That’s good to hear Bill, this thread like some others already have is in danger of going down the subjective road. Soon we will be on to the colour of Ethernet cables making a difference to the sound along with fuses (you raised that one) Ethernet switches, ethernet switch power supplies and other such unsubstantiated opinions. If people believe they can hear a difference, good for them. But I like to see a little science backing up these claims rather than just another persons opinion.
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Of course he’s a real person. He’s not an automaton.
Do you mean that he’s adopted a persona for the purpose of making a point and allowing people to offer up easily supplied opinions and/or vent about other’s easy opinions?
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I assumed, that someone had created a false persona just to wind up the audiophiles on the forum, hence the audiophile fuses comment. But clearly Bill was just curious about how to best improve his music system.
Not the place for that, I think. Lots of technical expertise, lots of experience with various mixes of systems. I personally have lots of experience with software, and some long-ago mostly-forgotten experience with both digital and analog electronics. Never did anything with audio engineering, though, so I’m trying to fit my head around some of these concepts.
What little I do know and remember makes me think that if Hi-Fi Tuning fuses (shouldn’t really keep singling out that company, there are half-a-dozen manufacturers of audiophile fuses) do make a difference in the sound of your amp, you have bigger problems, like the design of the power conditioning stage of the amp, because fuses occur fairly early on in the power stage.
I spent my life in advanced networking and a a little bit of audio. Like you, I can see that if an Ethernet cable or Ethernet switch or even the Ethernet switch power supply can make a difference to the final sound quality, then there is something wrong with the design of the DAC/Audio system and that’s the bit that needs to be fixed, not the network or the fuse in the power supply.
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There are many subjectivists on the forum that will vehemently disagree with you.
This is the land of $500 cables and $400 ‘audiophile’ Ethernet switches.
This whole subjective/objective split strikes me as a false dichotomy.
People hear things with their mind – not their ears, not their auditory nerves, not even their brain, but with their mind. And despite some decades of research, we are about as far from understanding the mind as we ever were. All sorts of things influence this, and not in straightforward ways. Roger Penrose has hypothesized that the actions of the mind – thinking, seeing, hearing – are products of some quantum effects, entangled with the entire universe. This means (to me) that if someone says they hear a difference between two setups which logically can’t be different, they’re probably actually hearing it. Something in their mind is producing a different experience.
Unfortunately, that experience may well not translate to some other person’s hearing. So these narratives about “what I heard” are important and “true”, but not necessarily helpful to someone seeking mechanical causes to reproducible observations. The Enlightenment view of the world. But that itself is very Newtonian, and somewhat old-school, because it fails to take into account the most important organ of an audio setup, the mind of the listener, an inscrutable black box. All very frustrating to someone who wants objective evaluations of rigs and devices.
Probably help everybody if the objectivists would recognize that what the subjectivists are hearing is real, if only to them, and if the subjectivists would allow for the frustration of the objectivists at not being able to get “hard” evidence. Which the folks in this forum seem to do very well.
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And, unfortunately, that experience may not be reproducible or repeatable for that same person when additional stimuli (i.e. biases) are removed or other people are observing.
As an analogy, should we accept that someone routinely runs a four minute mile – just because he believes or even knows that he does? He refuses to or cannot do it, though, when the stopwatch is out or others are watching.
AJ
Right!
Not a great analogy, as one happens entirely in one person’s mind, and the other doesn’t. But sure, we should accept that he thinks he’s run a four-minute mile.
I used to make the very same argument, in that what they were hearing was a real subjective experience.
Doesn’t matter; just a way to pass the time. Not even a hill of beans.
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The problem with that, @Robert_Brace, is Ethernet switches, even though they have transformer isolation on each port, will pass high impedance noise down the line to the final device before the DAC or the DAC itself if it has Ethernet input. So, switch choices certainly can make a difference. Picking a switch that blocks most high impedance noise can certainly make a difference in sound quality.
Ethernet cables can make a difference too. But I would argue that using UTP cables (no ground noise propagation issues) is the way to go and, as long as they meet specs, there is little between them.
Oh, I freely recognize that what people say they hear they really think they hear and they think it is real. But that doesn’t make it valid or real to anyone else. So how does that help?
Not necessarily, anyway. But does that matter?
Help who? With what?
Maybe it does matter. Maybe substantive, objective truth matters more than ever.
Look, Bill, we are in an age in which some make grandiose claims backed by scant or even contradictory evidence. One label that may fit some of those people is delusional. Another is Donald Trump.
AJ
Of course it does. If someone says the sky is green, what good does it do to accept that in the context of discussing the sky?
Nah, my analogy works.
Hearing sound is an auditory interaction with the outside physical world. But a person’s own perception of what he hears occurs in the mind.
Running a mile is a kinesthetic interaction with the outside physical world. But a person’s own perception of time occurs in the mind.
And both perceptions are subject to human error.
AJ
I ask again, good to whom? For what purpose? I mean, if you’re lying on your back on a sunny day, looking for shapes in clouds, do you insist whoever’s with you see the same shapes?
So, Bill, what are you looking for here? It seems you want everyone to accept what everyone says as gospel regardless of the validity of what they say. In other words, to you everything is subjective and all opinions should be treated as valid because objectivity does not exists. That’s a real winner of a philosophy!! That means everything is true and nothing is false!
I’m not suggesting “everyone” do anything. But I do think empathy is a useful filter through which to hear what other people say about the world. And that validity is inherent in the sincere expression of experience; it’s not something to be added or taken away. If someone doesn’t see that, what good does music do them?
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Yes, feel the empathy, wrap yourself in the empathy…
“Oh, you don’t hear differences between these bit perfect digital file formats/cables/servers? The differences clearly exist. Everything matters. Your ears must not be good enough, or your system is not resolving enough.”
AJ
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