The main reason I go to audio shows is so I can have a reference to compare my system to. You get to listen to expensive and professionally tuned systems and determine where your system stands. If you don’t listen to other systems how could you possibly know? Highly recommended.
For sure in my 72 years of life i attend few showrooms and listend to some very good system...
One other point... In many cases there seems to be a belief that "if it costs more it must be better". This is completely false. This is where the imagination takes over and people will swear they hear great "jaw dropping" improvements just because it’s expensive.
The best example of this is a blind test in Spain where they had 30 audiophiles do a blind listening test of a $500 front end. A dirt cheap $200 Crown, class D amp, using the cheapest cables vs. a $12,000 front end.
Conclusion of the test: 1/3 picked the cheap system...1/3 picked the expensive system ...1/3 couldn’t tell a difference.
The way a system is embedded matter more most of the times than the price tag of the system...
And most people had no idea what is "timbre" or listener envelopment and sound source width and immersiveness conditions as experienced in a room where you can control the multidimensional parameters related to this acoustic concept and their experience...
You cannot recognize or identify something, being it an acoustic factors among many other one, if you dont have the concept related to the phenomenon you must distinguish and act upon ...
Then a crowd of average people will not do as crowd of acousticians...
We must learn how to hear... We dont know how to hear.... It is an illusion created by marketing piece of gear and assuring the future customers that his choice of the brand was right to begin with because it was " his taste" ... We dont learn how to hear by purchasing 40 amplifiers, dacs and speakers... Sorry...
I discovered that by accident years ago before studying and experimenting with acoustics because i had no money to buy my dreamed high cost gear system then i started experimenting with some acoustic concepts...
To reach satisfaction i learned by these accidental and planned experiments and acoustic reading how to hear and what to hear and how to modify it varying some parameters in the room or in the system pieces...
There is no other way.... purchasing will give you a possible better design but not necessarily a better experience on all counts...
By the way as suggested by this video, i dont accept the idea that all audiophile claims are placebos and illusions as the objectivist test obsessed crowd claim...
System design differences matter too ... We must pay for better design... it is a common place fact...
But we must learn how to hear and what to hear... Most audiophiles as i was dont...It is necessary to experiment with the SAME PIECES OF GEAR for a long time if the gear synergy is there to begin with for sure and we must learn how to optimize it mechanically, electrically and acoustically to do this... If you change gear each 6 months it is impossible to learn ...😁 Learning about the difference between two amplifiers is not "learning acoustic experience" it is learning about design branded name ...Sellers must learn that, acoustician has no need to learn about 100 different amplifiers... 😊 I dont either... If i wanted to upgrade i will analyse the litterature concerning a better possible pieces of gear...I did that for my pieces of gear with success...
