Talk:Audiophile

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Contents 1 Original Research? 2 portable DA players as a sound source 3 The Phase Factor: why vinyl sound(ed) better than CDs, or the digital audio myth 4 Asian Culture 5 Why subjectivism? 6 Literal meaning of audiophile 7 This article is fundamentally flawed 8 Rewrite 9 One definition 10 Tubes for distortion or fidelity? 11 People see beauty in different places 12 Removed assertion. 13 Connectors vs cables 14 All equipment at 16 kHz? 15 Phase shift rebuttal 16 Digital versus Analogue 17 "Clipping?" 18 Negative feedback 19 Double-blind tests 20 Professional Practices 21 Current trends 22 I have had it all 23 heh heh heh 24 Put this in your pipe and smoke it ... 25 Identifying bias through comedy 26 Deleted the sentence "To an audiophile, any loss is considered unacceptable." 27 Disambiguation link repair - You can help! 28 External links 29 Contradictory caption 30 ILike2BeAnonymous's reverts of citations 31 CD Sampling Rates and other assorted ramblings 32 Criticisms of Subjective Audiophiles 33 Criticism of the bandwidth syndrom 34 More fodder for the subjectivist vs. objectivist debates 35 1000 watts RMS per channel? 36 Who is an audiophile? 37 Minimalism 38 How to cite audiophile beliefs? 39 Possible restructuring?

[edit] Original Research?

Haven't been here for a while, and I don't see much here in the Talk page to back up the OriginalResearch badge, except for here, where there is a claim that the normal use of the word is derogatory, essentially from the position that the article describes as "Objectivist". I disagree, and based on a quick scan through Google, and some news-stand research (I spent some time in airports yesterday), I think the normal default usage of the word is to describe the phenomenon that the article is about. So unless someone wants to bring some new evidence to the table, I'm going to remove the badge soon. Tim Bray 18:17, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Oops, having taken an edit-for-style sweep through the whole article, I ran across all those Citation-needed tags. Fair enough. That's going to be a great big chunk of work Tim Bray 19:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

If you want to find out if audiophile is a derogatory term trying calling a sound/acoustic/audio professional an audiophile and note the response.HonestGuv 21:14, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I know a few who are studio engineers and audiophiles and the're ok with it. Audiophile meaning one who likes high quality music playback, period. No silly audio-voodoo involved. --Pitdog 21:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

If you were to replace the word audiophile by paedophile, and objectivist by Albert Einstein in this article then the tone would be about right. At the very least it needs a total rewrite and removal of all weasel words and constructions. Enyclopaedic articles do not attack their subjects. Greglocock 01:25, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] portable DA players as a sound source

I believe that the scope of this page clearly on sources should exclude MP3 (regardless of sampling rate) and portable digital audio players. I would argue that no more than a cursory mention is merited, as these are not generally considered audiophile sources at the present time. Likewise, MP3 is not considered an audiophile file format. I have thus made the distinction between 'serious listening' and 'casual listening'.

Digital audio--including the MP3 format--can provide outstanding sound that blows records and FM out of the water. William Greene 15:11, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Apparently I am supposed to be polite. How on earth does leaving large chunks of data out of the datastream improve the final signal? Have no effect, possibly, but /improve?/Greglocock 09:01, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Where did I say that leaving large chunks of data out of the data stream improves the final signal? William Greene 17:39, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

FM stereo is a high quality sound source, at least in some countries. Greglocock 01:20, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

There is a small but growing segment of Hard disc based music storage systems being used as surrogate sources, and this could be mentioned in the 'trends' section. Ohconfucius 06:19, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the future of recorded music is going to be music servers. Anyone know what is an iPod? William Greene 15:22, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Greene, I really love your one sided arguement. I'll agree with you on MP3 and FM..afterall, layer 3 was designed mostly to carry remote broadcast links over ISDN lines. I disagree with you on the record statement. I've trasnferred some CD-4 LP's to DVD-A using a good cartridge and shibata stylus and 96khz 24-bit resolution. While I couldn't get all the way up to 50khz with my hardware, i did register the lower sidebands of the 50khz signal. MP3's currently only go up to 48khz sampling, which is about 24khz of bandwidth. The problem with vinyl is that nobody knows how to play it properly. You don't just buy a turntable and drop a LP on it..you gotta adjust your tonearm, balance it..all that. I also happen to know what an ipod is and find it's sound quality, even with good headphones, to be subpar compared to the DAC's in my computer. I laugh whenever I hear the words ipod, sound, and good in the same sectance, and not because of the lossy formats...high bitrate AAC I find quite acceptable for a standard-def lossy format. DewDude

Hello, DewDude. It is a myth that will never die: records sound better than digital formats. I said it before, and I shall say it again: please supply the citations for anyone being able to hear above 20 kHz. I agree that just dropping a record on the turntable will probably not result in the best possible sound. Assuming that the audiophile knows how to set up his turntable, tonearm, and cartridge and knows how to keep his records and stylus clean, knows how to store his records, knows how often to check for stylus wear, buys audiophile-grade records, knows how to minimize record wear, has a high-quality turntable, tonearm, and cartridge, etc., I shall agree with you that records are able to sound very good. But let me ask you a question. If records sound better than digital formats, why do few people buy them? Do you have citations for the superior sound of records compared to digital formats? What are the technical reasons for records' superiority? Do you have citations for these technical reasons? If you do have these citations, then why have you not provided them?

Yes, I know that you know what an iPod is. That was my point. Well, it appears that many people believe that iPods are capable of sounding good. The difference between the objectivists and subjectivists is that the objectivists have evidence on their side. If you do not believe me, then please examine some of the links and citations in the main article. William Greene 14:31, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Phase Factor: why vinyl sound(ed) better than CDs, or the digital audio myth

Hello, Excuse my poor english, but here are some basic technical arguments to sustain that, yes vinyls do convey more hearable information than CDs. I recommend to the person above saying that ~40KHz digitally sampled audio is better than high quality vinyl to please listen carefully to a good vinyl record (with an open mind, no "technical" prejudices) and secondly to please consider phase, in order to discuss the theory. Frequency is one of the several audio signal components that humans perceive. And yes, any adult human being hardly perceives a pure sine above 18kHz. But please recall that the phase energy of frequencies above the 20kHz threshold can be perceived and that phase information is one of the key factors when trying to achieve a high quality (e.g audiophile) hearing experience. This is why standards have now been set up to 192 kHz sampling rates for high quality audio; this sampling rate has not been set just to accomodate for a possible bat-like audiophile, able to hear up to 96kHz frequencies ... no human can ever perceive those frequencies per se : but we do perceive the phase energy they convey. A 40 kHz sampled CD record will not reproduce the original phase information that old analog vinyl records captured, for the benefit of quality audiophile equipment.

In summary, the sampling rate used for standard commercial CDs alters hearable phase information previously left unmodified in analog recordings. This is why audiophiles say that CDs deteriorate their musical experience compared to their previous vinyl records. Audiophiles would have loved CDs, if they had help to achieve a quality musical experience. And it is my personal opinion that the musical industry marketing has succeeded to propagate the digital quality myth for years, with so-called "technical" facts (obviously subject to obsolescence), neglecting the psychoacoustic hearing experience in favor of other practical and, yes, commercial factors. At that time, audiophiles were the only community to stand up against the technical "evidence" commonly accepted by most, based only on their perception. And perception is the ultimate evidence, as history shows (- possibly link to the psychoacoustics article in wikipedia - need further research to find appropriate articles in english). Our knowledge on the way humans perceive sounds, in particular music, is increasing, partly thanks to audiophiles. It is true that digital audio has fantastic capacities that analog did not have, but musical quality unfortunately was not one of them, up to these last years. Cheers [Pablo, from Paris, France, on Feb 12th 2007]

Please define "phase energy"; this is not a term I'm familiar with. Sorry, it sounds like mumbo-jumbo (i.e., bullshit) to me. And I am one of those who prefers vinyl to CDs; I find your explanation lacking in credibility, though.

By the way, your English is not too bad. I've read much worse—from native English speakers! +ILike2BeAnonymous 00:42, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Oops. Sorry about the mumbo-jumbo. Tried to correct some, but I realize it is way beyond my courage to further contribute, given the effort it took me to put together a few thoughts in english. I'll give it another try when I'll be retired. In the meantime, may I suggest psychoacoustics? Thanks to all those devoting valuable time to share knowledge. Pablo

I looked at that article, but it says nothing about "phase energy". It does mention phase aspects of sound. Would be nice if someone who actually knew something about this subject (what a concept!) could go over the material you added. +ILike2BeAnonymous 18:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Pablo's contribution is an example of typical audiophile beliefs and, as such, would seem a fair contribution. In a scientific sense it is pretty much nonsense although there are faint echoes of technical issues concerning filters with sharp cut-offs in frequency domain introducing ringing in the time domain. Of course, this needs putting into perspective when compared to the substantial and clearly audible degradation of recording onto vinyl.HonestGuv 16:56, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Asian Culture

218.103.34.213 dropped in a note about Asian audiophile culture. I moved it to a slightly more comfortable location in the article, but it seems very broad-brush, overgeneralized, un-sourced. One might even say it's verging on bigoted. I'm considering taking it out; can someone figure out how to improve it? Tim Bray 20:22, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

The note was added following a discussion which took place on pink fish media on the habits of audiophiles, particularly in Hong Kong. I thought that the place of insertion was appropriate as it dealt with an extreme manifestation of subjectivist behaviour as it follow on from 'cuntish behaviour', which I consider this to be. The tendencies have been commented on in local discussion fora, where some audiophiles confessed to the fact that music was indeed incidental to the enjoyment of the hobby of hi-fi ownership. Whilst I confess that the comments were perhaps too generalised ie not applicable to all Japanese and Chinese, the tendency is certainly more common than in Europe or America. Anecdotally, one of my correspondents has visited the homes of a number of these audiophiles, to find a distinct lack of correlation between the number of discs owned and the value of the hi-fi system in question. This is without even mentioning the number of hours spent listening to and exploring diverse music material as opposed to evaluating and re-evaluating pieces of equipment by playing brief snippets repeatedly. Articles appearing in local hi-fi magazines which feature readers' systems and music collections also bear witness to this. I am not adamant about the inclusion/excision of the paragraph, but believe that it does shed light on regional behaviour of audiophiles. ohconfucius 15 June 2006

Who is the audiophile? The person that spends $20 000 US on his system and $200 000 on his CDs? Or the person that spends $200 000 US on his system and $20 000 on his CDs? William Greene 15:39, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I dont think so

[edit] Why subjectivism?

I think a lot--not all--of the blame goes to magazines like Stereophile and The Absolute Sound. They are just glossy and very large brochures disguised as magazines that do whatever they can to help some unethical high-end companies sell their products, accessories, and treatments. I think there are few professors of electrical engineering or audio researchers that take subjectivists and their magazines seriously. Part of the blame must, of course, go to the subjectivists themselves. Many are gullible, because they do not have the technical knowledge to make an informed buying decision.

Another problem is that once they have spent many thousands of dollars on their system--perhaps more than $200 000 US--they may hate being told that they have been taken for a ride. I know that if I spent more than $100 000 for a pair of vacuum-tube monoblocks and was presented with evidence that they sound the same as a $200 receiver, there is a good chance that I would refuse to accept the evidence. To accept the evidence would mean a devastating blow to my ego. Magazines like Stereophile and The Absolute Sound have used this to their advantage to keep the myths alive.

The article "Audiophile" would be much better if it rebuts all the myths thrown up by the subjectivists instead of allowing both sides equal time. Allowing both sides equal time is like an article on cosmology giving equal time to those that believe in a flat earth. An encyclopaedia article should never have room for myths unless, of course, the article is supposed to be about myths--for example, ancient Greek myths. William Greene 22:05, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

• That's a tough distinction to draw. I agree with the idea of scientific POV == NPOV when dealing with such matters, but a great many Wikipedia editors don't. It's definitely a source of tension, and you're right that a lot of subjectivist magazines serve only to reinforce subjectivist prejudices. (In a way, it rather reminds me of a former roommate of mine who simply refused to believe that chess could be played on a purely mathematical models, despite the outcome of the Kasparov v Deep Blue challenges. In a way it's a sort of vitalism, perhaps logically akin to the God of the Gaps argument.) Another issue is the problem of "musicality" in amplifiers -- while to an objectivist distortion is only desirable in situations such as a guitar amp, a subjectivist will not only demand subtle distortion, but might insist that it actually increases the fidelity of the sound. (On that count, such subjectivists are fooling themselves.) As for myths... well, the audiophile world is full of them. Haikupoet 06:46, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Literal meaning of audiophile

According to Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, audio comes from the Latin audire, to hear. So audiophile literally means one who loves to hear. William Greene 14:27, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] This article is fundamentally flawed

This article is based on the most simple definition of an "audiophile" being defined as someone who desires to reproduce the most literal sound, or closest to the original version. However, every single time I have heard the word used it is used to describe those who have irrational viewpoints about sound, specifically the subculture which advocates listening to music turntables with diamond needles.

Now even though this may be a massive stereotype, and describe only a minority of self-described audiophiles, not making big distinctions about this in the article is inherintly a NPOV/Original Research problem. This would be like if the article on first person shooters was equally about battlezone and rail gun games as it were about what everyone calls an fps. While this would be correct from the most literal definition of the title, it would misrepresent the subject entirely.

I always hear 'Audiophool' used in the place of 'audiophile' in reference to the 'fringe' variety. Lowmagnet 15:02, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I've not heard that myself. And whenever I've read or heard the term it's referred to audio "purists" (those who are really into audio and are more demanding than your average listener). To a very small degree, I'm one such person. I typically rip CDs in MP3 format at higher than average bitrates (256-320 kbps VBR - I don't take it as far as lossless file formats, but 256-320 kbps is higher than most rip at).

Therfore, I have no problem with the term "audiophile" as described. It was my interpretation of the word before I read the article. --angrykeyboarder (a/k/a:Scott) 21:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

This is indeed true —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Azam87 (talk • contribs) .

Audiophile is a pejorative word to those with a technical knowledge about sound/audio and, particularly, professionals working in the audio field of an age to have observed the creation and growth of the sector after the end of the 60/70s hi-fi boom. Audiophiles themselves do not consider it a pejorative word or, in many cases, even seem to know how they are viewed by the technically literate (the audiophile world has generally had to isolate itself from the audio/technical/scientific mainstream because of its beliefs). There is a small but identifiable group of "objective-audiophiles" that can be observed on audiophile websites who do not hold the mainstream audiophile beliefs yet would seem to feel part of the audiophile community. However, I suspect the majority who are interested in high-fidelity sound in the home and do not hold audiophile beliefs would rather be called audio enthusiasts, hi-fi buffs or almost anything apart from audiophiles. I do not know if this distinction between the words "high-fidelity" and "audiophile" is as strong in the younger generations as in the older generations - the almost unrecognisable definition of audiophile on the main page would perhaps suggest not!HonestGuv 15:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite

I'm about to drop in a massive rewrite. This article currently fails on two fronts: first, its take on the audiophiles-vs-skeptics fails to achieve NPOV. Second, it is extremely thin on information on what audiophiles actually believe and do. Tim Bray 01:46, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Response: I've been kind of goofing around with the prior version, inserting hyperlinks everywhere and statements here and there, but the article was in need of this type of rewrite. Looks good. LGreen 20:12, 13 Mar 2005

Good job. - Omegatron 15:32, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

Hey LGreen, good stuff, improvements all round. Tim Bray 06:30, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  ok sorry but this article is crap as it is now (2 november 2006)
  why even give in to "audiophile"-speak by calling people who think audiophile beliefs are bogus by using science "objectivists" ? it that some kind of euphemism to mean          "scientist" without the authority of the term ?
  also most of the reason in the "Subjectivists' criticisms of objectivism in audio" are weapons grade baloney , often they don't even apply
  for example:
  "Subjectivists were experimenting with room acoustics (sonic dampening, speaker positioning) long before component manufacturers began to consider them a factor influencing sound quality"

  how can that possibly qualify as "Subjectivists' criticisms of objectivism in audio"  
  buy all the 1000$ power cables you want, but don't mix belief with science thanks
  216.113.96.89 23:35, 2 November 2006 (UTC)Shodan

[edit] One definition

People who have somehow decided that the audio equipment they purchase and use must be much more expensive and have fewer features than the average ones. In extreme cases they will even spend $5000 for a roll of speaker wire that calls itself bi-directional copper. There are a few specialty stores that carry this wire, and they actually sell a few.

[edit] Tubes for distortion or fidelity?

"This tendency however pervades the entire professional sound engineering and production industry, which to this day heavily uses analogue tape and vacum tube equipment because it sounds "warmer"."

Yes, but sometimes they use it to get a specific sound, which is a "valid" concern. Audiophile deals more with people who want a "pure" "unchanged" sound, and yet their sound is not unchanged. But using analog tape saturation to compress drumbeats or vacuum tube responses to shape guitar waveforms is not really the same thing. - Omegatron 03:18, Jul 8, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, but it is sometimes used to get that sound ON PURPOSE, using saturated tape recording and tube amplifiers to get the "warmer" sound on a guitar signal or whatever, which is different than the audiophile ideal of trying to get perfect sound reproduction. Please clarify this in the article. Or I guess I will... :-) - Omegatron 20:37, Jul 20, 2004 (UTC)

The problem is this: I believe this article uses possibly an original research definition of audiophile, meaning one who strives for perfect fidelity to the original sound. However, I have almost always seen the term used in a pejorative sense to describe only those who use irational means to improve their sound.

An audiophile is a person who strives for high-fidelity sound, regardless of whether they are chasing imaginary problems. Just because you've only heard it used in the pejorative doesn't mean that that's the only connotation of the word. There are self-professed audiophiles, such as... Audiophilia magazine, which disproves your premise. — Omegatron 00:04, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I can attest that a back-to-back comparison of two large guitar amplifiers, one solid state the other tube, used as a monitor in a noisy (crowded) live performance, demonstrated that the tube amp was "punchy" and clear while the solid-state amp essentially produced only hiss and white noise.

My friend swapped the solid-state amp during the middle of my set, and I had to drag the tube amp back because I literally couldn't hear what I was doing.

This is backed up by some studies which say that tube amps perform better under clipping scenarios, which is your first lesson that analog reproduction is basically unlimited (soft clipping) whereas digital reproduction is designed around limits (hard clipping). Broodlinger 07:42, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

An audiophile is a dickhead. End of.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.159.16.11 (talk • contribs) 23:53, 10 March 2007.

[edit] People see beauty in different places

People see beauty in different places. To someone who hears music as the most perfect art, thousands of dollars for a stereo system is no different than spending money on a nice car, house, or vacation.

Thanks for your money. - Omegatron 23:35, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

It's your choice. You can also buy snake oil if you want, it's a free country. As I see it, the first $100 spent will buy you a system with a certain performance, we'll call it 1.0. The next $1000 might improve it to 2.0 The Next $10,000 will improve it to, ooh say 2.1... so there's some exponential at work there. Still, it's your money... earn it how you want, spend it how you want. Graham 02:29, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have no problems with people spending lots of money on their gear. I have problems with people reinforcing myths. There may be some panache to owning a Patek Philippe. But did you ever hear of a watch collector claim that his Patek was more accurate than a Casio? William Greene 22:32, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removed assertion.

There is one well-known case of a substantial double-blind test failing to detect a flaw in a digital archival format that was obvious when pointed out by an educated listener.

I'm a little incredulous at this. I don't see anything in the 'external links' section to back it up, so it's going to stay here until someone sources it. grendel|khan 13:39, 2005 Mar 14 (UTC)

Fair enough. It was the Swedish national broadcaster; they were selecting a digital format for long-time archiving and did a big double-blind study on the winner, with excellent results. Then some record producer who heard it said "Gack, you've got a problem in the high midrange" and it turned out that yep, there was a digital filtering error. I read the article and actually emailed with a guy at ATT who consulted to the study; mind you this was in about 1988... anyhow, I should be able to dig it up. Tim Bray 06:30, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Connectors vs cables

Removed:

"Measurable differences in the quality of the connection (i.e. phono plugs) are tremendously greater than those seen in the actual cables themselves; in fact, the improvement made by soldering the interconnects directly between components is hugely greater than any differences between cables."

Triboelectric effects cause significant noise in poorly made cables when they are bent, the capacitance of the cable can cause filtering of high end while using low-output impedance sources, etc. Connectors you really just have to worry about the reliability of the connection. Will it lose contact if you touch it? Will it corrode? - Omegatron 23:35, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] All equipment at 16 kHz?

"n 20 kilohertz, even though most recording equipment will not reproduce anything higher than 16 kilohertz."

which recording equipment is this?? besides vinyl, i mean... :-) - Omegatron 00:25, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

This came from a talk some recording engineer guy gave to a bunch of audiophile/engineer types I attended. He basically made the point that the equipment doesn't record anything above 16K 'How do I know this? Because I designed a lot of it'. The audience was abuzz. Given that I don't have any other evidence on the topic, I guess I can't stake much on it's being true.Gzuckier 14:59, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In my experience, most "professional" equipment -3 dB point goes significantly above 20 kHz, so I would say the 16 probably only goes for very cheap or old equipment. Things like AM radio (~5 kHz! (10 kHz per channel)), cassettes (~15 kHz), and vinyl records (~15–18 kHz) probably, but not any modern formats or equipment.

Whether the typical person can hear above 16 kHz, on the other hand... - Omegatron 16:48, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Not so much for middle aged males, fer sure. This is a frightening graphGzuckier 19:17, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hey. I can't hear above 16 kHz, and I'm not even close to middle aged. But check the Equal-loudness contour. It only goes up to 11 kHz! - Omegatron 23:03, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Many audiophiles cannot even hear up to 15 kHz. This is especially so for middle-aged or older males. This is even worse for those that have listened for a long time to music at average levels above 85 dB. William Greene 20:22, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I carry out tests on loudspeakers, to check the frequency response, and we can measure up to 30KHz. We do it repeatably and can check the variation between different speakers. I believe the kit works up to 30Khz at least. Furthermore, whilst when carrying out tests on listeners hearing range where you play a sine wave up to high frequencies to determine where the treshhold of hearing is, people can only hear up to 20KHz max, and most people far below that. In the context of listening to music rather than a single frequency sine wave, humans can detect a difference between sound that has a roll on at 16KHz and a roll on of 30KHz, its just really subtle.--Manc ill kid 15:11, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I doubt anyone can hear above 20 kHz. Citation please. William Greene 17:07, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

20kHz maximum is derived from the lengths of 'cillia' (misnomer, microvilli really) on cochleal inner hair cells. Cells simply don't exist in humans to hear outside the range of (roughly) 20Hz-20kHz. You can work out pretty accurately the frequency the cell responds to from the length of the cillia. The higher frequency cells are the most sensitive and the mildest toxicity (e.g. from some antibiotics) or loud high frequency noise will permanently cause these cells not to function. Also, that Equal-loudness contour does go up to 20kHz, it's a logarithmic scale.--KX36 13:51, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Phase shift rebuttal

I removed: What the skeptics often forget in this case is that the filters (intentional or not) which prevent higher frequencies from passing (lowpass filters) have significant phase shift in the passband even when the attenuation is minimal. While the human ear is basically a frequency analyzer, phase shifts are still audible as a decoherence of transients. It's not that this isn't a possibly valid point, but that it didn't belong as a rebuttal in the skeptics' case section. Let each put his case - I think a point-by-point rebuttal is likely to be to the great detriment to the article. This is not the place to HAVE the argument, it's a place to PRESENT the arguments, coherently and neutrally, and let the reader make their mind up. Thus the current wording "what skeptics often forget..." sounds like having the argument to me, not presenting the arguments. If the writer of this bit, or an audiophile who understands the point would like to have another go and find a home for it in the audiophiles' case section, I certainly have no objection, provided it is done in the spirit of presenting the argument as part of an encyclopedia article and not scoring points.Graham 12:05, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Don't remove things; improve things. (My new motto that I invented just for you!) :-)

I wrote it, and I am one of the "skeptics". The "Audiophile rejoinders" section has double bullet rebuttals, too. See articles like Arguments for and against drug prohibition#Point-counterpoint against drug prohibition for examples of similar formats. I am all in favor of choosing a different format as long as all the information is covered. The article needs a lot of cleaning up. - Omegatron 13:33, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, the current setup "skeptics' case" and "audiophiles' rebuttal" is kind of inherently lopsided. Probably should be "skeptics' case" and "audiophiles' case", no?Gzuckier 14:59, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

good point. - Omegatron 16:48, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

I certainly want to improve things - I just couldn't quite see how to do that simply by cutting and pasting the section to another place, as it rebuts a specific argument. (Incidentally, improvement and removal are not mutually incompatible ;-) However, I stick to my point that it should go in the audiophiles' case section, not as a rebuttal in the skeptics' case. I think this goes for the other double-point rebuttals too - the skeptics have made their case, they don't need to rebut the audiophiles' case and vice versa. Thus all these double-point rebuttals need to be reworded and moved to the appropriate section. FWIW, I'm a skeptic too - but that shouldn't bias the way we present the arguments here. Graham 02:19, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Digital versus Analogue

I found this citation on high-endaudio.com which seems agreable to me:

The sonics on this album are truly amazing. It is extremely immediate, pure and clean; to the point of being "stunning". The dynamic qualities are also superb, and there is incredible precision and detail. The sound is also very natural, with excellent harmonic structure, but this is a digital recording, with at least a few of the unavoidable problems. The decays are a little shortened, and the performance space is not fully developed, so it almost sounds like it was recorded in a small, dead studio. The (soprano) voice is also not as successful. It is decently captured, but it is veiled and there is an occasional strain at high volumes, plus it noticeably "drops out" at very soft volumes. This album would be in the top two classes if it weren't for these downsides, but it still makes the Basic List.

I'd like to go beond the Digital/dynamic, Analogue/warmer debate since warm or cold is just a question of frequence respnice, and the content of this text seems to fit well to this purpose (on the side of the analogists). Opinions?

Sure. Digital recording involves sending an audio signal through a calculator. As we all know, this results in a "flatter frequency response" and "improved dynamic range." Huh? Is there something about measuring an audio signal that inherently proves you're measuring it properly? Analog recording dispenses with the measurement process and simply attempts to capture as much of the signal as possible.

In some cases, you can capture more than what the spec was designed for (three channels on a VHS tape can be saturated with two audio channels and no video). At the very least, you will capture it with more soft, rounded clipping, which is impossible in the digital domain. Broodlinger 07:42, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

FaZ72 26/08/2005 p.s. how do you make a signature with link, time and date?

You can easily "sign" your talk posts by ending them with four tildes (~~~~). When you press (Save page), these will be replaced by your username (or IP address) in a handy Wikilinked format. This will also contain a timestamp for your posting.

Atlant 12:59, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Clipping?"

The article uses the word "clipping" a couple of times:

- "Tube amplifiers are heavily used in music production ... because of their distinctive "soft clipping" when overdriven."

- "transistor-based amplifiers are often frowned on for guitar use due to the harsh clipping artifacts"

Could somebody please put in a quick definition of "clipping" for those readers who, like myself, have no idea what this means?

(And for that matter, a quick definition of "overdriven", as used in the first example here)

Thanks -- 11 October 2005

• Clipping is easier to explain in terms of pictures than words, but basically imagine a sine wave. The top-to-bottom width of the waveform is the amplitude or loudness. If the amplitude gets too wide, it will hit a point where the circuit reproducing it can't handle the full strength of the signal and will only pass as much of it as it can. The result is that, at the points where the amplitude crosses the limits of the circuit, the extra signal is cut off, generating distorted waveforms that manifest as harmonic distortion in the sound. Clipping, in other words, is basically what happens when you overdrive something.

The difference in clipping characteristics between tubes and transistors is that when a signal is overdriven, the transistor will cut off the signal completely at the amplitude limit, while the tube will attenuate but not completely cut off the signal, resulting in less harsh distortion, which is sometimes percieved as "more musical". In practice, it isn't necessarily an issue for a well-designed amp since such an amp has as wide an amplitude range as possible to create more faithful sound reproduction. There are times, however (guitar amps mostly), where you want the circuit to be intentionally easy to overdrive to create that distorted sound, and tubes generally produce what is percieved as smoother, "more musical" distortion. That's the basic story. Haikupoet 02:53, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

• 

  

  Clipping of a sine wave - see article.
  I have added a wikipedia entry Clipping (music). Please see this or edit as you see fit. Picture included. Lgreen 05:25, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Sometimes??? Get yourself on an analog synth that has sine, triangle, and square wave options. You will quickly discover that square waves produced by a clipping amplifier are musically useless. Think about it...square waves are essentially a DC signal.

It's also dangerous to say that solid-state amps have enough overhead to make clipping a non-issue. If clipping was a non-issue, then we wouldn't be talking about it. Broodlinger 07:42, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Negative feedback

"... the universal acceptance of the fact that, while this technique was indeed beneficial to amplifier stability and test results using steady-state waveforms, it was inherently problematic for constantly changing waveforms as in real music..."

Negative feedback is good to linearize amplifier response. But a crappy and slow amplifier with lots of negative feedback won't make a very good amplifier, leading to poor transient response and great high-frequency distortion. That was that happened with some early negative feedback audio amplifiers. But this was hardly an unknown issue for the people that developed negative feedback applications to electronics. However, it seems it was for part of the audio industry. Today, negative feedback is usually used properly in audio amplifiers, and is not problematic at all with any kind of audio signals.

"...and resulted in amplifiers that tested well and sounded bad."

This was because "standard" measurement practices in audio industry on those years did not include high frequency distortion measurement. KikeG 16:50, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

"...steady-state waveforms" is a fundamental misconception. A sinewave viewed on an oscilloscope might *look* static, but it is of course a signal of constantly varying amplitude and rate of change. The amplifier has no knowledge of previous repeats of the same sequence of voltages and voltage changes, and thus doesn't care whether the current state of affairs is derived from a sinewave generator or a full symphony orchestra

nuh uh. Negative feedback circuits have a time constant, and thus constitute a low-pass filter. As such, a steady state application of a sinewave will not be affected, but a mixture of sinewaves of various frequencies will. In practical terms, a cheap amp knows damn well whether this cycle of a sinewave right here was preceded by more of the same, or by a full amplitude excursion of the signal. Gzuckier 18:22, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course the time-constant of practical audio amps using negative feedback is far shorter than the period of even the fastest signal frequency applied to the amplifier. So to claim that the amp has some knd of memory for the practical signals applied to it is pretty much wrong.

Atlant 19:08, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. THe most that can be said is that there will probably be a frequency dependent phase shift in the amplifier and feedback network. THe analysis is standard for determination of phase and gain margin.

Any delay in either network can be determined by its Group delay characteristic which is d(phi)/dw. If phi is constant with freq, this implies no (group) delay. If phi is liearly increasing with frequency, this implies a non zero group delay.

Also, not everything that has a time constant is a low pass filter.(could be HP)--Light current 19:33, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Double-blind tests

Every properly conducted and interpreted double-blind test has failed to support subjectivists' claims of significant or extremely subtle sonic differences between devices if measurements alone predict that there should be no sonic differences between the devices when listening to music. If there are any properly conducted and interpreted double-blind tests that show otherwise, I am very interested in seeing the citations. And please do not give citations from disreputable sources like Stereophile and The Absolute Sound.

Here are two citations from reputable sources:

1. Peter Aczel: "In controlled double-blind listening tests, no one has ever (yes, ever!) heard a difference between two amplifiers with high input impedance, low output impedance, flat response, low distortion, and low noise, when operated at precisely matched levels (±0.1 dB) and not clipped."

2. Ian G. Masters: "But so far no one has proved conclusively--to me, anyway--that sound quality should be a factor in buying a power amplifier." William Greene 14:58, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

"There are problems in applying double-blind methods to comparison of audio devices; audiophiles assert that a relaxing environment and sufficient time, measured in days or weeks, is necessary for the discriminating ear to do its work;"

However, many times audiophiles don't need such long periods of time to make claims about great sonic differences when doing sighted comparisons. Also, double blind testing doesn't exclude long time testing.

"further, that the introduction of the switching apparatus, involving as it does either another metal connection at the switch or another level of electronic processing with solid state switches, obscures the differences between the two signal sources being tested."

There's no need to use switching apparatus to perform double-blind tests. Just the help of an assistant or two. Quick switching apparatus is used just to ease the process. However, audiophiles don't use quick switching when performing sighted comparisons. KikeG 17:16, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

The most important aspect of a double-blind test is bi-directionality. That is, if you go from 1-->2, you must go from 2-->1 to account for human memory and curiosity. It is not a small thing to say that humans frequently prefer experiences that are worse out of pure curiosity. For example, why gasoline sometimes smells "good." If you just go from 1-->2 then human curiosity becomes overwhelming to prefer whatever signal is the least familiar. Broodlinger 07:42, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

No. I think you do not understand the purpose of double-blind tests. The most important aspect of a double-blind test is to try and remove as many biases as possible. Quick-switching double-blind tests are done specifically to account for the notoriously short memory of subjects when it comes to comparing short passages of music. It is even more difficult to try to compare long passages of music. Curiosity has nothing to do with it.

It is about the ability to hear a difference when you do not know which source is playing. And familiarity has nothing to do with it too. A double-blind test can be arranged so that you always can hear the two sources whenever you want. You are only asked to identify the random source, which is either A or B--one of the two sources that is always available to you at a click of a button to listen to. William Greene 17:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Professional Practices

"Audiophiles tend to hold commercial music recording practices in low regard. Particularly in the pop-music domain, most recordings are based on the heavy use of multitrack technology, the studio dominated by a huge mixing board with as many as eighty channels, each channel operating in the digital domain and subjected to a wide variety of tonal and "effects" processing. Audiophiles believe that this complex signal chain degrades the quality of the signal and lessens the spontaneity and integrity of the musical performance. There are some professional musicians and audio engineers that agree with this view. Currently-active recording artists who apply audiophile recording principles include Neil Young, the Cowboy Junkies, and the White Stripes."

Is Leonard Cohen one of those artists?

What are you saying? I only listen to Ween, they hold Leonard Cohen in high regard. I have no idea about Cohen's music or his preferences for recording formats. Broodlinger 07:42, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Current trends

"Because manufacturers have failed to agree on a single format and because there are relatively few releases in these formats, acceptance so far has been limited."

Unfortuately, although the Compact disc, now over 20 years old, are still going strong, these newer formats (only about 10 years old and still not catching on, at least here in Australia) are already "on their way out." The reasons may be found on this page

One cannot fool all the people all the time. I think consumers have realized that the "improvements" in sound quality of SACDs and DVD-Audio discs are minor or just not worth the expense. If a person already has a large CD collection, why replace it with SACDs or DVD-Audio discs? The better sound, convenience, and portability of CDs compared to records, however, did justify the replacement of records with CDs. For lovers of classical music, I think a good signal processor along with, say, six to eight channels of amplification and loudspeakers is a much better value than replacing a huge collection from scratch. William Greene 20:56, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

The better sound of CD's over vinyl is the biggest canard in all of music history. Fact is, anything you hear about "pops" and "distortion" from vinyl recordings is based on the idea that testable vinyl recordings were made 20 years ago.

Dance clubs prefer vinyl for a good reason, it has a wider frequency response and greater detail. Granted, CD's often have crisper treble response, but I have a $5 vinyl cartridge and a $75 scratch cartridge. Ask me again when I get Ortofon NCE's (sharper needle, $3-400/pair).

The biggest blockbuster to this myth is that vinyl records of the last ten years (since dance music got big) sound amazing. And the difference is huge between a vinyl record played for the first time and played for the 50th time (after the grooves wear down). In short, there is a great deal of dynamic range on vinyl being ignored by the pro-CD crowd, who harp on pops and hisses that are mostly artifacts from the 1960's.

Another damning statement is that when my vinyl pops (dust on the album), and I record it to CD, I don't hear the pop anymore. Surprise! Reduced fidelity in digital formats.

By definition, you don't know what you're missing. The Rumsfeld argument, ironic but true. Broodlinger 07:42, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

The article gives a good short technical overview of why CDs are superior to records; the article also has citations for this opinion. And consumers have voted with their wallets. Records are inherently inferior to CDs. I think dance clubs prefer records, because they were easier to mix than CDs and because many fans of dance music still believe in the myth that records sound better than CDs for technical reasons. Please supply a citation for the wider frequency response of records.

Digital sound has no clicks, pops, wow, flutter, audio feedback, or rumble, has a higher signal-to-noise ratio, has a wider dynamic range, has less total harmonic distortion, and has a flatter and more extended frequency response. But you claim that records have greater detail. Citation please. Reduced fidelity in digital formats? Citation please. William Greene 19:03, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I have had it all

ok to all the people in the world let me tell you. I have spent over 5 million dollars on audio !!! I have had every untra- high end speaker( be it panal, electrostat. , or horn) every type of amp(SE, PP ,solidstate, tube, Class D, experimental, DIY, cross bread) and all kinds of sources best and worst turntables, best Dac's, transports, you name it....

---

I have come to one conclusion.. If your setup cant reproduce 10Hz its junk. SE is the only way to go(DHT all the way--driver DHT,ect.) DHT preamps are best.. Solid state electronic suffer high resistance kill music taste( the path of least risistance is achived via a vacume!!!!) All 12ax7, , el 34, twin triodes, and "golden age of audio" tubes are crap!!! Negative feedback is the BIGGEST PROBLEM!!!! I have tested it -- i have had every setup imaginable -- 300B is nothing compared to the experimental ultra-ultra-high end tubes. Good records are rare--- Good Cd's are ultra rare--- electrostatic speakers will kill the energy of your living space Photovoltic power is the onlyy way to get quiet hummmless music.. THe room must be an extention of yourself---- dont do basements,-- the ground has a 60 HZ humm that will get into yor system even if you dont hear it.. PURE silver from Tube base to speaker winding.... wirewould risistors-- custom build by NASA or MIT(higher QT if you give them enought money) only--- THE SPEAKER IS THE WEAKEST LINK IN YOUR SYSTEM --spend the most money there---- THE MAGNET IS THE LEAKEST PART OF A DRIVER!!!!!!!!! EI core trans pooor efficency-----only use Trodial!!!! the midrange should not have a X-over the woofer should not have a X-over the tweeter should ..... NANO technology and TUBE's are the future!!!! I have made plans with CERN to biggin a project into creating the Perfect tube!!!(more to come on that later- you all will deffinetly hear about it in the next 2-3 years)

Love music not your system Re-evaluate your needs, desired every 3mo. Understand who you are, were you came from,,who you are competing with! And dont do drugs when you listem to music, Dont drink when you listen to music,, and dont think!!!!!!!!!!! Live inside the music!!! If you dont have money you are not a happy person... cant affort that music system-don't put a 2nd morgage on your house to buy that new turntable that cost more then your car.. buy a nice car, and keep the cheep Turntable-- you will be happier.

Was this meant to be a joke? It is hilarious. If this was meant to be taken seriously, it is even more hilarious. William Greene 15:27, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

This is the best rebuttal of so-called "subjectivists" I've ever heard. Ridiculous.

• This article is starting to show the world just how crazy audiphiles are.

• Doesn't it though? BTW, for those of you reading this as I'm posting it, James Randi is talking audiophile yahoos again on his newsletter at randi.org. Haikupoet 06:37, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] heh heh heh

I'm not sure where this belongs in the article, but here's some magic pebbles you can put in your room to make your sound better. Appears to be serious. This magic foil appears real, too. This is obviously a joke. — Omegatron 04:02, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Put this in your pipe and smoke it ...

Just ran across an information-rich site which includes a good deal of stuff about audio, including this little gem:

... we appear to be in the paradoxical situation that the most expensive equipment provides the worst objective performance.

(You can find this here. He includes specs that back up this observation.) The man is obviously a diehard objectivist. I find this fascinating: that more and more deluded audiophiles are paying more and more money ... and actually getting worse performance for all their troubles! Hey, maybe someone can work this into the article somehow. ILike2BeAnonymous 06:39, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

• I wouldn't have an argument with it myself, but it seems that in a postmodern world such as this scientific POV != neutral POV. The diehard subjectivists are so wedded to their position that it's unlikely you'd sway many of them. I'm reminded somewhat of an old roommate of mine who steadfastly maintained that chess is a deeply psychological game that can never properly be mastered by a computer. Not long after that Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov playing chess strictly by the numbers. I don't know what his position is on the matter now, as it's been years since I've spoken to him. Haikupoet 06:57, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Identifying bias through comedy

From the article:

Subjectivists....prefer this analog sound even though digital sound has no clicks, pops, wow, flutter, audio feedback, or rumble, has a higher signal-to-noise ratio, has a wider dynamic range, has less total harmonic distortion, and has a flatter and more extended frequency response.

Wow! Sounds like subjectivists are idiots. Now let's turn to the Wiki article on Texans:

Texans....prefer this small-town diner hamburger even though McDonalds burgers have no char, fat, protein, or pink color, attending waitstaff, or restaurant atmosphere, has a higher carbohydrate ratio, has a wider profit margin, has less total nutrient content, and has a flatter bun and an extended gastrointestinal presence.

Damn Texans are stupid too! Who could possibly turn down a McDonalds hamburger when it's obviously so much better?

Point being, both articles are full of a heavy dose of fundamentalist religion. For starters, some of the things they're saying about McDonalds aren't even correct. McDonalds doesn't have a higher profit margin than a diner, their burgers are sold practically at a loss. But even if they did, why would this be good for the customer?

In conclusion, apparently McDonalds hamburgers have some kind of magical quality that makes all known problems disappear and yet...I'm not sure I'd want one.

Unknown user, could you pleas sign and date your posts? Thanks--Light current 21:10, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted the sentence "To an audiophile, any loss is considered unacceptable."

This sentence is inconsistent with the rest of the article in not one, but two big ways:

Firstly, this sentence was supposed to explain why audiophiles don't convert .wav files to .mp3 format - and yet .wav is a lossy format, so this explanation makes no sense.

Secondly, in the beginning of the article it is stated that everyone agrees current equipment falls short of perfect sound reproduction. Thus, all audiophiles realize they are dealing with loss, and their hobby is based around trying to minimize that loss.

I could go on, actually. In another part of the article, it is stated that exactly what the human ear can and cannot hear is debated; thus, an audiophile who believed a certain upper freqeuncy range was inaudible to the human ear would not care if there was loss in that frequency. But I think by now, I've proven my point.

Could you please sign your posts? THank you--Light current 21:55, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I love your justification that wav is a lossy format; however, you fail to mention how it's lossy because it's not lossy in the same way mp3 is lossy. WAV in reality is a header, and can contain many formats, however, it's mostly recgonized as containing uncompressed PCM audio, same format as audio CD. It's from this PCM stream that a mp3 encoder starts plucking audio out. Now, calling wav a lossy format..that dives into digital vs. analog in saying that digital sampling of the original analog waveform does degrade the original wav.

i'm not getting in to that one. that's a debate that will never end.

As for your last point, I don't know any real hardcore audiophiles and I myself am at the lower end of the spectrum. I don't find CD's all that bad if they're mastered properly (dynamics are a gooood thing..if it's too quiet, get a real system), and I myself tend to feel an aura..almost euporic state when listening to really good sounding audio...and if something doesn't sound just right, it tends to throw the balance off.....then again..i'm weird like that. DewDude 25-9-2006

[edit] Disambiguation link repair - You can help!

I adjusted the link to the tone disambiguation page to point at timbre. If there is a more appropriate place to point it, by all means update it. That may mean creating a new page in this case as timbre appeared to be the closest match. Upholder 06:34, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Adjusted again the link to the more appropriate tone control circuits that was not previously on the disambig page for "tone" -- Upholder 05:17, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External links

there is some real crap in the External links section; anyone care to take a WP:EL hammer to it? JoeSmack ^Talk 17:24, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Contradictory caption

The turntable picture is captioned "Modern entry-level high-end turntable" - surely it's either entry-level or high-end, it can't be both! AdorableRuffian 13:59, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

According to the Usenet newsgroup rec.audio.high-end, "price is generally not significant in determining whether or not a given component may be considered 'high-end.'" William Greene 21:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Usenet is the last place one should go for references to anything. Totally not acceptable. +ILike2BeAnonymous 20:20, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Not a reference. Rec.audio.high-end is a moderated newsgroup. "Price is generally not significant in determining whether or not a given component may be considered 'high-end'" is used to set a boundary for discussion in that newsgroup. All I wanted to say was that not every audiophile believes high end is high price. Even Robert Harley's book The Complete Guide to High-End Audio--which is awful, read the reviews at Amazon.com--says that high end does not have to be expensive. William Greene 17:40, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ILike2BeAnonymous's reverts of citations

ILike2BeAnonymous, in your edit summary, you wrote "Revert: You've got to be more careful in your selection of citations. This one says nothing about the age of audiophiles, only that they're men, and is unsupported and unverified." I know that citation says nothing about the age of audiophiles, but, as I wrote in my edit summary, I asked interested readers to refer to the third citation which does say: "At the same time, our subscriber base (as distinct from our retail base) has been slowly shrinking, consisting mainly of elderly people, alas."

I read the Wikipedia's guide for citations and believe that the citation that you reverted is of good quality. The other citation (PDF) that you reverted supported the idea that, traditionally, audiophiles have been overwhelmingly men. And here is the fourth citation (PDF). You now have been given four citations that, to me at least, would seem to support the idea that the majority of audiophiles are men over 35. Please give your definition of a supported and verified citation. William Greene 19:54, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that you seem to be using a shotgun approach to providing citations. It's not enough to find a citation somewhere out there in the vast universe of the web that simply mentions the thing you're trying to support in passing. There are several criteria for references that I won't go over here which should be met in order for them to be acceptable here. The ones that I removed didn't meet those qualifications. For instance, the PDF that supposedly supported the assertion that "most audiophiles are men over 35" said no such thing, for one: for another, it was not a reputable source to begin with. So I still say you need to be more careful about finding citations. You seem to have it backwards: you don't make a statement here and then backfill by trying to find a supporting reference for it. +ILike2BeAnonymous 20:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I looked at that last reference you provided (had to download it outright, as it hung my browser trying to open it as a link: PDFs should be used sparingly and judiciously for this reason). Sorry, have to reject it. It's obviously a PowerPoint presentation (in other words, a piece of marketing material) for a magazine. What it says, if it is to be believed, is that 98% of the magazine's readers (note the distinction from audiophiles) are males between the ages of 35 and 55. So all this proves, if it is true, is that the magazine's readers are males of this age. See the problems here? +ILike2BeAnonymous 20:24, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CD Sampling Rates and other assorted ramblings

I remember there was a lively debate for over 2 years before the CD Sampling rate was established by Sony. After Sony and Phillips had proposed their 44.kHz sampling rate for the Compact Disk, the audiophiles almost immediately began to protest. As you know, a sampling rate of 44.1 KHz. is the minimum required to record a 20 kHz signal. However, the audiophiles among us felt that was far too low. I personally had over a dozen people sit down and proved that the majority of people under the age of 30 could detect frequencies above 20 KHz. Even if we could not directly 'hear' the frequency, 10 out of 12 could tell a difference in the 'airyness' of the music. According to my own spectrum analyser and a high end microphone, My system was capable of faithfully reproducing frequencies up to 26 KHz. But when I filtered out all frequencies above 20 KHz (at 24 Db/octave), all but two in twelve could tell the difference. The high end of the spectrum just went flat. I, along with many other audiophiles, wrote to Sony asking that they wait but a couple more years for the technology to improve enough to accommodate at least 24 KHz.. At the time, the 44.1 KHz sampling rate was more of the result of limited IC technology than actual audio reproduction concerns. Simply put, the digital filters would be more efficient and therefore effective at higher sampling rates, but the AD and DA converters could not be driven at higher speeds without heat problems and sampling errors. The first CD players put onto the market had an audible high pitched hiss or whine that was the result of inadequate digital filtering technology. The whine was reduced a few years later and all but eliminated shortly thereafter.

Sony, throught a couple of articles in various magazines at the time, promised everyone that as technology improved, so would the standard. That was enough to quell the protestations of many an audiophile, but as time passed and technology progressed, Sony never did increase the standards. Only now, decades later, are we seeing improvements in the standards. But only in completely new formats, rather than improvements in the old CD format. And as I understand it, they are not looking to extend the frequency range, but rather to increase the sampling rate and therefore the sampling density. That's also important, but IMO, not as important as extending the frequency of digital media to at least 24 KHz or better. With todays technology, both could technically be done with relative ease.

As I recall, there was also a lesser argument about the 20 Hz. low end of the frequency range as well. Some audiophiles wanted it to be 10, 12, or 15 Hz..

Aside from that debate, there was three audiophile camps featuring three different philosophies; the minimalist, the purist, and the live concert philosophies. This article seems to only consider one of them adequately. The minimalist philosophy, as stated, was due to the fact that increasing complexity also increased distortion. The other two philosophies diverged from each other when one asks "what kind of space should be reproduced?" The first philosophy was the purists who wanted the music to be as close to the studio sound as possible.

At this point, I would like to mention the part in the article that says audiophiles almost universally having no tone control at all is true only of the minimalist philosophy. Most every audiophile knows that the room dimensions, geometry, speaker placement, furnishing, carpeting, windows, etc.., literally every aspect of the room affects the sound. The minimalists that are covered in the article had a dilemma that their lack of control over their music meant that the listening environment also had to be tightly controlled. Which means that the listening room needed to be just as minimalist as their stereo. They had to remove most everything to start and then use carpeting, drapery, and furnishings only to prevent excessive absorption and echo of the mid to high frequencies. Failure to do so resulted in either excessively muddy or shrilly sound. These components also could not compensate for weaknesses in one's own hearing. So if one had a hearing loss of 2 Db. centered at 2 KHz. then there was nothing one could do to compensate. However, the stereo systems based upon this philosophy generally had the highest signal to noise ratios, highest stereo separation and lowest total harmonic distortion of the three.

The one aspect of audiophiles that could be considered truly universal is our contempt for receivers. This is mentioned in the article, but I would like to expand upon it. Receivers minimally consist of a tuner, preamplifier/switching unit, and an amplifier. A company might be known for making a great tuner, an excellent amplifier, or a high quality preamp, but no company would ever be the best at making all three - let alone placing all three into a single unit. Not to mention the problems of crosstalk and feedback associated with all three parts sharing the same power supply. Therefore, all receivers were considered compromises of price or ease of use over quality - a contemptible idea for the true audiophile.

To compensate for listening environment shortcomings, quality components such as equalizers were designed with white or pink noise generators to compensate for (cancel out) the listening environment. The equalizer/spectrum analyzer, contrary to popular use, was not to shape the sound to one's particular taste or to give some graphic display of the music (heh heh), but to compensate for one's listening environment. Only those of us crazy enough to get our hearing comprehensively tested could also compensate for lapses in our hearing as well. But as the article mentioned, adding components also added distortion and noise. As one added components, the signal to noise ratio, the stereo separation, and the THD (total harmonic distortion) of each component became more and more crucial. I've even seen components designed to compensate for the shortcomings of other components. For instance, DBX corporation produced a component called a subsonic synthesizer that could compensate for the lack of a speakers low end response, to allow one to filter out excessive wowing in a turntable and then restore the low end atificially, or to drive a subwoofer. All three functions were designed to compensate for the shortcomings of some other component in the system. Equalizers/spectrum analysers, high and low pass filters, dynamic range companders, etc.. all were designed to compensate for some other real or perceived shortcoming in the system. Each would decrease the overall quality of a 'pure' signal, and all were capable of degrading the system until it was no longer 'high fi' at all. But when properly used, they were capable of making a good system into a superb system.

Another note I would like to add is that FM reception is generally one of the worst sources one could use because most FM stations use dynamic range compression in order to increase the effective distance (and thereby maximizing their listening area) of their transmitters. Also, the atmosphere also degrades the signal and introduces noise. In addition, the demodulation circuits of all tuners produce poor stereo separation. The real killer of FM sources is clearly the compression. Unless one had a high quality dynamic range compander (compressor/expander) to compensate for the dynamic compression, FM was generally far too low quality to be used as a source. However, most dynamic range companders suffered from frequency and or phase shifting. Low end dynamic range companders suffered from 'breathing' of the sort commonly found in analog tape sources recorded using DBX noise reduction. The alternative, of course, is to only listen to radio stations that do not compress their media - a rarity in most geographic locations.

Back to the other two philosophies, they diverged according to the listening environment one wanted to simulate/recreate. One philosophy attempts to recreate the quasi anechoic chamber experience of the studio while the other attempts to create the live concert experience. I was solidly in the former camp, doing everything I could to produce a sound that was as close to the studio as possible. That is how most music I listened to was recorded and so that is how I wanted it to sound. My personal collection consisted of very few live performances. This philosophy believes that since one's ability to compensate for the listening environment and the shortcomings of one's own hearing is dependent upon controlling the sound, one can never have enough control over that sound. Quite the opposite of the minimalist philosophy.

In addition, while selecting stereo components, I would study product specifications of a dozen or more different make and models of the same component to ensure the highest quality that was compatible with my existing stereo system before making a purchasing decision. The average person today does not even see the specifications before their purchase. The concept of listening to how a component sounds without regard to compatability or faithful reproduction is one I personally find contemptible; as is purchasing everything from a single manufacturer. But to get something purely by the specifications is asking for trouble too. One requires a combination of the two philosophies if one is to build a truely outstanding system.

The third philosophy made a comeback in the 1980's with the introduction of surround sound processing. I was not old enough to have experienced the 'quadraphonic' sound of the late sixties, which is a precursor to the 'live' sound processing we have today. But I was there when the first surround sound processors were brought to market. At first, I was unimpressed until I heard the flexibility of the Yamaha DSP1. The flexibility and the wide range of environments that it could reproduce was staggering. However, the DSP1 pushed the envelope of digital technology. The DSP1 had the same high pitched hiss of all early digital equipment due to the poor digital filtering technology of the day.

I noticed that under the heading of Professional Practices, it mentions that today's pofessional mixing boards convert the signal to digital and then add effects. It mentions that this complex signal chain degrades the quality of the signal and lessens the spontaneity and integrity of the musical performance This is true of analogue mixing boards. Each track has it's own signal to noise ratio and every effect added to an analogue signal increases that noise. This is why analogue mixers are held in such low regard. But on a digital mixing board, all the loss of fidelity is in the digital conversion. Adding effects could be considered reducing fidelity, but so can a wawa pedal or any other form of analogue effects added to guitar or other instrument. The argument ultimately favors straight microphones in front of symphony orchestras and no other source. For the rest of us, whatever effects added to the source is considered what the recording artist wanted, regardless of whether the effect was added during performance or by mixing. Despite the loss of fidelity in the digital conversion, there is one nice thing about digital mixing; no matter how complex the signal chain gets, there is no degradation to the signal to noise ratio; which is the downfall of the analogue mixer. Thus, the audiophile holds the analogue mixer in very low esteem, not so much the digital one - unless one seeks out purely analogue sources.

I get a kick out of the image of the typical audiophiles listening room in this article. That cannot be the room of a minimalist audiophile because the number of overstuffed chairs and the wall material. Add to that a group of people and the audio in that room would muddy, almost completely lacking in high frequency tones. Unless one has an equalizer to compensate, that room would never sound right. But an equalizer is the last component a minimalist would ever resort to. To make things worse, the sound in that room would change according to the number of people in it and what they wore (heavy coats vs. T-shirts). Sorry, that room presents a minimalist audiophiles worst nightmare room. This only underscores the fact that home theater is not a minimalist philosophy.

Today of course, the dominant philosophy is the live concert experience that we find in almost all low to medium quality stereo systems. However, with the exception of some simple delay and volume options, I've noted a definite lack of control in todays popular brands of surround sound processors. It's a shame too, since it was the ability to adapt to any listening environment that impressed me about surround sound processing in the first place. After several hours of experimentation with the DSP1, I was able to create a listening environment that sonically seemed to lack walls. Most people can listen to music with their eyes closed and hear when they are approaching a wall. But a well adjusted DSP1 could sonically make walls disappear or to appear in places where there were none. However, the DSP1 had a steep learning curve and was definitely not for the casual listener.

The minimalist philosophy and the live concert philosophy seems to be the dominant two today. However, I would consider the former as being the philosophy of todays audiophiles while the latter is more of a mass marketing gimmick for the average masses. I suppose the third philosophy (my own) is somewhat of a rarity today.

One last note about amplifiers. Tube amplifier aficionados claim that tube amplifiers produce a 'warmer' or 'more mellow' sound than solid state amplifiers through the same speakers. Indeed, tube amplifiers are typically capable of producing greater current on demand than solid state amps. However, tube amplifiers generally produce more distortion and phase shifting than solid state devices of the same power ratings. Meanwhile, integrated amplifiers, although capable of extremely low distortion levels, almost universally suffer from low current capacity and a general lack of headroom. Generally speaking, to an audiophile there is no such thing as the perfect amplifier. Whether it be tube, traditional transistor, FET or IC, all options have strengths and drawbacks. It's amazing when people tell me that their stereo produces six hundred or a thousand watts. But when I see their specs, that's divided into 4 or 5 channels into 4 or 6 ohm speakers at 10% distortion (or more). To me, specs like that would probably be marginally good enough for a dumpster. Simply stated, I would not even bother listening to it if the specs did not measure up first. Only if they did would I put it to the hearing test. And believe me, I heard a lot of components that had good specs but poor sound - but nothing ever had bad specs but good sound. It was in this manner that I found a tape deck by Teac that actually beat the Nakamichi Dragon in all categories except frequency response on metal tape, which it nearly equalled - at a third the cost.

Well, I guess that's all I had to say. Hope I informed as much as entertained. I don't like changing the actual text of wikis but if someone experienced in doing so wants to, then they can expand on it using parts of what I wrote - changing the text as they see fit, of course.

J 67.38.0.125 02:43, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticisms of Subjective Audiophiles

I'm quite biased on this issue - I have a degree in physics so it's difficult not to be an "objectivist." However one thing that I didn't see adequately addressed in the criticisms of the subjectivists was the perfectly normal psychological explaination for many subjectivist behaviors, including the entire justification for double-blind studies.

I do not have credentials in the field of psychology, however it appears that there are two related biases going on here, Confirmation bias and Post-purchase rationalization. These types of biases apply just as much to scientists and other "objectivists," which is why observations need to be carefully unbiased through the use of proper experimental procedure. I think there should be mention of this in the article. Unfortunately, not being an expert on this subject, I do not know where to find a proper citation for it, even though it should be blindingly obvious to anyone with knowledge of experimental theory that these effects are, at the very least, quite likely to affect any observations that are not carefully protected from them. - 172.129.230.159 18:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism of the bandwidth syndrom

I had a glance at this page, and my understanding is that the complete hearing experience seems to be sometimes summarized/confused here as frequency bandwidth discussion. Thus, I took the liberty to add a paragraph concerning phase dispersion in CDs, above at the beginning of the page, at a place I felt appropriate (chapter 3, labelled : The Phase Factor : why vinyl sound(ed) better than CDs, or the digital audio myth). Also took the liberty to add a little Note in the article, although I am a newbie in this type of exercise. Hope I did not mess anything up. Any phase perception feedback welcome; I also suggest links and further contributions to the psychoacoustics article within wikipedia (deserves further work). Cheers [Pablo, on Feb 13th 2007]

[edit] More fodder for the subjectivist vs. objectivist debates

Quick comment - the more sprawling this article becomes, the better its representation of the silliness of debates to what constitutes or delivers good sound (what ever that is). There's one article by Roger Russell, a speaker designer who worked at Macintosh Labs for decades, that I love. It debunks the marketing hype around expensive speaker wire. Mattnad 21:28, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Flat-earthers always ignore evidence. William Greene 17:55, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Roger Russell currently sells an audiophile loudspeaker and advertises the use internally of an audiophile brand of wire. It would seem audiophile products are made to be bought by audiophiles regardless of whether the earth is flat or round.HonestGuv 17:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

And he even admits in that article listed above that he's doing it purely for marketing and not performance reasons. Goes to show the power of suggestion. Mattnad 18:13, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 1000 watts RMS per channel?

• "On the other hand, there are others who use solid-state amplifiers rated at over 1,000 watts RMS per channel."

I am not an audiophile, my experience of watts comes mostly from guitar amplifiers, but i find it hard to believe that there would be 1000W RMS per channel amplifiers in production (other than made by electronics hobbyists). That's a rediculously large number, and that's per channel?! I can't find anything in any of the references to back up this claim and I'm thinking the author may be thinking of 'peak power' rating, which seems to be more often given on commercial HiFi systems than RMS (which is the common meaning of 'wattage' in guitar amplifiers) and is comparitively larger than RMS for a given device; unfortunately they're both commonly referred to as 'wattage'.--KX36 13:35, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I dunno about 1000W per channel, but I've had very nice experiences with an amp that delivered about 200W per channel (x2), and my current setup is rated at 125 W/channel (x5). The advantage, of course, is that you never clip so you never have to have those pointless arguments about whether tubes or transistors sound better when clipping and you tend not to roast tweeters as a result of hard clipping (although you sure can roast them from noise transients arising from your audio sources; DirecTV is great at that). The big amp also had an amazing damping factor (low output impedance) so it made some cheap speakers of mine sound a lot better than they did with wimpier amps.

Atlant 13:48, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

There are monoblock amps at that wattage, McIntosh Labs makes a 2000 Watt monoblock with 8,000 Watts peak RMS. Designed as two separate 1,000 Watt modules that work together - $30,000 for each channel. Not for the small of budget I expect. Mattnad 22:34, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Who is an audiophile?

Current definition in the article: Audiophile, from Latin audire "hear" and Greek philos "loving," is a person dedicated to achieving high fidelity in the recording and playback of music [1] [2]

This is a poor definition for the following reasons: (1) the term "high fidelity" has a well understood meaning in being true to the source and this is not generally reflected in the audiophile approach. (2) most technically educated people involved in "the recording and playback of music" would be offended to be called an audiophile because of the beliefs this implies. (3) audiophile involvement in the recording of music is small - the domain of the audiophile is primarily playback in the home.

Suggestion:

Audiophiles are interested in the high quality reproduction of music in the home. They are distinguished from nonaudiophiles with similar interests by holding a range of beliefs about sound, sound perception and audio equipment that is in conflict with the current scientific view.

Would this definition be acceptable to audiophiles?

Is there a significant number of people that are happy to be labelled audiophiles and genuinely hold an informed scientific view? If so, this would mean my definition needs modifying to reflect the 3 groups: subjective-audiophiles, objective-audiophiles and nonaudiophiles all with the same interests and the last two only being distinguished by the meaning they hang on the word audiophile.HonestGuv 20:12, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe I hold an "informed scientific view," and would be content to be labeled an audiophile. I've always understood the word as being broadly defined, and including both subjectivist and objectivist camps. However, the article currently defines subjectivists as those who generally subscribe to audiophile values, thus excluding objectivists as audiophiles. This dichotomy seems contrary to the dictionary definition, and should definitely be cited if we're even going to consider keeping it. Headwes 07:14, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The Audiophile wiki page has become inherently polluted with esoteric beliefs of each subjective and objective camp. The reality is that any definition of an audiophile is one who identifies with the terminology and by following popular dictionary term and popular consensus is that an audiophile is someone who strives to achieve perfection in sound, but how this is obtained is open to arguement. Perhaps a separate wiki page should define the investigated practices as the arguments here are among audiophiles and those who are not may be confused by the dilution of the term. Oregoniansdoitintherain 08:20, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the input but..."by following popular dictionary term and popular consensus is that an audiophile is someone who strives to achieve perfection in sound". This may be your popular definition but the word is in none of my paper dictionaries and the online ones I have just looked at appear to have been largely copied from each other and essentially say "hi-fi enthusiast". Since the word "audiophile" was originally introduced about 30 years ago in order to help distinguish the "audiophile" from the "high-fidelity" a reasonably full description such as that here ought to reflect the fact. In addition those in my peer group use the word as a derogatory term for the "subjectivist" group with everyone else with similar interests being "hi-fi" or "audio" enthusiasts or almost anything without the word audiophile in it. Others have posted here saying they use the term in the same way but you use it differently and you are certainly not alone in that. It is ambiguous and what to do about it is the question. I do not understand you last sentence. HonestGuv 16:02, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minimalism

Even given agreement on the goal, opinions vary widely among designers and listeners on how best to achieve it. If there is one shared design principle, it is minimalism. Given that capturing, storing, and playing back music inevitably degrades it, the fewer and simpler the stages, the better.

The article later contradicts itself discussing such complex schemes as bi-amping. Until someone can provide a reliable source showing minimalism as the predominant audiophile design principle, this statement should probably be removed. Headwes 04:53, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Minimalism is most certainly a widely held belief by audiophiles and to delete it would be wrong. It expresses itself as an opposition to explicit frequency modification via tone controls (implicit equalisation is widespread but rarely acknowledged as such), small numbers of amplifier stages and similar.

Bi-amping comes in two forms: one audiophile (does effectively nothing) and one real (small improvement at significant cost). The audiophile one is currently accommodated on almost every loudspeaker in the audiophile market and is most certainly real in this sense. The real one is not popular with audiophiles but dominates the upper end of the professional audio market. I am not sure audiophiles really see bi-amping as being more complex and for active bi-amping (the real one) the removal of the crossover components between the amplifier and loudspeaker does makes things simpler and it is largely from here that the benefits derive.

By the way, I have never seen any audiophile argue in favour of integrated amplifiers although I am sure a small proportion will do so. Most favour not only separate pre and power amplifiers but separate amplifiers for each channel and even separate cases for the power supplies in a some instances. HonestGuv 14:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How to cite audiophile beliefs?

Audiophiles have a problem because they cannot cite "reputable publications" that act as a positive source for their beliefs. Reputable sources that discuss audiophile beliefs in a negative way are not an issue and are not being considered here.

Because audiophiles hold scientifically incorrect beliefs, the audiophile world has had to largely isolate itself from the audio, scientific and general mainstreams. The only authority audiophiles have are the audiophile publications which, with a negligible number of exceptions, derive all or almost all their income from the industry via advertising. Consequently these publications primarily seek to become attractive vehicles for that advertising and this is reflected in their content which would not normally be consider suitable for citation.

I consider it is unreasonable to attach 'citation required' to the expression of every audiophile belief and then to later delete every statement because a citation of a reputable source cannot be provided.

Similarly, I consider it unreasonable to point out that two audiophile beliefs are inconsistent with each other and then to delete one of them. Audiophile beliefs are not based on reason and are often inconsistent with each other.

These beliefs held by audiophiles are their most striking distinguishing characteristic. These are not like religous beliefs about matters outside the scientific domain, these are not exagerated preferences like most enthusiasts for technical devices, these are beliefs about matters that lie in the scientific domain and are incorrect in exactly the same way that those that believe the earth is flat are incorrect. Except, of course, that there isn't a mainstream industry promoting and benefiting from the belief that the earth is flat.

If we want constructive and useful input from audiophiles I believe they must be allowed to cite what they consider to be reputable sources for their beliefs. This can be handled in an explicit manner by a minor modification to what is currently done in the article by separating the audiophile and nonaudiophile references. Currently these are called "subjective" and "objective" which are audiophile terms that are not wholly aligned with the meaning in use by the general population. Is this reasonable? HonestGuv 11:30, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

It is reasonable to attach citation required to every controversial statement--subjectivist or objectivist--and then delete controversial statements that lack a reputable citation after a reasonable length of time--say, one week. Where there are clashing beliefs, only the belief or beliefs that are supported by reputable citations should be kept. Irrational subjectivist or objectivist beliefs should be deleted. Subjectivists' most striking characteristic is their refusal of evidence, and in this way is like religious beliefs.

Subjectivists can contribute--and have--by holding objectivists to the same high standards that objectivists impose on subjectivists. Sources like Stereophile and The Absolute Sound have close to zero credibility. Do not make the problem worse by allowing citations from these ludicrous sources. Instead of using audiophile and non-audiophile, I prefer subjectivist and objectivist. Not all audiophiles live on Fantasy Island.

The definitions, moreover, of subjectivist and objectivist are given in the article, so anyone unfamiliar with audiophiles should know what these words mean after reading their definitions; after reading the article, links, and discussion, they will know the definitions of subjectivists and objectivists. Because of these reasons, I believe that your suggestion is unreasonable. William Greene 18:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible restructuring?

There are two conflicting viewpoints present in this article; one from active audiophiles and the traditional one based on scientific knowledge. The result is rather unsatisfactory in that it leads to too much coming-and-going of text and requires the reader to work at determing which viewpoint is probably in use. The section where the viewpoints are separated is an unsatisfactory list of unconnected statements. Suggestions:

(1) Move most of the "Objective versus subjective" bullet points into the main text leaving a section describing what the two terms mean when used by audiophiles. This will require a fair amount of work to place the points in context.

(2) To add an "audiophile view" subsection at the end of any section which requires one where the audiophile view point can be expressed in opposition to the traditional one and using citations acceptable to audiophiles. Everything outside these "audiophile view" subsections to follow the normal rules for acceptable citations.

It is not perfect in that the audiophile view becomes slightly second class. An alternative would be two subsections for the "scientific view" and the "audiophile view" which balances things up a bit but the audiophile citation concession would still be needed. Thoughts? HonestGuv 18:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The article will improve as additional editors delete unsubstantiated claims leading to an article that is all or almost all objectivist. Adding a subjectivists'-view subsection at the end of any section is a bad idea if no credible citations will be provided to support subjectivists' claims. The normal rules for acceptable citations should apply everywhere. It is not about which side is first class or which side is second class. It is about credibility, evidence, honesty, truth, science, and trust. No concessions! The purpose of Wikipedia is to enlighten. Let the world see how absurd the subjectivists are. William Greene 18:53, 24 March 2007 (UTC)