A Cheap Audio Man Rant

And you're on the Audio Hardware sub-forum. There is a separate Music sub-forum. People here aren't talking about Crosley turntables and ipods. So yes, this is an audiophile forum. Just read the threads for confirmation of this.

How many audiophiles do you think run $5K cables, and believe they sound "so much better"? I'd bet most audiophiles run cables from audiophile brands, but they are closer to the entry level offerings. Like maybe $100-$500 for a cable. Why not talk about that then, considering it's the reality for most people? Instead we have to get rants about the extreme cases who spend a crazy amount and who believe the differences are huge, even though that's probably 5 people in 100 (if that). And then use that as an example to say audiophiles are full of crap, painting all audiophiles with the same brush stroke.

Rants like that are pretty lazy because they're based on some stereotype that just isn't the reality in most cases, and are just designed to get a reaction. I don't see too many threads where rich audiophiles argue that their ultra high priced cables are superior, so why some folks get all worked up about this topic really is beyond me. People can buy whatever they want to buy - if they believe they are getting good value that is their decision to make.

 

This forum has an emphasis on audiophile gear because it is run by a mastering engineer who does special audiophile mastering. People buying and evaluating the mastering and sound quality of Audio Fidelity, Analogue Productions, DCC and other audiophile label releases need to have a good enough system to be able to hear what is going on in those masterings to make them special and worthy. That means audiophile level gear and audiophile style of listening.

 

5000 dollar power cables are typically the case of a few senior citizens getting cheated by the vultures in town. Most 'audiophiles' are not that gullible.

As far as blind tests go (amp comparisons, speaker comparisons, dac comparisons etc), i don't get scared at all. No fear...nada...Only caveat is that it has to be in my treated space on a list of recordings i choose (am very familiar with). A couple of ardent blind test guys have swapped gear all day long in my space and i have nailed it all day long ( ). I also have a coupla musician buddies who will nail it all day long...Could we be a small subset? Sure, but, guys like us exist man...we are not a statistical anomaly, aberration, whatever the "audio scaa ennce review" guys might wanna call it.

But, to be fair, i am trained/have been playing a piano/ violin for 40+ years. If we are testing such recordings aka instruments/material i'm intimately familiar with, it is not hard for me (not much explanation required there, i hope).

 

Yes, this is the 'Audio Hardware'. Show me where it says Audiophile? Pretty sure it is not mentioned anywhere. Hardware just means the hardware that we use to listen to the music. If there is no music, the hardware is pointless. Also notice that the Music sub-forum is by far the largest of all of the sub forums by an enormous margin.

No idea how many run $5K cables, I'm sure there are quite a few that do as there are many hi-fi stores all over the world that sell this stuff, so somebody is buying it. This was just an example of how audiophiles are suckers into buying this crazy stuff that these companies put out. If there are people out there willing to buy it, then there are companies willing to make and sell it. If people want to spend that kind of money on stuff like that, all the power to them. They think they can hear the difference but really, it is their wallets telling them that they can hear the difference. I myself would never spend even $100-$500 on speaker cables. That is still crazy. My speaker cables may be at most at 50 bucks if even that. It is just 16 gauge copper wire.

Just because a mastering engineer runs the forum has nothing to do with audiophile. What the heck is an audiophile mastering anyway? All mastering jobs are audiophile technically. If a mastering engineer is not doing his job good enough, then he won't be a mastering engineer for long. The whole point of the mastering engineer is to master the final mix for the client for whatever medium it is to be released as. If the client wants it loud and compressed, that is what he gets. If the client wants if very dynamic, that is what he gets. Good mastering engineers should do a few different masters of a track and give them to the client to pick what they want/like. It is not to appease the audiophiles who are not even 1% of the people who listen to the music.

 

I don't mean comparisons of the equipment that you mentioned. Of course speakers are going to sound different. In fact, they will be the biggest difference. I'm taking about blind comparisons of things like power cables, speakers wire types, inter connect cables, crossover parts, etc. They guy at GR Research claims there is a difference in the sound of his tube speaker connectors vs. the regular binding posts on speakers as well as his $350-$450 power cables sound better and it takes '200 hours burn in time' to make them sound better. Yeah, right

 

If there wasn't any cheap audio gear, there wouldn't be any self professed 'audiophiles'. The music industry's whole survival and evolution has been due to customers with access to affordable / convenient technology - which is why pre-recorded cassettes were bought and sold at fairly high prices in late 1970s and 1980s. It is why 45rpm records were mastered the way they were in the 1960s.

I am pretty sure there isn't a person that can demonstrate that their listening experience is better on their £100,000 system than mine was on my £23 Panasonic monophonic cassette deck in 1979.

It is all subjective.

 

Only if not using a Crosley or iPod qualifies as an audiophile.
Most of the people I know qualify as an audiophile according to that definition.
Because they use Spotify mp3 streaming instead.

500 or 5k, both prove that companies like to prey on the gullible if there’s money to be made.

I suspect that this stereotype has become the very definition of the word audiophile during the last 10 years...

 

I prefer a guy called The Vinyl Attack, he reviews lower budget stuff but isn't hysterical about the whole thing.

 

You Tube is an interesting melting pot of information and entertainment. I enjoy this guy’s videos for the most part.

What I hear in this video is more of an attack on poor audiophile behavior, as opposed to on audiophiles. He isn’t saying that buying $5,000 cables or $20,000 DACs makes you stupid or gullible - he is saying that attacking other peoples choices based upon lofty expectations or pricing is stupid. And he is right - who is anyone to criticize someone enjoying their system and the way it sounds, regardless of what it cost?

I support his thought that opinions as his opinions (and I happen to agree with him on those KEFs, but I digress) BUT sometimes there are situations when equipment doesn’t match. I’ve heard this in my own system even when putting in higher priced components or cables. It’s the reason why they stress here to have an equipment profile kept up to date. If people can be polite, there can be a lot of helpful opinions shared. Those KEFs might really suck with that Sim Audio. Maybe someone else knows of a magic combination. In that regard, I do appreciate when reviewers leave that door open before slamming a component (ie YMMV).

 

There are dudes out there who claim all power amps and dacs sound the same, did you know that? ...A couple of those guys had their jaws dropped after they ran a blind test in my house and found that 3 test subjects (including myself) could nail it each time.

Power cables, speaker wire, tube connectors cable burn-in (whoaaa) etc...i dismiss all that crap...However, i can personally tell very minor differences between preamp-to-poweramp interconnects (only this specific interconnect of which i have 5 or 6...nothing else...i've explained why on a different thread at some point). But, i have a very strict budget for any kind of cable and it can never exceed a 100 bucks. No flipping piece of wire and connectors can ever be worth more than a 100 bucks to me. I use 78 dollar chifi interconnects in a 100k setup.

 

Without context we don't know what that picture on the right is about. He does make some pertinent point but I'm definitely not his target audience.

 

I prefer divergent opinions and stuff....

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=430061651693738

 

It's essentially an 18-minute straw man argument.

 

Yeah, but this isn't Best Buy's audio hardware forum. Whether it says "audiophile" or not, the majority of threads are discussing products that are geared towards audiophiles, and therefore the forum has attracted an audience that is maybe not 100% audiophile, but is probably majority audiophile, even if some of them are "deeply closeted audiophiles" and will never admit to it. Credit to Norm MacDonald for the quoted phrase, it really fits a few people here - and RIP to Norm.

I suspect they don't need to sell many $5K or higher cables to make it worth their while. But regardless, I don't think it's anyone's place to tell people what they can or can't buy, or should or shouldn't buy, or that they must have lied to themselves about how good something is after buying it. If someone likes their $5K cable and that's how they want to spend their money, and even if they have convinced themselves they hear a difference that really isn't there, that's their business. I just don't get why it matters so much to some people to convince others that they really aren't hearing a difference. If in their mind they do hear a difference, and it favors the more expensive cable, then they are going to buy the more expensive cable if they can afford it. No arguing otherwise is going to change that, because who is going to buy something they think is worse just because on paper it should be as good, when in reality, when they use the product, they have a different experience?

First of all, there are some atrocious masterings out there. Not one or two. Literally thousands. Second, are you actually arguing that labels like Mofi, Analogue Productions, Audio Fidelity, etc. aren't/weren't catering to the audiophile market? Yes, it might be a small niche, but 1% of a large pie is still a significant piece, and clearly it can be enough to turn a profit. Third, even in the Music forum part of this site, we can see countless threads where people are after the best pressing as far as sound quality goes. Going to the extremes of reading matrix numbers so that they can go buy that exact pressing. And you are saying this is just a music forum and has nothing to do with audiophiles? The evidence does not support that claim.

That was not meant to be an exhaustive list. I am just saying, it's not often you find people discussing mass market audio gear in this forum.

I would probably argue if someone listens to mp3 files then they aren't really an audiophile, but I actually wouldn't make that claim because I don't know the context. A lot of people listen to mp3 files on Spotify as background music, or to simply find new songs they like. But they also listen to CD, LP, SACD, or high res files a lot of the time. So yeah, I wouldn't make the claim because there are many people like that out there. But I would say, if you put together a really nice system and perhaps treat your room, and in general do what you can to achieve great sound, and then you feed that system mp3 files, well, I'd argue that doesn't make a ton of sense.

Big difference between $500 and $5,000 though. But when people rant against audiophiles, they always seem to go to the extreme, as if $5,000 cables are what audiophiles all buy, even though like I said, I'm sure it's a very small minority that spend that much.

Yup, and it's not correct. But why let something like facts and perspective get in the way of a good rant?

 

There definitely have been MP3s and other lossy digital sources put on CDs and vinyl, and maybe even found their way into hi-res formats too. For example, modern compilation CDs that include King Harvest's hit "Dancing in the Moonlight" are taking it from an MP3-compressed source, supplied to them by Universal Records:

www.top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2491&PN=0&TPN=2

 

It's supposed to be.

 

Response from Ken Micallef...

 

His first argument is that audiophiles are stupid because they want their system to sound "correct."
He phrases it in a straw man fashion by pretending we "want to hear the recording exactly like the producer MEANT for us to hear it."
Whatever THAT means.
Then he goes on to complain that we are fools because "nobody knows what it sounded like at the moment the recording was made---so you guys are STUPID."
Huh?

Most intelligent people realize we are talking about a RECORDED copy of the event made with MICROPHONES.
It is NOT reality based!
It is only a RECORDING.
The best you can hope for is that the recording is a great performance and ENTERTAINS you over at your house!
It is not a time machine or a teleporter or transporter that takes you back to a time you have never been to.
It is NOT a "magical" machine.
It is only a recording---not a time machine!

I have NEVER heard this come out of the mouth of an intelligent audiophile.
What I HAVE heard is guys trying to get violins to sound more like violins.
And basses to sound more like basses.
And trumpets to sound more like trumpets.
And cymbals to sound more like cymbals.

One you get your set to make noises similar to REAL instruments you are pretty sure to be hearing CLOSER to what is on the recording!
That is why some guys build systems to sound REALISTIC.
That AND it just SOUNDS GOOD over at your house!
THAT'S ENOUGH isn't it?

I remember clearly the first time I set up my Wollensack tape recorder to record the high school band.
It played back sounding NOTHING like it did "being there" during the actual performance.
It was ONLY a recording and I felt completely let down.
But it was the BEST I could do and good enough to be enjoyed by others which was the purpose of the recording in the first place!

This guy sounds like an under educated smart mouthed idiot trying to get clicks.
First he accuses us audiophiles of trying to do something nonsensical like "hear the session from inside the control room as it was recorded."
As if that is even possible.
Then he concludes that we are all morons chasing an impossible dream.
Huh?
Good luck with that, baby!

 

So punchable.

 

Ah, the stupid Cheap Audio Cheapskate thread has resurfaced again...it refuses to die...

 

So much defensiveness. Insecurity runs rampant in the audiophile world as so many posts in this thread and the video posted by Matt Richardson shows.

 

Alternatively, it might just be a terrible video. I couldn't get to the guy's point, whatever it might have been; I got through 30 seconds of "BRO I'M-A UPSET THE STATUS QUO" and realized that my time is more valuable.

 

Then you really have no idea what he said and your comment on his video is pointless.

 

Exactly, he's slow walking an obv dumpster fire to draw people to his channel. Just another Youtuber whose mommy didn't give him enough attention.

 

I mean, I said he was punchable, and no more. I stand by it. I didn't address the content past that point.