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What Matters and What is Nonsense

I’ve been an audiophile for approximately 50 years. In my college days, I used to hang around the factory of a very well regarded speaker manufacturer where I learned a lot from the owners. When I started with audio it was a technical hobby. You were expected to know something about electronics and acoustics. Listening was important, but understanding why something sounded good or not so good was just as important. No one in 1968 would have known what you were talking about if you said you had tweaked your system and it sounded so much better. But if you talked about constant power output with frequency, or pleasing second-order harmonic distortion versus jarring odd-order harmonics in amplification, you were part of the tribe.

Starting in the 1980s, a lot of pseudo scientific nonsense started appearing. Power cords were important. One meter interconnects made a big difference. Using a green magic marker on the edge of a CD was amazing. Putting isolation dampers under a CD transport lifted the veil on the music. Ugh. This stuff still make my eyes roll, even after all these years.

So I have decided to impart years and years of hard won knowledge to today’s hobbists who might be interested in reality. This is my list of the steps in the audio reproduction chain, and the relative importance of each step. My ranking of relative importance includes a big dose of cost/benefit ratio. At this point in the evolution of audio, I am assuming digital recording and reproduction.

Item / Importance to the sound on a scale of 1-10 / Cost benefit ratio

  • The room the recording was made in / 8 / Nothing you can do about it
  • The microphones and setup used in the recording / 8 / nothing you can do about it.
  • The equalization and mixing of the recording / 10 / Nothing you can do about it
  • The technology used for the recording (analog, digital, sample rate, etc.) / 5 / nothing you can do about it.
  • The format of the consumer recording (vinyl, CD, DSD, etc.) 44.1 - 16 really is good enough / 3 / moderate CB ratio
  • The playback device i.e. cartridge or DAC / 5 / can be a horribe CB ratio - do this almost last
  • The electronics - preamp and amp / 4 / the amount of money wasted on $5,000 preamps and amps is amazing.
  • Low leve interconnects / 2 / save your money, folks
  • Speaker cables / 3 / another place to save your money
  • Speakers / 10 / very very high cost to benefit ratio. Spend your money here.
  • Listening room / 9 / an excellent place to put your money. DSPs have revolutionized audio reproduction
In summary, buy the best speakers you can afford, and invest in something like Dirac Live or learn how to use REW and buy a MiniDSP HD to implement the filters. Almost everything else is a gross waste of money.
128x128phomchick
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Prof wrote,

being in to high end audio since my teens

having obsessively listened to high end systems of all price brackets for decades

having many friends in the reviewing side and thus constant acquaintance with extremely expensive well regarded gear

having reviewed speakers myself

having had many great speaker systems through my room (from MBL to flagship Thiels to Von Schweikert, Audio Physic and many others...)

having access to high end cables and tweaks,

attending all the audio shows many other audiophiles attend,

having a career in post production sound

almost daily hearing the difference between live vs recorded/reproduction of those sounds,

using my own recordings of my instruments and familiar voices to evaluate speakers and compare to their live sources...

having designed a major reno of my room for great sound in consultation with acousticians

and on and on...

>>>>>Right. And on and on with more Appeals to Authority. Hel-loo!
prof
3,486 posts
 
Geoff.  For someone who so often mentions fallacies, you'd at least have a running start at being coherent if you actually looked them up and understood them.  

(There are valid appeals to authority, and fallacious appeals to authority - neither of which I indulged in).

Go ahead: look up the formal structure of the fallacious version of appeal to authority.

Now make yourself a nice bowl of popcorn, and entertain yourself for hours trying to find that form presented in what I wrote.  

I'm rooting for ya!
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
The room is half the sound. One must take that into consideration, otherwise, no equipment is going to sound good in a poor room.
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,477 posts
 
@brianlucey 

Interested to hear your thoughts on the Cranesong Solaris and what DAC do you use for monitoring?
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 

prof
Geoff. For someone who so often mentions fallacies, you’d at least have a running start at being coherent if you actually looked them up and understood them.

(There are valid appeals to authority, and fallacious appeals to authority - neither of which I indulged in).

Go ahead: look up the formal structure of the fallacious version of appeal to authority.

Now make yourself a nice bowl of popcorn, and entertain yourself for hours trying to find that form presented in what I wrote.

I’m rooting for ya!

>>>>How do I know when you’re using an illogical argument? Whenever your mouth moves. Your statements I quoted are ALL appeals to Authority. There’s no such thing as a valid appeal to authority, silly. That’s kind of the whole point. If there was a valid appeal to Authority any yahoo on the internet could claim he wins the debate by simply declaring he was a PhD in Theoretical Physics or he has the support of a PhD or whatever. But that’s not true. It’s not logical. He cannot automatically win the debate by submitting his credentials or those of someone else. That’s why it’s an Appeal to Authority. Capish? Or by declaring he has 40 years of experience in high end systems. It sounds good but it’s an appeal to Authority. Hel-loo! In order to join in the debate, any debate, you must actually construct a technical argument.

The appeal to authority relies on an argument of the form: A is an authority on a particular topic. An argument from authority, also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam is a form of defeasible argument in which a claimed authority’s support is used as evidence for an argument’s conclusion.

I hate to judge before all the facts are in but you should probably march yourself right down to your local library and spend some time researching the subject. 😀 A good place to start is,

http://www.skepticalaboutskeptics.org/examining-skeptics/daniel-drasin-zen-and-the-art-of-debunkery/

By your own words you dabble in philosophy and debate. I do it professionally. 😬

Have a nice day!
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