Discussion

Comparison of $4,000 boutique audio cable to $7 Amazon Basics cable shows audiophiles waste a lot of money — scientific audio equipment analysis with analyzer shows no difference in quality

joe_mamba: If it makes you happy, is it really wasted? People waste money on a lot of shit they don't need, but if they're financially responsible and not going into debt and becoming homeless, who's to say they shouldn't be buying overpriced audio gear? If people stopped spending their disposable income on stuff they don't need to survive, the economy would collapse.

gerikson: In other news: water is wet. Complaining about audiophile woo has been an Internet staple since basically forever.

mmooss: Nobody spends money - or time - on unnecessary computer hardware or software.

vjvjvjvjghv: [delayed]

xantronix: I think misleading claims should be headed off with strong consumer protections. The predatory entrants in this industry should be shut down, leaving the others who do make expensive gear but actually put effort into proper engineering rigour, testing, and marketing that accurately represent the properties of their goods.

gotwaz: For some, tis not about Quality but about Control. "If x y z happens I feel safe/in control". Changing anything about it = unsafe/the sky may fall.Same logic scales up to social level if you notice what large groups burn cash on. The only way to reduce the cash burn is to give them something else to do that makes them feel safe and in control. Which is not for the faint of heart.

vjvjvjvjghv: [delayed]

steve1977: Having worked little bit on the music production side of things, I always find it funny how much some people spend for a couple of feet of a high-end cables at home, just to listen to records that have been made in studios where the signals went through dozens or hundreds of feet of standard run-of-the-mill cabling.

cjbgkagh: It is a negative as it is creating a market for desertion, but paying for it they are giving money to people who specialize in deception who otherwise would have to do something else. These people will continue improving their abilities to take advantage of the borderline credulous who would have otherwise gone unexploited.

motohagiography: I have been mulling starting a high end audio gear company. The rationale is, making something worthy of spending on, because it's something you love- is the authentic experience. If I can make something that will still be liquid at some reduced depreciation in 10-20 years, that's an honest product. I used to be a writer for luxury media as well, and there is an extremely rare ability in luxury to make it actually real as opposed to merely vulgar and expensive.These articles are a bit like saying scientists find expensive watches do not tell time in any appreciably better way, yet even technical founders who should "know better," are still wearing them with a t-shirt and flip flops after their exit. The economics of high end audio make more sense as an analogy to jewelry or art.After volatility, haircuts, cap gains and other risk, there are so few productive assets to invest relatively small amounts in, where a store of value that depreciates less than inflation and purchasing power is a desirable thing.If you love music, it's a way to build a shrine to it. Arguably, the real problem is consumer gear that simulates the experience of something valuable that won't end up in a landfill, but its just crap you throw away when you move house.

nick__m: There a difference between overpriced and snake oil. If you claim that your cables "gives the breath-taking experience of ‘being there’ thanks to the purity of its conductors and their precise geometry" your firmly into the snake oil territory. If you sell an amp with hand picked components to achieve 0.001% THD at 100w on a 4KHz test tone, it's probably overkill and overpriced but unlike the cables it's not fraud adjacent.

SpicyLemonZest: I've spent thousands on my PC, including a number of components that are overkill for any actual need I have. It would still be noteworthy (and I'd personally feel aggrieved) if comparative testing showed my overpriced fans are just as loud as any or my overpriced cooling system has indistinguishable thermal performance from the stock cooler.

JamesTRexx: I've been an audiophile for a few years during early twenties because it was fun to check out new and used equipment every weekend in the store I frequented, listened to various great music, and read reviews in various magazines. I had enough disposable income to afford a nice set of highly regarded yet less hyped brands, and even once helped out set up a set with a pricetag of a good house.Life changed and eventually gave up on the hobby while still being drawn to music and the technology behind audio. Then a "golden" kick out the door of one employer meant I could build the speaker set I had in mind based on Siegfried Linkwitz's knowledge. The total cost for the speakers was about 2000,- but it did take between 2000 and 3000 for a fully active setup with two subwoofer towers and two 3.5 way main towers, all open baffle.I have never heard a more perfect three-dimensional soundstage before and after, and it still sounds like the artists are actually playing in the livingroom even from other parts of the house. This was kind of Siegfried's message about good sound, the speakers are what make it (electronics are more than good enough at low prices) as long as they're made on scientific grounds, and not another heavy set of hyped monkey coffins. I have reached my audiophile end goal without forking over a fortune. Also fun, I came across one of the only two or three Yamaha CD-1 players made for Europe back then as a trade-in, one rarity I kept as souvenir of those early years. ;-)

tptacek: These articles are no fun anymore, because it's almost impossible to find anybody to take the other end of the claim, that there's any perceptible difference in sound quality from high-end cables. Every audiophile forum I could find talking about this video all said the same thing: "no shit, of course, everyone knows this already".

joe_mamba: Forgot the /s

mmooss: I can tell the difference between the high-end computer stuff and the bargain models that 'do the same thing'. I expect many here can, just like audiophiles can tell the difference.Is it a waste?

jrowen: In a blind test, could you tell the difference between photos taken with that equipment and photos taken with less expensive equipment?Most audiophiles can't do measurably better than 50% on an ABX test. That test is more about audio compression than cable quality, but there is a lot of superstition in audio.

dfxm12: Seems like rich people are wasteful with their spending.

californical: It’s true, but somehow there still seems to be a market for those things to keep existing. Which to me is also interesting, that everyone knows there’s no point but people still buy them

segmondy: I was going to post the exact first sentence you posted word for word and talk about my wasteful hobbies ... I do have project car hobbies and latest addiction is "gpu collection"

MengerSponge: 100%It's wrong to encourage and profit from fraud or magical thinking.

dinkleberg: The same could be said of almost all luxury goods.

socalgal2: Disagree - Buying because you like the style or the exclusivity is not the same as buying because you have the false belief that the more expensive thing works better when it doesn'tSomeone who spends $10k on a watch doesn't believe it tells better time than their iPhoneSomeone who spends $10k on their digital CD player believes the digits it's sending to their digital amp are some how magically different than the digits from a $20 digital CD player. They're the same digits, delivered at exactly the same speed. Bit for bit identical.

spockz: Is it a waste if it makes you happy?

jlarocco: > In a blind test, could you tell the difference between photos taken with that equipment and photos taken with less expensive equipment?I can't speak for the OP, but I can definitely tell the difference between photos taken with my phone, my point and shoot, my Fuji mirrorless, and my full frame DSLR. The DSLR (a Nikon D810) is 10 years old and still a lot sharper than the other ones, despite them all being years newer than the Nikon. In challenging conditions (wet, low light, etc.) the difference is even more noticeable.Besides the image quality, the DSLR is 100x easier to use once you know the controls. I can adjust settings and take pictures with thick mittens on even when it's wet/snowy/raining. My iPhone is completely unusable with wet fingers.For example, a picture like this would be difficult to take on a phone because of the snow:https://photos.smugmug.com/Snowy-Davidson-Mesa-Ride/i-wGFDt5...

te: > build the speaker set I had in mind based on Siegfried Linkwitz's knowledge > sounds like the artists are actually playing in the livingroomI'd eagerly read a write-up of what you did.

gadtfly: Shout out to this guy who ran a much more systematic set of experiments on even more sacred and sensitive targets:Tested: Where Does The Tone Come From In An Electric Guitar? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n02tImce3AETested: Where Does The Tone Come From In A Guitar Amplifier? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcBEOcPtlYk

dboreham: I mean: "audiophile" is a word defined as "person who wastes money on audio equipment".

dfxm12: Buying snake oil is not financially responsible though. Being able to afford it doesn't change that.Society would probably be better off if this money was otherwise spent on infrastructure projects, public research, etc.

evilduck: Neither of those specifications seem all that large or ridiculous. You've been able to buy those specs on a Mac since the late Intel days and there's some popular activities and common career paths which quickly butt into the limits of both.

esseph: [delayed]

lozenge: This has been known for decades, how many audiophiles are still buying this stuff?

chuckadams: Far as we know, the world has not run out of suckers.

72deluxe: Yes! Spotify is making a fortune streaming awful quality audio!

72deluxe: Yes. I have Nikons and Lumix cameras and I can tell you the difference between the outputs from small sensors to larger sensors and full frame, and iPhone and phone camera output.For audio it is more difficult. I used to work at a signal processor manufacturer (high end audio gear, clever chaps, I was merely a software man) where the guy was convinced he could hear the difference between 24bit WAVs and 320kbps MP3s. He was deluding himself. He was partly deaf and sitting 5 metres away from him in an office I could hear his earbuds blasting music all day long.I can hear when clipping and resonances are introduced, and also hear terrible guitar cabinets and bad tubes in guitar amps, but that's because I have been playing bass and guitar for 30+ years and have very sensitive hearing. I detest heavy compression. You can feel your ears shutting down.

cjbgkagh: I’m a little bit of an audiophile but modern D amps are amazing and decent drivers are absolutely affordable. Digital gets rid of the noise often picked up in wires. I believe I can hear better than most so I understand the value in good equipment. There was an era when you had to spend a lot of money to get good quality but now you just have to be a bit careful. Because it’s become cheaper it has lost the cost part of being a costly social signal. People trying to maintain that signal have to find new reasons for it to be costly.I think the release of Jeffery Epsteins audio set up is rather emblematic of cost signaling ‘audiophile’ with stupidly expensive hardware poorly configured.

Shorel: I'm sorry bit this article is just clickbait.It's comparing cables, who everyone with some experience knows they make no difference.I expected something more substantial, like comparison of different IEM price tiers or something else that actually matters.

72deluxe: It's a shame isn't it, because I define it as someone who listens carefully and is critical in sonic arrangement on recordings, relative to the recording medium and playback equipment.It always seems to be used disparagingly or as a slur and perhaps some of it is deserved: I used to work with a guy who had a Naim CD player and would talk about how it had some balancing system for no jitter during data transfer from the laser read process, but was obviously clueless on the error-correction inherent in CDs anyway, making this mechanism redundant for the most part. He seemed to think it made the CDs sound better when in reality the original recording engineer, the mixing engineer, the mastering engineer and the pressing plant played more of a part that any of the CD player nonsense; I think he also used gold-plated cables, as if electrons somehow degraded when passed along copper wires...Utter nonsense. As for me, I just learned to listen critically and identify mixing artefacts and compression oddities etc. which are more apparent on non-lowend audio equipment. Bluetooth speakers are the worst because they use acoustic coupling for harmonic reproduction and just generally sound unbalanced and bad.

mmooss: I've heard that; I'm skeptical:First, a favorite hobby to bring down the experts that make you feel inferior by saying there is no difference. 'My kid could paint abstract art.' You see I am not inferior in my understanding and maybe capacity; no, it's all a lie. It's kind of like sour grapes - very convenient to one's ego. (It also a way to shut oneself off from learning and seeing the most beautiful, valuable things in the world.)Second, when people find one study that confirms what they want (red wine is good for you!), it becomes among the highest impact research in history.Third, in domains where I have expertise, I can tell the difference when people without expertise insist there is none. In domains where I lacked expertise then gained it, I saw my perception change. I was blind but now I see.Fourth, in art particularly, including in music, it is the emotional and unconcious that matter most. Those are the mediums where art mostly operates and the differences between mundane, good, and extraordinary usually are not in great strokes but in the smallest nuances. Lots of people can paint sunflowers; the details of Van Gogh's brush strokes are transformative. Like in business: the first 90% takes 10% of the time; the next 9.9999% takes 90% of the time, and the last 0.0001% takes 1,000% of the time.