jh901 wrote: > Well, your view is based on no experience, but rather a bizarre "wish", > whereas mine is grounded in both personal observation AND views of > professionals AND views of informed consumers. I don't know why you > cannot grasp the fact that both the power supply and the analog output > stage have such an enormous impact on sound quality. There isn't all > that much special about the digital stage in my CD player, for example, > but the design of the power supply and analog stage is a different > story. You won't bother to hear for yourself. Oh well.
Point by point. My view is based on many years of experience as music lover and reformed audiophile. Please stop using the word "professional" when you are referring to the audio press. The only thing these so called professionals are professional in is LYING. All well made USB cables which meet or exceed specifications sound exactly the same, anyone who claims is either lying or delusional, same is true for power cords. I understand that power supplies and analog stages can and do make a difference, what we are in disagreement about is just how big or important the differences are. Most of the super expensive state of the art equipment that you fetishize over is just plain over built. This whole over building thing reminds of what I used to encounter in my work as a fire protection engineer. I designed fire sprinkler system, you know those heads located up in the ceiling that spray water when there is a fire. Well some architects believed that if you just put in more sprinkler heads you would get better and better protection but this is not the case. There is absolutely no difference in the degree of protection provided one sprinkler head in a 12' by 12' room versus 2, 3 or 4 sprinkler heads in the same 12' by 12' room - none. Same thing with cables, power supplies and, dare I say it, jitter. Once you get past a certain point it's just over designed and over built. cliveb wrote: > This is getting out of hand. Let me try and draw an analogy. > > The way that different people subjectively react to sound > characteristics is like the way that men react to women. In an objective > sense there is little to choose between, say, Scarlett Johansson and > Natalie Portman. They are both beautiful ladies - neither is prettier > than the other in any kind of scientific way. But I bet every > red-blooded male will have a preference for one over the other, and will > probably express such a preference in an unjustifiably overstated > manner. > > Thus it is with audio. Once you get to the high-end, differences are not > formally meaningful; they can only appeal to a particular listener's > personal taste. I like your analogy and propose a slightly different one - how about between Scarlett Johansson and a another woman who looks almost exactly like her. On tht one I'd go with Scarlett since she would most likely have more money :) darrenyeats wrote: > I was criticised on this very forum for writing about differences I > heard in power supplies for my SB3. It's actually quite frustrating when > people give technical arguments for why your own experience is "wrong" > (when actually no experience is wrong--see next post) so I have sympathy > for jh901. > > Subsequently, I had several experiences with sighted versus blind > listening which made me feel my own sighted impressions for differences > that are measurably small (basically, any differences in competently > designed modern line-level equipment) are unreliable. > > The point being, there might be audible differences, but I don't trust > myself to determine this by my listening sighted. > > To jh901 and others, I have no doubt this will come across as quite sad > in a way, but it is how I view things now. > Darren That is pretty much the path I followed to get to my current state of mind regarding all things audiophile. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ralphpnj's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10827 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=98249 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
