totoro;693793 Wrote: > I'm sorry, but at this point in the argument (ok, discussion :) ) you > seem to be pretty much ignoring the fact that there is a well > established literature on the way we humans trick ourselves. There are > some videos on youtube by Ethan Winer and Poppy Crum illustrating how > this works for audio at least to some degree. The fact that we do this > has resulted in the pharma industry having to adopt fairly rigorous > blinding for their studies. > > I mentioned before that I find it mysterious that people think that > audio is so radically different than medicine in this regard.
I am not ignoring it, but honestly, I don't think it matters all that much here. The human ear is a wonderfully sensitive instrument. And in home audio, we are using it to judge how much we enjoy something, not trying to do scientific proof of one thing or another. Quite literally, it doesn't matter why you hear an improvement, as long as you do so consistently. It could be a real difference caused by power or noise or something, it could be something to do with environmental cues, it could be the color of the jacket on the cable. A friend of mine has a saying he is fond of, and that is that none of this is a life or death type of issue - we are not killing babies here. He's right. And in some sense, home audio should be treated like art. Two people can look at a painting and see totally different things. They honestly do "see" different things, even though the pigment has not changed color. Music is in the same kind of thing I think. It is not sensible to me to fume and fuss over it and insist that one cable is better than the other. Or insist that all cables sound alike. Or indeed, insist that measurements re everything. The SBT is a great example of that - hooked to a good DAC is flat competitive with CD transports and Digital Players that cost many multiples of the combined price of the player and the DAC. It really is *that* good. When we get reliable and pop/click free USB running from it, I expect it will sound even better. (At least, with the right USB cable! ) That isn't to say that testing and results are not important, because they certainly are. But you have to draw a line somewhere. I draw that line with my ears, moderate testing if I am unsure of my ears, and with my checkbook. The more you want from my checkbook, the more of that testing and proof I want. Everyone will be a little different here. > Isn't Xenu a great galactic emperor who committed a huge genocide (by > putting people in volcanoes and setting them of with hydrogen bombs if > I remember)? I'm pretty sure if _he_ found a difference he wasn't > expecting, he would kill everyone involved in the making of all of them > :). > Yep, I can see we really agree 100% on that subject. He would have been pissed that SBTs are so inexpensive. (grin) > In my normal audio use outside of work, I use an sb touch connected to a > wireless network. I could try using a usb cable between an external hard > drive and my server box, but I have a really hard time imagining how > this would affect anything. Well we utterly agree here. I meant between a computer and a DAC, or between a SBT and a DAC. You would not believe what a SBT sounds like through a really good USB DAC. Well, if you ignore the pops and clicks. > As far as the claims by the TAS guys about rippers go: the differences > between the sound of the files HAVE to be different as a result of the > ripper being used for their "findings" to be of any value at all. If > the differences are due to accidents about the state of the hd and > could be changed by moving the files, then the whole thing goes > straight down the toilet. Going out on a limb here, but some folks I know claim that emailing a file can "change" it and make it sound different. I would normally discount that out of hand, but this came from a very noted record producer and engineer with her own studio. That gives me serious pause. I also have a friend who is convinced that the power supply makes a difference when ripping. I have listened to a bit of his stuff, and darned if I didn't think I heard a difference. Note - "think" - I am NOT convinced I actually did hear a difference. Unlike with the USB cables. :D -Paul -- paul.raulerson ------------------------------------------------------------------------ paul.raulerson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=50346 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=93549 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
