Out of Control

Cornfedboy, Heck they're listening to electrical wall outlets there to. What's wrong with this world? You know what, the sound of the bloody computer is distracting when the music is playing, so I'll just turn it off and listen to the music and forget tho whole sorry Adiogoninsane thing, well for now at least. I think that's the best and cheapest tweak. And oh yes, I think I'll subscribe to Fanfare. Bye for now and keep up the good work. I didn't know how exclusive a club this is and to think I'm at the computer without a suit and tie! Have fun my friend.

Pbb, I have a question for you. You claim to be a skeptic and have thrown down the double blind testing guantlet to refute the claims of posters to this thread. Have you performed any of these double blind tests yourself? It is very easy to be a skeptic. It simply requires a willingness to disbelieve anything without "proof". And it even sounds reasonable - especially when science and mathematics are waved about like a talisman to ward off the evil of opposing views. But skepticism without a willingness to investigate all sides of the issue is no better than the blind faith you seek to debunk. It is also easy to forget that measurements and statistics are meaningless without interpretation; and are only as good as the instruments used to collect them. Even supposing that the measurements are perfect the interpretation of their meaning is not. You have only to recall that Aristotle, using accepted "scientific" methods, claimed that Earth was at the center of the universe. His interpretation of the data was incorrect. At least Aristotle was willing to expend effort in explanation, measurement, and reasoning to refute claims he did not believe to be true. If you have indeed conducted double blind tests let us know the results. And don't forget to include your testing methods and conditions.

I'll disclose now that I have not myself conducted any such tests. I might in the future - but at the moment my satisfication with this hobby doesn't require it.

Pbb, sorry for delay. Experience at a friend's house. The (modest) system: Clearaudio/Morch/Clearaudio Victory, YBA 1 cdp, CAT III line -- proprietary phono (tube), Avanti III speakers.

We were 4 people: i.e., the two "audio" nuts (:-) ) & our respective wives.

The differences were in the tonal balance, microdynamics, and presence. Dynamics (in classical) were unrestrained, "unfatiguing" also, in one case vs. the other.
One wife remarked at the sound's "raising the hairs on the arm" in one case vs. the other.

We listened to parts of, (cd): Mahler 2 (Klemperer/Bayerischen Rundfunks - EMI), An Die Musik (Universal, compilation Schubert songs), Mahler 8 (Horenstein/LSO - BBC classics). LP: Mahler 2 (Klemperer/Concertgebouw - Decca), Carmina Burana (Jochum/German Opera Orch - DG), D. Purple "Made in Japan" (old copy - ?).

Cheers!

Well spoken Gregm and nice concert! Cheers,

Yes, I agree prices are out of control in the sense that they do not necessarily represent the cost required to manufacture many of these products. But, this happens often, particularly with luxury items. Price is truly set by what buyers are willing to pay to own something. Apparently some are very much swayed by those who tell us that product A is the best available. Remember also that the High End Companies, whether large or small are often set up to thrive on the sale of a very small number of units. They are anything but mass market operations. That means they can do quite well in selling a small number of very highly priced (vastly overpriced?) units while putting a substantial amount of money into marketing (read Stereophile, Soundstage, etc.). That said, my participation on the 'net these last four years has led me to understand that there are many people who can accurately assess the sound qualities of any particular unit. I have also found that many non-audiophiles can do this easily as well. They may lack the audiophile "vocabulary" to describe what they hear, but they certainly hear it. In other words, many of us can at least agree on what it sounds like. We may not agree on whether that is good, or whether product A with its sonic signature is better than product B. There is another group however, perhaps which contains both audio enthusiasts as well as non-audio enthusiasts (note that I didn't call them Audiophiles), which have not yet figured out why one amp sounds "better" than another to audiophiles. These people either haven't heard the difference between these two amps or, if they have heard the difference, don't see the differences as important to the reproduction of the sound. I don't look down on these people. Who is to say that they don't enjoy the music as much as I do while (hopefully) they spend very little on sound equipment? However, there are those of us that don't need double blind testing to identify what we hear. I do suspect that if you forced all who claim to be audiophiles to participate in one well-designed double-blind test, you would find that they fall into three categories: those who definitely cannot tell the difference between products, those who definitely can, and those who sometimes can. If you played two well-known amps (or cables) in a double-blind test for me, using the same program material, I am sure that I, like many people here on Audiogon, would have little trouble in distinguishing the two. Even though we would be able to identify the differences, the listening panel would likely not agree on which sounds best. I agree that the most expensive products would often be found to be not the best for all the reasons given earlier. That is why when reading someone's estimation of a particular amp or cable, when they state it's much better than product B without stating why, I find it absolutely infuriating. It gives no information to simply state one product is better than another, since we all have our own biases. And if you can't state why or are afraid to do so, you need to keep your opinion to yourself.