@mceljo … horse sweat, not cat urine… my god man. What were you thinking? No one would drink wine that smelled like cat urine. 😊

But like all nuanced things… very small nuances of many flavors make up good wine. Fortunately I have not picked up undertones of horse sweat… but if I did… I am pretty sure it would go down the drain.

On the other hand I stay away from Malbecs… to me the have the bouquet of swamp gas. I don’t get why anyone would like it. But on the other hand many folks like audio systems that scape every detail off the media, stripe it of all musicality, and add a large portion of distortion and think it is an “audiophile sound”.

I recall reading a news story about beer aficionados and their preference towards intense, high hop content brews.  They were bartenders and had gained experience with a wide variety of beers and similar libations.  As a result of all that drinking they came to prefer beers that most people would consider harsh and unappealing.  The aficionados would call what those people liked bland.  I too wonder whether something similar happens with many audiophiles and their sound preferences.

@ghdprentice 

In my younger days, I could go to the drag strip and differentiate the burnt exhaust smell of nitro, alcohol, or high octane pump gas.  Does that count?

Imagine if you had the technology to put tone controls on a bottle of wine. That changes everything it’s too bad we don’t have the technology to put tone controls on audio equipment. That would change the whole world of audio don’t you think?

@ebm

"This thread says absolutely NOTHING!!!"

Okay then, let me take a another whack at it.

Someone with extensive experience with high performance audio, ventures into the world of the "unknown" and installs something NEW in his system. He leaves his preconceived notions and biases on the back porch, ready to engage in a "neutral" evaluation of said component. After a couple of evenings of careful evaluation, he is torn with his impressions, and asks himself: "Was this the musical equaliviant of being shot out of the canon? Or, was it more like skydiving naked?" Still conflicted, he does the unthinkable and posts his enthusiastic remarks on an audiophile forum - not just embracing a (contraversial) product category, but the actually recommending the component!

Then, someone with the personality of a wounded leopard responds and rips him a new orifice -- because he CAN. Afterall, it IS a public forum.

The antagonist here has a pedigree as long as his arm and not afraid to use it. The OP has a mere 50 years of critical listening experience including professional stints in something Hif-fi related. But no accreditation. He is outguned. So, he’s sitting there with fingers frozen on the keyboard, having one of those God vs Moses moments, not sure how to response to the antagonist. After all, advisary has professional credentials. He does not.

The question, then becomes, what is more valid? A growing and evolving scientific knowledge base with tons of empiracal data? Or, human interaction and experience. To the OP, his musical experience was REAL. To him, denying what just happened would be the equalivant of someone driving a vehicle over his foot and trying to convince him it didn’t happen.

Which is the greater culprit? Gaps in our scientific knowledge base offset by accompanying degrees and certifications? Or, flaws in the human experience greatly minimized by thosands of hours of listening impressions and implimentation of musically significant, sonically predicable solutions in the field?

I’ll go with the human experience, with a high degree of optimism that our ability to measure, theorize, and comment with a degree of respectability will catch up to it someday.