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Personal vs. Market Values

Take truffle oil. Or truffles. The mushrooms, not the confection.
Honestly I can’t taste it. I’ve ordered all sorts of dishes with "truffle oil" which commanded a premium and if there is any difference at all in the taste I could not tell you even after being told about it.

The point of this is that truffle oil holds no personal value to me. I’m not trading in it or running a restaurant or buying it in bulk. If I did that I’d feel and be willing to spend quite differently than I do now.

The point to this and how this matters in audio is that you should be true to your own ears. Use friends, reviews (cough) and other sources as guides. You may also evaluate a brand based on re-sale value. That’s reasonable as the resale could have a material impact on you in the future.

But if you can’t hear a difference or prefer a speaker/cable/amp no one else does then serve only yourself and your loved ones. Don’t be fooled into thinking that the market value of a particular product has value for you or that it is a display of relative merit. It may not. Our hobby is filled with charlatans selling invisible clothes.

Those who say they can't taste the truffle oil or see invisible clothes spend less and are far happier I think.

Happy listening,

E
erik_squires
n80
1,227 posts
 
16f4, good points. There are also people who get a soapy unpleasant taste from cilantro. However, in the case of cilantro and truffles these folks don't necessarily have a "better" sense of taste. They may be "deficient" in other areas. So how they respond to one or two other things is not a measure of their discriminatory capabilities across the board.

I suspect the same could be said among audiophiles. In my brief time as an "audiophile" I have found that some tweaks, recordings, systems make a big difference just as described by other audiophiles while others make no difference whatsoever. I have no way of knowing if that is just inexperience or how my perception is wired.....and we all have to remember, hearing is not just an acuity issue. There is no 'hearing' without processing in the brain.

There is an extreme visual analogy of this:

 Certain types of brain pathology can lead to someone with normal eyes not being able to see. In this specific condition they are essentially blind because the eye is not connected to the visual centers of the brain even though the eye itself is perfect. Sometimes, however, a reflex tract will be preserved. When this is the case, the person is blind but if you throw something at them they will duck.
redchaser
11 posts
 

A similar analogy in terms of what people perceive be cilantro,  to roughly half the population cilantro taste good, to the other half (me included) it taste like soap.  A flavor I am all to familiar with because of the potty mouth I had as a kid. 

 My hearing is awful.  Each year when I get my physical, my internist checks everything, hearing and vision included, and each year his nurse or tech that is giving me the hearing test thinks their machine is broken because I can't hear any of the high pitch test tones they are playing.  I do ok hearing speech as long as there's not too much background commotion, but there's a range of frequencies that I can't hear, because of that I know that I hear specific pieces of music and specific qualities of certain pieces of equipment differently than others. 

 I recently bought a well reviewed and regarded piece of gear to add to my system.  I really want to like it, but I am beginning to think that I may have to move on to something else because to my ears it doesn't sound that pleasant.  Unfortunately I think the problem may be that I have gotten my system to a point that it is quite a bit more transparent and revealing than what I have ever had before, but with my hearing deficiencies I may need it to be colored a bit to keep from sounding harsh and brittle to me. I'll do some gear swapping to test my hypothesis, if it bears out than to me that higher value - more revealing gear may be of less value than that mid range piece of kit that smooths things out a bit.

elizabeth
6,726 posts
 
An interesting point.. Besides personal value vs market value, there is the reason personal values are different than the masses. We each may find different 'parts' of the whole to be more or less important.  For example:                                          
To others, the weight and feel of the bass is critical, but to me, it just doesn't  matter. yeah I like a bass viol to have some weight to the sound, but the thud thud thud (gut massage bass) of some music just leaves me cold. And I have no need for it in my space. So I can easily overlook a 'lack of bass' in equipment, and in fact may LOOK for equipment which has some lack in that department. (Since I do not want to disturb my neighbors while playing music.)             
On the other hand treble is very important to me. needs to be clean clear, and precise. But for the gut massage bass lover, it may be far less important, just so it 'doesn't screech' is all they want.Then prat, and all those other little things some love, and some wonder what it is?     
I think some if this is why one's own values and the market's values may differ... or coincide.
wolf_garcia
4,650 posts
 
Personal taste is the only taste you get, and the good news is that it can be refined if you're aware enough and bother to expose yourself to things...keeping in mind some have a talent you may lack, or are simply more into something and you'll never match that...like wine tasting geniuses who become high level Sommeliers...you can try, but you may not get there.
n80
1,227 posts
 
Agreed, but that striving can become a treadmill with a carrot in front of it if you can't find some level of satisfaction. As a foodie I have spent years trying things and cooking things outside of my comfort zone to attain those "acquired tastes". But when that hobby or this one or photography comes to the point that I am never happy then I drop it. Treadmills are for hamsters.
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