Indeed. Although it’s often said that “it’s easy to find out for yourself”, I don’t agree. Yes, it’s easy to just sit down and listen after having made a change, and decide whether the system sounds different, but that’s a very different proposition to demonstrating that the difference you perceive is caused by the change you made. Not that it necessarily matters, anyway.
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I don’t disagree entirely with you here we all feel this. My moods definitely effect how I listen to things but this should not stop us being open minded. You have to leave it a while and then return to previous setups and see. Its no different than auditioning hifi itself. Surely one system will sound better on one day than another yet we go with one we prefer the sound of.
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For me I really struggled to hear any difference but I am not outright ruling out that in somebody else’s system they might.
Perhaps a sports analogy may help.
The best kit doesn’t give you an advantage but ensures your not at a diss advantage.
So, if a dedicated router helps you feel better… go for it.
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Chris, I think you hit the nail on the head when you say “feel better”.
When you have a nagging uncertainty about something, you might just want to make a change to make yourself feel better, whether the issue is real or not. And that can get you in a better frame of mind to listen, and things sound better. And they sound better on repeated listening, as well, because that nagging doubt about your equipment isn’t there any more.
One of the other things that I don’t understand is why there’s no evidence of a difference presented. I imagine we all have calibrated microphones, right? Clearly the low-hanging fruit of improving SQ is excellent speakers and room conditioning, and you need a microphone to do that, don’t you? Maybe not, if you’ve got equipment that does it automatically. But even so, just recording a test track twice with the two different setups would allow others to see (rather, hear) the difference. Might even be able to figure out what’s causing it.
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I did take readings in rew and posted them on here as part of my findings in the tests I did. There where very slight differences but no day/night differences.
Ditto for the aforementioned rocks, which also come with glowing testimonials and have the advantage of a 90 day money-back guarantee (unlike the measly 30 day MBG for the Uptone EtherRegen).
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Here is a link to my findings.
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Bill, you can do as much room correction as you want, your room will never be exactly the same as it was when you did the measurements. One of the seats will have moved after the last cleaning, you won’t be sitting in the exact same position, there won’t be the same number of people in the room as last time, the cat wiil be lying somewhere else…
Unless you listen in a dedicated listening room and you’ve a serious case of OCD, room conditions vary. This all changes sound reproduction slightly, though not dramatically.
And as you mentioned, mood is an important factor as well. Which is why I agree with those who attribute the so called improvements to psychoacoustic factors.
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Love the shape of those rocks, BTW. They remind me of something… 's on the tip of my tongue… wossname…
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Sure. But for an experiment like this, you can keep the mic and the furniture in the same location, keep the cat out of the room, etc. The only issue I can see is environmental noise – perhaps unplug the refrigerator and do the experiment at 3 in the morning?
Gotcha. Problem is my cats get vocal when I shut them out. Now if they would carry a tune…
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Even if you could do such a measurement, and even if it revealed no change, then what would this show? Evidently, all it means is that your system is not “revealing enough” to exhibit the change that others hear clearly.
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I suggest you try comparing two recording with your test microphone without any changes to your system. You’ll find plenty of low-level differences, which are almost certainly inaudible – but try proving that to a “believer.”
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Let’s take @Magnus at his word, for a moment, that he hears a change in the soundstage. That’s a phase shift in one of the channels (at some frequencies) — not something that would show up in a spectrum analyzer, and not even something that would be easy to ferret out with a monaural microphone.
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On the other hand, this seems like something straightforward to ABX test, for anyone who says they can hear a difference in a sighted test. Protestations to the contrary, no one has ever succeeded in doing that, which tells me all I need to know.
Just to be clear, if you really want to measure something, eliminate the microphone, the room and the speakers from the equation, and just measure the output of your DAC. If there’s no change in the output of the DAC, then all the stuff downstream won’t change either. But that measurement has already been done.
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Thank you, Richard.
I’m not implying anything. I’m saying that a lot of supposed SQ improvements are not SQ improvements at all. However, someone will think they are because they expect them to be an improvement. It’s expectation bias and a very well known and documented phenomenon.
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How do you know Jim, without being in the room alongside them? And even then, they might just like a certain kind of sound. Like some of the preferences for ultra-smooth, warm, slow valve gear. Not my cup of tea at all, but for others a definite improvement.
I think there’s rather too much judgment going on around here and surprised to see you joining in. So, no expectation bias there at all!
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Here we go again, thinking we are making it up try it, if it’s not for you then fair enough…but do it with an open mind, not biased in any way
Tomorrow I will get a UpTone EtherRegen and one Sonore opticalModule (both borrowed), and compare which one gives best sound and if its better than the solution I have now (TP-Link fiber media converters with fiber between).
I will report here for those who believe it can make a change, the rest of you are free to believe I imagine every difference I (probably) will hear.
you can hear ethernet and fibre differences ? wow…
don’t worry , you serve me a smash …
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A wise old man once told me “it’s great to approach things with an open mind, but be careful it’s not so open it falls through your ass”
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