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The Know it all Audiophile

duckworp said:
I could not believe the sanctimonious people that came telling me, and others, that we were 'hearing things' when we described the cables we liked. I still do not understand what motivates such people.
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Reason? Logic? Common Sense? A good understanding of The Laws of Physics and The Scientific Method? A healthy scepticism of magic beans? A belief in the power of expectation bias?
 
sq225917 said:
What exactly is it in these 10k commercial streamers that can't be had for 1/10 of that money?
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Risk.

When sold in "boutique" quantities of no more than a hundred or so (in today's market for such costly products) the manufacturer still has to recover the sunk costs to bring the product to the market. After tooling and other non-product-development costs there's often remarkably little left to do the engineering properly. The science behind these products has been well known for decades and it's all about the quality of engineering. One extra PCB cycle to fix some noise leakage? A software bug? Not in the budget!

With kit that gets sold in much larger quantity at 1/10 of the price it's easier to budget for doing the development well. No guarantee, of course, but lower risk. And as @Yank writes you have the option to avoid obsolescence and keep up with later developments without substantial depreciation over a short time.
 
narabdela said:
Reason? Logic? Common Sense? A good understanding of The Laws of Physics and The Scientific Method? A healthy scepticism of magic beans? A belief in the power of expectation bias?
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Fair enough to hold that view, but why the belligerent need to extol it so continually and deafeningly? Darko was trying to say in his video piece that a degree of tolerance would make life better. Try and accept that some people hold a different view and allow them to do so. No need to save us from ourselves, thanks.
 
So what I'm hearing jp is that my rpi with all its myriad hardware and software revisions is potentially a better option than a bespoke pcb server.

Quell surprise.
 
Ian M said:
Darko’s latest video made me laugh. I think he is describing everyone on this forum, especially the bit about DIY streamers. :)

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What puzzles me about this thread is that in his usual, poorly-written, hypocritical, faux hipster, half-baked, twatty sort of way, Darko takes a swipe (however vaguely targeted) at more or less everyone. "Especially" ? Hmmm. Aside from his wit being nearer to a bendy plastic sword than a rapier, it seems to exercise a particular fascination for fans of both selective reading and victimhood.
 
sq225917 said:
Duckworp, why the constant need to play extol the belief in cable fairies?

At least our position is rational and evidence based.
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I don’t generally extol the general principal of cables making a difference. Except now.

I will happily discuss the benefits of different cables with others who have used them, as you might discuss the same on amps or speakers. Like the recent Ethernet discussion on this forum. This is then a constructive discussion as it informs what you might want to investigate and try out. From it I found others have found cat 8 is better than cat 5, directly my experience.

Why on these discussions people want to come in and say it’s all rubbish is beyond me. Why do you care so much about others having a different opinion? If you think it’s rubbish why bother telling us.? Save your energies for a useful debate. By saying difference don’t exist or “it’s all 1s and 0s” you won’t make me suddenly realise I wasn’t actually hearing a difference after all. All it does is dampen the discussion.

If you add together all the anti-cable posts together you would come to hundreds of thousands of posts, hundreds of thousands of hours of time and for what? I doubt anyone who hears the differences in cables ever said “damn it these guys are right! I am hearing things”. And if they did why is that ‘victory’ so important to you? Spend these energies educating people who want to learn instead of trying to educate people who have no interest in your education.
 
John Phillips said:
Risk.

When sold in "boutique" quantities of no more than a hundred or so (in today's market for such costly products) the manufacturer still has to recover the sunk costs to bring the product to the market. After tooling and other non-product-development costs there's often remarkably little left to do the engineering properly. The science behind these products has been well known for decades and it's all about the quality of engineering. One extra PCB cycle to fix some noise leakage? A software bug? Not in the budget!
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I can see that if you compare a foo streamer with an RPi which is made in the millions. But the intriguing thing is that someone like Allo can manage to make a well-engineered digital transport board like the digione to add on to the pi, at which point it's difficult to make the case that there is any extra engineering in the foo streamer at all
I also take some persuasion that any foo streamer manufacturer is putting more effort into the software than picoreplayer gets.
 
duckworp said:
If you add together all the anti-cable posts together you would come to hundreds of thousands of posts, hundreds of thousands of hours of time and for what?
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Easier to sort your mental filtering so it sifts the keyboard warriors, with their lack of politeness etc, and those who are just trying to be constructive.

I think some folk forget that in the vast majority of cases, you have to take any contribution and contributor on what they’ve typed. I’ve only met very few posters on here, but that interaction has helped no end when being able to understand their posts.
 
duckworp said:
I don’t generally extol the general principal of cables making a difference. Except now.

I will happily discuss the benefits of different cables with others who have used them, as you might discuss the same on amps or speakers. Like the recent Ethernet discussion on this forum. This is then a constructive discussion as it informs what you might want to investigate and try out.
....
Spend these energies educating people who want to learn instead of trying to educate people who have no interest in your education.
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I am, despite appearances to contrary, actually very sympathetic to this point of view. But no one really seems to have found a satisfactory solution to the problem that different people seem to have very different attitudes to how to approach a discussion about whether something "sounds better" or not.

At one point IIRC the Wam had separate sub forums for those who just wanted to discuss their experiences and those who were interested in how things work. I don't think it lasted.

There are a number of other issues which get go into the mix including what is and isn't rude, the importance of cheapness/expense, whether people are soliciting advice and disucssion or not, whether forums should be a counterbalance to the predilections and shortcomings of the audio press, whether there exists something along the lines of hifi knowledge.

It would be convenient if people really could divide into groups based on an explicit rubric of whether they are in the slightest bit concerned how things work, and whether it matters to them whether the explanation for what they report is the same as the explanation they wish to give. Unforunately people with different approaches often post on the same thread. It may be that their posts are not really aimed at you, even if they are replying to things you say. Forums are complicated places.
 
adamdea said:
I am, despite appearances to contrary, actually very sympathetic to this point of view. But no one really seems to have found a satisfactory solution to the problem that different people seem to have very different attitudes to how to approach a discussion about whether something "sounds better" or not.

At one point IIRC the Wam had separate sub forums for those who just wanted to discuss their experiences and those who were interested in how things work. I don't think it lasted.

There are a number of other issues which get go into the mix including what is and isn't rude, the importance of cheapness/expense, whether people are soliciting advice and disucssion or not, whether forums should be a counterbalance to the predilections and shortcomings of the audio press, whether there exists something along the lines of hifi knowledge.

It would be convenient if people really could divide into groups based on an explicit rubric of whether they are in the slightest bit concerned how things work, and whether it matters to them whether the explanation for what they report is the same as the explanation they wish to give. Unforunately people with different approaches often post on the same thread. It may be that their posts are not really aimed at you, even if they are replying to things you say. Forums are complicated places.
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That is one of the most sensible things I have read on the matter. Thanks.
 
Andrew C! said:
I’ve only met very few posters on here, but that interaction has helped no end when being able to understand their posts.
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Absolutely!

I/we exhibited a system at an early Wigwam show. We invited comments on the bass performance, in particular.
One punter said "I am a bass player and the bass your system produces in nothing like real bass, it's way too tight"
Another punter said " the bass is really boomy".

I realised at this point that you can't please all the people all the time and you certainly can't please audiophiles much of the time :)

At another Wigwam show an exhibitor made a comment about a technical parameter of his system (that applies to all systems). I was with a friend who, as graciously as possible, advised him that his technical statement was a common misconception and was not quite right. The owner of the system equally graciously accepted that he may be right. A knowledgeable looking punter with a grey beard and a tweed jacket then overtly, and with total confidence, asserted that the original statement was true and my pal was completely wrong and by implication was a total idiot. It was abundantly clear that most people in the room sided with "prof knowledge" because he was so forthright and looked the part.
There really was no point in arguing.
He was wrong!!
 
I think that everyone on this forum or who has listened to variety of systems using a variety of equipment in a variety of locations would be happy to admit that no two systems or rooms sounded exactly the same?

So we can establish that differing systems and rooms sound a little different.

Seemingly a lot of people think that the sound they prefer is 'better' than an other persons preference. Why they think it's better or what there reasoning is mainly down to personal taste or perhaps they're just opinionated.
 
I dont care about people having different ideas, it makes the world go round. The truth is simple, I want to tell them my opinion for exactly the same reason you do, because I think its correct.

Now we could argue the toss on brownie points, tribalism and the joy of feeling one is correct and our opinion is valued, but I dont give a shit about that stuff. I just think ignoring cables as a source of valued difference is a short cut to cheap happiness. I'd rather spend my time building a better mousetrap that I can measurably improve towards my goal of higher fidelity.

One can sum it up simply.

Those who can, do. Those who cant, foo.
 
sq225917 said:
I just think ignoring cables as a source of valued difference is a short cut to cheap happiness. I'd rather spend my time building a better mousetrap that I can measurably improve towards my goal of higher fidelity.
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I can see your logic, so by implication surely it is NOT worth spending your time commenting on people's ability to hear differences in cables. That's the bit I don't get. Spending time "building better mousetraps that measurably improve towards a goal of higher fidelity" is a worthy and wise way to spend time by anyone's account. Spending time telling people they don't really hear a difference between cables is not so smart as it achieves nothing.
 
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