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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
tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
2,597 posts
 
Well the problem could be that too often people make posts like yours, miller.  Instead of posting something in a positive way that makes other people want to experience what you're talking about, you make a negative post that accuses people who haven't had the same experience as you of being dummies who can't hear.  There are probably many systems out there that are not as sensitive to Cable Elevator changes as your system is.

Why do you do that?  Do you think that the way to convince people that Cable Elevators make a huge difference in sound quality is to say that there is something wrong with anyone who hasn't had that experience?

Be positive, friendly and open to the ideas and opinions of other people, and you will find other people to be more accepting of your ideas and opinions.  Be dismissive, negative and argumentative and you will find many other people responding in kind to your ideas and opinions.  


 
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atdavid
736 posts
 
Strange,
Even the people I know whose regular bottle of wine is $15.00, by the time they are old enough to be invited to a high end bubbly tasting party, know, and would never question whether a bottle of red, allowed to breath, would taste better .... having done that a 100 times themselves.


Of course, nice of someone to bring, or supply, two bottles of red, preferably bottled from the same barrel, to a bubbly tasting party. Rather convenient that the protagonist was an Engineer huh? Wouldn't have made it nearly as poignant a story if he wasn't.

I guess there is always a first, but then I was never much of a Dom Perignon Champagne lover and I don't play audiophile games with my non audiophile friends.




I had this one friend, he was so into wine and champagne he had this annual champagne tasting party. Everyone would bring a bottle. He was so knowledgeable he would open them in order. A lot like the way I will play recordings of increasingly good quality as the night goes along, he opened the sparking wines, then the Champagnes, then the Doms.

I learned so much from this. In all the many years since, and all the dozens of people I've told about this, not one has ever said, "Well unless you were there in real life tasting the wines he was pouring at his house...." Not once!

Now, I'll grant you, one wine enthusiast did suggest a brown bag double-blind test to see if we all really did prefer the wine be allowed to breathe before drinking. (Spoiler: we did.) But then he was an engineer, and we all saw this more as an interesting extra little challenge and excuse to open an extra bottle than as anything else. Not a one of us ever questioned our own sense experience. The way audiophiles do all the time.

auxinput
2,920 posts
 
I think a lot of what has happened here with "audiophiles" is "perception bias".  They get locked onto a perception of what something "should be" instead of the actuality of "what is".  This means that whatever idea or product or brand has been suggested or documented somewhere (i.e. professional reviews, engineering measurements, etc.) becomes an influence to almost an obsession where the "audiophile" is no longer listening but responding to an idea.  A lot of this is human nature and is difficult to change.  The downside here is that some people get so obsessed that it becomes a religious crusade in which everyone else needs to be converted to their ideas.  This is an unfortunate bi-product of what has happened on this forum.
roberjerman
4,319 posts
 
A cantankerous bunch that my parents told me to avoid!
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