How Audiphiles are Different
So, I can’t spell Audiophile. Doh.
Again, moving this to a new thread to avoid polluting the OP that got me thinking about this.
A couple of events have intersected for me which made me realize just how very different audiophiles can be. Not just in their tastes but the very way in which the ear/brain mechanism is wired for them. This then profoundly affects their priorities in equipment and rooms. There is no one right way to be but those who argue purity of reproduction is the only reason to be an audiphile, well, I have news for you...
At a show many years ago the rooms varied a great deal in the amount of acoustic treatments. Some very expensive gear was in some really poor sounding rooms. From a couple of these rooms I overheard several participants talk about how great the demos were. I was a little surprised. I couldn’t hear anything. All I could hear was the ocean spray of the room.
After this somewhere I read about how exhausting meeting room and class rooms can be. Our brain is always listening through the room acoustics for words. This takes effort. In a reflective room we literally burn more calories just listening than we do in a dampened room. It makes it harder to study or listen, and we get tired more quickly. I’ve also thought about how musicians listen and how many of them don’t hear the recording or the room, they hear the musician's technique. Their brain’s entire symbol system and language is wired to feel technique and expression.
I have hypothesized these things:
And as a result:
All of this is just about ear / brain mechanisms. It’s also possible some of us have physical receptors or a combination of different ears/different brains which cause us to hear differently. I remember chatting with a rare lady who was an audiophile and she pointed out that for years she couldn’t listen to DAC’s. They gave her headaches. This was about the same time that DAC’s started getting good at Redbook playback.
What are your thoughts?
How can you make that statement Eric for a 32 tone multi-tone test Eric? That is 32 tones, independent, mixed together, which measure volume will swing from low to high at they reinforce and cancel, and then the total result is captures and measured and compared to what the result should be. That strikes me as a very powerful tool. What do you think would provide a better indication of "what we hear"? |
Can you please explain the correlations between those measurements and what I like, or what any other audiophile likes? How were 32 tones selected? Is there a certain number of bones in the human head which corresponds to 32? Am I more susceptible to the middle, beginning or last of those 32 tones? Does it change with age? That isn’t a test which helps explain what I hear. It is yet another stress test which is self-referenced to the inputs. A test about human experience would be referenced to the listener instead.
Also, my name is right in front of you and it is not Eric. |
Not just as audiophiles be we as humans are all different with different approaches and solutions. Just observe how different people count nickels. Some count them individually or in groups some in stacks and then group them. The good news is we all get to the same number. Audiophiles should all get to the same place which is the enjoyment of music but we all approach it really differently. Look at two contributors here @mikelavigne vs @mahgister. Completely different approaches but I don't think that either enjoys the music any more than the other. There's no right or wrong as long as makes you happy. |
You are creating a false equivalence. How many tones, what frequency, etc. really does not matter if the artifacts are below human detectable limits which they appear for many products (not all) to be well below especially considering that loud sounds make quiet sounds at the same time impossible to hear. w.r.t. "what you like", that is a matter of taste, not a matter of reproduction. Why would I spend 10, 20, 30K+ for a piece of equipment that colors the music in a fixed way (that I may not always like), when I could get equipment that has no audible artifacts and color it myself, based on my mood and what music I am listening too? How does one even test for the right color, when most audiophiles don't adequately and certainly don't consistently do acoustics in their room so insisting on a test for flavor of a single component seems pointless and out of place. I would posit this is the failure of audio reviews, and reviewers and the ad-hoc ones on audiophile sites. The review of any component is just the end results of a collection of errors and the odds of you having the same errors are slim. When comparing two products that likely sound exactly the same, the brains invents a difference which too many gladly accept. |
You are right! By the way i admired mikelavigne dedication... Our way are different but i am sure we will understand each other... I work with low cost devices and basic acoustic and psycho-acoustic... He work with high end gear in a dedicated acoustic... Different means same goal... By the way i am not envious at all about any audio system on earth.... Why? Because i am glad to be on the top low Price/S.Q. ratio... My system is average but not my three embeddings workings controls... My listening experience is not average at all... For sure it is not lavigne system but we can live without in our own sonic paradise...
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