[Audio_Empire[_2_]]

In article ,
"Arny Krueger" wrote:

"Audio_Empire" wrote in message
...

I was talking to a young audiophile friend of mine on the phone the
other day, and it occurred to me that many of his attitudes and
misconceptions are the products of a lifetime of reading high-end audio
rags and drinking the cool-aid that is the high-end manufacturers'
endless advertising hype.

If people look and listen, there are saner heads to be read. The internet
means that you are no lnger lost in any competition you are in with someone
who buys ink by the barrel.

Furthermore, one can put together a decent education in audio and
electronics through the university level with a little googling.

The biggest myth of all, and one that is almost universally accepted by
the non-technical audiophile community is this notion that as an
electrical signal, audio is somehow "special". In other words, it's
apparently OK for the wire carrying the electrical signals that keep the
airliner we're on in the air, and thus keeps us alive to be
garden-variety copper wire, terminated with garden-variety connectors
and held together with ordinary tin solder, but the wire that carries
our music must be single-crystal, oxygen-free copper (or perhaps silver)
sheathed in special dielectrics, terminated with platinum connectors
fixed with special "audio-quality" silver solder and costing thousands
of dollars per foot!

And the corolaries that amplifiers, preamps, DACs, loudspeakers, etc., are
"special".

Add to that the fact that acceptable electronics must cost so much that
one would think that they were made from Mil-Spec parts, which they
aren't. (but even then, the parts and other manufacturing costs couldn't
begin to justify the selling price of some of this equipment). Even if
they were made from Mil-Spec parts, that, in and of itself, would not be
any guarantee of better sonic performance. Military and Aerospace
specifications are aimed at enhanced reliability and repeatability, not
at better performance than the industrial grade specimens of the same
parts.

For example, high end audiophiles turn their noses up at electrolytic
capacitors, while there are such things as mil-spec electrolytic capacitors
and I've seen them in use.

Of course there are. Electrolytic capacitors are de riguer for power
supplies and the like. Couldn't do without them. But a mil-spec 100
microFared, 50 Volt electrolytic capacitor is the same 100 microFared,
50 Volt electrolytic capacitor as it's commercial equivalent. It just
has been tested (and guaranteed) over a wider temperature range and
under rigorous vibration and other other environmental tests that the
commercial version of the cap hasn't been subjected too.

Sure, good engineering will result in better sound, better reliability,
and greater longevity in hi-fi gear as in any other manufactured goods,
but is there really anything in an MSB Diamond Platinum DAC IV plus, for
instance, to justify its $40,000+ price tag?

Or a DAC costing $4,000 or $400, or even more than some costs $40.

Well, now you're going too far. Many DACs DO sound different (and some
better) than others - even in a bias controlled test. However, my
point is that these differences are not necessarily tied to the unit's
cost. I.E. a $4000 DAC doesn't, by virtue of its cost, necessarily
sound better than a $400 DAC. In my experience, however, DACs
utilizing stereo D/A chips generally "sound" better (and by that I
mean that there are aspects of their audio performance, such as
soundstage or bass presentation that they do do differently than other
designs) than do DACs that "time-share" a single D/A converter chip
and those utilizing dual-differential D/As can sound better yet, but
I've found no hard-and-fast rules there, either.

The idea that components have to cost an arm and a leg in order to
perform at "state-of-the-art" sonic levels is definitely a result of
manufacturer greed coupled with the willing compliance of the audiophile
press who compound the hype by parroting the notion that this stuff is
sonically superior to cheaper equipment even though there is usually
little or nothing in this equipment's design (other than several
thousands of dollars worth of custom metalwork in the component's case)
to indicate that it uses any better quality components or design
criteria than does much similar, but cheaper, gear.

* I'll cut speaker manufacturers a bit of slack here. This is one area
where spending more CAN get you more. A pair of Wilson Alexandra XLF
speakers or Magico Q7s are state-of-the-art speaker systems at $200K and
$165K respectively, but again, a pair of Martin-Logan CLX's and a pair
Descent i subwoofers at under $30K for the lot still probably represents
the most accurate and transparent speaker sound money can buy these
days.

I dunno about that. There is good evidence to suggest that there has been
considerable progress in the price/performance of speakers, and that high
end speakers are just as overpriced as high end speaker cables.

I do know about "that" and I can tell you that if you can find a pair
of speakers that are as transparent and as accurate as the M-L CLXs
for less money or if you can find another pair of speakers that can
produce the sheer volume of a symphony orchestra in full song, or
pressurize a room with low end like the Wilson Alexandra XLFs AT ANY
PRICE, I'll eat my hat! Because as many high-end speakers as I have
heard, I haven't come across such a puppy!

Sure, the proliferation of computer modeling has narrowed the gap in
performance of a lot of mid-priced speakers where many of them sound
as good as or perhaps better than so-called state-of-the-art designs
of just a few years ago. But the really high-end speakers do things
that lesser speakers simply can't do, and you don't need a DBT to hear
it either. It is immediately apparent when one is in the presence of
such designs.