pablolie wrote: > > i do believe these days one can put together a very, very nice sounding > system with a few basic and quite cost efficient devices.
I fully agree; we are living in good times ... pablolie wrote: > > but i also immensely enjoy the exercise of being a tad irrational here > and there. passion is always an irrational choice, but how tragic is a > life that only and exclusively sticks to rationality alone... :-) Of course there are siutations in life where irrationality, opinions, chance, mood etc. play an important role and listening to music clearly belongs here. As an example I cannot tell why I sometimes prefer say Tingvall Trio over Esbjörn Svensson Trio or Trombone Shorty over Nils Landgren; this is clearly a question of opinion, 'emotional state' and mood. To me it seems important to realize when to apply rationality and when to allow yourself to be a bit more irrational. 'High fidelity' music reproduction, i.e. faithful recording, storage, transmission and play back of audio is purely an egnineering discipline where science and measurements apply - there is simply no room for opinions and irrationality here. Of course everyone is free to decide that he likes the design or sound of a specific piece of equipment (and to pay whatever amount of money to get it); this is clearly the domain of personal preference, taste and opinion, though. And of course one can post his personal preference or expierence with this equipment and the personal sonic impression - but this will be no more than a personal 'testimonial'. This especially means that it is not 'transferable', i.e. does not translate to others. The beauty of the scientific approach (and actually one of its constituting features) is that results hold true anywhere, anytime and for anyone (to the same extent as they did initially). So just as it makes no sense to argue that Tingvall Trio is 'better' than Esbjörn Svensson Trio it is pointless to argue that a piece of equipment is better than another one based on one's personal sonic impression alone. It does make sense to argue that an audio component is better suited to reproduce sound more faithfully than another one if it measures better or if this improvement can be backed up by double blind testing, though. Whether this component 'sounds better' to someone or not again is a different story (of personal preference, opinion and taste). If I were to summarize the criticism of the 'audiophile sceptics' here (and on other fora) I'd say that they (rightly) question the habit of 'audiophile apologists' to argue in the vein outlined above. So instead of expressing their personal impression or preference they try to 'prove' that some component is objectively better (in a scientific or engineering sense) without applying the necessary scientific means to do so. Just my two cents. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ superbonham's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=22540 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=102330
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