Audio & the Emperor’s new clothes.


I have been into audio since the early 70s and once considered myself an "audiophile" - but no longer. At one time being an audiophile meant that you loved music and had a fascination for the gear that reproduced it. But it seems that to be an "audiophile" today means that you are a very specialized acquisitionist; one who pursues yuppie arrogance items of the audio kind and one who - in some cases - simply pursues the Emperor’s new clothes. I still enjoy my music and I do enjoy the equipment and I do have a good ear. I can easily hear the difference between cold equipment and equipment that's been warmed up. I hear differences between cables and - to a lesser extent - interconnects. I have no pretensions of being unique in this ability but I DO hear these kinds of things. I DO know what live music sounds like, having been to many concerts; jazz, rock, classical and opera. I have never heard any audio system, at any price, in any showroom - and I have been to some great ones - that reproduces the so-called "absolute sound" of live music. Listening to live music and listening to reproduced music are entirely different experiences, each having a very unique appeal. I enjoy reproduced music (via a good system) just as much as I enjoy live. But I refuse to be deluded into believing that they sound the same. I know what I hear and am confident enough in my hearing to know what I don't hear, as well, regardless of what the self-proclaimed gurus of high end audio tell me that I ought to hear. What I do NOT hear is that one amplifier or preamplifier "blows another away" in terms of sound quality. There was a time that I did hear significant difference in equipment but I do not hear them any more. And my ears are just fine, thank you. I do not abuse them. The change has come in the audio marketplace. In the early days of solid state, sound quality was regularly sacrificed on the altar of "specsmanship" via abuses of current limiting and negative feedback circuitry, among other things. Only a few manufacturers back then were employing beefy power supplies and direct coupling and other design concepts that are now well known and employed by a large majority of manufacturers. During the 70s, anyone with a decent ear could hear big differences between the average stuff and something really special like the Levinson or Bryston equipment. In the 70s there WERE some big differences in the sound of one component versus another. But even then the differences were not necessarily related to price. I still have my little Advent 300 Receiver. I bought it used when it was about a year old, as part of a package deal ($150.00 for an Advent 300 & Large Advents Speaker pair). Hooked it up and never even THOUGHT of listening to my Pioneer receiver again. Sold the Pioneer for double what the Advent stuff cost and got myself a NICE Thorens 'Table. That Advent based system, of course, is now semi-retired and provides intermitant motivation to lift heavy things in my medium sized exercise room. Does it match the sound quality of my main system? Of course not - my main system employs more recent and more sophisticated engineering than was available in the '70s and has cost me over 10 times what that Advent based system was worth. Sounding better than a sweet sounding little '70s system is what my main system "gets paid for". But does the main system sound 10 times better? You have got to be kidding! It is more articulate, more open, more dynamic and has a sense of presence that the 70s system does not. But either system is sufficiently enjoyable to draw me into the music. And that is what audio is about. Do differences in the sound of various electronics still exist? Of course they do. But I am thinking that the differences have more to do with personal taste than with sound quality. And I suspect that some of the high end amplification equipment is deliberately "voiced" to a particular taste, in the same way speakers are "voiced". But the bottom line - in my opinion - is that the huge differences in sound quality just aren't there anymore. The point of severely diminished returns in terms of sound quality is reached long before you are into the high end stuff. So why all the talk about exquisite differences in high end sound quality?
classicaudio
Joe_I think your subjective baseline numbers are little too low, although I agree with what you are saying. In my subjective view, a good 10K system can get you 60% to the reference and the 100K will get you 85%. You spend 50 K more and get closer to 90 %.The last 10 % is not possible at any cost. Yet!
Sometimes they buy something that does not help & is not better & convince themselves it is better. Still can talk about how much money is in it. It is a hobby so there is continual looking for improvement whether real or imaginary. Classicaudio Not sure I am an audiophile either, said to have Golden ears, can hear difference if any. Am more into cars, have had killer stereos for Rock for many years. Not that expensive to do, esp. if one does not care how much space it takes, did have to tweak it. Ehider Know what you meant by the Ferrari comment. Performance is what matters to me. Bought a Corvette when could not afford a Ferrari, later could have paid cash for a Ferrari, but did not since the Corvette I had was better from a performance standpoint.
This is a wonderful thread. I'd like to come to the defense of all us audiophiles in one respect. We really don't indulge in expensive gear to impress. Vary few of us have audiophile friends to impress. If you do you're fortunate. I think most of us have my experience. When I had a dinner party and put music on in the background several people were impressed with the sound. They walked over to my system and asked what's all that? Krell? Sonic Frontiers? ARC? They were not impress because they had never heard of that stuff. They almost always launch into a discussion of the great Yamaha home theater system they heard last month at SoundTrack. Bottom line here is you'd better be self actualized and love music to be an audiophile. If your bag is to impress neighbors, relatives and non-audiophile friends you better be into high end cars or TV's.
I agree that not many indulge in expensive gear to impress others - people who aren't into it think you're crazy for how much you spent and a lot of people who are into it think you're crazy for picking what you picked. Just check out a large number of these threads. By far the most satisfaction is experiencing it and enjoying it yourself. That said, there must be some status-driven nature to it since there is a lot of aesthetics-driven cost-impacting decisions made with regard to the design of high-end gear, but when you think about it, very few people actually see the gear and understand why it's special. Nowhere near as status-worthy as a nice car even beyond the fact that you don't park your system in your driveway.
Nilthepill thanks for sharing your own views of closeness to perfection. Once again, itis a highly subjective topic. I think we are closer to live sound when you refer to amplkified sound i.e. a rock concert. But even then, more accurate in a small club setting as opposed to large theater. But with un-amplified, acoustic music, including the pure human voice, or the sound of a piano, I insist we are no better than 40% of the way, even with the best equipment around. A night at Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center (ugh!) is sufficent to prove it. At least in my subjective view...