Harley quote


Regarding two aftermarket power cables: "These differences in the shapes of the musical waveforms are far too small to see or measure with even the most sophisticated technology, yet we as listeners not only routinely discriminate such differences, we sometimes find musical meaning in these differences."

 Nonsense. Just because people claim to "routinely discriminate" differences doesn't mean it's true or they're right. Apparently many have witnessed UFOs but that doesn't mean they actually saw extraterrestrial visitors, does it? Some have seen/heard a deity speaking to them "routinely"; does that imply that they are surely communing with an unseen/unmeasurable spiritual force(s)? Can we not put a little more effort into confirmatory reality-testing first when "the most sophisticated technology" can find nothing in 2020? (Of course, speaker cables can measure differently as per here, here, even if not necessarily audible in many cases by the time we connect amp to speaker.)

ARCHIMAGO
128x128fuzztone
Interesting article thanks...

If i summarize correctly:

First group: faithful reproduction of the original lived musical event is the fundamental criterion.

Second group: ask for the best material format which is supposed to "accurately" reproduce the original lived event...

Third group: ask only for pleasant listening without anything else...Dont care about sound but more about music pleasure...

Fourth group: listen to numbers or to the right design....





This article illustrate for me tough most of the misunderstandings about audiophile experience more than any other thing...



Where is the fifth group ? The only one which interest me .....




Those who listen music first, not only sound, but those who knows that audiophile experience is the meeting of sound with music in the RECREATION of instrumental TIMBRE experience with a specific system created to produce this experience of a natural timbre, when and if, the system is rightfully embedded in the mechanical, electrical and acoustical dimension...We dont need the costlier system, we need a rightfully embedded good one...

This group dont buy the naive faith and unscientific belief of the perfect reproduction of a live original event Illustrated by the 2 first groups... This fifth group know that all music is recreated, more than reproduced, from the original theater through many trade-off choices by engineers, recreated then in their listening room but ONLY if the right embeddings conditions are in place...

The fifth group differ from the third group because they ask for a more immersive pleasure like them BUT with also an adequate sound... We cannot listen to Mahler symphonies with the same pleasure on a top system or with a very bad one...Without being obsessed by sound they ask for a good one....

The fifth group smile at those who listen mostly to measured numbers, but they dont laugh too much because we need all audio designers, which for the greatest number of them anyway listen music, not measured numbers only ....
BUT this fifth group know that ANY audio system whatever the price, or whatever the measured numbers are, if they are not too bad numbers, will sound or could sound at his peak potential ONLY in its well embedded mechanical, electrical and acoustical settings and dimensions, never mind the design if it is a "relatively" good one....

This fifth group is less easy to caricature than the other four..... Less credulous perhaps?

Perhaps this difficulty to figure out this fifth group is the reason why the writer have no idea about his existence....

😊
My best to all....
I am the 5th group as well 🙂
I know i could not be alone, welcome....😌


There are 2 things to consider:

1) what is theoretically (scientifically, measurably) better
2) what is audibly noticeably better

Some people want “the best” - even though we know there is no “best” regardless of cost. They’ll pay/do anything even for only consideration 1 above. Sometimes, it is free to get the scientific benefit (cables not touching, etc). 
Then some can be of varying expense- making sure wires are not moving or vibrating internally in components,  making sure stylus is not subject to outside vibration. Room treatments, silver cable wire, $40K phono stages.
Beware of the law of diminishing returns and what you can actually hear, not what you think you hear. Psychoacoustics. Listen for yourself. Take reviews, especially in publications with advertisers, with a grain of salt. Seems like everything they listen to is great and a great value compared to the competition. Of course that is impossible.

Happy listening and testing.