kazinvan;292846 Wrote: > I don't think the vast majority of people would be be able to tell the > difference between the two (duet/SB3) in blind a/b testing.
Actually that's trivial for anyone, at least if you're allowed to listen to a quiet section at high volume and/or put your ear close to the speakers. There is a clear difference in the noise floor. > For those that *could* tell the difference, I suspect those people could > also tell the difference between a duet as a source and a transporter or > duet->dac, or whatever. Thus, true audiophiles (systems and ears that > can resolve subtle differences) would not consider the duet an > audiophile quality device. You're making several unwarranted assumptions here. First, that anyone could tell the difference in a realistic situation (i.e. normal volume listening to music). Second, that if they could tell the difference, they would prefer the more "audiophile" source (blind, to remove prejudice). We recently had a case here where someone did a blind comparison between an SB3 and some more expensive source (I've forgotten what it was), and he preferred the SB3 4/4 times. Third, that even if someone can tell the difference and prefers a more expensive source, that the benefit/cost ratio is higher for changing the source than it is for some other upgrade in the system (room treatments, for example). Fourth, that even if all of the first three hold, other factors don't outweigh the sonic benefit. For example, I listen to far more music with an SB3 than I ever did with a CD player, simply because it is immediately accessible and convenient to browse through. That matters much more to me than some putative minor upgrade in sound quality. -- opaqueice ------------------------------------------------------------------------ opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46079 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
