Do you consider yourself an audiophile?
- Thread starter Doctor Carrot
- Start date
8ball
Decolonise colons!
I dunno, I like having a radio in my Micra.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
You have to laugh at these audiophile types, don't you
Here... have a little giggle at this!
Yours for just £20,495.00
No... they're not talking about a high-end sound system for that money, they're talking about a fookin' power cable, that goes from the socket in your wall to the back of your hifi!
It's a fookin' power cable...
Nordost ODIN Power Cord
Never mind the 10p a foot wiring that you're plugging your 20 thousand quid power cable into, you can rest assured that the last few feet of wire will convert all that bad electricity into hifi friendly electricity... with chocolatey undertones
And here... have a 3m pair of £24,995.00 speaker cables to go with it
Nordost ODIN Speaker Cable
A friend of mine worked at the Audio Counsel in Manchester in the 80s, where he used to do his own 'blind testing'... well, sort of...
The shop sold all the best, high-end audio gear and was, therefore, always packed with audiophiles. One saturday, whilst recovering from a Friday night out, my friend decided to test a theory. He went into the audio room and swapped around some of the interconnects, etc, and waited for the usual audiophiles to come in and test the latest and greatest in cables, and from that day forward, every Saturday, he did the same thing and had a little giggle to himself as the audiophiles went into great depth to explain how much better these new cables were and how the placement on the sound stage was much better with these new interconnects, when in fact, instead of £300 bits of wire, they were actually listening to it through £10 bits of wire.
He also had a 'wheel of bullshit' thing beside the phone (kinda like a wheel of fortune thing). It was a piece of paper, cut into a circle and stabbed onto one of those sharp things that office desks used to have on them for holding paperwork. On the paper were all the usual audiophile buzzwords, like 'sound stage', 'transparency', 'noise floor', 'dynamic range', etc, and whenever the phone rang and an audiophile started asking about some piece of equipment, he'd spin the wheel of bullshit and whichever buzzword pointed at the phone, that would be the keyword for the entire conversation and his goal was to mention that keyword at least 10 times during the conversation.
You gotta love those audiophile types
I spent a summer labouring for a bloke, way back in the eighties, who was insanely into the whole "audiophile" thing. He actually considered having his entire house rewired with "oxygen-free" copper cable, from the consumer unit-inward, to "improve the sound" from his (mostly valve) set-up, but decided not to only when he had it explained to him by a sparks on the site that it'd make no difference unless he also had his own generator too.
I've never known one of these audiophiles to have a decent music collection, either.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
As has been said many times on this thread, if you pays the money, you will hear a difference. Not because the sound is quantifiably-different, but because your belief in the qualities of your £20,000 cable over your old £50 interconnect will ensure that you hear the sound differently. Old-fashioned psychoacoustics mixed with a bit of confirmation bias.
music is a tool to allow them to better appreciate the dynamic range of their hi-fi equipment.
I realise how that works but it's the mentality behind it that worries me. As was mentioned earlier in the thread, these people are worse than god-botherers, because despite real proof that their cables can't do what it says on the tin, they refuse to believe it and use the tried and tested
small fry compared to most of the things on this thread, but I went into richer sounds for some phono leads the other day - the guy said 'we have two different qualities' which immediately made my eyebrows raise.
Have I got this wrong, or am I right in thinking that there will be no qualitative difference between their £26.99 set, their £16.99 set, and the set CPC sell for £1.37?
Have I got this wrong, or am I right in thinking that there will be no qualitative difference between their £26.99 set, their £16.99 set, and the set CPC sell for £1.37?
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
No difference at all audio wise. You may get ones with slightly better build quality if you spend a few quid, but it's by no means certain and this will be inconsequential if they're just going to sit behind a hifi and never get changed.
Nothing to do with psychoacoustics, it's psychosomatic.
tbtommyb
Well-Known Member
was he going to have an oxygen-free generator too?I spent a summer labouring for a bloke, way back in the eighties, who was insanely into the whole "audiophile" thing. He actually considered having his entire house rewired with "oxygen-free" copper cable, from the consumer unit-inward, to "improve the sound" from his (mostly valve) set-up, but decided not to only when he had it explained to him by a sparks on the site that it'd make no difference unless he also had his own generator too.
I've never known one of these audiophiles to have a decent music collection, either.
tbtommyb
Well-Known Member
Good point, well made.
Come to think of it, I grew up with a lad who used to buy the most expensive of everything, and not only could he not wait to tell everyone how much he paid for it, he always bought it at the most expensive place he could find, and made sure everyone was aware of that
that's such a weird attitude. I can understand bragging about finding something on the cheap, but bragging about how you paid loads for something? Anyone can do that. 'Hey this man just sold me a biro for £349!'
sounds like a good person to flog stuff to, though.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Now that would have been an achievement.
He also had to have it explained to him that if he did have his own genny, it would bleed RF interference, so that unless his cables were perfectly screened....
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
So the latter can't be a function of the former, then?
I don't think so. Psychoacoustics describes what happens after an audio signal is converted into electrical signals which are sent to the brain, and how the signals are perceived (and can give indications about what is happening in the auditory system in mechanical terms). A psychosomatic effect with regard to preference of a particular audio signal would be a higher brain function than the brain functions which determine how we actually perceive the sound. Whilst there is no doubt that an audiophile believes the sound is better because of oxygen free "directional" cables, the particular cables and the audiophile's perception don't actually enhance the sound, and won't change how the sound is processed in the brain. It will change how the audiophile feels about the sound.
It sounds better because they think and feel that it sounds better. The actual sound is exactly the same. As I said I believe that conscious (and probably subconscious ?!) thinking and emotions are higher brain functions than the perception of sound. Of course thoughts and feelings are part of perception as a whole, so from that perspective, it really will "sound better" to the audiophile. But that is not a function of their hearing it's a function of their thoughts and emotions... Unless someone knows of some peer reviewed paper that suggests otherwise... 
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
As you say, it's "...how the signals are perceived". The issue then is what informs perception - what conscious and subconscious choices do we make to "hear" something a certain way; what conscious and subconscious information have we absorbed that may colour our peception; how does mind interact with brain, and does interaction or particular modes of interaction colour perception? What we perceive of the signal is mediated through all those filters and more to produce effects, including psychosomatic ones. There's no "raw state" of sound that we he hear prior to those subconscious) filters.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
It sounds better because they think and feel that it sounds better. The actual sound is exactly the same. As I said I believe that conscious (and probably subconscious ?!) thinking and emotions are higher brain functions than the perception of sound. Of course thoughts and feelings are part of perception as a whole, so from that perspective, it really will "sound better" to the audiophile. But that is not a function of their hearing it's a function of their thoughts and emotions... Unless someone knows of some peer reviewed paper that suggests otherwise...
Thinking and emotion are functions of mind, as well as brain.
While thought and emotion are different to hearing, and use different parts of the brain, "higher function" doesn't really explain the difference well. Hearing is a primary sense, and thought and emotion derive information from that sense (and the others) in order to best react to the input.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
double post
But there is! How someone feels about a sound does not affect the quality of electrical signals being sent to the brain. There is feedback in the auditory system but not such that would fundamentally alter the character of the sound. All conscious decisions we make regarding how we perceive a sound do not alter the actual sound, only our perception of it.
Exactly - our thoughts and emotions are informed by our senses, the sound affects how we feel, the way we feel affects our perception, but does not actually change what information is being relayed by our senses.
I have a degree in acoustics, but I think I'd be better equipped for this discussion if I also had training in psychology and neuroscience!
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Input into the ears (your electrical signals) aren't heard in a raw state, they're received in a raw state. The mechanism of hearing is somewhat different to the mechanism of reception. The latter only needs equipment (a timpanic membrane, for example), the former requires the ability to understand what's being received, and understanding means using those filters.
No, but there's no method by which we can hear that information as it is mechanically-reproduced - we "translate" the material from electrical signal to "sound with meaning" as a joint enterprise between mind and brain, not at the ear.
I have a degree in acoustics, but I think I'd be better equipped for this discussion if I also had training in psychology and neuroscience!
Whereas one of my degrees is in psychology, where we're taught that perception is always mediated by mind.
I agree with mostly all of what you're saying but the information being relayed to the brain goes through stages in perception, and I think there is at least one stage in between electrical signals arriving in the brain and the translation of that signal into "sound with meaning" - a stage which is largely described by "electrical signal -> sound" which is (more or less) entirely unaffected by our thoughts, feelings and perception, and that the higher function of applying meaning to the sound is the one which can be affected by mood, personality, etc.
Having a background in physics I guess I like to think that the perception of sound follows logical and systematic steps up to the point that the sound has been perceived, at which point the listener may form opinions on the signal. Conversely I'm not too happy with the idea that an audiophile will actually be getting their money's worth by believing that something makes a difference...
Hang on a minute, <goes to check poll results> .....
<humph, results aren't public ..... did you vote yes?>
Having a background in physics I guess I like to think that the perception of sound follows logical and systematic steps up to the point that the sound has been perceived, at which point the listener may form opinions on the signal. Conversely I'm not too happy with the idea that an audiophile will actually be getting their money's worth by believing that something makes a difference...
Hang on a minute, <goes to check poll results>
.....<humph, results aren't public ..... did you vote yes?
>
maomao
普費斯
Innit. Standing next to the speakers at Sepultura gigs was great fun. Tinnitus not so fun.
Chilli.s
mingling jets and statuettes
Yeah, AC DC started it for me. Motorhead did not help. Then about 15 years ago a gay woman DJ got all sadistic with the pa at a club we had decked out. I think it was coz we were a mix of straights dancing at a gay club.
Tinnitus no fun.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
It sounds better because they think and feel that it sounds better. The actual sound is exactly the same. As I said I believe that conscious (and probably subconscious ?!) thinking and emotions are higher brain functions than the perception of sound. Of course thoughts and feelings are part of perception as a whole, so from that perspective, it really will "sound better" to the audiophile. But that is not a function of their hearing it's a function of their thoughts and emotions... Unless someone knows of some peer reviewed paper that suggests otherwise...
I don't dispute the actual sound (as in the waves passing through the air) is exactly the same, but I think it is more than the audio equivalent of 'reporting bias' in clinical trials <where a subject may think they are on a real drug and their reports are coloured by this assumption>.
I agree that the above is happening to some degree, but I think what may also be going on is something more akin to the experience of the painkilling effect of morphine. Morphine does not affect the nerves that transmit pain, nor the parts of the brain that receive pain impulses. It appears to work on the part of the brain that determines how much we care about the pain, but the conscious experience, when taking morphine, is simply that the pain has diminished, very much in a simple 'it has been turned down' kind of way.
I was thinking about this the last time I was on morphine - the experience of the painkilling effect is exactly like that with painkillers that work on transmission or reception structures.
So it is not a case of having an 'internal representation' that is then internally commented on, but the perception is the internal commentary in a very real way.
So I think at the level of the listener's real immediate experience, it quite possibly really sounds better, which to me goes some way to explaining the vehemence of very intelligent people when you contradict them about this.
That's interesting - in some of my posts I was tempted to draw a comparison to the placebo effect... But the placebo effect actually works so that didn't really support the point I was trying to make.... Maybe we should all invest in £20k speaker cables then ... as long as we believe they'll actually work!
