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How do the 'non-subjectivists' choose their hi-fi systems?

My interests include music and electronics, and audio combines these. I'm here because I might learn something, especially around speakers and acoustics, and to help others where my expertise permits. Isn't that what forums are all about, people with shared interests exchanging ideas? Why are you here?
I don't spend time in the audio forum so much these days as I find it irritating to see the same arguments trotted out, time after time. See Tony's post #1040. I got lured into this thread. I guess on here, I sometimes find myself acting out troll hunter fantasies. I think I found one.
 
I don't spend time in the audio forum so much these days as I find it irritating to see the same arguments trotted out, time after time. See Tony's post #1040. I got lured into this thread. I guess on here, I sometimes find myself acting out troll hunter fantasies. I think I found one.
Maybe you should spend more time on things you enjoy and less questioning the motivations of others. I do agree some of the arguments can get rather tiresome, FWIW.
 
Maybe I should, mansr, maybe I should.

Not convinced your motivations are as pure as you profess, but hey, I guess you've got to live up to your billing. I guess that's where the fun is, for me.

At some point soon my hearing perception will, I trust, return to normal and I'll enjoy my music again. Then I'll be back to doing what I enjoy. In the meantime, poking trolls with a stick is a poor substitute but in these days of lockdown, you've got to make your own entertainment, haven't you?
 
Rather than limiting ourselves to what I've personally encountered, take a look at the list at ASR: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?pages/Audio_DAC_Performance_Index/
Note the complete lack of correlation between price and measured performance.
Rather like most products you can buy....performance is just one aspect. Style. Brand value. Cost to produce. Cost to design. Margins to distribution and sales networks. Marketing costs.....and so the list goes on. There are lots of reasons why goods are priced as they are. Items poorly priced won't sell. The market decides.
 
Maybe I should, mansr, maybe I should.

Not convinced your motivations are as pure as you profess, but hey, I guess you've got to live up to your billing. I guess that's where the fun is, for me.

At some point soon my hearing perception will, I trust, return to normal and I'll enjoy my music again. Then I'll be back to doing what I enjoy. In the meantime, poking trolls with a stick is a poor substitute but in these days of lockdown, you've got to make your own entertainment, haven't you?
If it weren't for the current situation, I'd suggest we have a chat over a pint. I think we probably have more in common than this thread would suggest.
 
I usually buy something because A, I like the way it's put together and B, because I like how it sounds. I sometimes look at the specs but more often that not I can't be bothered. Some years ago I took a massive gamble and bought some 211 power amps blind because I trusted the dealers description. He gave me a generous discount on the understanding that once we'd done the deal that was it. Thankfully they were everything I could have wished for and six years later I'm still enjoying them immensely.
 
Of course they can, but so what? If the measured difference is well below the threshold of audibility, it doesn't matter, it'll be inaudible whether or not I expect it to be.
Measurement religion is strong with you. And no, it is not called science.
 
Rather than limiting ourselves to what I've personally encountered, take a look at the list at ASR: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?pages/Audio_DAC_Performance_Index/
Note the complete lack of correlation between price and measured performance.
I am currently running four DACs, three with excellent ASR specs and one with good. Strangely enough I hear differences among them. Even though I don't spend long hours training myself on ABX testing as Amir commendibly does.

The differences I hear are at the level of personal preference, like the filter settings on modern DACs. Worth noticing and enjoying, but not agonizing over.
 
In these discussions, people all too often focus on determining _preference_ when the more important task is to establish that a _difference_ can be reliably detected (or not).

Not so much the most important task, but certainly the primary one...

Once you've determined that two products are different, there's still the issue of whether one is right and one is wrong, or if they're both wrong in different ways.

What is the purpose of discovering differences in products? It's not just academic, it's to aid in either a purchasing choice or a design decision.
 
Sometimes I find differences are subliminal, not necessarily directly audible, so thresholds may be misleading. YMMV obvs, but I find if my listening patterns change, or my choice of music varies, that can be instructive even if I haven’t consciously identified a characteristic. Can’t do that in anything other than extended listening.

Differences can also be cumulative. A series of barely-perceptible differences can add up when components are combined.
 
Differences can also be cumulative. A series of barely-perceptible differences can add up when components are combined.
You just desceibed the interactive or confounding effects, that every textbook on experimental method tells you are important and can't be assumed away.

Yet, our objective friends routinely ignore it. They either pretend its not important or are (gasp) undereducated in this area.
 
Differences can also be cumulative. A series of barely-perceptible differences can add up when components are combined.
Of course distortion is cumulative. That's why I want each item to be transparent with some margin. If they all have enough headroom that 10 of them could be connected in series and still be transparent, there's nothing to worry about.
 
Perhaps it would be instructive/useful to list these ten “transparent items”, so we can all enjoy them. :)
I meant ten of the same item. If stringing 10 preamps one after another doesn't audibly affect the sound, then the single one we actually need won't either, _and_ there will be enough margin for the amp to do some damage as well without the compound effect being noticed.
 


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