Audiophiles can't tell the difference between a $200 receiver and a $12,000 one | Hacker News Reader

Audiophiles can't tell the difference between a $200 receiver and a $12,000 one

hometheaterfocus.com

19 pointsaycangulez11 comments

I worked at a high end audio shop for a few years. I saw everything from $80,000 audio /cables/ to $150,000 turntables. There is a lot of snake oil, but articles like this upset me for two reasons. Firstly, the lumping of "audiophiles". Most of the people who refer to themselves as such are nut balls (in my experience). There were a few that were great and heard amazing ears, but most of the time - nut balls. Guys that spent more time listening to tone recordings and day dreaming about their own perfect setup then they did actually listening to music. Secondly, there /is/ a difference in wire/speaker box/electrical source/whatever - but it doesn't mean that the more expensive one is better. It is about synergy. Quick example: I had a pair of small rega speakers with a set of $5,000 nordost speaker cables. Sounded awful - worse than a car radio. I swapped it out for the set of the generic cables that came with it - blew away half the speakers in the shop that were two to ten times the price. There were also times when the /best/ sound really was a tube amp with separate power drop, acoustical treated wall, and the whole shebang. Every little change you make makes a difference, every solder joint counts. Do yourself a favor if you are at all interested in this, and stop by your local big city hi-fi shop (not best buy, magnolia or any other chain, something that has upwards of $10k speakers in stock preferably) and try out the different sets. You will be swayed.

Not conclusive, but very suggestive. The fact that only 50% could tell the difference between high and and low end does not mean there is no difference. Example: in one experiment, only 49% could tell the difference between red and blue. Does that mean there is no difference? Not necessarily. Almost all of the participants could be red-blue colorblind.

I'd like to know how many of the participants could consistently distinguish between cheap/expensive in a large test of pairs--if any.

Either way, one can draw the confusion that most audiophiles are full of shit. I find the same ratio in most other professions.

Engadget did a test of headphones (earbud) and it seemed to indicate for those, more expensive (at least for those they tested) did better:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/09/big-box-earbuds-put-to-a-...

Their methodology doesn't seem very rigorous. It's impossible to do a true double-blind test of earbud sound in isolation because they feel different in the ear and that's likely to affect sound perception.

I'd really be kinda surprised if there wasn't a substantial difference between $10 and $100 headphones. That's not very controversial -- it's the ultra-high end products that have no connection to reality.

(Also, they mention Bose is disdained, but I've noticed several times in "lets make fun of audiophile" threads that a lot of people do defend their headphones.)

Their methodology is rubbish. The fact that they can't possibly be blind invalidates the approach to begin with.

But they also didn't remain within one class of device when the physical coupling method does a lot to affect the result. They also didn't do any work whatsoever to research models which are often recommended as being good.

If Engadget didn't have such high journalistic integrity, I'd suspect it of being a sideways ad for Bose and Monster.

That's not a problem, since to actually use the things you have to put them in your ears. Hence, if the feel of them affects sound perception, you want to include that.

Yeah, but everyone's ears are different. You'd have to characterize ear variations that are relevant to earbud sound and put people in different buckets to get consistent results, and then to interpret the results for a specific person you'd have to find out which bucket they're in.

Money and results are not linearly correlated.

This sort of thing gets posted occasionally. It's a coin toss whether they're trolling for hits or just don't get that you can't buy $12000 worth of amplifier and have it be 60x as amplifiery as a $200 amplifier. Electronics doesn't work that way.

It's all about diminishing returns. Once you're spending more than a few hundred bucks per component you have to concentrate to tell any difference at all.

I'd say $12,000 spent on a whole SYSTEM would outside the bounds of reason - spend at most $5k on a system and then use the rest of the money on MUSIC to play on said system :)

They also can't tell the difference between flac and V0.

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