I started to write a longish post & realised that it was so off topic that I should start a separate thread But it is exactly along the lines of this part of Atmasphere's post - Hence I called it "Objectivists - what might be wrong with this label/viewpoint!!"
I am sceptical about many things in audio but the more I find out/hear the less sceptical I have become (the more I know, the more I know I don't know).
It is probably a combination of :
- being exposed to better playback equipment,
- better trained hearing as a result
- more research as a consequence
Some things I have direct experience of & can't explain and/or measure - some of which I would have denied in the past, could have an effect
- the audible effect of silver wire in teflon (don't know if the teflon is the important factor or the silver wire?)
- Many changes on the PC side both hardware & software & their audible effect
- USB cables
- DSD
- the huge importance of PS stability in digital audio (seemingly the need for far more stability than what is considered "good engineering")
Just some things that others have reported produce audible advantages (whom I trust) but I have no direct experience of yet:
- massive capacitance directly at PS pins of digital DAC chips (see PS point above)
The physics, math, simulations should all be regarded in the light of human perceptual rules, not the other way around. We can change our approach to design, but we can't do anything to change our ears except damage them. The human ear is the most important aspect of audio, and one routinely ignored by 'objectivists' that have not studied the results of human physiological research that has gone on in the last 30-40 years. When I encounter the attitude that we know everything there is to know about audio and engineering, I have to breath deeply and count to 10... the fact is that while we do know a lot on the engineering side, our knowledge of the human brain and how it processes sound information coming from the ear is so poor as to be vestigial- But it is evident that using our engineering, the more we make the designs work with our perceptual rules the better the systems sound.
I am sceptical about many things in audio but the more I find out/hear the less sceptical I have become (the more I know, the more I know I don't know).
It is probably a combination of :
- being exposed to better playback equipment,
- better trained hearing as a result
- more research as a consequence
Some things I have direct experience of & can't explain and/or measure - some of which I would have denied in the past, could have an effect
- the audible effect of silver wire in teflon (don't know if the teflon is the important factor or the silver wire?)
- Many changes on the PC side both hardware & software & their audible effect
- USB cables
- DSD
- the huge importance of PS stability in digital audio (seemingly the need for far more stability than what is considered "good engineering")
Just some things that others have reported produce audible advantages (whom I trust) but I have no direct experience of yet:
- massive capacitance directly at PS pins of digital DAC chips (see PS point above)
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