Technology

The way audiophiles tell sound quality is 99.99% subjectivity and 0.01% objectivity.

The eye opening moments for me were

1. Listening to $35 Porta Pro headphones and realizing you don’t need a lot of money for great sound

2. ABX testing and realizing I couldn’t tell the difference AT ALL and certainly couldn’t remember the last sound bite well enough to make a real comparison anyway.

will be converting to bananas tonight, thanks op

Audiophiles get a lot of friction, but this kind of person exists in almost any hobby. People fascinated by equipment and ascetics who loose the plot about what their hobby is all about.

I mean, electrically all of those things will just attenuate amplitude, not really effect signal oscillations, which is actually what sound is ...

All they're doing is effectively adding a small resistance to the signal which will just lower the volume in effect. Adding any amplifier will fix that

Why tf did they only test blind people?!

i personally find bananna audio the most appealing

The article isn't clear on one thing : was it an analog or digital signal ?

The results are entirely unsurprising if the signal was digital. Also, I'd like to see a similar test in an environment with more electrical interference, I think the unshielded materials would fare less well there.

Most high end audio equipment is mostly just rich idiot tax. Though low to mid is a huge jump in audio quality.

So wait, did they send analoge or digital signals through? Because digital means you could send it through anything and as long as it gets through its the same. The cable only matters when you ARENT using digital signals.

Cost does no equal tperformance. Take a look at audiosciencereview.com (ASR). as well as Erin's audio other (YouTube channell). They both measure performance. I sold my £3k amp and replaced with one for £1k. My partner hated my speakers (too big and ugly), and so were sold to someone who wanted them and replaced by budget options that measure very well. My music sounds better (almost entirely down to the speakers) and we had a great little holiday and it all takes up much less space.

It was never about sound quality. Sound quality was the justification for spending money and showing off. Just like so much of consumerism.

But did they use oxygen-free copper (OFC) wire? Because otherwise the results are skewed as regular copper sounds just as bad as a banana stuck in wet mud.

I listen to QUAD 77-11L speakers from like a lifetime ago, and a cheap class-D thing from Aliexpress. It's fine.