Articles You Feel Should be Shared


I’ll kick off with a recent posting by the remarkably clear-sighted and even handed Archimago.

Once again cutting through layers of mostly deliberate confusion, obfuscation and denial.

Production, Reproduction and Perception - the 3 pillars upon which everything in our audiophile world stands, is my new mantra.

So simple it’s surprising that no one else pointed it out earlier.

Be sure to also check out his follow up blog from Wednesday, 11 March 2020.

http://archimago.blogspot.com/2020/03/musings-audio-music-audiophile-big.html?m=1
cd318
Lunatic fringe is the pejorative term given to advanced audiophiles by backsliding knuckle dragging pseudo skeptics when unfamiliar or preposterous sounding concepts infringe on their world view. A bit like natives on some distant isolated island ranting at the sun 🌞😀
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djones51,

Yes, it's just one of those quirky takes on the subject from a mainly neutral outside observer.

It's not necessarily an indictment of all audiophiles, more of a warning against the perils of puting the equipment before the music and the dangers of lapsing into the "so-called lunatic fringe".  

Talking of outsiders looking in, here's an extract from an article by 'Bad Science' author Ben Goldacre.

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Blindingly obvious: hearing is believing 

Ben Goldacre 
Fri 3 Feb 2006

So let's talk about the high end hi-fi industry. I wrote about their very expensive power cables last month, ranging from £30 to a whopping £1,800, for what is, after all, a kettle lead to connect your stereo to the three pin power socket in the wall. 

The various manufacturers claim that their cables will filter out radio frequency interference in the power cable, and that this will improve the sound. 

I doubted this, and the outpouring of bile that was subsequently vomited in my direction (references on badscience.net) surprised and delighted even me. 

But what was most interesting, to students of this stuff is that the angry outbursts came primarily from the natural constituency of Bad Science readers. 

Several were deeply wounded. Homeopathy was one thing, they said, but this time, I had clearly got it wrong.

And that was when I started to notice the frightening similarities between the thought processes of the alternative therapy fans and the hi-fi freaks. 

Both make an appeal to personal experience, as the highest and most valid form of measurement; both use mystifying, scientific-sounding terminology in their publicity material; and both use the appeal to authority.

But the most striking parallel is the widespread notion in the hi-fi community that blinded trials - where you ask listeners to identify a cable without knowing if it's cheap or expensive - are somehow intrinsically flawed. 

This is exactly the card that the alternative therapy community have been playing, almost since blinded trials were invented.

I give you the editor of Stereophile, a respected hi-fi magazine of 33 years standing. He's talking about blinded tests on amplifiers:

"It seems," he says, "that with such blind listening tests, all perceived subjective differences ... fall away ... when you have taken part in a number of these blind tests and experienced how two amplifiers you know from personal experience to sound extremely different can still fail to be identified under blind conditions ..."

Now I'm getting worried. Here comes the money shot.

"... then perhaps an alternative hypothesis is called for: that the very procedure of a blind listening test can conceal small but real subjective differences."

Ouch.

"Having taken part in quite a number of such blind tests, I have become convinced of the truth in this hypothesis."

What voodoo is this?

If there is a difference to be heard, then you will hear it.

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The full Grauniad article can be found here.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/science/2006/feb/04/badscience.uknews