Audiophile Street Cred and the "Golden Eared" Audiophiles

[rsbeck]

I also have one of the few acoustically treated dining rooms.

For years, when we've attended dinner parties and we're seated in someone's dining room and everyone starts talking, I have felt like my head was going to implode and I want to run screaming from the room.

When my house was built, I worked with the acoustician who designed my theater and listening rooms to make sure the acoustics in the dining room would be pleasant.

I know I am more comfortable in there during gatherings and I believe my guests are , too, but they probably don't know why. It is designed for excellent absorption, dispersion, and speech intelligibility.

In fact, there are acoustic treatments all over my house to reduce vibration from footballs, noise isolation between floors, between garage and bedrooms, between bathrooms and adjoining rooms, to reduce and isolate noise in the laundry room, etc.

I think this should be offered in all high end homes.

My acoustician loved working on it, but he said I am the only one who has ever asked for this.

 

[mep]

My brother has a a very expensive home in a very snooty neighborhood. My brother had all of the floors tiled because he has dogs and his wife has allergies. Combine tile floors with hard-reflective drywall and 10' ceilings and you have a nightmare for sound. You get a couple of women in one room yakking and it sounds like they are screaming in your ear.

Good for you that you thought this through when you built your house.

 

[JackD201]

Why rsbeck, you are a kindred spirit I see. Having a "quiet" house was a big priority for us too. We should start a thread on "Quiet Homes". That would be interesting. Should you or should I? I wonder what subforum it should come under.

 

[rsbeck]

I would recommend to anyone building a house to get an acoustician involved early. If you include some treatments in the construction of the house, you can make sure they blend with your decor and are "invisible" and it makes a huge difference. Like MEP, I have a buddy in my neighborhood who was building a beautiful Mediterranean home during the same period we were building ours (turn of the century Craftsman). Their house is all tiled floors, plaster walls, high ceilings and he has a media room with a big flat screen and surround sound. I told him and told him all during construction that he should hire my guy, Keith Yates, to come over and plan his whole house acoustics, or at least in the media room.

Now, their house is built and the acoustics are a nightmare. I believe house acoustics are sort of subliminal. It affects your enjoyment almost on a subconscious level. If you're in a room with hard acoustics, echo, problematic speech intelligibility, low absorption -- it can be very unpleasant, but unless you understand acoustics, you probably have no idea what's happening or why you don't feel good in that room.

Now, after living in the house for a couple years, he has finally hired Keith and they're having to tear into walls and ceilings to retrofit some treatments.

I'm glad they're doing this. It will cost more to do it this way, but their house and media room will be much more enjoyable when they're done.

A lot of people get involved with these forums when they are building a new home, media room, listening room, theater, etc.

It'd be great to have a forum on whole house acoustics.

Even if your house is already built, there are some simple, inexpensive things you can do to isolate or reduce noise.

I think Audiophiles who are sensitive to sound and acoustics would be interested in some house tweaks.

By all means, let's start a thread for whole house acoustics!

 

[rsbeck]

Maybe Art Noxon's forum? I wonder if he has experience or knowledge in the area of whole house acoustics that he can share. If so, maybe he will host a thread in his forum.

 

[ulf]

I know a well "tube guru" who built and sells high end tube amps. He can in an instant in an unknown system hear if it is driven by a solid state, push pull or triod tube amp. He claims he can t hear any difference when his own very high end tube amp is powered by an of the shelf power cord and by a high end power cord. Me and my friends hear big differences with the power cords on hios amp. Remarkable how different the human hearing is.

 

[FrantzM]

Ulf

I apologize in advance. On the the tests you performed on power cords in which you heard "big differences" did you take any measure to eliminate some biases? I am asking because I, also did hear "huge" differences between the same cords when it was suggested to me they were different .. The same exact cords , I simply didn't know though ... I am not dismissing your recollection of the listening sessions.

 

[garylkoh]

I know a well "tube guru" who built and sells high end tube amps. He can in an instant in an unknown system hear if it is driven by a solid state, push pull or triod tube amp. He claims he can t hear any difference when his own very high end tube amp is powered by an of the shelf power cord and by a high end power cord. Me and my friends hear big differences with the power cords on hios amp. Remarkable how different the human hearing is.

Piaget's theory of cognitive development explains this - intelligence is active and constructive: constructive because mental actions coordinate to be inclusive and the mind builds coherence. This enables the mind to resist illusions and hence be less prone to error. But at the same time, it can resist subtle perceptual differences.

Hence, the tube designer who may have spent months perfecting his power supply design is so convinced that his power supply design is good that he cannot recognize that there is a difference in a power cord (cognitive dissonance at work). However, you and your friends hear the difference and recognize that it is the contribution of the power cord.

I encountered the same thing - the power supply on my amps are so over-designed that I could not believe that even a power conditioner can change the sound, let alone a power cord. For 30 seconds, my amps can play music even when unplugged from the wall. I couldn't hear a difference..... until I was hit in the face by my tech accidentally using a 5amp China-made computer power cord into the amp instead of the usual 15amp Belden that we supply with it. After that accidental event, I could hear the difference in different power cords being used.

 

[FrantzM]

Gary

I would be more at ease with proposing Piaget theories as a possibility .. Flat out explaining a perception that is by no mean certain is to me pushing things too far... W don't have to go too far, we don't have to delve into the arcane theories of "cognitive development" . It seems to me more efficient to simply try to verify the veracity of the perception IOW did we perceive a difference or did we think we perceived it ... You know by now where I lean ...

 

[garylkoh]

Thanks, Frantz. You're right. I should have been more clear that it is a possibility. There are also opponents to Piaget's theories, and I'm far from the authority of cognitive development.

 

[caesar]

Take a cable company like Shunyata, Synergistic, Tara Labs, etc., and go up and down their product line of cables. Unless you believe that cables are a complete scam, at least the principles of the company will be able to go down and identify which product from their line you are playing in your system. And so can many audiophiles, whose systems are transparent enough. The Cable company exists for the reason of letting people try various cables in their system.

 

[rsbeck]

I am a cognitive dissident.

I can hear the difference between irony and coincidence.

I can also hear the difference between different kinds of wood.

Oak, for example, sounds hard, but strong.

Pine sounds soft, but easy to scratch.

Fir sounds like animal hair, but it isn't.

That's fur.

Big clear sparkly diamonds sound expensive.

 

[FrantzM]

Take a cable company like Shunyata, Synergistic, Tara Labs, etc., and go up and down their product line of cables. Unless you believe that cables are a complete scam, at least the principles of the company will be able to go down and identify which product from their line you are playing in your system. And so can many audiophiles, whose systems are transparent enough. The Cable company exists for the reason of letting people try various cables in their system.

Caesar

If you go on some cable companies web site, you would see various HDMI cables as well with the marketing verbiage increasingly glorifying as you ascend the price ladder ... I'll leave audio for now .. Do you think their more expensive HDMI cables provide a superior picture ? ... I know in Audio we don't have the luxury of fixed pictures but ...

Oh! I know Audio is different but let's not commit the too often repeated sin of suggesting that those who don't believe that these cables make a iota of a difference do not have systems of the required transparency or resolution.. I can tell you right now that some on this very board with system whose transparency and resolution NO AUDIOPHILE will question do not think cable make such differences ...Believe me people with the best system you would ever hear and yes on the What's Best Forum

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

As an example, Audioquest has several levels of HDMI cables at stunningly different price points. The difference? Silver plating on the copper wire, and how much of it. And the assertion that the silver plated wire carries more signal faster and the more silver, the more, the faster.

I don't doubt that the silver has this effect. What I doubt is that it matters a bit. Their basic copper cable, a very well-shielded, well-constructed cable, carries enough information fast enough to exceed the requirements of anything that will be plugged into either end of it. It is, in fact, fast enough to keep up with the extensive error correction processes present in modern digital systems that check and re-run bits of data until what is at the receiving end of the cable is a perfect match for what is at the sending end, without running behind. Bit perfect transfer. So we're back to the same things we always get back to in audio: Noise and timing; interference and jitter. Neither of which have anything to do with silver plating on the wire.

I find the voodoo transfer from audio to video a bit disturbing, but I'm comforted by the fact that it won't get far. In audio, we can construct incredibly complex signal chains from which we can imagine that we hear all kinds of things and through which we can dismiss others' experiences because they can't be the same as my system in my room, etc.

In video, you can plug a blue ray player into a calibrated TV and see it with your own eyes. Will some still imagine a better picture with a more expensive cable? They do. But their numbers are very small and their influence is even smaller. Nothing is quite as powerful as what is right there in front of us.

Tim

 

[Lee]

Actually the silver does help. I've done the test recently on my new Samsung 4K HDR and the AQ Carbon beat an AQ Forest I had used previously on both picture quality and sound. I have also been testing ethernet cables and better ethernet cables help too.

As an example, Audioquest has several levels of HDMI cables at stunningly different price points. The difference? Silver plating on the copper wire, and how much of it. And the assertion that the silver plated wire carries more signal faster and the more silver, the more, the faster.

I don't doubt that the silver has this effect. What I doubt is that it matters a bit. Their basic copper cable, a very well-shielded, well-constructed cable, carries enough information fast enough to exceed the requirements of anything that will be plugged into either end of it. It is, in fact, fast enough to keep up with the extensive error correction processes present in modern digital systems that check and re-run bits of data until what is at the receiving end of the cable is a perfect match for what is at the sending end, without running behind. Bit perfect transfer. So we're back to the same things we always get back to in audio: Noise and timing; interference and jitter. Neither of which have anything to do with silver plating on the wire.

I find the voodoo transfer from audio to video a bit disturbing, but I'm comforted by the fact that it won't get far. In audio, we can construct incredibly complex signal chains from which we can imagine that we hear all kinds of things and through which we can dismiss others' experiences because they can't be the same as my system in my room, etc.

In video, you can plug a blue ray player into a calibrated TV and see it with your own eyes. Will some still imagine a better picture with a more expensive cable? They do. But their numbers are very small and their influence is even smaller. Nothing is quite as powerful as what is right there in front of us.

Tim