Are audiophiles still out of their minds?


I've been in this hobby for 30 years and owned many gears throughout the years, but never that many cables.  I know cables can make a difference in sound quality of your system, but never dramatic like changing speakers, amplifiers, or even more importantly room treatment. Yes, I've evaluated many vaunted cables at dealers and at home over the years, but never heard dramatic effect that I would plunk $5000 for a cable. The most I've ever spent was $2700 for pair of speaker cables, and I kinda regret it to this day.  So when I see cable manufacturers charging 5 figures for their latest and "greatest" speaker cables, PC, and ICs, I have to ask myself who buys this stuff. Why would you buy a $10k+ cable, when there are so many great speakers, amplifiers, DACs for that kind of money, or room treatment that would have greater effect on your systems sound?  May be I'm getting ornery with age, like the water boy says in Adam Sandler's movie.
dracule1

Wattsperchannel 6-19-2016 11:48 pm EDT

Al,

I understand your points. I guess I was presuming if a person was going to take the step of using a wire with superior properties (capacitance, inductance et. al.) they would take the steps to engineer the system holistically.

Taking things one point at a time....

Wattsperchannel, thanks for the comprehensive and, if I may say so, the quite intelligent response to my previous post. You make a number of good points. I would just note the following:

1)While I completely agree with the desirability of "engineering the system holistically," and I share your belief in the desirability of "taking sound engineering steps to improve the performance of one aspect of a system" while also taking steps to correct (rather than compensate for) issues that improvement might reveal elsewhere in the system, identifying the root cause (or causes) of a sonic shortcoming can often be sufficiently difficult to make adhering to those philosophies problematical. To a greater or lesser degree, of course, depending on the particular issue and the particular audiophile.

That difficulty can also be compounded in many cases by unavailability of meaningful technical information about the products that are involved.

Finally, while as I say I completely agree with your philosophy, it’s interesting to consider that it would seem likely in a lot of situations to come into conflict with the "trust your ears" mantra that many and probably most high end audiophiles seem to subscribe to.

2)Regarding the mention of voltage drops in one of your prior posts, I would not discount the possibility that there may be a goodly number of circumstances in which a slightly larger voltage drop in the house wiring may produce results that are preferable to a slightly smaller voltage drop. As you are probably aware USA voltages can range from 114V to 126V and still be in spec, and as confirmed in a number of past threads here numbers in the area of 124 volts or so are not at all uncommon. And presumably equipment used in the USA and other 120V countries has most often been designed to perform best and to reach optimal internal temperatures at 120V. Although of course the sensitivity of different components to variations in that voltage can be expected to differ greatly. I would imagine that power amps, which in most cases do not incorporate internal voltage regulation (at least for their power stage), would be among those components that would tend to be most affected by that variation.

In any event, thanks again for your well stated response, which as I say I am in essential agreement with.

Regards,
-- Al

czarivey
High-end home audio industry is BIG part of such methods to convince to spend fortune on something that maybe worth not more than 10...15% of actual sale price.

I don't understand. You mean it's up to you to establish whether something is worth the sale price, rather than the actual customer who is spending his own money?

That seems like a cumbersome arrangement! And what makes you qualified to be the final arbiter of value?

That seems like a cumbersome arrangement! And what makes you qualified to be the final arbiter of value?
1st math; 2nds facts; 3rd if there are facts why being arbiter after all?
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/nordost-launches-odin-2-at-high-end-2015/

If you can’t handle freedom, move to another country with more regulations and ONE choice.
Freedom?? I like freedom to earn on foolish. I bet and you can call or fold or visa versa and that’s freedom.
almarg6,477 posts06-20-2016 4:13pm

....... identifying the root cause (or causes) of a sonic shortcoming can often be sufficiently difficult to make adhering to those philosophies problematical. To a greater or lesser degree, of course, depending on the particular issue and the particular audiophile.

That difficulty can also be compounded in many cases by unavailability of meaningful technical information about the products that are involved.


I agree completely. Complex root cause analysis, particularly when void of relevant third party data, is often even more complex than the initial design, but that can also be the fun part. What drives me crazy is when a component choice (like a cable for instance) is made without regard to best practices regarding system design and then a conclusion is drawn about that particular component in a vacuum.

It is like throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks and then blaming the spaghetti for bad behavior.


Finally, while as I say I completely agree with your philosophy, it’s interesting to consider that it would seem likely in a lot of situations to come into conflict with the "trust your ears" mantra that many and probably most high end audiophiles seem to subscribe to.

A conflict indeed. I say engineer first to give the system as a whole its best chance to excel, then trust your ears. Otherwise your ears can draw the wrong conclusion about any particular component if the system makeup is not logical (ergo my example about the coat hanger sounding better than the Nordost interconnect between components approaching a parity impedance match). This approach does NOT mean trust measurements over your ears. Use your brain first to give your ears the best view of the system (or component’s) true capability.


Regarding the mention of voltage drops in one of your prior posts, I would not discount the possibility that there may be a goodly number of circumstances in which a slightly larger voltage drop in the house wiring may produce results that are preferable to a slightly smaller voltage drop.


Interesting point that I will do some additional thinking about. I have typically not been concerned about anything beyond the +/- 5 volts my Torus automatically regulates. I run pretty consistently between 120 and 123 and my Soulution amps seem to behave well at this level but I definitely take your point.

Thanks for your thoughts.