is there an audiophile war going on

I'm an electrical design engineer and all I can say is that the instruments we use for testing for spectral "flatness" are not the same analysis instruments that you are using when you play you equipment (your ears). The instruments help work out real problems with a design, like resonant ring, clipping, and phase problems, but the spectrum analyzers we use take a sample over time to find the amplitude of the frequency components, and I don't think that is what the ear and brain are doing. It's a different sensing and analysis method, so I can't say what I see on my analyzer is what people are hearing.

I just don't know about hearing, but the instruments are important for knocking bugs out.

Zd, good thoughts, I totally agree.

Tom32,

Its good to see that you're using brain instead of some silly meter. Its not too hard to figure out you can't measure things like timbre. Most EE's pretend that stuff like that doesn't exist. You're way ahead of most of your peers. We need more designers like you.

I frequently visit SH's site and I've not noticed any of the knocks noted in this thread. I own Pass electronics and I've not been knocked for that. I am into vinyl- LP12/Ekos/Arkiv B/Lingo/Trampolin, and I've not been knocked for it. YMMV

"02-07-15: Zavato
I frequently visit SH's site and I've not noticed any of the knocks noted in this thread. I own Pass electronics and I've not been knocked for that."

Have you ever seen hydrogen audio? Its something that has to be seen to be believed. Here's an example. The person who made this statement was threatened by the moderators to be banned from the site if he didn't show more respect to the other members.

"I use iTunes in conjunction with Audirvana Plus in iTunes-integrated mode (i.e., it "hijacks" iTunes and plays it through its own player, which has some advantages). "

That's all he said. Below is a link to the post if anyone cares to read it.

http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=96309&st=0

I think they kicked him off the site, so he posted the message from the mod's on a thread at computeraudiophile.com. Here's a link to that, as well.

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/ok-i-tried-hydrogen-audio-it-didnt-go-too-well-13506/

Maybe I'm making a bigger deal out of this than I should, but I just find stuff like this amazing. I don't think the guy said anything out of line.