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What is the most unlikely thing you have seen audiophiles claim?

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I remember being active on the Head-fi boards in 2009-2011 and there was a thread on how changing the cups of the headphones I own for a hefty sum would improve the sound quality "drastically". Yeah, I don't think that was the case. I most certainly think audiophilia is at least 95% delusion and hardly any (if any) of the overpriced luxury products are audibly better than mid-range gear.
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
That the launch PS1 is some audiophile dream.

It has a decent DAC for playing CDs I guess? Like a decent CD player of the era but inexpensive.

But everyone who started coveting one as some magic audiophile dream, based on a single article talking out of its ass, resembled cultlike behaviour.

I have one. No big deal.
 

kavanf1

Member
I'm pretty active on an AV forum. I've seen some shit.

There's definitely an element of the emperor's new clothes from some people, but there are people who know what they are talking about too. The reality is that the vast majority of people don't mind listening to stuff directly from their phone speaker, and accordingly don't have the ear to distinguish mid-range systems from anything more advanced. However people who are trained to hear the differences are able to tell. It's not much different to people claiming to see no difference between 30/60/120fps. The majority of people don't give a shit as long as they can play the game, but you get nerds who obsess about it and claim their experience is ruined if anything runs below 60.
 
I remember something about a special bell that when rung in a room would have some sort of quantum effect that would improve the acoustics. That may have been a parody, not sure.

edit: here it is:

The Quantum Temple Bell is an audio and video device that is loosely based on the Tibetan Temple Bell used for clearing the rooms in temples of bad energy or evil spirits, whatever. Machina Dynamica, in it's continuing research into quantum mechanics and programmable materials such as the Super Intelligent Chip and the Clever Little Clock and Blue Meanies, stumbled onto the Tibetan Temple Bell as a means for improving audio and video performance. Unlike tiny little bowl resonators that act on acoustic waves in the room, the Quantum Temple Bell has a quite different operational mechanism. The Quantum Temple Bell is used in the same way a Tibetan monk would use it, "clearing" the room once, then leaving the bell in another room, or in a drawer. I.e., the QTB is not a resonator, at least not in the way tiny bowls are resonators. The information programmed into bell can be modulated on the acoustic ringing signal, much as an audio signal or any information is modulated onto an electromagnetic wave. This information is transferred to the local environment in the room. This Quantum Temple Bell actually demonstrates that acoustic waves produced by the speakers are not the only thing that determines what we hear when listening to music.

http://www.stereophile.com/content/quantum-temple-bell

http://www.manta.com/cp/mx7l5w2/4f2808cee01a27073e000087/quantum-temple-bell
 

"Cable Elevators are a classic audiophile upgrade which will work on any surface from carpet to concrete. By moving cables away from surrounding surfaces the negative dielectric field interaction is completely removed, preserving the delicate audio signal's purity.

Reduce harmful effects of floor-borne vibrations
"

lmao it's quite literally esoteric. God, I should go back to reading Head-fi more regularly.
 

AMUSIX

Member
That we would ever want something better than an 8-track. Complete bunk thinking, modeled by the advertising of the hi-fi industry.
 

cjp

Junior Member
The most utterly and completely ridiculous thing I know of is audiophile quality Ethernet cables that they claim will improve audio quality when you stream from a media server to whatever device it is connected with. And the most insane thing about it is that these cables allegedly have to be installed in a certain direction in order to provide the benefit.

You literally have to know exactly nothing about how any of the components in that setup work to think that this is true.
 

Paertan

Member
I'm an electrical engineer. During college we often visited AV forums together with faculty members (doctors, professors) and laughed at some statements. Mostly people trying to defend buying expensive HDMI cables though.

My favorite is probably buying expensive power cables. Ignoring the hundred of meters of power cables on the other side of the outlet.
 
I remember being active on the Head-fi boards in 2009-2011 and there was a thread on how changing the cups of the headphones I own for a hefty sum would improve the sound quality "drastically". Yeah, I don't think that was the case. I most certainly think audiophilia is at least 95% delusion and hardly any (if any) of the overpriced luxury products are audibly better than mid-range gear.

Different wood cups have an objectively and measurable difference to the sound.

Snake oil claims like $500 headphone cables will improve the sound are complete BS though.

Head-fi has devolved into a mass of shills, hype and just plain nonsense for awhile now.

Also claiming that there are no advantages going beyond mid tier headphones is almost as bad as those objectivist types who claim the ODAC is the best dac in the world.

Of course many won't be able to get enough out of high end gear, but then again, it is a niche market. Differences are real and measurable. Lucky for most, you can get a kick ass setup for relatively cheap. Just get a Modi 2/U/Multibit and a Vali 1 stack with an hd6x0.
 

Persona7

Banned
I saw a dude on a forum spend $5000 to replace parts of his headphones with gold because it apparently improved the sound quality.
 
That they can hear the difference between lossless, 320kbps, and CD audio.

Surely, there have been blind tests at some point?

There has been blind tests done just recently actually. There is an article about it on innerfidelity. Though it was between lossless and hi-res if I remember correctly. People really can hear the difference between lossy and lossless with the right kind of gear and well recorded music and with a trained ear. I can't really tell the difference except with very particular tracks and even then I'm not positive I'm actually hearing a difference.
 
Well, if you put a price tag on it I'm sure someone will buy it!

Only $129!

http://www.manta.com/cp/mx7l5w2/4f2808cee01a27073e000087/quantum-temple-bell

for only $299 you can get:

The Clever Little Clock is a highly treated battery powered travel clock that improves the performance of any audio or video system when placed anywhere in the room. Theory of operation is provided on our web site.

http://www.manta.com/cp/mx7l5w2/4f247ee161f82f9d2500016e/clever-little-clock
 
Do you think there is a minority with a high quality audio set up that would pass a blind test 320kb/s vs lossless?

The veracity is in the claim. There's not much in objective scientific data to say one person has better hearing than others, outside of obvious damage.
 

Jzero

Member
different ear pads do make a difference though. You shouldn't spend more that $30 for a pair though.
 
Probably all of the 50 year old dudes with immaculate hearing that claim they're capable of hearing shit above 22 khz as air or whatever the fuck they claim they hear up there. I'd bet all of them several millions to watch them go do hearing tests to find out they can't hear jack shit above 12.5khz or something.
 

Timedog

good credit (by proxy)
That they can hear the difference between lossless, 320kbps, and CD audio.
There are easy ways to do blind tests and at least with 320k mp3 it's possible to hear a difference with good equipment and good ears. Not sure about 320 AAC, which seems to sound better than mp3 to me.

Im pretty dang sure can hear a difference between lame encodes and AAC (been meaning to test it), let alone CD quality, but I also have expensive studio monitors and used to be an audio engineer.
 

Dio

Banned
Rotational velocidensity affects all audio files encoded with lossy compression. These include mp3, aac, and ogg.

The most notable effect of rotational velocidensity is the loss of bitrate in files. A lossy audio file will lose an average of 12kbps a year. But, this can vary greatly depending on the type of storage media used.

Examples:

SATA HDD: ~12kbps
IDE HDD: ~15kbps
SCSI HDD: ~7kbps
DVD: ~16kbps
CD-R/RW: >21kbps

This can be overcome by compressing audio using lossless formats such as FLAC, APE, or TTA. These formats are designed to never lose quality over time, and will sound the same right now as they will in 10 years.
 
There has been blind tests done just recently actually. There is an article about it on innerfidelity. Though it was between lossless and hi-res if I remember correctly. People really can hear the difference between lossy and lossless with the right kind of gear and well recorded music and with a trained ear. I can't really tell the difference except with very particular tracks and even then I'm not positive I'm actually hearing a difference.

Really the unlikely thing is that the difference will impact your enjoyment of music in any meaningful way.
 

sirap

Member
different ear pads do make a difference though. You should spend more that $30 for a pair though.

Even ear tips have an effect on sound signature. Same thing with cables, although I do agree that there are some ridiculous claims made in that department. My Zeus-R has detachable cables and I've definitely noticed some slight changes in treble with different cables.

As always, these things aren't really obvious with cheaper equipment. Some of the higher end headphones can be really unforgiving on lower bitrate/badly recorded music, and sounds drastically different when paired with different sources.
 
That stringing speaker cables across little stands rather then letting them touch the floor improves the sound.

Like the speakers are on the floor themselves... or are they elevated up off the ground?

If they are directly on the floor they definitely don't help with distribution of sound through out the room.

EDIT: Ah... speaker cables... yeah that is weird.
 

zpiders

Member
I went from from a £50 closed back headphone to a £150 Sennheiser open back headphone, I could make a out a massive difference in sound quality, even with my right ear being a bit dodgy. The clarity and sound stage was immense.

Saying that, going from my current headphones to £1000+ headphones, I don't think the difference will be big enough to make up for the difference in cost.
 

Maedre

Banned
Rotational velocidensity affects all audio files encoded with lossy compression. These include mp3, aac, and ogg.

The most notable effect of rotational velocidensity is the loss of bitrate in files. A lossy audio file will lose an average of 12kbps a year. But, this can vary greatly depending on the type of storage media used.

Examples:

SATA HDD: ~12kbps
IDE HDD: ~15kbps
SCSI HDD: ~7kbps
DVD: ~16kbps
CD-R/RW: >21kbps

This can be overcome by compressing audio using lossless formats such as FLAC, APE, or TTA. These formats are designed to never lose quality over time, and will sound the same right now as they will in 10 years.

yeah....right...
 
I went from from a £50 closed back headphone to a £150 Sennheiser open back headphone, I could make a out a massive difference in sound quality, even with my right ear being a bit dodgy. The clarity and sound stage was immense.

Saying that, going from my current headphones to £1000+ headphones, I don't think the difference will be big enough to make up for the difference in cost.

Yes, going from $20 creative headphones to quality mid range headphones is a huge upgrade, no doubt.
 

Social

Member
Rotational velocidensity affects all audio files encoded with lossy compression. These include mp3, aac, and ogg.

The most notable effect of rotational velocidensity is the loss of bitrate in files. A lossy audio file will lose an average of 12kbps a year. But, this can vary greatly depending on the type of storage media used.

Examples:

SATA HDD: ~12kbps
IDE HDD: ~15kbps
SCSI HDD: ~7kbps
DVD: ~16kbps
CD-R/RW: >21kbps

This can be overcome by compressing audio using lossless formats such as FLAC, APE, or TTA. These formats are designed to never lose quality over time, and will sound the same right now as they will in 10 years.

Lmao
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
That the launch PS1 is some audiophile dream.

It has a decent DAC for playing CDs I guess? Like a decent CD player of the era but inexpensive.

But everyone who started coveting one as some magic audiophile dream, based on a single article talking out of its ass, resembled cultlike behaviour.

I have one. No big deal.

That's always the case with enthusiasts wanting to believe they know better than the average person lol. It's kinda funny to see how deluded people get at times.
 
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