Archimago speaks of snake oils, etc

My goto pundit. A lot of good stuff on his blog, Be sure to check out the comments section and the index.

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I’ve been following Archimago’s blog for several years. Archimago was active on the Squeezebox forum where many of my fellow reformed audiophiles enjoyed his David versus Goliath battles with audiophile dogma. Archimago does a wonderful job of beating audiophiles at their own numbers and measurements game. If you really read his posts you will often see the term “audible” and that is the real heart of the matter since the equipment used to test the pieces of audio hardware is capable of detecting differences that are well below the audible threshold for human hearing. Nonetheless many audiophiles claim to have super human hearing abilities.

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Confirms what I have known myself for a long time
Audiophile = BS.

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I won’t so harsh. Let’s just say that audiophile = someone who lost the ability to detect BS

I say that because there are many audiophile beliefs that are quite valid (build quality, system setup guidelines, proper component matching) and tons of beliefs that are pure BS (expensive digital cables, high bit depth).

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Yes that’s a better summation.

In the comments of the article I posted, Archimago also details what he thinks is important.

Thanks for the link, the community needs people like Archimago to “keep it real”. Not long after hearing a Raspberry Pi with Roon, I sold my 100x more expensive streamer. Yes, some things do make a difference, but there’s also a lot of BS out there.

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I’ve never heard much difference between a Pi with software and more expensive streamers. I suppose there are the looks and convenience for some but if you know your way around a Pi then it’s really a no brainier, especially with the quality of add ons that are available now. And you can hide away a Pi very easily. Remote software is good so what’s not to like and it saves a load of cash for new music.

Yes one can hide a Pi very easily, in fact some are even hidden inside expensive streamers.

To put it another way digital audio is first and foremost digital data and that data behaves like all other digital data, not like acoustic audio - digital data is ones and zeroes not sound waves.

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@xxx thanks for the link! Ive recently been seeing alot of his work in helping us commoners trudge through the murky waves of the audiophile world. I really love how this gentleman brings to the forefront of what is important in a music listening setup and what is considered to be foolery all based on measurable facts. Im really grateful to be in the company of men that work so hard to keep things honest and real in such a relentless market/world. After all its about enjoying the moment isn’t it?

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More grist for the mill. Hits all the bases and some of the people. Boutique curated OSs, high priced streamers, uber expensive interconnects, equipment reviewers, etc.

Don’t know how I missed it when I started this post. Have fun.

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Humans are by nature believers. Otherwise everyone would see through the so called “truths” of religions. We would all be atheists. Or show me the measurements :sweat_smile:

I consider myself quite rational. I like Archimago and I trust him. But I guess there is always a “but”. The uncertainty. And that’s the things I can not explain (yet) and haven’t got any real trustworthy data on. Like why my Aries G2 sounds better than Sonore uRendu or my Mac Mini directly. Possibly measurable in some way. Debatable.

When it comes to my own gear I can afford to play around a bit and experiment. When I recommend friends to buy things I’m conservative and only recommend price/quality/performance products. My parents bought a Marantz and it sounds great. Especially when I stream Tidal. But they stick to Spotify :upside_down_face:

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I had two Marantz home theater receivers and both sound really good plus both have great sounding headphone output. Give the headphone jack a try, you will be pleasantly surprised. Marantz does not treat the headphone output as an afterthought. Although I don’t think that Archimago has ever tested any Marantz headphone output. :grinning:

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Obvious to me there’s a parameter or two, the tester has failed to discover. Can’t measure everything.

Out of curiosity, what are they?

He forgot to measure the imagination of the listener.

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I have no [moderated] idea, but I hope someone finds them soon, so this tiresome and decades old conflict between those who trust their instruments and those who trust their ears, can be put to rest.

I thought I’d pop by here (as I get the Roon emails) and see if there is anything interesting but this indeed is very tiresome stuff, really puts newcomers off…

"This continues to add to the evidence that “audiophile" computer-based digital “transports” do not make a significant difference to the sound. I cannot subjectively hear a difference either when I play music as I switched around the configurations while measuring.”

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On the contrary, newcomers need to have an alternative viewpoint before they are hoodwinked, by unscrupulous manufacturers and their sponsored reviewing handmaidens, into spending absurd amounts of money on devices that have no practical benefits.

Anyway, who told you this puts newcomers off?

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As a reformed audiophile what I suspected would be the case on the Roon forum is indeed the case, i.e. that it is filled with audiophiles since Roon is being marketed to and for audiophiles. Therefore since I am on the audiophile’s home turf, so to speak, I am trying my best to tread lightly when reading and posting about equipment and other sound related issues. At this point I just sit back and try to enjoy the show. $500+ USB cables, 32bit/192kHz files, etc. - I find it all rather amusing and after all it’s their money not mine. I just listen to music being stream via Roon to my lowly Squeezebox endpoints. :innocent:

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