The Audiophile Myths and delusions thread

[moonbogg]

This is an interesting subject that was sort of being touched on in another thread, but not really. So I made this one to discuss myths and silly beliefs, or maybe beliefs that are actually grounded in fact. I think a lot of beliefs are grounded in some fact, but you need equipment to measure the difference and you can't actually hear it.
A lot of audiophiles will tell you that a modern sound card cannot "properly" drive a set of good headphones. They admit the sound card has plenty of power for the cans and that volume will be fine, but they claim that only a dedicated amp/dac will "do the cans justice". They seem to think that a special amp/dac will provide a special, magical signal that will make the headphones sound like they are supposed to sound. I think these people are deluded as hell.
I just bought some Sennheiser HD700's and people said the ZxR would not be "a good match" for the headphones and that they would make the phones sound more harsh and this and that and won't properly drive them, but WOULD have plenty of volume, lol. They sound just fine, very nice actually with the ZxR and they have an absolute crap load of volume. Way more than I could possibly ever use. I think for me, buying another amp/dac would be THE MOST PERFECT waste of money, ever.
What I think is that there are some strong opinions about anything that is targeted toward gamers, especially "headsets". With regard to headsets, I have to agree that 90% of headsets are overpriced and you are paying for gimmicks. The same cost will get you a much better set of normal headphones. This mentality has carried over to sound cards and their ability to power headphones, but I think this is wrong. I just don't think there is much of a difference at all, and if there is, you have to REALLY try super hard to tell the difference.
These are the same people who drop hundreds or thousands of dollars on a special HDMI cable to get better digital audio. Share some audiophile myths. Lets rip them apart or validate them. Ready, set, GO!

 

[poofyhairguy]

My favorite is more expensive speaker wire works better than cheaper wire of the same gauge (even though blind tests show otherwise).

My second favorite is anything that is digital that they pretend can be improved by spending more on the wire. Like elite level Sata cables, or toslink cables, or $70 25 foot HDMI cables.

 

[moonbogg]

lol yes, of course. Speaker wire is a HUGE one omfg. I forgot what it was, but there was some blind test that was done where people swapped out some super expensive wire or something with a COAT HANGAR and people could not tell the difference. lol wonderful.

OH OH! I got one! Headphone burn in! While the headphones might undergo slight physical changes and may result in very slight sonic differences, you would be really hard pressed to tell the difference. Most of the time, its simply YOUR BRAIN adjusting to the new sound of new headphones and what was at first different becomes normal to your brain. The same thing sometimes happens to me when I buy a new PC game. The graphics are so confusing to my eyes sometimes and I can't make out the details, but then the BRAIN adjusts to the new graphics engine and things start to make sense visually.

 

[JAG87]

I'm not a believer in levitating-pure-silver-nitrogen-injected cables, high-res audio, or super-duper-four-digit priced DACs that process that audio in Mhz rather than Khz.

But those people would be correct since the ZXR has an outrageous output impedance of almost 40 ohms, and you're using a 150 ohm headphone. You'd need a 600 ohm headphone for that amplifier to not affect the headphone's frequency response, and even then you'd just be putting lipstick on a pig because there is no excuse for any headphone amplifier to have an output impedance of nearly 40 ohms, it's just shit design. Leaving the source out of the equation, aside from the headphone itself the amp is the only other component of the audio chain that can make a significant difference. Vacuum tubes aside, a solid-state amp will only be transparent if the output impedance is as close as possible to zero. And this isn't FUD. When the output impedance gets too high the difference is not only audible, it is measurable too.

http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/02/headphone-amp-impedance.html

OH OH! I got one! Headphone burn in! While the headphones might undergo slight physical changes and may result in very slight sonic differences, you would be really hard pressed to tell the difference. Most of the time, its simply YOUR BRAIN adjusting to the new sound of new headphones and what was at first different becomes normal to your brain. The same thing sometimes happens to me when I buy a new PC game. The graphics are so confusing to my eyes sometimes and I can't make out the details, but then the BRAIN adjusts to the new graphics engine and things start to make sense visually.

Correct, burn-in is a crock. Any change (if there even is any, since not all mechanical things break in the same way) will be so subtle that it is immeasurable and irrelevant. On the other hand, your brain can adjust to almost anything. If you sit and listen to music with no bass for hours, and then I suddenly return the response to flat, you're going to tell me it sounds "boomy" and there is too much bass now... true story!

Now, those who talk about cable or electronics burning in... I want some of whatever they are on.

 

[thesmokingman]

Moonboog, are you on head-fi? One has to temper the opinions said there. Some ppl can write pages on the nuance and wealth of difference of a 3.5mm plug.

Btw, the 600ohm amp is user defeatable. Ya only use if you need it.

 

[razel]

lol yes, of course. Speaker wire is a HUGE one omfg. I forgot what it was, but there was some blind test that was done where people swapped out some super expensive wire or something with a COAT HANGAR and people could not tell the difference. lol wonderful.

It wasn't speaker cable. It was RCA. Also be careful with the sarcasm and intelligence snobbery. No-one will take this thread seriously if either is rampant. The very best I've ever seen about audio myths are what found in Dr. Waldreps blog: http://www.realhd-audio.com/?tag=mark-waldrep.

He recently just got done dismantling AudioQuest for their HDMI marketing. His last decimation was recently about hi-res audio labeling. He loves hi-res. He owns and sells hi-res music, but face-palms the current hi-res labelling. He feels people are getting ripped off with what is termed hi-res.

The best summaries of which are ironically found at home theater geeks off YouTube. Full disclaimer... he was my professor in college and he is still there.

 

[JeffMD]

My favorite is more expensive speaker wire works better than cheaper wire of the same gauge (even though blind tests show otherwise).

My second favorite is anything that is digital that they pretend can be improved by spending more on the wire. Like elite level Sata cables, or toslink cables, or $70 25 foot HDMI cables.

No one thinks that, -_-

 

[moonbogg]

But those people would be correct since the ZXR has an outrageous output impedance of almost 40 ohms, and you're using a 150 ohm headphone.

I read that it was pretty high, but I also read that it doesn't really matter most of the time. I was using Fidelio X2's and they are only 32 ohms I think. They are very low and they sound amazing on the ZxR. I replaced them because the stupid screws came loose. Anyway, you are right that the impedance is high. What I would like to do somehow is to listen to a low impedance source and compare the two directly for myself to see if it makes enough difference for me to care. If I care, I will fix it.

EDIT: Regarding snobbery, I am not intending to be snobby. I just love a good laugh and there are plenty to be had with this stuff. I could easily be considered guilty of the same delusions with regard to graphics technology. Why OC my GPU's for that extra 10fps if I'm already getting 80? Does it matter? Not really. Maybe that's not a perfect analogy but the point is I am susceptible to all forms of trickery and bad beliefs myself. But that's not the point of this thread. The point is to achieve many lols.

 

[JAG87]

I read that it was pretty high, but I also read that it doesn't really matter most of the time. I was using Fidelio X2's and they are only 32 ohms I think. They are very low and they sound amazing on the ZxR. I replaced them because the stupid screws came loose. Anyway, you are right that the impedance is high. What I would like to do somehow is to listen to a low impedance source and compare the two directly for myself to see if it makes enough difference for me to care. If I care, I will fix it.

An O2 + ODAC is pretty much the same price as your ZXR. Pick one up, try it, and if you don't hear any difference, return it.

 

[moonbogg]

An O2 + ODAC is pretty much the same price as your ZXR. Pick one up, try it, and if you don't hear any difference, return it.

I might do that or perhaps I will go out on a nice Saturday afternoon, take my beloved 700's with me, grab a starbucks and drive to a local music store and ask them if I can demo some amps. I just need to bring some music with me or make sure I have a reasonable way to compare. If I can't tell a difference without switching back and forth every 5 seconds, then I probably won't need to worry about it.

 

[poofyhairguy]

No one thinks that, -_-

Then why does Bestbuy sell cables like this:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/audioqu...gray/9892785.p?id=1218202520524&skuId=9892785

That $240 6.6' HDMI Cable has 39 reviews, some of them swearing it has better audio.

Some people obviously believe the lie.

 

[thesmokingman]

It's normal on some sights for ppl to drop $800-$900 on a headphone cable. Not my style but hey whatever floats their boat.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

I've said for decades that people playing this game haven't had their hearing checked to tell them what they can actually hear--and what they can't. Same goes for vision and videophiles. But if someone is willfully coax from their money then sobeit.

 

[moonbogg]

I've said for decades that people playing this game haven't had their hearing checked to tell them what they can actually hear--and what they can't. Same goes for vision and videophiles. But if someone is willfully coax from their money then sobeit.

I would be embarrassed to be subjected to a blind FPS test on a gaming monitor. If you take that FPS counter away...oh good lord. Game over. I think I would do much better with a test like that than with this audio stuff though. I have seen the price of some of those cables. People go full blown superstitious with this audiophile stuff. Hilarity is to be found here.

 

[razel]

High resolution audio and the limits of our hearing perception: https://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

The FANTASTIC VIDEO of proof of how CD specs is just right for us: https://wiki.xiph.org/Videos/Digital_Show_and_Tell

A more recent test of hi-res: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgXR1j7lvW4

A clever way to get around the limitations of PCM DACs sound using DSD (SACD): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv1XWedFgDY

TLDW - CD audio hits the sweet spot of our perception and hi frequency hearing. Luckily computing speed/storage is so cheap hi-res formats offer more transparency, but not more enjoy-ability with the current markup costs. However no-one is complaining that original master formats are available to everyone!

 

[JAG87]

/thread?

 

[Kaido]

The first difficult thing to deal with is that audio is subjective, just like video. Yes, there is a strong technical side to it, but ultimately what matters simply boils down to the specific individual listening to & paying for the equipment. So you have a mix of snake oil, valid claims, scientific fact, and personal preferences. For example, I generally don't like having tweeters in my cars & prefer 2 or 3-way all-in-one speakers or full-range speakers because I personally like the sound better.

I can't tell you how many times I've working on systems that have been improperly setup that people just love. People who buy big-screen televisions and then hook up devices via a yellow composite cable and "just love how clear & big the picture is!" It's always fun to watch their eyeballs pop out when I hook up an HDMI cable I always make it a point to disable Auto/SmoothMotion (the 240hz-whatever crap) wherever I go too.

But yeah, with audio too. I mean, Bose gets a lot of hate, but to be honest, I think they sound great. Overpriced, yes, but that doesn't mean they're terrible pieces of crap - they are compact, they stay out of the way, and properly setup in the right size room, they sound pretty good. They sound a lot better than the majority of the tiny cube speakers I've listened to. It's easy to get on the hate bandwagon, but just because something isn't audiophile level or is ridiculously marketed doesn't mean it's not a viable piece of equipment. Case in point, the $200 Monoprice speakers that are always on sale - great starter system that doesn't break the budget, but lets you experience 5.1 just fine.

Sound has been an interesting journey for me. The best headphone setup I've ever had is a pair of Sennheiser HD-650's & a Headamp headphone amplifier. To be honest, I didn't care for it at all...it was so good & so clear that it made my MP3's sound like garbage; I had never heard the pops & crackles that people always talked about. I downgraded to my Sennheiser HD-280's, which have served me well for years, and have been much happier ever since. But then, I don't care for the budget HD-202's at all (but which are a great upgrade for most people who aren't into audio). So there's different levels of audio to think about as well.

Sure, I think records are cool, but I'm much happier with the sound coming off Spotify's 320kbps bitrate stream, not to mention having the music actually be accessible to the point where it is easily available for me to enjoy listening to. But I don't care for Sirius-XM at all because it sounds like it's in a tin can to my ears. But one of my buddies loves it, can't live without it, and likes the sound just fine. There was a great article a few years ago comparing Monster Cable to coathangers:

https://consumerist.com/2008/03/03/do-coat-hangers-sound-as-good-monster-cables/

Special cables are hilarious to me because, having restored old amps & stuff in the past, everything is made out of cheap materials & soldering. Then you hook up a 24-karat gold-plated titanium-braided unicorn-kissed cable to that. Okay. There's a lot of placebo effect & crowd pressure going on in the audio world. However, I do believe that some people hear better than others do (and for some people, FAR better) & can appreciate better-quality equipment, so there is a good argument for high-end equipment to be had. For example, I don't have super-ears like some high-end listeners do, but we did a test at work with younger guys & older guys - I can hear above 20k hertz easily, and a lot of the older guys & people who went to a lot of loud concerts couldn't hear above 12k at all (on a tangent, the reason we did that was because there was a machine tool emitting an annoying noise at about 18kHz that was bothering a lot of people, but none of the supervisors could hear it lol).

Plus you have the way the mix is setup. I think most 5.1 sounds like crap. I've been watching the Arrow on Netflix & was pleasantly surprised to hear how well the 5.1 was mixed in the second season...it sounded awesome on my surround-sound system, whereas most shows & movies sound pretty meh. So you have so many variables as to what good sound is...how good the recording is, how good the mastering of the recording is, what medium it was recorded to & at what bitrate, what you're using for playback (tubes, DAC's, headphones, speakers), what level of audio quality people are used to & have been exposed to, how sensitive people's ears are, what the equalizer is set to, etc.

Going back to the Bose thing, it's the same deal with the Beats headphones...do they sound amazing for the money? No, but if you're a teenager who likes cool, brand-name stuff & like to listen to bass-heavy pop music, then they're an awesome deal. You can get the same quality for $25 off Amazon, because high-end headphones are far more balanced as reference designs instead of head-boppers.

I got my wife a pair of Dayton BR-1s speakers as a gift one time (yeah, I'm a nerd). When we moved, we lived next to a high-end audio place & did a demo tour there. Their best setup was a pair of $18k speakers being run off $12k amps. She leaned over to me & whispered "these sound exactly like the $150 speakers you got me at home". So yeah, again...if you have the ears for it, if you care about it, then there's more to be had, but it's not for everyone. Personally, my requirements are (1) is the sound clear enough to be heard & understood, (2) does it fill the room up to my preferred listening levels, and (3) do I just plain like the sound.

Case in point - recently got a ZVOX sound slab. Hate it. Love the features (vocal boost feature, feature that makes loud commercials stay the same volume as the TV show, lights that dim out to black so they're not annoying, etc), but the speakers sounded like they were in a tin can. It was clear & it did fill up the room, but I simply didn't care for the sound at all. Ended up going with an alternative solution that I like 100x better (for even less money!). But that's not everyone's same set of requirements...there's brand, there's bragging rights, there's perceived quality, there's placebo effect, there's crowd influence, there's different levels of hearing, etc. More than one set of factors go into a buying decision & sound preference. I'm sure glad I'm not an audio salesman

 

[Kaido]

I have seen the price of some of those cables. People go full blown superstitious with this audiophile stuff. Hilarity is to be found here.

I've had to question certain forum posts at the various audio bulletin boards, as to whether they were legit (and just crazy) or pure, unadulterated trolling :biggrin:

 

[Kaido]

It's normal on some sights for ppl to drop $800-$900 on a headphone cable. Not my style but hey whatever floats their boat.

That's what it boils down to, ultimately. When it comes to hobbies, people do crazy things. Why overclock (and spend extra money on a super motherboard, big honkin' heatsink, multiple fans, specialty thermal paste, etc.) when you could just buy a faster chip for less money? Because it's fun & we like it! So there is snake oil out there in the audio world (probably the most of anywhere, outside of maybe alternative medicine), and then there's just people having fun with their hobby & spending their money how they want.

Personally, when I went fairly high-end (Senn 650's), it ruined my lesser-quality music collection. I'm not going to go dig up a lossless FLAC just to listen to some Coldplay when I'm in the mood, lol. So for me, there's a limit to how good I want it. Sort of like eating really rich food...it's great once in awhile, but it's not what I want to be consuming every day. Doesn't mean it's bad, it's just not for me for normal use.

 

[Kaido]

Moonboog, are you on head-fi? One has to temper the opinions said there. Some ppl can write pages on the nuance and wealth of difference of a 3.5mm plug.

Btw, the 600ohm amp is user defeatable. Ya only use if you need it.

High-end audio is one of the most emotionally discussed areas I've ever seen. It's worse than kicking off a fanboy (AMD vs. Intel, ATI vs. NVIDIA, Nike vs. Reebok, Chevy vs. Ford, etc.) flamewar...people get crazy passionate about some perceived extra nuance of music they can mysteriously hear for hundreds or thousands of dollars more.

Again, in some cases, sure, maybe. If you have listened to a lot of different levels of quality of audio equipment, if you have really good ears, if you care enough to hunt for those nuances, and if the stuff is legit & not BS (like high-end HDMI cables...it's a digital signal! there's no difference! lol). But heck man, I'm just as happy listening to a song on FM radio as I am on XM. The point for me is the music, not the 1% of audio stuff I've "never heard before in this track" due to the hardware upgrades

 

[poofyhairguy]

High-end audio is one of the most emotionally discussed areas I've ever seen.

Which is why other techies often make fun of audiophiles. Technology, large margins and emotion don't go together. A lot of nerds dislike fashion for example because the whole industry is margins based on emotion.

 

[Kaido]

Then why does Bestbuy sell cables like this:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/audioqu...gray/9892785.p?id=1218202520524&skuId=9892785

That $240 6.6' HDMI Cable has 39 reviews, some of them swearing it has better audio.

Some people obviously believe the lie.

I believe that, back in the analog days, sure, yes, hardware made a difference. But these days...well, it's like buying a better TOSlink SPDIF optical digital audio cable...it's all optical, it's just sending bits! It could be made out of cheerios & as long as the data bits get sent properly, it doesn't matter, because it's digital bits & bytes!

One of the things that cracks me up IRL is the people I know who specifically buy budget hardware (like the $59 Bluray player instead of the $259 Bluray player), but then insist on getting the $79 Monster Cable HDMI cord for it

 

[Kaido]

Which is why other techies often make fun of audiophiles. Technology, large margins and emotion don't go together. A lot of nerds dislike fashion for example because the whole industry is margins based on emotion.

And yet we don't skip a beat when dropping $80 on a fancy laptop tote bag

 

[thesmokingman]

Which is why other techies often make fun of audiophiles. Technology, large margins and emotion don't go together. A lot of nerds dislike fashion for example because the whole industry is margins based on emotion.

In one thread about modding phones. A member chose to mod ear cans with surgical tape because of its porosity, thinking that since it was porous it would not use up the internal volume.

As we all know volume adding damping lowers the Q effectively increasing the size of said box. When I tried to explain that, it went over like crickets...

 

[moonbogg]

Nice posts Kaido. I am now obsessing over my soundcard's high output impedance. I am thinking to myself, "Will my HD700's sound way more AMAZE with a lower impedance amp?". Logically I tell myself it won't make much difference at all. But somewhere inside my head, there is a little audio gremlin who won't rest until he hears a different amp.
I laughed at Kaido's comments about hooking up a magical cable to soldered and far less "blessed" internals of whatever equipment they are using. What about the electrical wires going INTO and throughout the house? I don't think they opened their walls and installed blessed wiring to feed their blessed audiophile equipment with blessed electrical current.

Here is a video that shows that FLAC files are a waste of people's lives. MP3 is usually good enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjTxEwlypA0