Why Audiophiles resist change?

[Tanoj]

Hi friends,

My View on change / Resisting Change is

if we are at beginning/start then we tend to make lot of upgrade/change, the number of ideas and thought process are more, as we build a decent system then we start resisting any new changes this is because of the fear that the new change may/may not match our taste although it was sounding great instantly may start looking more brighter than what we thought, this is just an example taking speakers into consideration

because everything in chain is equally important, its sometimes questionable to ourself that do i need to change or atlease move something

i dont move my speakers atleast a inch nowadays, earlier i was moving it allover the living room, trying out different speaker positions etc

Luckyly my amp upgrade did brought +ve change, and i can suggest anyone who's not having powerfull amp and never tried bi amping etc to go ahead and give it a try before they come to conclusion on their speaker efficiency

All the very best

Tanoj

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Back to the beginning...

In my long journey of music listening, the first thing I noticed was, people resist change. In the earlier years, people resisted to stereo.

Have you really been on the journey that long? Could you be a decade or two older than I am? Goodness. hyeah:

Well, even though I was only born in 1952, I don't remember any resistance to stereo. I just remember that, back in those days, one had to be somewhat rich to have any form of hifi.

There have always been individuals who would look at a pair of speakers and say, "it'd be better in mono." That's their opinion, and they are welcome to set up their mono systems and enjoy.

Vinyl lovers resisted CD.

No, we didn't. But we may not have had the cash to rush out and buy CD players and CDs

CD lovers resisted to HiRez downloads.

I wish, I wish, I wish. But the opposite is true. It is Flavour of the Month, and the Lunatic direction of hifi that mentioned before.

When SACD was released in multi channel I was all excited. Unfortunately, audiophiles did not want to move from stereophony. It died. Audiophiles resisted multichannel.

They may well have been happy with stereo; they may well not have wanted to spend another huge sum on new equipment and speakers. What people want and do not want, along with what they choose to spend money on, is not a symptom of resistance to change.

It looks like recreating live like music is no longer the prime objectivity of audiophiles. What are they really aiming for?

The purists are aiming to reproduce the material as recorded, and that is still the real meaning of high fidelity.

There may be better ways of recording and reproducing sound, and one fo the things that makes me mad about the sample-rate madness is that the time, money and energy would be better spent researching them.

Yes, high-res, and HD are the rocket ship, and its going nowhere except empty spaaaaaace (and in space no-one can hear the difference ).

But I'm slow to catch on, and now I realise that your thread has a misleading heading: it is not about resistance to change, it is about the idea that we ought to be doing what we are doing now in completely different ways. And you could be right --- but you have a whole industry to shift, let alone its customers. They would rather be flogging larger numbers of bits, and the customers would rather be buying them.

(and it was Mahler, Symphony number 2, I2M 38667, CBS Masterworks, And believe it or not, it says "digital" on the box :lol:. Probably 1980-something)

 

[jai1611]

I think the resistance to change is more at the recording end. Till recently most recording studios worked on 24/48 with a select few at 24/88-96. Similarly, multichannel doesnt work for a lot of music simply because it wasnt recorded for it.

 

[Ambio]

Back to the beginning...


Have you really been on the journey that long? Could you be a decade or two older than I am? Goodness. hyeah:

Well, even though I was only born in 1952, I don't remember any resistance to stereo. I just remember that, back in those days, one had to be somewhat rich to have any form of hifi.

There have always been individuals who would look at a pair of speakers and say, "it'd be better in mono." That's their opinion, and they are welcome to set up their mono systems and enjoy.



No, we didn't. But we may not have had the cash to rush out and buy CD players and CDs



I wish, I wish, I wish. But the opposite is true. It is Flavour of the Month, and the Lunatic direction of hifi that mentioned before.



They may well have been happy with stereo; they may well not have wanted to spend another huge sum on new equipment and speakers. What people want and do not want, along with what they choose to spend money on, is not a symptom of resistance to change.


The purists are aiming to reproduce the material as recorded, and that is still the real meaning of high fidelity.

There may be better ways of recording and reproducing sound, and one fo the things that makes me mad about the sample-rate madness is that the time, money and energy would be better spent researching them.

Yes, high-res, and HD are the rocket ship, and its going nowhere except empty spaaaaaace (and in space no-one can hear the difference ).

But I'm slow to catch on, and now I realise that your thread has a misleading heading: it is not about resistance to change, it is about the idea that we ought to be doing what we are doing now in completely different ways. And you could be right --- but you have a whole industry to shift, let alone its customers. They would rather be flogging larger numbers of bits, and the customers would rather be buying them.

(and it was Mahler, Symphony number 2, I2M 38667, CBS Masterworks, And believe it or not, it says "digital" on the box :lol:. Probably 1980-something)

I dont see the reason for you nitpicking on the way I started my journey but its ok - I will take note of your age and qualify "my long journey" in the future. It is not so much in the numbers but the quality of the experience you accrue in all those years. What is the point having more than half a century of experience if you say:-

"You can always fight the illusion (or just connect your speakers out of phase) and hear it as two separate sound sources. You probably can't beat something like the McGurk effect by mental effort, but the stereo illusion is a little more fragile."

Is the McGurk illusion argument affecting you so badly for you even want to bring your age here. I am dumbfounded!


It is about audiophiles, not about clueless individuals wanting mono speakers. It is about audiophiles argument like "no way CD will ever match vinyl". I think you get the drift or you can pretend not to.

This thread is about audiophiles refusing to try a more feasible way to achieve their ultimate dream of live concert hall sound. I find some DVD multichannel musical CDs far entertaining and fulfilling then stereo. But how many "audiophiles" would have spend enough time perfecting your HT. Unfortunately, some wouldn't even try because "...the HT system costs only 1/3 of my stereo setup and no way it could sound better than my stereo system....".


Audiophiles are the same people who would say cable A is so superior that they heard Norah Jones leapt out the speakers and whispered into their ears and yet wouldn't have passed a blindtest. I say "wouldn't" because they also would not take a blindtest to prove their claim despite the ones making all sorts of claims about cables, HiRez, amplifiers and a host of many other things.

The purists are aiming to reproduce the material as recorded, and that is still the real meaning of high fidelity.

That is a joke because they would never able to reproduce what exactly captured by the microphones when there is crosstalk errors in your playback. Ralph Glasgal (btw, who is much much older than yourself by to decades ) already explained in thread 28 and my previous replies to you also touched on the subject.

The only thing you are right is, the thread is about asking people to embrace new technology to achieve a better results with a fraction of the money you invested in the stereo system. All they have to spend maybe 1/20 of their time that they had spent on stereophony to get it right. But I wouldn't know how to do it until I find out why they are avers to new idea.

It is cheaper than a multi channel setup because you only need 4 speakers to recreate 360 degree soundstage for movies experience. If you get a chance to visit the Ambiophonics institute ask for the Avatar movie to be played in Ambiophonics setup. There is no need for 10.2 system but a simple Ambiophonics will do. There was a youtube made with Avatar clips but it has been taken down. Will upload the institute pictures in the other thread.

Thanks for the Catalogue ID. Mike Gray is a well respected engineer but obviously not good enough to pass your golden ears standard. The vinyl was digitally recorded and mastered digitally. Now, if you run a spectrum analyzer you could back your opinion with numbers.

But I'm slow to catch on, and now I realise that your thread has a misleading heading: it is not about resistance to change, it is about the idea that we ought to be doing what we are doing now in completely different ways. And you could be right --- but you have a whole industry to shift, let alone its customers. They would rather be flogging larger numbers of bits, and the customers would rather be buying them.

Yes. I came to this forum because as a forign born Indian I hate to see thousands of Indian records not getting the rightful place. Some budget recording of Illyaraja's music is awesome and the beauty is only heard in Ambiophonics setup.

But as you mentioned, it about some effort NOT MONEY that would take them to enjoy but audiophiles attitude is different. They would pretend and show all the excitement but would even try or just try for the sake of disprovings. How many of those excited member who said they would try Ambiophonics really tried? You can see the number of the people said they would in my other thread.

After knowing how elder you are to me, this post was rewritten so many times because I have to control my impulsiveness to be direct . It may still sound rude to you and I apologize for it.

 

[asliarun]

My two cents - the one thing that connects artists and music lovers (us), besides the love for music, is that we love a certain "sound" or flavor of sound. Artists spend an incredible amount of effort and trial and error in discovering their own sound. Singers sometimes call it discovering their voice. For instrumentalists, it is more complicated as it involves finding the right instrument and amplification. And once they arrive at a god answer, an answer that works for them, they are understandably very resistant to changing that equilibrium.

I see music lovers of the audiophile variety much the same. Only, it is mostly about the music reproduction devices and ah, the room. I may get into trouble for making this statement but I do feel that music lovers also inherently love a certain flavor of sound. And they too are sometimes obsessive about getting it just right, or even discovering what their "sound" really is. And understandably, once an answer or an equilibrium has been reached, it is darnded difficult to let go and start all over again.

And for people who claim that they love a neutral sound, yes, possibly. But even you would have your favourite albums and recordings that you like to listen to again and again. If you allow for the fact that the instruments, the amplification and equipment during the recording, the post processing etc contributed significantly towards the album or song being enjoyable to you, then you do love a certain sound. It is just that you would rather have your system be neutral so the recording can accurately convey the original flavor. But if your flavor is choco almond, and if your system is sprinkling a few more almonds, it can't hurt (much), can it? Only a problem if it adds tutti frutti instead hyeah:

 

[Ambio]

I think the resistance to change is more at the recording end. Till recently most recording studios worked on 24/48 with a select few at 24/88-96. Similarly, multichannel doesnt work for a lot of music simply because it wasnt recorded for it.

In a way a you are right. We tend to believe 24/96 will be better than 16/44.1. But the resistance is only shown by audiophiles and not by rest of the population.

SACD only made it to the homes of audiophiles but did not penetrate the real consumers because they couldnt tell the difference and they do not care for the difference for musical enjoyment.

Thomas Edison conducted several live vs recorded demo to prove his phonograph sounded like real sound. He succeeded. Audience couldn't tell the difference. In the 50s there was another one in a concert hall, which Ralph Glasgal witnessed, and people couldn't tell the difference but eventually they figured it out. The extra reverberation gave way to the blindtest.

Acoustic research conducted a more comprehensive demo in concert halls in the 60s by eliminating the double reverberation and was successful.

The point is - what kind of audio quality are we talking about in 1910 that was so good that people couldn't tell the difference? The truth is we couldn't really tell the difference above CD level reliably. We probably could if you were to play HD and CD side by side but would you ever dare to walk in an audiophile room and straight away tell whether he is playing CD or SACD?

If such a small difference doesn't matter anymore than why the fear with 24/48 or 24/96? Aren't audiophiles fooling themselves?

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

I dont see the reason for you nitpicking on the way I started my journey but its ok

You gave a premise, and then supported it. I "nitpicked" your support for your premise, finding most of your points to be substantially wrong, and thus concluded that your premise was wrong. I still think so. I wish "audiophiles" were more resistant to change: we would see less of the worst aspects.

As to subjective criticism of recordings, this (you might have noticed ) is not an objective-only forum, If you want that, go to Hydrogenaudio. There you can ask me to support my subjective reaction with figures .

 

[Ambio]

My two cents - the one thing that connects artists and music lovers (us), besides the love for music, is that we love a certain "sound" or flavor of sound. Artists spend an incredible amount of effort and trial and error in discovering their own sound. Singers sometimes call it discovering their voice. For instrumentalists, it is more complicated as it involves finding the right instrument and amplification. And once they arrive at a god answer, an answer that works for them, they are understandably very resistant to changing that equilibrium.

I see music lovers of the audiophile variety much the same. Only, it is mostly about the music reproduction devices and ah, the room. I may get into trouble for making this statement but I do feel that music lovers also inherently love a certain flavor of sound. And they too are sometimes obsessive about getting it just right, or even discovering what their "sound" really is. And understandably, once an answer or an equilibrium has been reached, it is darnded difficult to let go and start all over again.

And for people who claim that they love a neutral sound, yes, possibly. But even you would have your favourite albums and recordings that you like to listen to again and again. If you allow for the fact that the instruments, the amplification and equipment during the recording, the post processing etc contributed significantly towards the album or song being enjoyable to you, then you do love a certain sound. It is just that you would rather have your system be neutral so the recording can accurately convey the original flavor. But if your flavor is choco almond, and if your system is sprinkling a few more almonds, it can't hurt (much), can it? Only a problem if it adds tutti frutti instead hyeah:

Usually, it is for the recording engineers to decide the suitable mic for the singers. Your voice that you hear is way different from what others hear because you hear your voice through the internal canal, bone conduction an slightly over the air through your ears which is very different from what others hear. It is like listening to your speaker sound inside the loudspeakers and others hearing them outside. It ill never be the same.

But you are right about audiophiles having certain preference. A preference which changes with the acquisition of a better and expensive gear. For some it is the bass slam, for others it could be the highs and for some the mids. I have also seen in my "not so long compared to others" hifi journey some change their musical preference because that's what sounds the best in their system.

Unfortunately, they also resist room measurement and flat room frequency. Is it wrong? No! After all, musical enjoyment is what and how you like it. But if you are still unsatisfied and searching for perfection then we must be open minded to explore newer method and get our basics correct. I believe cables make a difference but before making a suggestion try xxx cable, offer an explanation why XXX would sound make your sound better. Or it would be better still to understand why your system sounds like how it sounds before going for equipment hunting.

We are in a fascinating hobby. Put more effort to understand them. You master them then you have the best experience for very little money.

 

[Ambio]

You gave a premise, and then supported it. I "nitpicked" your support for your premise, finding most of your points to be substantially wrong, and thus concluded that your premise was wrong. I still think so. I wish "audiophiles" were more resistant to change: we would see less of the worst aspects.

As to subjective criticism of recordings, this (you might have noticed ) is not an objective-only forum, If you want that, go to Hydrogenaudio. There you can ask me to support my subjective reaction with figures .

If you say so.

 

[keith_correa]

Am not an "audiophile" but a self claimed "oddiophile" - and I'm definitely not resistant to change - not when it costs me little/nothing to change.

BTW, I've been using an Ambiophonics DSP plugin for Foobar for casual listening via my built in Laptop speakers for many years now. Instead of articulating the changes it made, like an "audiophile" let me keep it short like a good "oddiophile": For the price [nothing!!], sound via the plugin just sounds better and for me that is good enough reason for a change, and change I did.

 

[mpw]

Or it would be better still to understand why your system sounds like how it sounds before going for equipment hunting.

We are in a fascinating hobby. Put more effort to understand them. You master them then you have the best experience for very little money.

well said..

regards
mpw

 

[shafic]

Usually, it is for the recording engineers to decide the suitable mic for the singers. Your voice that you hear is way different from what others hear because you hear your voice through the internal canal, bone conduction an slightly over the air through your ears which is very different from what others hear. It is like listening to your speaker sound inside the loudspeakers and others hearing them outside. It ill never be the same.

But you are right about audiophiles having certain preference. A preference which changes with the acquisition of a better and expensive gear. For some it is the bass slam, for others it could be the highs and for some the mids. I have also seen in my "not so long compared to others" hifi journey some change their musical preference because that's what sounds the best in their system.

Unfortunately, they also resist room measurement and flat room frequency. Is it wrong? No! After all, musical enjoyment is what and how you like it. But if you are still unsatisfied and searching for perfection then we must be open minded to explore newer method and get our basics correct. I believe cables make a difference but before making a suggestion try xxx cable, offer an explanation why XXX would sound make your sound better. Or it would be better still to understand why your system sounds like how it sounds before going for equipment hunting.

We are in a fascinating hobby. Put more effort to understand them. You master them then you have the best experience for very little money.

The synergy/matching between amplifier and speaker is most important. Unfortunately many can't try with different matching setups. No one amplifier is all good or all bad nor is any speaker all bad. It is all about matching.

So the hunt goes on.

 

[Ambio]

Am not an "audiophile" but a self claimed "oddiophile" - and I'm definitely not resistant to change - not when it costs me little/nothing to change.

BTW, I've been using an Ambiophonics DSP plugin for Foobar for casual listening via my built in Laptop speakers for many years now. Instead of articulating the changes it made, like an "audiophile" let me keep it short like a good "oddiophile": For the price [nothing!!], sound via the plugin just sounds better and for me that is good enough reason for a change, and change I did.

Glad to see that you are using ambiophonics and discovered a simple tool to turn your PC audio in to a musical heaven . I wasn't so successful with the Foobar plugin. I spent about US100 on the Miniambio and running Panambiophonics. 4 speakers system.

 

[keith_correa]

Glad to see that you are using ambiophonics and discovered a simple tool to turn your PC audio in to a musical heaven . I wasn't so successful with the Foobar plugin. I spent about US100 on the Miniambio and running Panambiophonics. 4 speakers system.

Well not exactly heaven. Heaven can't be found in sound from a pair of crummy built in laptop speakers even though they may be by Altec Lansing.

BTW, I also tried the DSP for JRiver and I think it's implementation of Ambiophonics is more complete. It works radically and well - soundstage gets huge (yes through crummy built-in laptop speakers!!), the speakers disappear but it works well only if your head is at a certain distance from the speakers.

 

[rsud]

In my long journey of music listening, the first thing I noticed was, people resist change. In the earlier years, people resisted to stereo. Vinyl lovers resisted CD. CD lovers resisted to HiRez downloads.

When SACD was released in multi channel I was all excited. Unfortunately, audiophiles did not want to move from stereophony. It died. Audiophiles resisted multichannel.

It looks like recreating live like music is no longer the prime objectivity of audiophiles. What are they really aiming for?

Your interpretation of the motivations is entirely wrong. And in some cases who is resisting change is also wrong in your analysis.

True audiophiles are looking for better sound quality that holds to the essence of the original performance. Many of the "new technologies" are convenience oriented but do not enhance the musical experience. CDs are an example.

SACD is still hanging in there. It failure (which is not yet final) is because of no adoption among the masses. Audiophiles, in general, like SACD though it still doesn't better vinyl when it comes to recreating the essence of the musical experience.

The best digital to date does not outdo the best analogue. I am a vinyl guy waiting for the digital world to surpass what I can experience on my mid tier high-end turntable. Digital, in all forms, as gotten considerably better but for the best sonic/musical experience its vinyl that continues to rule.

 

[Falcon21]

audiophiles can never be satisfied for long

 

[Kannan]

I have been using ambiophonics for quite sometime, started with PC, now in my ipad, in my android phone (NMP) to play on my home stereo.
Ambiophonics may have its limitations with tonality, however widens and deepens the stage like no other I have experienced, all these without bothering about room imperfections.

 

[Kannan]

Glad to see that you are using ambiophonics and discovered a simple tool to turn your PC audio in to a musical heaven . I wasn't so successful with the Foobar plugin. I spent about US100 on the Miniambio and running Panambiophonics. 4 speakers system.

Been inching to buy these processors for a long time but could never get a chance to hear them, so am stuck to the software version of the DSP

 

[manoj.p]

This thread is about audiophiles refusing to try a more feasible way to achieve their ultimate dream of live concert hall sound. I find some DVD multichannel musical CDs far entertaining and fulfilling then stereo. But how many "audiophiles" would have spend enough time perfecting your HT. Unfortunately, some wouldn't even try because "...the HT system costs only 1/3 of my stereo setup and no way it could sound better than my stereo system....".

It is cheaper than a multi channel setup because you only need 4 speakers to recreate 360 degree soundstage for movies experience. If you get a chance to visit the Ambiophonics institute ask for the Avatar movie to be played in Ambiophonics setup. There is no need for 10.2 system but a simple Ambiophonics will do.

Your above two posts explains it all. Audiophiles say 2 speakers are enough to create a concert experience, you say 4 is enough. Different people, different choices. One can come and say why limit yourself to four speakers?

 

[Ambio]

Your above two posts explains it all. Audiophiles say 2 speakers are enough to create a concert experience, you say 4 is enough. Different people, different choices. One can come and say why limit yourself to four speakers?

I said 4 for movies. The extra two rear speakers also help as mid frequencies room treatment. A well recorded classical music's soundstage is about 150 degrees and two speakers Ambio setup create much better soundstage than any stereo system. The idea for some about large soundstage in stereo setup is putting the speakers speakers as wide as possible.

Take your best classical recording and listen to them in Ambiophonics setup. You will never listen orchestra classical music in stereo setup ever again. You will finally know what a night and day difference really is. A phrase that you hear often in Stereophile and The Absolute Magazine but you will never pass a blindtest despite that "nigh and day " difference. It is difficult to know what you have been missing all these years unless you have tried the alternative. Have you? Give it a try. You got nothing to lose except lifting your speakers a bit.

For years, I was resisting a subwoofer simply because I did not try them and believed that not much low freq in real music. It is only when I added up one and spend many weeks fine tuning them I realized what I have been missing all those years. It doesn't mean if you have floorstanders going below 30Hz you are going to get the low bass right. Until you do a room measurement you will go on wild goose chase looking for the so called synergy and matching between Amps/speakers/cables. Of course, the sub only enhances certain genre or tracks. It is a complicated topic...maybe another time.