Audio nonsense

Sometimes the solutions are ahead of their time,

my dear departed grandmother used to tell me wondrous tales of electric cars

one of the main problems they posed was their ghostly silence..

@waytoomuchstuff This forum may be a good source to flush out the pretenders from legitimate products.

The principle is very good on so many levels, but evidence is that the suggested means of implementing it is flawed.

On the other hand, would you support the establishment of an independent regulatory outfit to govern the sale of all products associated with audio industry?  Some already exist, of course, for certification, standards, safety and other reasons.

@dill , a bit hot under the collar? Look, everyone is entitled to set up their system any way they want. However, there is right and there is wrong. IMHO systems that are set up correctly always sound better to everyone that listens to them. Instruments sound more realistic and images more specific.

The other problem is most audiophiles do not really know what to expect out of a system because they never heard a correctly set up great system. They are out to sea without a compass. They love music and they are true audiophiles, they are just short on experience. I was like that for over a decade until I met Peter McGrath at Sound Components in Miami when I was a medical student. I think he is still working for Wilson and he is a renown recording engineer. He taught me what to listen for and had systems that were totally SOTA at the time. 

Setting up a system is like setting up a projector. You can never get a projector right by eye. It takes expensive equipment and somebody who knows what they are doing to calibrate a projector. I would never try to do it on my own. Setting up an audio system is even more complicated requiring more trial and error but with the right equipment it goes much faster if not less expensive. Depending on the room you have to be ready to spend money and change the aesthetic of the room. For many this is impossible do to the WAF. You have to have a room where everybody is willing to let the audio system dominate. You can do a lot with DSP but you are never going to make a bad room perfect with significant physical changes.

Another thing. Many would be surprised at how well less expensive systems can sound when calibrated correctly, much better than expensive systems that are not. There is hidden performance is a lot of systems. Everybody already has more than 1/2 the equipment to do the job, the laptop computer. All you need is a USB microphone and a computer program. You run a sin sweep on your system, a continuously accelerating sin wave from 10 Hz to 20 kHz. You do one channel at a time. You will see the frequency response of each channel and they will be anything but flat and the channels will be very different. I have seen differences of 10 dB between channels. That means at a given frequency one channel will be twice as loud as the other. Shift your balance control 10dB and see what happens to your image. When this happens only at certain frequencies it is hard to pick out but it does smear the image. Instruments will still have a location but they will be blurred. People will tell you their system images fine and they honestly think they do. They just have not heard a system that really images. They have nothing to compare it to.  

Many will argue, sometimes violently with this assessment and I am truly sorry. This is a fact of life. If your system is set up correctly you are extremely lucky. If you want to improve your system an order of magnitude get the darn microphone and get started. I promise you will be amazed at what you can do. 

@noske 

On the other hand, would you support the establishment of an independent regulatory outfit to govern the sale of all products associated with audio industry?  

I don't see this (or, any) forum as the gate-keepers of truth.  Nor do I see the need for a formal regulatory body to "protect" us.  I merely object to a "pile on" format where there is a implication of fraud to a product or products in the heading prior to an open discussion.  It brings out the worst in us.  A simple:  "Hey, this  <thing> is interesting.  What do you think?" may provide a venue for higher level discussions that could actually yield something of value.  

I enjoy this forum as an opportunity to share ideas across many venues with individuals with similar interests who quite often give me more than I give them.  So, yes, in my world, it is highly relevant.

@perkri , you think I can do that here? This involves having an education in biochemistry and neuroanatomy before you even get close to understanding neurophysiology which is different for each sensory system and motor activity.

Get yourself a comprehensive medical education. Like the one I have.  In the meanwhile you will have to settle for being ignorant. I promise you that your audio memory is extremely short. Although there is some variation, particularly in people that have been blind since childhood, this is a proven fact. Blind people can reassign the visual cortex to audio function. The visual cortex is about twenty times the size of the area assigned to hearing. What you get is people like Stevie Wonder.