Don Capps wrote:
> Ahhhh. This is a common argument forwarded by the subjectivist camp in audio
> jounalism. So...in other words...we can't trust our OWN ears and therefore
> must trust those of a magazine reviewer or an audio salon salesman to tell
> us which sounds better, no? Is there no objective means of determining a
> component's performance? Or the differences between components?
No Don, there is no way to objectively determine the difference between two
things that are subjectively different. That seems simple enough to me. It
applies to food for example. That's why you may like Prego and I like Ragu.
The same thing applies to audio. I remember the arguments on the list between a
Sony and Sharp portable MD recorder several years ago. Each side insisting that
the unit they chose sounded better.
The difference in components varies not only from brand to brand and model to
model, but even from unit to unit (of the same model). Fortunately most of
these differences are beyond the ability of humans to hear.
As Ann suggested in her reply to your post, "buy the cheapest one that sounds as
good" (paraphrasing). The weak link in the chain will always come down to two
things. The listing room (which you are limited to some extent to control) and
the speakers (or headphones).
The difference between the least expensive receiver (that would be considered by
the industry definition - if there is such a thing) "HiFi" and the most
expensive individual components is insignificant when compared to speakers.
Also, I'm not stating anything new when I say that you have to audition speakers
at home. They may sound great in the listening room at the store, but not in
your listening room. Again, price can not be used as a guide.
> Or, perhaps the differences between well designed equipment are actually so
> insignificant that they disappear under well controlled double blind
> conditions and (particularly) when the price tag is hidden.
>
I agree 100%!! Using flat settings and volume equilibration compensators (I
just made that up, but you know what I mean) most well designed electronics will
probably have identical audio properties as far as the human ear is concerned.
It is the speakers that are the critical (and most subjective) factor. Because
most of today's music is "electronic" comparisons between live and recorded can
only be make with certain types of music (such as classical).
In my humble opinion, if you can make electronics that can keep the distortion
as low (unfortunately this becomes very hard with analog tubes, tape, vinyl,
etc.), the frequency response as wide, the signal to noise ratio as good and the
dynamic range as wide, analog would sound better then digital. That's because
that concert was analog to begin with and so are our ears.
Larry
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