What is wrong with audiophiles?


Something that has happened countless times happened again last night. Ordinary people over for a party listening to some music easily hear things audiophiles argue endlessly don't even exist. Oh, its worse even than that- they not only easily hear but are stunned and amazed at what they hear. Its absolutely clearly obvious this is not anything they ever were expecting, not anything they can explain- and also is not anything they can deny. Because its so freaking obvious! Happens every time. Then I come on here and read one after another not only saying its impossible, but actually ridiculing people for the audacity of reporting on the existence of reality.

What is wrong with audiophiles?

Okay, concrete examples. Easy demos done last night. Cable Elevators, little ceramic insulators, raise cables off the floor. There's four holding each speaker cable up off the floor. Removed them one by one while playing music. Then replaced them. Music playing the whole time. First one came out, instant the cable goes on the floor the guy in the sweet spot says, "OH! WTF!?!?!"

Yeah. Just one. One by one, sound stage just collapses. Put em back, image depth returns.

Another one? Okay.

Element CTS cables have Active Shielding, another easy demo. Unplug, plug back in. Only takes a few seconds. Tuning bullets. Same thing. These are all very easy to demo while the music is playing without interruption. This kills like I don' know how many birds with one stone. Auditory memory? Zero. Change happens real time. Double blind? What could be more double blind than you don't know? Because nobody, not me, not the listener, not one single person in the room, knows exactly when to expect to hear a change- or what change to expect, or even if there would be any change to hear at all. Heck, even I have never sat there while someone did this so even I did not know it was possible to hear just one, or that the change would happen not when the Cable Elevator was removed but when the cable went down on the floor.

We're talking real experience here people. No armchair theorizing. What real people really hear in real time playing real music in a real room.

I could go on. People who get the point will get the point. People who ridicule- ALWAYS without ever bothering to try and hear for themselves!- will continue to hate and argue.

What is wrong with audiophiles?

Something almost all audiophiles insist on, its like Dogma 101, you absolutely always must play the same "revealing" track over and over again. Well, I never do this. Used to. Realized pretty quickly though just how boring it is. Ask yourself, which is easier to concentrate on- something new and interesting? Or something repetitive and boring? You know the answer. Its silly even to argue. Every single person in my experience hears just fine without boring them to tears playing the same thing over and over again. Only audiophiles subject themselves to such counterproductive tedium.

What is wrong with audiophiles????
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I do know a guy who has a degree in theoretical physics. He does deal with (potato) chips quite often.
Thermodynamics ... pretty much standard in many Undergraduate engineering curriculums.  Indeterminate structures ....pretty much standard in any civil or mechanical undergraduate curriculum. Nuclear engineering, likely a 4th year elective.

Color me unimpressed ... even with your skating.

The hole, it keeps getting deeper, and deeper and deeper. Now I am solidifying my theory that the "theoretical" aspects you mentioned may be falsifications as well.

geoffkait18,259 posts11-14-2019 6:31pmMy courses included statistical thermodynamics, nuclear engineering and indeterminate structures. I was in the first class of Aerospace Engineers at the beginning of the race to the moon 🌝

I can be the mediator so both are correct.

Aerospace Engineering part of University of Virginia does mention that curriculum included propulsion and fluid dynamics. It is a little less clear if one would call that theoretical physics. In a sense, you do need to learn some physics for it and at some point you would be learning theories of it. Probably a lots of it. Now, would that final degree be called "theoretical physics" is slightly harder to decide and stay unbiased. Maybe dean’s office is the place to ask.

http://records.ureg.virginia.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=45&poid=5589

EDIT: Maybe the wording/name of the degree has changed since 1967. Those things happen. At that time, it could have been that "theoretical physics" encompassed things that are now so subspecialized and called something else.
A theoretical physicist and a quantum mechanical engineer .... but ended up as a training coordinator at Lockheed and working mainly as a test engineer ....


geoffkait18,259 posts11-14-2019 6:40pmAre you stupid or something? I’m serious. I’m an aerospace engineer. I’m an aerodynamicist. I’m a theoretical physicist. I’m a quantum mechanical engineer, too.
Wrong again, Zippy. I do know a thing or two about testing, that’s true. Unlike yourself, if I can be so bold.