Do audiophiles hear something we don't?

Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
Yes, they have some scientists of note but is it really disproportionate to other countries?
I don't know; I haven't made a study of it, but being in the computer hardware and software fields, it sure seems like electrical engineering and computer science wouldn't exist as we know it without British scientists, let alone physics (Newton) and genetics. Is it out of proportion on a per-capita basis? I don't know for sure, but let's just say I highly doubt this conversation would exist about the topic we're discussing (audio systems) on computing equipment connected by the internet without them. So, yeah, it feels out of proportion.
 
Out-Of-Phase

Out-Of-Phase

Audioholic General
Go over to avs and do a search for posts from amirm. lovinthehd probably still remembers.
 
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Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
Go over to avs and do a search for posts from amirm. lovinthehd probably still remembers.
I did take a peek at the AVS Forums, and all I can say is that there are a lot of good reasons why I don't visit there much (even though I'm a member). And to think that Buck considers me nasty. A lot of those members make me look like a warm fuzzy teddy bear. [No smiley]

Anyway, I didn't read all of Amir's posts, but I didn't see any regarding cable differences. Many of Amir's posts included the results of measurements, and many of the nasty replies amounted to "none of that matters". Amir is a high-end sort of guy, and based on being a former CVP at Microsoft I'm guessing he can well afford to be, and a lot of what I read seemed to be dismissal of anything that wasn't cheap in electronics. Based on what I've seen on his current web site, I have a lot of respect for the guy, since he actually measures, and seldom gets into subjective analysis of what's audible, though when he does he tries to investigate it with measurements.

Can anyone point to even one post anywhere in which Amir claims that properly designed cables can sound different? I find it unlikely that he ever thought that.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
FWIW the only cable related issue I remember is the jitter aspect.
 
Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
FWIW the only cable related issue I remember is the jitter aspect.
Jitter isn’t a cable issue. It is controversial whether jitter is audible at what level. Since Stereophile sort of focused on it, the entire question became even more controversial. I’m in the agnostic camp. I’d prefer it for jitter to be low, but I don’t know when it becomes a factor.
 
Out-Of-Phase

Out-Of-Phase

Audioholic General
Irv, refine your search, I would use Google instead of their website.

Speaking of his recent reviews, he reviewed two devices that I use on a daily basis for audio playback with absolutely no issues. One is a solid-state headphone amp and the other is a solid-state power amp. He doesn't recommend either one. That's his problem. I must be deaf.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Jitter isn’t a cable issue. It is controversial whether jitter is audible at what level. Since Stereophile sort of focused on it, the entire question became even more controversial. I’m in the agnostic camp. I’d prefer it for jitter to be low, but I don’t know when it becomes a factor.
Just meant usb vs hdmi etc in terms of the cable....
 
Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
Irv, refine your search, I would use Google instead of their website.

Speaking of his recent reviews, he reviewed two devices that I use on a daily basis for audio playback with absolutely no issues. One is a solid-state headphone amp and the other is a solid-state power amp. He doesn't recommend either one. That's his problem. I must be deaf.
I did a search on Google (Amir probably would want me to use Bing) for Amir and jitter and got nothing about cables. When he discusses S/PDIF and HDMI it's about the interface logic. Interesting that he likes the old Mark Levinson No36S DAC best in the jitter department, because he's seeing similar results to what Stereophile measured on my old No39, which uses the same Ultra Analog DAC chipset. Still, nothing on cables, and Amir is careful not to draw conclusions about audibility. I think you guys are misjudging him because he likes some expensive equipment (but only sometimes).

As for whether or not Amir's recommendations are worth listening to, since he started measuring he's apparently become fixated on the best measurements for the dollars spent. I think there are other factors. For example, he doesn't recommend my Benchmark Media DAC3 because similar DAC performance is available at a lower price. I don't care; I like the ergonomics and never-make-a-thump or other bad sounds of the Benchmark products. The Oppo I tried, which measured better, thumped. Just like with Stereophile, read the measurements and take the opinions with a grain of salt.

(As an aside, Amir seems to be learning about how difficult it is to make repeatable accurate measurements near the limits of the measuring equipment. Getting them right is hard work, and often takes experience and super-special bench set-up. High performance networking is often like that... why aren't we getting line rate on that 100GbE throughput test? Hmmm...)
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
I did a search on Google (Amir probably would want me to use Bing) for Amir and jitter and got nothing about cables. When he discusses S/PDIF and HDMI it's about the interface logic. Interesting that he likes the old Mark Levinson No36S DAC best in the jitter department, because he's seeing similar results to what Stereophile measured on my old No39, which uses the same Ultra Analog DAC chipset. Still, nothing on cables, and Amir is careful not to draw conclusions about audibility. I think you guys are misjudging him because he likes some expensive equipment (but only sometimes).

As for whether or not Amir's recommendations are worth listening to, since he started measuring he's apparently become fixated on the best measurements for the dollars spent. I think there are other factors. For example, he doesn't recommend my Benchmark Media DAC3 because similar DAC performance is available at a lower price. I don't care; I like the ergonomics and never-make-a-thump or other bad sounds of the Benchmark products. The Oppo I tried, which measured better, thumped. Just like with Stereophile, read the measurements and take the opinions with a grain of salt.

(As an aside, Amir seems to be learning about how difficult it is to make repeatable accurate measurements near the limits of the measuring equipment. Getting them right is hard work, and often takes experience and super-special bench set-up. High performance networking is often like that... why aren't we getting line rate on that 100GbE throughput test? Hmmm...)
Just to be clear, I have no particular issue with Amir and cables, altho do remember a test of various speaker wire that was a bit funky but it's been a while. The jitter was mostly in conjunction with USB interfaces IIRC and audibility never seemed to be much of an issue in actual use.
 
Out-Of-Phase

Out-Of-Phase

Audioholic General
I do remember him defending a well known expensive audiophile brand of cables. I believe at the time he sold them.

Years ago, he posted over on the hydrogen audio forum as well and challenged the regulars over there. Wow, what a joust that was.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
I was referring to culture, not genetics.
At some point, can they really be separated? With new people comes new information. I'm sure English thinking changed when the Romans & Vikings came and when people traveled from one country to another, information was exchanged. My reference to 'gene pool' was more about knowledge, really.
 

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