earwaxer9;619348 Wrote: > If metrics are what matter no-one would listen to tubes.
Daverz;619354 Wrote: > most audiophiles have far too high an opinion of their own > perceptiveness. earwaxer9;619360 Wrote: > It HAS to sound better or who would buy it? People are not THAT stupid! My opinion. I've been there, got the tee-shirt with the "I am a golden eared audiophile" thing. My ego took a hit a while back in a comparative sighted-blind listening test - long story - and now I like to think I'm a bit more rational. I make a mental distinction between the acoustic components (power amplifiers-crossovers-loudspeakers-room acoustics) and purely amplitude-based components (sources-preamps-wires-connectors). The first set of things are quite open to psycho-acoustic interpretation. "Low distortion" could conceivably mean different things to different people. Also, in practical terms, with current technology design trade-offs are necessary. However, I think the second set of components are much more amenable to a scientific, engineering and measurement approach. This is because the musical signal exists as either numbers representing amplitudes or voltages representing amplitudes. It is beyond debate what "low distortion" means in this context. There isn't any room for RATIONAL debate about it. (Of course, there's plenty of IRRATIONAL debate on audio forums all over the world.) When it comes to amplitude-based components I believe measurements have a lot more to tell us than listening tests. This is because our measurement devices have been proved to be far more sensitive than human hearing. To believe otherwise is to believe in fairy tales. Although people don't like this or that DAC no-one could tell between DACs that have been well engineered for neutrality and transparency in a blind test. Of course, a lot of your boutique "audiophile" items are not engineered for that, instead they are designed to be incredibly expensive tone controls. Brutal yes, but one person's opinion. Darren -- darrenyeats http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/richpub/listmania/byauthor/A3H57URKQB8AQO/ref=cm_pdp_content_listmania/203-7606506-5721503. SB3, SB Touch SqueezeControl for Android ------------------------------------------------------------------------ darrenyeats's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10799 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=86298 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
