2. digital
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Why do intelligent people deny audio differences?

In my years of audiophilia I have crossed swords with my brother many times regarding that which is real, and not real, in terms of differeces heard and imagined.
He holds a Masters Degree in Education, self taught himself regarding computers, enough to become the MIS Director for a school system, and early in life actually self taught himself to arrange music, from existing compositions, yet he denys that any differece exists in the 'sound' of cables--to clarify, he denies that anyone can hear a difference in an ABX comparison.
Recently I mentioned that I was considering buying a new Lexicon, when a friend told me about the Exemplar, a tube modified Dennon CD player of the highest repute, video wise, which is arguably one of the finest sounding players around.
When I told him of this, here was his response:
"Happily I have never heard a CD player with "grainy sound" and, you know me, I would never buy anything that I felt might be potentially degraded by or at least made unnecessarily complex and unreliable by adding tubes."

Here is the rub, when cd players frist came out, I owned a store, and was a vinyl devotee, as that's all there was, and he saw digital as the panacea for great change; "It is perfect, it's simply a perfect transfer, ones and zero's there is no margin for error," or words to that effect.
When I heard the first digital, I was appalled by its sterility and what "I" call 'grainy' sound. Think of the difference in cd now versus circa 1984. He, as you can read above resists the notion that this is a possibility.
We are at constant loggerheads as to what is real and imagined, regarding audio, with him on the 'if it hasn't been measured, there's no difference', side of the equation.
Of course I exaggerate, but just the other day he said, and this is virtually a quote, "Amplifiers above about a thousand dollars don't have ANY qualitative sound differences." Of course at the time I had Halcro sitting in my living room and was properly offended and indignant.
Sibling rivalry? That is the obvious here, but this really 'rubs my rhubarb', as Jack Nicholson said in Batman.
Unless I am delusional, there are gargantual differences, good and bad, in audio gear. Yet he steadfastly sticks to his 'touch it, taste it, feel it' dogma.
Am I losing it or is he just hard headed, (more than me)?
What, other than, "I only buy it for myself," is the answer to people like this? (OR maybe US, me and you other audio sickies out there who spend thousands on minute differences?
Let's hear both sides, and let the mud slinging begin!
lrsky
tbg
5,263 posts
 
Lrsky, having several times participated in single and double blind experiments, I have no further interest in them. I could not hear which was the same versus different in 30 sec. listenings. Even one experiment long ago where we did longer listening sessions and knew preamps only as A, B, etc. and did our rankings, resulted in an improbable winner. I took one home afterwards and took it back a week later.

As you imply, such sessions are invalid indicators of what is good sounding in the long run. I don't have much respect for what reviewers report either as they don't work to maximize the component. Fortunately, I have an extensive network of audiophile friends who can hear. This is especially important as dealers have vanished.
mrtennis
3,295 posts
 
i think i have the answer to the question, originally posed--selective inattention.

if you lack interest, you won't bring to bear your full powers of concentration. a consequence is a reduction in one's efficiency of observation.

thus if one is not interested in audio, one may not pay attention and not hear differences.

if you are not looking for something you won't see it and if you are not trying to attend to the quality of sound, you won't hear differences.
rja's avatar
rja
2,370 posts
 

OR, if you don't care the differences don't matter which I think is most often the case.

OR, you kinda care but the differences beyond mediocre aren't worth the extra money required.

I'm not entirely convinced that it is a perception or lack thereof issue. I think most people can hear the differences between excellent and mediocre audio. IMO: It's more a matter of values. Some value excellent sound reproduction and most could care less.
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
I thought I would give a manuf perspective on this, since I have about 30 years experience and have been exhibiting at CES and RMAF for about 13 years. I am an engineer and designer, in addition to running a business.

The things that I have noticed with my own system over time and other customer, reviewer and show systems:

1 invariably, the system uses an active preamp, which tends to homogenize the sound and mask the detail and imaging. This is due to compression, harmonic distortion and noise added by the active pre.

2 If the system is digital, the jitter from the master clock, either in the CD player or computer interface, is too high and adds significant noise. Sometimes this noise is like an echo, so the listener can be fooled into thinking that this is a bigg soundstage, when it is not.

3 if the system is digital, the DAC invariably uses digital filtering, the so called "brick-wall". This does the most damage to the sound. This is
why NOS DACs are so popular.

listeners With the above symptoms often still feel that their system is extremely resolving, when in fact it is not, compared to systems that address the above issues properly.

How to address the above issues?

1 eliminate the preamp, by using the best volume control technology available in the DAC or use a transformer based linestage, such as the Music First

2 Use the computer interface or the CD Transport with the very lowest jitter clock technology.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
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