This stuff again. I have several friends who are convinced that a $2,000 HDMI cable can produce "better" audio and video. I've grown so tired of these debates, that I just nod my head and move on when they start down these roads.
Because of these arguments, I've been saving articles about them when I run across them. When I retire, I may make a web site devoted to debunking this nonsense forever. One good example was a guy who used "cheap" and "expensive" speaker cables, and COAT HANGERS, and challenged people to reliably tell the difference in A/B testing. No one could.
It seems to me that we have the cheap and highly-available ability, these days, to 1) lift audio and video from a source directly, and 2) pass it through various stages in the reproduction chain, and 3) PROVE that this-or-that piece of kit ACTUALLY reproduces the ORIGINAL recording any better than another.
(My favorite piece of gear, in an audiophile catalog, from about 30 years ago, was a replacement knob for your amplifier. Apparently, the bakelite one that came with it introduced unfavorable harmonics into your listening experience. The replacement fixed all that for you. It was a wooden puck, with a hole drilled in the back. They wanted $500 for it. .... I'm in the wrong business.)
All this boils down to is various levels of equalization. You can say that a turntable and an analog amp is "better," and that's fine. You may really prefer it. But don't tell me it's "more accurate." I can demonstrate that - at the end of the day - it's just an EQ on the original recording, and does not reproduce the original more accurately. (With math and graphs and everything!)
Unfortunately, I know what I'm up against. The people who believe this audiophile nonsense will very likely NOT understand the math and the graphs, and I'll be wasting my time regardless. The entire market is fed by -- and I hate to say it, because these kinds of folks are GOOD friends of mine -- people with literally more money than sense.
Guess that came out a lot more rant-y than I was shooting for.
I'll be pedantic and say that it's actually not just an EQ, but a non-linear compression function. The needle has a different frequency response at different amplitudes, due to its mechanical properties. They used to master music specifically for that, but now they just cut the Spotify master into the record and hope everyone attributes the sound differences to "analog warmth".
Music got much more compressed in the 90s and 00s, to make radio and tiny speakers sound "better". I can imagine this may also be a big contributor to people preferring the old analog recordings.
There was, and is a lot of snake oil in consumer audiophile gear. There is in most fields. Let's discount idiots suggesting snake oil, and stick to the rational. :)
That there was a noticeable difference in equivalent quality master sources where one is digital and the other analogue, that can be heard in blind testing. As a result some engineers and artists preferred analogue mastering long into the digital age. Digital mastering had issues for years, and they could be heard on both the CD and vinyl. Hardly a case of claiming record is always better.
Superficially there is some sense - the higher frequency signals are rendered less and less accurately, and nearer a binary on-off. Who knows what nuance and harmonics may be lost affecting what's heard at lower frequencies.
Because of these arguments, I've been saving articles about them when I run across them. When I retire, I may make a web site devoted to debunking this nonsense forever. One good example was a guy who used "cheap" and "expensive" speaker cables, and COAT HANGERS, and challenged people to reliably tell the difference in A/B testing. No one could.
It seems to me that we have the cheap and highly-available ability, these days, to 1) lift audio and video from a source directly, and 2) pass it through various stages in the reproduction chain, and 3) PROVE that this-or-that piece of kit ACTUALLY reproduces the ORIGINAL recording any better than another.
(My favorite piece of gear, in an audiophile catalog, from about 30 years ago, was a replacement knob for your amplifier. Apparently, the bakelite one that came with it introduced unfavorable harmonics into your listening experience. The replacement fixed all that for you. It was a wooden puck, with a hole drilled in the back. They wanted $500 for it. .... I'm in the wrong business.)
All this boils down to is various levels of equalization. You can say that a turntable and an analog amp is "better," and that's fine. You may really prefer it. But don't tell me it's "more accurate." I can demonstrate that - at the end of the day - it's just an EQ on the original recording, and does not reproduce the original more accurately. (With math and graphs and everything!)
Unfortunately, I know what I'm up against. The people who believe this audiophile nonsense will very likely NOT understand the math and the graphs, and I'll be wasting my time regardless. The entire market is fed by -- and I hate to say it, because these kinds of folks are GOOD friends of mine -- people with literally more money than sense.
Guess that came out a lot more rant-y than I was shooting for.