Darko finally comes clean

Darko finally admits, after a long and unnecessarily involved ad hoc story, that the differences amongst most HiFi equipment is subjective.

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Saw this last week. I loved it!

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Iā€™m sure the heated debate regarding it will be less subjective.

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Good stuff. Reminds me of some wealthier people Know. My sisterā€™s wife and husband are well-off, buy lots of arts, Porscheā€™s, holidays, private schools for their kids etc. But for years had some sort of awful Samsung AV allin one system (mostly because it was white) and knowing they could plop down for you name it in audio, they finally bit and got - yep - Sonos. They just donā€™t care and have other priorities.

Another much richer person I know, who asked me awhile back about getting a camera (to tow along on their private jet) and after my suggestion decided a p&s Leica was too much and theyā€™ll just stick to their iPhone and a Lomo. Itā€™s all about priorities and how one decides to feed their senses (and which).

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Actually, the story is great and necessary to tellā€¦

Darko is not saying that the difference is subjective. When he talks about the diminishing returns, he is saying that something that cost twice as much isnā€™t going to be twice as good. You could spend $3000 on an endpoint that is only a bit better than a $200 endpoint. The value of that ā€œbit betterā€ endpoint depends on the person making the purchase.

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Isnā€™t that the very essence of subjectivity?

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Huh? You mean ā€œmy wifeā€™s sisterā€?

In any case, the economic concept of welfare is associated with oneā€™s willingness to pay for something. If there was no subjectivity and all we sought was getting from point A to point B, we would all be happy driving Ladas. [Moderated]

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Darko is saying the value is subjective. He is not saying that the difference is subjective. Look at the first postā€¦

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Another country heard from. :roll_eyes:

When one equates the value of a device based on itā€™s price and whether one can (or wants to) use their disposable income on it, that is the usual (but unspoken) implication of the subjectivistā€™s evaluations about the differences between their equipment and other equipment. I refer to that chessnut about ā€œif one canā€™t hear the difference maybe oneā€™s system is not capable enoughā€.

Nowhere in Darkoā€™s screed does he address what makes expensive equipment better than less expensive equipment. Only that (at 7:04) he knows his $7000 streamer sounds better than a $1000 streamer. He (7:16) knows this. Subjective proclamations about differences if ever there were any.

He seems at one point (9:36) to inadvertently admit the truth when he states that ā€œA lot of HiFi is psychology. A lot of HiFi discussion is rooted in psychology, not in the gearā€.

It isnā€™t so much as to what heā€™s saying, but rather what heā€™s unintentionally communicating.

BTW - His Russian Doll nest of people that call each other idiots (at least in his made up story (Scheherazade he isnā€™t)) ends with the girl on the bike, whom no one can call an idiot. I guess that would be analogous to an RPi?

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You missed my point completely - my comment related to the economic concept of welfare and the suppression of individual choice brought about by the [moderated] ideology/system mentioned above; nothing to do with how much money one has.

Otherwise, rich people in Ceausescuā€™s Romania would be able to buy Ferraris as opposed to Dacias or Aros.

Moderators have removed comments of a political nature.

I am not a fan of Darko. He seemed like a huge shill everytime I watched some of his content. But good for him he is able to progress.

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Good watching!

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Itā€™s so unbelievably easy to be fooled by audio.

Only yesterday I was turning up the volume of an end point using the roon app and ā€˜hearingā€™ the volume go up, only to realise I was turning up the volume of the wrong end point.

I heard the change in volume. But it never really happened. We see and hear what we want.

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Or just as often what we expect to hear.

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So hereā€™s my take on Darko. I find his style of presentation quite entertaining. I enjoy watching his videos. But I also take everything he says with a massive grain of salt. Enjoy (or donā€™t) his videos as entertainment, not as an actual review.

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Darko tries to clarify -

Meanwhile, LaVorgna (as Darko relates a phone conversation) plays with words (and chuckles) -

First, ā€œyouā€™re an idiot!ā€ is rarely a good conversation starter.

But the people who think they can make good You Tube videos with a smart phone, with a fish-eyed view of the subject, iris bounce, bad lighting, shake from their cheap tripod or no tripod at all, badly picked up audio, are often making unwatchable videos. I wonā€™t call them idiots, I just wonā€™t watch them. But they are in fact idiots.

So are people spending thousands of dollars on magic speaker cables or power cords.

On the subject of ā€œall you need isā€¦ā€, I think John Lennon got it right.

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Oh how I wish he was a ā€œhuge shillā€! Weā€™ve asked him to help us make videos or promote our products regularly, and he just wonā€™t go there. Weā€™ve offered up large sums of marketing money to entice him, and he continues to refuse. He loves Roon, and he uses Roon and Nucleus in many of his videos, but that dude just flat out refuses to be our shill. He truly is just that passionate about his love of music, audio, and gear.

I love his attitude (although I donā€™t always agree with his content), and I love the quality of his production. I wish we had a person like him on our marketing team. Hell, Iā€™d take someone like that just to make Roon tutorial videos.

100%! There is another class of his videos I like, where he shows off the product features or use cases. For example, he has a bunch of ā€œgetting the most out of your mobileā€ and a bunch of videos about Raspberry Pis.

But I lose him when he starts spewing all audiophile adjectivesā€¦ I can only tolerate so much about how danceable those cables are. :joy:

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Pretty sure LaVorgna could be enticed. :smirk:

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