Okay so I'm late to the party. With spring now struggling to arrive here in the northeastern US I have been busy out riding my bicycles (I have several bicycles although I can only ride one at a time) rather than sitting at the computer reading on-line audio forums.
So far a very interesting discussion, filled with lots of great links. My feelings about the high end audio industry remain highly skeptical since there are some kernels of truth buried within all the audiophile voodoo. While the use of measurements is a wonderful tool perhaps a basic primer on the differences between what can be measured and what is actually audible is needed. Two quick examples would be jitter in digital audio and the effects of cable/wire in both digital and analog audio. In the case of jitter it can shown while jitter can be easily measured, jitter cannot be heard by human ears. The case for cables is even more absurd since the claimed effects of most cables can't even be measured let alone be audible. Then there is the myth that electrical and digital audio signals somehow behave differently than other electrical and digital signals. For example the video portion of a HDMI connection is not effected by a fancy high end HDMI cable but the audio portion is. Then there is the money, as in the saying "follow the money" - following the money goes a long way in helping to explain most, if not all, audiophile myths. And there is lots of money being made by keeping audiophile myths alive and well. $50,000 power amps and $10,000 speaker cable offer profit margins that should make one's head spin. One of the main reasons that this forum seems to attract so many objective audio enthusiasts is that most of us understand that the aforementioned audiophile beliefs are myths and simply reject the outright dismal seen in the audiophile world that the Squeezebox devices are only "mid-fi" and are not capable of delivering "high end" audio. Truth be told, it was only after my purchase of my first SB3 that I began to fully question many of the audiophile myths. And once I was able to hear the truth with my own ears many of the audiophile myths started to fall like dominoes. Living Rm: Transporter-SimAudio pre/power amps-Vandersteen 3A Sign. & sub Home Theater: Touch-Marantz HTR-Energy Veritas 2.1 & Linn sub Computer Rm: Touch-Headroom Desktop w/DAC-Aragon amp-Energy Veritas 2.1 & Energy sub Bedroom: Touch-HR Desktop w/DAC-Audio Refinement amp-Energy Veritas 2.0 Guest Rm: Duet-Sony soundbar Garage: SB3-JVC compact system Controls: iPeng; SB Controller; Moose & Muso Server: LMS 7.9 on dedicated windows 10 computer w/2 Drobos 'Last.fm' (http://www.last.fm/user/jazzfann/) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ralphpnj's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10827 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=107343 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
