Thank you Dave. Yes, people can and do draw wrong conclusions as to why things sound as they do. We all make mistakes, and some more than others. I do not see the damage to which you allude, and without examples, I am left wondering.
I will share some specific examples of my own. Perhap they are what you are talking about. This kind of stuff does not upset me. I thought a particular slight phase/out of focus imaging issue was because of room acoustics. It turned out to be my long interconnects. DDK investigated the room/speaker interaction and then switched my cables for two different pairs that he brought with him. Problem solved. My subjective conclusion was wrong, his what right, but he also had suspicions about the cables before, perhaps for technical reasons, I do not know.
I also attributed some HF distortion to a piece of SS electronics, but later solved the issue with better cartridge alignment. A friend and I heard some HF distortion in his system. We disagreed as to the cause. He addressed it to his satisfaction with room treatments, I still hear it, but to a lesser degree. Finally, that black background and increased contrasts I thought was from an upgraded phono stage I was auditioning was actually from high end cables, TubeTraps, and power conditioning. Once I removed those from the system, I could hear the new ambient information and nuance from the recordings. Those touted items were not lowering noise but rather removing or obscuring information on the recordings or so it certainly seems.
I was also surprised by the increase in naturalness with better speaker orientation that eliminated toe-in. I have since been told that it simply increased reflections and my room was now creating a sense of ambience. Yet, recordings sounded more varied after the change rather than more homogenized.
I have learned much over the years about what can cause particular sonic issues and how to improve the sound of my system. However, in the end, what I care most about is the final result, and that is how natural the system sounds and how much I enjoy my LPs. I have compared all sorts of power cords. Some claim to be technically more advanced or correct with better wires, insulation, and connectors, and yet they do not necessarily sound better in certain system contexts. Do people agree about what measurements are the most important or even necessary? Surely in some cases, for some things, but much seems to remain a mystery. I've tried thinner and longer power cords that sound better than shorter, thicker and much more expensive power cords, both for high current and low current amplifiers. The cheap stuff people denigrate can often sound more realistic and convincing.
I use what sounds best to me in my system. My priority is on listening because my ears seem more reliable at identifying better gear than do the measurements that people tell me are so important. I don't know how to measure dynamics or flow, or naturalness. I will leave the measurements to the designers for whom they are useful and use my ears to select my gear and do the set up. If someone can do a better job, as ddk did a few weeks ago, I am certainly happy to get the help.
Subjective preferences, reality, objective truth, and their relationships can be quite fascinating. What I observe by hearing a symphony becomes a reference for the truth for me in reproduced audio. That reference is the goal and the truth worth pursuing. My observations are my perception of that reality, that truth. That sound as I once heard it is the basis for the decisions and choices I make with my system. The ears are the instruments. My enjoyment is the measurement. I like to learn and have fun along the way.
I like that definition of magic: technology that we do not understand. There is much that I do not understand about the science behind my audio gear and set up, but I certainly hear the magic, and I suspect the greats that designed the gear I just bought, and the guy who optimized it all for me, relied on more than magic. They relied on their ears as the final judge, and they did and do understand things.
Last edited:
