophiles?

Something that has happened countless times happened again last night. Ordinary people over for a party listening to some music easily hear things audiophiles argue endlessly don't even exist. Oh, its worse even than that- they not only easily hear but are stunned and amazed at what they hear. Its absolutely clearly obvious this is not anything they ever were expecting, not anything they can explain- and also is not anything they can deny. Because its so freaking obvious! Happens every time. Then I come on here and read one after another not only saying its impossible, but actually ridiculing people for the audacity of reporting on the existence of reality.

What is wrong with audiophiles?

Okay, concrete examples. Easy demos done last night. Cable Elevators, little ceramic insulators, raise cables off the floor. There's four holding each speaker cable up off the floor. Removed them one by one while playing music. Then replaced them. Music playing the whole time. First one came out, instant the cable goes on the floor the guy in the sweet spot says, "OH! WTF!?!?!"

Yeah. Just one. One by one, sound stage just collapses. Put em back, image depth returns.

Another one? Okay.

Element CTS cables have Active Shielding, another easy demo. Unplug, plug back in. Only takes a few seconds. Tuning bullets. Same thing. These are all very easy to demo while the music is playing without interruption. This kills like I don' know how many birds with one stone. Auditory memory? Zero. Change happens real time. Double blind? What could be more double blind than you don't know? Because nobody, not me, not the listener, not one single person in the room, knows exactly when to expect to hear a change- or what change to expect, or even if there would be any change to hear at all. Heck, even I have never sat there while someone did this so even I did not know it was possible to hear just one, or that the change would happen not when the Cable Elevator was removed but when the cable went down on the floor.

We're talking real experience here people. No armchair theorizing. What real people really hear in real time playing real music in a real room.

I could go on. People who get the point will get the point. People who ridicule- ALWAYS without ever bothering to try and hear for themselves!- will continue to hate and argue.

What is wrong with audiophiles?

Something almost all audiophiles insist on, its like Dogma 101, you absolutely always must play the same "revealing" track over and over again. Well, I never do this. Used to. Realized pretty quickly though just how boring it is. Ask yourself, which is easier to concentrate on- something new and interesting? Or something repetitive and boring? You know the answer. Its silly even to argue. Every single person in my experience hears just fine without boring them to tears playing the same thing over and over again. Only audiophiles subject themselves to such counterproductive tedium.

What is wrong with audiophiles????
128x128millercarbon
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
You feelin’ ok, millercarbon?

This particular rant seems a tad unhinged :)

I find it awfully strange that you keep accusing “audiophiles” of denying the subjective experience approach - “If I believe I heard it then it’s true!” - when of anything that is the norm.  It’s why audipholes get so much grief from non-audiophiles.

And, sure lots of people can be absolutely certain they experienced something.  That’s how the human mind works.  Benny Hinn gets a lot of mileage out of it - fills stadiums!   Feeling certain isn’t necessarily the best guide to reality.  And btw, many people skeptical of expensive cables and the tweakier side of high end audio do indeed have experience with what they criticize.  

But, hey, you are on a roll so: take the floor.
;-)

I take it from the emoticons that you're joking. But seriously, set aside the serial straw man arguments, the fact is its not being sure of hearing- quite the opposite. Its second-guessing, doubting, discounting and explaining away what you're hearing.

Normal people, when they hear something the first thing they do is try and describe what it is that they're hearing. Which admittedly tends to be a challenge. Normally people haven't really given much thought to things like location, harmonic development, dynamics, let alone subtle stuff like palpable presence, extension, grain or glare. Normal people would never say they are getting listener fatigue from all the grain and glare. What a normal person WOULD say on the other hand is, "I could listen to this all night!" Or, "It sounds like she's RIGHT THERE!"

The audiophile, on the other hand (and yes I'm generalizing - but not by much!) would spout nonsense like sound staging is all in your head, then waste the next 15 minutes going nowhere yammering on about the necessity of implementing double-blind oversampled acoustical isolation yada yada. Meanwhile the normal guys reaction is to ask how old is Jennifer Warnes- and is she married. Which actually happened. The women, they usually just cry, or close to it.

So I'm trying hard to think of a time when an audiophile truly enjoyed listening to my system like that. Because with normal people it happens all the time, over and over again, for going on like 30 years now. For damn sure it was nowhere near as good in the 90's as now. Yet in all that time I can think of maybe one audiophile who reacted like a normal person. Just sat there as if under a spell. "Please play another. Please," he said. Although maybe in hindsight he wasn't really an audiophile. He'd just gotten into it. Not enough time for audiophilia nervosa to develop into fully fledged pseudophile derangement syndrome. 

I don't know. Why I'm asking. But, think of it: audiophilia nervosa. Unlike pseudophile derangement syndrome, I didn't just make that one up. Its been around a while. A very long while. Which has got to make you wonder ... wait for it... - What is wrong with audiophiles?!
mahler123
3,409 posts
 
I am impressed that the OP has friends that hang out with him in his listening room and critically have a listen.  My listening room is a relatively small bedroom upstairs that is basically off limits to everyone.  Our family room has a midfield system that my wife turns the sound down to inaudible if company is around
glupson
7,842 posts
 
A number of recent posts are discussing/defending the fact that even casual non-audiophile visitors can be impressed by "soundstage" or similar phenomena. Does anyone even doubt that some really good system in a well-thought-out room will be noticeably better in every respect than something much less fancy? I would bet that I would be seriously impressed by soundstage and many other details, if I heard millercarbon’s system.

However, the original post was a little more pointy than that. It was about those casual non-audiophile listeners being impressed by changes in cable elevator positioning. Well, that is a little harder to swallow.

Maybe we should ask ourselves "what is wrong with casual non-audiophile listeners".
testpilot
972 posts
 
Six people in a room, when the cable elevators are removed, 3 hear a difference and 3 don't.  Who's right? 
glupson
7,842 posts
 
That is an impossible situation. It is always all 6 that hear it. One way, or another.
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