There seem to be 2 camps of extremists: 100% objectivists, who believe only in DBT, and say (other than tubes, speakers and turntables) all reasonably well made electronics sound the same.
In the other camp, there are the subjectivists, who make extravagant claims about different components, but have never tested themselves in an objective manner to see if they are imagining differences. And sorry, but many times they are. The sad part about these people is that if they tested themselves and found out they couldn't reliably pick out a expensive component vs. a moderately priced one, they could save a lot of time and money. (Of course, maybe they enjoy the hobby just for the endless discussion and "upgrading".) I fall somewhere in the middle. I think a lot (even most) of the DBTs we see bandied about as "proving" something aren't conducted in a manner that proves anything - they're either poorly designed or run on crummy equipment. On the other hand, I think a lot of us couldn't pass a well run DBT on a lot of the differences we think we hear. Example: sound quality differences between FLAC and WAV. (Please don't flame me on that one, I don't want to get into that debate.) But there are are some grey areas: My experience tells me that most people (even experienced listeners) can't reliably tell the difference between (a) hi-res files and standard files (from the same master); (b)or between differing small amounts of jitter on the same file. But I've encountered a few people that can reliably pick out these differences, so to me obviously there are some learned listening abilities involved, or even a small percentage of listeners who have exceptional listening abilities that the rest of us don't have. As a result, I also reject the pure objectivists who claim that "it's not possible to hear any audible difference between X and Y". They'd be more accurate if they said, "the vast majority of listeners can't discern a difference between X and Y". Unfortunately both camps of extremists love to post about what idiots the others are. -- firedog GIK Acoustics Room Treatments. Tranquil PC fanless WHS server running SqueezeServer; SB Touch slaved to Empirical Audio Pace Car; MF X-DACV3, MF X-150 amp, Devore Gibbon Super 8 Speakers; Dual 506 + Ortofon 20 (occasional use); sometimes use PC with M-Audio 192 as digital source. SB Boom in second room. Arcam CD82 which I don't use anymore, even though it's a very good player. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ firedog's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11550 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=87051 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
