Curious that the response to this article has led a few members to actually fall into the holes the article refers to.
S7horton has decided they "disagree"(?!) with the graph; on what basis? Because it might be right? Of course it's true that not everyone will lose hearing exactly as the graph shows, but the point is that ON AVERAGE (that's how science creates graphs) we all lose our hearing bit by bit as we age, and that varies depending on how we treat our ears.
Then Hifibri has presented a pointless comparison between cheap lamp cable and purpose-made hifi speaker cable. No-one would argue that quality speaker cable wont sound better than bell-wire, but the article was talking about at what point spending any more becomes pointless, such as whether $7000 cables can really sound better than $70 or $700 cables. It's no different to saying "this $10 watch tells the time better than a sundial, so this $5000 watch must tell the time heaps better than the cheap one." Chances are they are both as accurate. My own real experience is that my $20 TAG copy from Bali has worked flawlessly for 15 years, while my $500 Seiko failed after 6 years.
Back to audio... To me the simple mistake is that too many audiophiles - myself included - use terms such as "better", "improved" and "accurate" interchangeably. Yet these are not the same.
For example, a new IC cable may make my system sound "better" or make an "improvement" to my ears and brain, but may have actually made my system less accurate in terms of a faithful reproduction of the original recording. Whether that makes a costly cable worth the money comes down to my own tastes. But whether that cable actually carries a signal more accurately can't truly be tested by human ears, as this is too subjective.
That's my 2 cents worth...
S7horton has decided they "disagree"(?!) with the graph; on what basis? Because it might be right? Of course it's true that not everyone will lose hearing exactly as the graph shows, but the point is that ON AVERAGE (that's how science creates graphs) we all lose our hearing bit by bit as we age, and that varies depending on how we treat our ears.
Then Hifibri has presented a pointless comparison between cheap lamp cable and purpose-made hifi speaker cable. No-one would argue that quality speaker cable wont sound better than bell-wire, but the article was talking about at what point spending any more becomes pointless, such as whether $7000 cables can really sound better than $70 or $700 cables. It's no different to saying "this $10 watch tells the time better than a sundial, so this $5000 watch must tell the time heaps better than the cheap one." Chances are they are both as accurate. My own real experience is that my $20 TAG copy from Bali has worked flawlessly for 15 years, while my $500 Seiko failed after 6 years.
Back to audio... To me the simple mistake is that too many audiophiles - myself included - use terms such as "better", "improved" and "accurate" interchangeably. Yet these are not the same.
For example, a new IC cable may make my system sound "better" or make an "improvement" to my ears and brain, but may have actually made my system less accurate in terms of a faithful reproduction of the original recording. Whether that makes a costly cable worth the money comes down to my own tastes. But whether that cable actually carries a signal more accurately can't truly be tested by human ears, as this is too subjective.
That's my 2 cents worth...