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Why do intelligent people deny audio differences?

In my years of audiophilia I have crossed swords with my brother many times regarding that which is real, and not real, in terms of differeces heard and imagined.
He holds a Masters Degree in Education, self taught himself regarding computers, enough to become the MIS Director for a school system, and early in life actually self taught himself to arrange music, from existing compositions, yet he denys that any differece exists in the 'sound' of cables--to clarify, he denies that anyone can hear a difference in an ABX comparison.
Recently I mentioned that I was considering buying a new Lexicon, when a friend told me about the Exemplar, a tube modified Dennon CD player of the highest repute, video wise, which is arguably one of the finest sounding players around.
When I told him of this, here was his response:
"Happily I have never heard a CD player with "grainy sound" and, you know me, I would never buy anything that I felt might be potentially degraded by or at least made unnecessarily complex and unreliable by adding tubes."

Here is the rub, when cd players frist came out, I owned a store, and was a vinyl devotee, as that's all there was, and he saw digital as the panacea for great change; "It is perfect, it's simply a perfect transfer, ones and zero's there is no margin for error," or words to that effect.
When I heard the first digital, I was appalled by its sterility and what "I" call 'grainy' sound. Think of the difference in cd now versus circa 1984. He, as you can read above resists the notion that this is a possibility.
We are at constant loggerheads as to what is real and imagined, regarding audio, with him on the 'if it hasn't been measured, there's no difference', side of the equation.
Of course I exaggerate, but just the other day he said, and this is virtually a quote, "Amplifiers above about a thousand dollars don't have ANY qualitative sound differences." Of course at the time I had Halcro sitting in my living room and was properly offended and indignant.
Sibling rivalry? That is the obvious here, but this really 'rubs my rhubarb', as Jack Nicholson said in Batman.
Unless I am delusional, there are gargantual differences, good and bad, in audio gear. Yet he steadfastly sticks to his 'touch it, taste it, feel it' dogma.
Am I losing it or is he just hard headed, (more than me)?
What, other than, "I only buy it for myself," is the answer to people like this? (OR maybe US, me and you other audio sickies out there who spend thousands on minute differences?
Let's hear both sides, and let the mud slinging begin!
lrsky
rsbeck
887 posts
 
>>But really, most "cable believers" think that testing to prove something that is easily seen to be self-evident to be a waste of time.<<

Exactly. People naturally want to think they can trust their perceptions.
This is why researchers report that people who've just heard large dfferences between cables get rip roaring angry when the blindfolds go on and the differences disappear. People don't want to think they can be influenced to hear things by peer group pressure, the appearance of a cable, things they heard on the internet, the need to be able to hear differences between any two things because it seems like any two things should sound different, although many times they do not, the need to perceive oneself as having golden ears, or the mind simply creates differences subconsciously because it is confronted with two different looking cables, etc. etc. etc.

But, it stands to reason that people who don't think they are susceptible to such influences are arguably the most likely to be susceptible.

That's why scientists guard against it by performing double-blind tests.

But -- hey -- most of us are just audio nuts, we're not scientists.

Bottom line: I end my particpation in this thread with the same thought with which I started. People believe what they believe. This thread, to me, has born that out. There are lots of approaches to audio that work and as long as we are all happy with our systems, who is to judge?

It was interesting chatting with you all.

Thanks, and happy listening.

Larsky -- I hope you and your brother work things out.

Life's too short to fight with family over audio!
rsbeck
887 posts
 
Oh -- one more thing. If this thread is gone in a few days -- it is Sean's fault. :-)
gregm
3,021 posts
 
people who don't think they are susceptible to (...)influences are arguably the most likely to be susceptible. That's why scientists (...) perform(...) double-blind tests
Maybe. Scientists also perform such tests to gauge how PERCEPTIVE people are. There, the variable is perception rather than the subject of perception (which IS different).
Amazingly in certain cases, similarly flawed responses ensue:)

BTW, has anyone used a MIC to measure zip cord, as part of a total system response??? (As in the roll-off that doesn;t seem to roll on the spectrum analyser?)? Cheers
twl
3,251 posts
 
El, bad analogy.

Cable believers don't think that they make it happen.
It's the cable disbelievers who think that the believers make it happen(via self delusion).

Essentially, for the first time on this thread, I agree with Rsbeck.
People are going to believe what they believe.

Some people will act based on what they experience, and some people will doubt their experiences, and act contrary to them, because they would rather believe what others tell them they should believe.

If we relied strictly on numbers, like is suggested by some on this thread, then we'd all be listening to old Pioneer receivers from the 70's, which had "perfect" distortion numbers, but sounded like hell. These same kinds of people who are anti-cable today, were yelling to the rooftops that we were wasting our money on audiophile equipment, because any cheap receiver "measured perfect", and spending anything more was foolish. It was only the audiophiles who persisted in pointing out that some audiophile equipment sounded better and measured worse. The "measurement people" then fell back on the same argument, about it being "all in your head". Remember that? Well, after a couple years of this same kind of argument happening today about cables, it was found that designing for ultra-low distortion into a static load ruined the sound in real life applications. I'd say that this is about the same situation.

Science eventually "caught on" to what was happening in the "distortion numbers race", and realized that their testing was flawed, and that it actually led to the reduction of performance level in real world applications. It took awhile, but some people never really accepted that science was wrong(incomplete). They still listen to that crap from the 70's, thinking it is "perfect".

I think that this is like a movie, "Revenge of the Bench Testers". Where the plot consists of disgruntled bench testers(and their minions) who were embarrassed by their failures in the late 70's, coming back to destroy the audio world by planting seeds of self-doubt into the audiophile community who embarrassed them 25 years ago. Mwuuhuuuhahahaha!!

Don't worry. We found that they are not invincible, and last time all we had to do was disconnect their feedback loops, and they went back to their benches. :^)
lugnut
1,190 posts
 
Rsbeck,

I'll give you this much after reviewing your systems. You don't spend much money on speaker cables. So, I guess you don't put your money where your mouth is. (meant as a compliment) Obviously, you believe what you say as do those that oppose you.

Enjoy your system while we enjoy ours!

Patrick
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