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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.
phomchick
prof
3,504 posts
 
Agreed, glupson. I don’t see what is gained by broadening the term "tweak" to encompass everything, because doing that makes the word "tweak" meaningless. My son just "tweaked" by turning his iphone music on. But I can tell you: he ain’t no audiophile.

As I said earlier, the value of what any audiophile is doing with his system will be subjective. What may be a waste of time for you may not be for me. That’s obvious stuff. But value and objectivity also shouldn’t be mixed up either, otherwise we can’t know what we can achieve in reality. It’s one thing to value what you are doing; another to ask what is happening in reality.

On tweaking, I had a lot of fun constructing an isolation base for my new turntable. It was valuable learning from others, and from my own efforts along the way. So I certainly don’t consider my turntable base nonsense or a waste of time. Though, if asked what it has actually achieved in terms of it’s effects, I can say it has measurably isolated the turntable from external vibration like footsteps very well. But I couldn’t lay claim to it’s sonic effects beyond that, if there have been any at all. But, hey, that’s ok, I’m not making any claims, and I had a good time!
glupson
7,842 posts
 
prof,

It seems that your turntable base has been a valuable tweak already. Maybe not for sound, but who really cares. It was fun for you and now you can watch it every day and enjoy knowing you did it. That may be much more worth than getting an extra Hertz somewhere in the spectrum.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Well spoken, gloopson. Although in truth your snarkiness quotient has been slowly creeping up.

“If it doesn’t squeak it’s not music.”
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
prof
On tweaking, I had a lot of fun constructing an isolation base for my new turntable. It was valuable learning from others, and from my own efforts along the way. So I certainly don’t consider my turntable base nonsense or a waste of time. Though, if asked what it has actually achieved in terms of it’s effects, I can say it has measurably isolated the turntable from external vibration like footsteps very well. But I couldn’t lay claim to it’s sonic effects beyond that, if there have been any at all. But, hey, that’s ok, I’m not making any claims, and I had a good time!

How totally bizarre! Why would anyone go through all that trouble and not hear the results? I’m afraid something’s terribly wrong somewhere. Could be what, operator error? 🙄
tattooedtrackman's avatar
tattooedtrackman
887 posts
 
Bottom line. If it is not nonsense to you and you believe in it that is what counts. No matter what anyone says or thinks it is still your opinion and your ears and money. There will be thousands of opinions but the only one that really matters is yours. Case closed. 
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