Perhaps the clearest and most widely-accepted statement of audiophile values is from Harry Pearson , longtime editor of ''The Absolute Sound'' : "We believe that the sound of music, unamplified, occurring in a real space is a philosophic absolute against which we may judge the performance of devices designed to reproduce music." Audiophiles widely share the belief that even the world's best music-reproduction equipment currently falls far short of this ideal.
Even given agreement on the goal, opinions vary widely among designers and listeners on how best to achieve it. If there is one shared design principle, it is Minimalism . Given that capturing, storing, and playing back music inevitably degrades it, the fewer and simpler the stages, the better. For example, audiophile gear almost universally lacks Tone controls, since it is felt that these can only degrade the audio quality while moving the sound away from the ideal.
Audiophiles agree that the room in which the playback system works is of great importance to the sound quality. There is a wide variety of room-treatment products available to address this issue, and extreme audiophiles are known to use purpose-built listening rooms.
Audiophiles regularly listen to music from s, tonearms, and Cartridges are among the most exotic and lavish high-end audio products. The debate is particularly harsh in this area with analog proponents claiming a warmer analog sound and loss of information in the sampling process in digital sound while digital proponents decry analog formats as lacking dynamic range and frequency response. Newer formats such as DVD-Audio and Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) attempt to compensate for the alleged sampling loss by increasing the sampling rate to 96 kHz or higher. (The 44.1 kHz sampling rate of the CD format allows the CD to go over the human hearing range — about 22 kHz instead of the required 20 kHz.)
Despite the current trend in favor of MP3 s, AACs , and other Compressed-audio formats, some audiophiles dislike listening to compressed music due to the Lossy -compression schemes generally used. Some audiophiles who own a Digital-audio Player will attempt to encode their music at high bit rates or use lossless-compression algorithms such as Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless , Monkey's Audio (APE), Apple Lossless , or FLAC .
Many audiophile systems separate the functions of the preamplifier — which selects audio signals and has a volume control — and the power amplifier, which takes a line-level audio signal and drives the Loudspeaker s. Some audiophiles use, rather than one stereophonic power amplifier, two monophonic power amplifiers in a monoblock configuration. Some audiophiles use no preamplifier. They connect a CD player that has a variable output to a power amplifier. Some go even further and use multiple amplifiers per loudspeaker to drive the Woofer , Midrange , Tweeter , and so on. There are, however, those who claim advantages in the use of integrated amplifiers that combine the functions of a preamplifier and a power amplifier in a single box, arguing on the basis of an appeal to minimalism.
Audiophile amplifiers are available based on solid-state ( Semiconductor ) technology, Vacuum-tube technology, or hybrid technology — semiconductors and vacuum tubes. The amount of power required is moot. Very low power Single-ended Triode tube amplifiers are often claimed to provide superb sound when paired with appropriately sensitive loudspeakers. On the other hand, there are others who use solid-state amplifiers rated at over 1000 Watts RMS per channel. Some subjectivists believe that tube amplifiers, despite the much higher distortion, produce a more faithful and detailed reproduction in comparison to solid-state amplifiers. Objectivists respond that this is largely a matter of opinion and personal taste, not proper reproduction of sound. Tube amplifiers, however, are heavily used in music ''production'', primarily in guitar amplifiers because of their soft Clipping when overdriven, compared to solid-state circuitry.
Audiophile Loudspeaker s use a wide variety of technologies and range in size from tiny to room-filling. The availability of high-priced, exotic designs is most extreme in the loudspeaker category. It is perfectly possible to spend more than $100,000 USD on a pair of high-end loudspeakers.
There is a wide variety of accessories used by audiophiles in the hope of getting better sound, often referred to as "tweaks". The most common — and among the most controversial — are expensive High-end Audio Cables used for electrical power, line-level, loudspeaker, and digital-signal connections. Other accessories include filters to clean the electricity used by the gear, equipment stands to isolate components from room vibrations, and room treatments. Room treatments typically consist of sound-absorbing materials placed strategically within a listening room, and while often expensive and difficult to optimize, are considered by many to be the least "tweaky" of the many available tweaks, since their effectiveness is easily measured and grounded in verifiable science.
Another, less expensive, practice of some audiophiles is the use of premium Headphones . While still often outlandish in price (as high as $10,000), most headphones marketed to audiophiles are a tiny fraction of the cost of comparable speaker systems, and do not usually require any room adjustment beyond a quiet environment for music enjoyment. Well-known high-end headphones are considered to offer audiophile quality for prices well under a thousand dollars. Some feel that the performance of high-end headphones is improved by the use of dedicated headphone amplifiers and cables. Newer canalphones, while as expensive as their larger counterparts and considered more limited in soundstage and other characteristics, can be driven by less powerful outputs like portable devices, and have a growing use among audiophiles.
Audiophiles tend to hold commercial-music recording practices in low regard. Particularly in the pop-music domain, most recordings are based on the heavy use of Multitrack technology, the Studio dominated by a huge Mixing Board with as many as eighty channels, each channel operating in the digital domain and subjected to a wide variety of tonal and "effects" processing. Audiophiles believe that this complex signal chain degrades the quality of the signal and lessens the spontaneity and integrity of the musical performance.
There are some professional musicians and audio engineers that agree with this view. Currently-active recording artists who apply audiophile recording principles include Neil Young , the Cowboy Junkies , and the White Stripes .
Techniques applied by audiophile recording engineers include the use of exotic high-end microphones, the use of a smaller rather than greater number of microphones, the use of tube-driven rather than solid-state electronics, and the use of a minimal amount of processing in the production chain.
In terms of revenue, the mainstream electronics business is now dominated by multi-channel Home Theater rather than two-channel stereo sound. Almost every major vendor has introduced a full line of home-theater products, even those who traditionally eschewed such products. The degree to which this phenomenon has happened varies from country to country. it is probably most advanced in the United States, and less so in the United Kingdom and abroad.
Audiophiles and non-audiophiles alike still buy high quality two channel systems as well as incorporate large floorstanding loudspeakers into their surround sound system.
Audiophiles are interested in newer higher-bandwidth digital-recording formats such as SACD and DVD-Audio . These formats encode music at data rates of 24-bit / 96 kHz or even 192 kHz compared to 16-bit / 44.1 kHz for CDs, and thus are referred to as high-resolution audio formats. Because manufacturers have failed to agree on a single format, because there are relatively few releases in these formats, and possibly also because audiences consider CDs to be good enough as is, acceptance so far has been limited. The improvements offered by these higher-resolution formats, while quite audible to many listeners when using equipment that, for the average person, would require a mortgage, have recently been diminished by the continued refinement of the standard CD audio technology, at both the recording/production and playback stages. In particular, higher-quality DACs, analog stages, and upsampling features have elevated the standard CD to near-audiophile levels.
Almost every audiophile belongs to one of the two camps. Objectivists believe that gear, accessories, and treatments must pass rigorously-conducted double-blind tests to meet the claims made by their adherents. Subjectivists, however, believe that careful individual listening is an appropriate tool for discovering the true worth of a device or treatment.
- Many properly conducted and interpreted Double-blind tests have failed to support subjectivists' claims that they can easily perceive significant differences between devices. Measurements predicted that these devices should sound identical. {Link without Title}
- Biased Listening Test s are notoriously unreliable. Thomas Edison , for example, showed that entire theater audiences were unable to distinguish between the sound of an orchestra or a playback by his recording system, which today would be regarded as ludicrously poor in quality. Similarly, the first CDs and CD players were accepted for their outstanding sound; these CDs and CD players today are regarded as fatally flawed while analog systems from that period have not similarly fallen in subjectivists' assessment of quality. {Link without Title}
- Similarly, repeatability is poor for evaluation of components between various listeners or even the same listener under different circumstances. This contrasts with the superficially similarly esoteric Oenophile world, where repeatability of blind tests is surprisingly good.
- Measured-audio Distortion is immensely higher in electromechanical components such as microphones, turntables, tonearms, phono cartridges, and loudspeakers than in purely electronic components such as preamplifiers and power amplifiers, making it hard for some to believe that very subtle differences in the latter can have an appreciable effect on overall musical reproduction quality.
- Similarly, the acoustic behavior of the listening room, the interaction between loudspeakers and the Room's Acoustics , and the interaction between an electromechanical system such as a loudspeaker and an amplifier are much more variable than the variation between electronic components. Thus the "difference" in sound quality between amplifiers is actually the ability of an amplifier to control the behavior of difficult loudspeakers well or a lucky combination of loudspeaker, amplifier, and room that works well together. {Link without Title}
- Minute differences in loudness have been demonstrated to be perceived as differences in sound quality, with the slightly-louder system sounding better. Sound Level s must be matched to within 0.1 DB using an adequate test signal such as a Pure Tone and a measurement device such as a Voltmeter , a Soundcard , or a sensitive Sound-pressure Meter when comparing systems if the results are to be valid. This is usually not done.
- Subjectivists often totally disdain all attempts to categorize differences in sound using measurements. They have repeatedly ignored the work of such audiophile engineers as Bob Carver , who has repeatedly shown that by tailoring the Transfer Function of ''any'' system with a relatively simple sound-shaping network, they can make it sound indistinguishable from ''any'' other system as requested. [http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/letters/0404.htm] [http://www.audio-ideas.com/interview/carver.html]
- The relatively-soft distortion of overdriven Vacuum-tube amplifiers is regularly used in high-end guitar amplifiers, because the loss of fidelity is intentional and characteristic of the electric-guitar sound. Solid-state amplifiers are often not used for guitars due to the harsh sound created by an overdriven solid-state amplifier. In High Fidelity , subjectivists often prefer vacuum-tube electronics over solid-state electronics, because even though they have inferior measured performance, the subjectivists claim a warmer or more musical sound. Vacuum-tube amplifiers are attacked as vastly inferior because, in addition to their substantially higher total harmonic distortion, they require rebiasing, are less reliable, generate more heat, are less powerful, and are usually more expensive. {Link without Title}
- Subjectivists regularly make strong claims for the allegedly superior quality of Analog -music reproduction from Records played on Turntables compared to modern Digital -music reproduction from CDs played on CD players. They prefer this analog sound even though digital sound has no clicks, pops, Wow , Flutter , Audio Feedback , or Rumble , has a higher Signal-to-noise Ratio , has a wider Dynamic Range , has less Total Harmonic Distortion , and has a flatter and more extended Frequency Response . [http://www.soundstageav.com/mastersonaudio/20050415.htm] [http://www.mastersonaudio.com/audio/20030101.htm]
- Audiophile equipment designers can obsess over seemingly irrelevant details, for instance, the common boast that some component can reproduce frequencies higher than 20 KHz . This seems unreasonable given that 20kHz is generally regarded as the upper limit of human hearing, and that some sources will not reproduce frequencies higher than 15 or 16 kHz. {Link without Title}
- Some subjectivists' practices seem driven by fashion, such as the late eighties vogue for marking the edges of CD s with a green felt marker or the practice of suspending cables above the floor on small racks. Objectivists argue that the laws of physics are not subject to fashion. {Link without Title}
- The prices of audiophile products can seem remarkably high, even if one believes in the benefits conferred. It is quite possible to spend over a hundred thousand dollars for loudspeakers, tens of thousands for amplifiers and CD players, and more than a thousand dollars for a power cable. [http://www.stereotimes.com/acc122602.shtm] [http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/jpslabs_kaptovator.htm]
- Vendors of audiophile products regularly make fanciful and unscientific claims for the results produced. Tice Audio once sold what appeared to be an ordinary clock radio which, it was claimed, would improve the quality of a playback system if plugged into the same electrical circuit. This was supposed to cause some mystical change in "electron energy." Vendors such as Shun Mook market a variety of disks and clamps which, when attached to audio components, are claimed to improve sonic performance. {Link without Title}
- In particular, vendors of audio cables have been prone to claims and to pricing which strain credulity. There have been audio cables which are filled with water, which glow in the dark, and which come with a separate AC cord which must be plugged in to power the workings of the cable. Those versed in the physics of electrical conductivity often find the prices paid for cables to be laughably high and at best consider them a form of jewelry. {Link without Title}
- Some subjectivists' claims, while superficially based on accepted physical principles, apply them to circumstances where they are irrelevant. For instance, the Skin Effect , which relates the efficiency of cables to the frequency transmitted, is often applied to audio frequencies where it is insignificant. {Link without Title}
- The overwhelming majority of the most outspoken subjectivists, including reviewers, columnists, and "pundits," lack engineering training and objective credentials. This gives rise to a credibility problem, and most will fully admit a lack of understanding as to the technical merits of what they are analyzing, but nevertheless praise a product's innovation and performance.
- Subjectivists often claim that home-theater sound is inferior to high-fidelity sound, even though double-blind tests have shown that this is wrong. Many subjectivists believe that the sound from records is superior to the sound from home theater. Subjectivists often look down on home-theater sound even though many subjectivists accept FM radio as high fidelity. {Link without Title}
Overall, the subjectivists' world is looked upon by objectivists as being a hotbed of gullibility and fraud, its marketing engine driven primarily by either a constant desire for one-upmanship or a more benign desire to tinker with equipment. In particular, the tinkering drive is fed by wild claims for minor parts of the system such as cables. Objectivists, however, are often harshly dismissed by subjectivists as meter men — people who simply refuse to recognize what the subjectivists consider obvious. The debate is rather heated in certain quarters, and even James Randi chimed in on the issue. {Link without Title}
- There are problems in applying double-blind methods to comparisons of audio devices. Subjectivists believe that a relaxing environment and sufficient time measured in days or weeks is necessary for the discriminating ear to do its work. The introduction, moreover, of the switching apparatus, involving as it does either another metal connection at the switch or another level of electronic processing with solid-state switches, obscures the differences between the two signal sources being tested.
- While tubed electronics are less linear than solid-state electronics at high-signal levels, they are much more linear at low-signal levels — less than one watt. Most musical signals spend most of the time at these low levels. Subjectivists claim that: "The first watt is the most important watt."
- Total harmonic distortion has been proven by scientific testing to correlate poorly with perceived sound quality. The type of distortion is more significant. For instance, distortion by even Harmonic s has been shown to be less objectionable than distortion by odd harmonics. This use of this argument shows that subjectivists are perfectly capable of appealing to scientific and engineering principles in those cases where they support the subjectivists' positions.
- In general, proponents of high-technology solutions, such as the earliest CDs, dismiss complaints of subjectivists on the grounds of the new systems' ''ideal'' behavior rather than on the grounds of the new systems' ''actual'' behavior. Often this is followed by the introduction of newer, improved components which are sold as lacking the problems of the prior generation, which were described as audibly perfect at the time. For instance:
- --- In defense of their preference for analog formats over digital formats, subjectivists point out that the process of converting a bit-stream to an analog waveform requires heavy Filtering to remove spurious high-frequency information and that it should be expected that such filtering should involve some signal degradation and a large amount of phase shift in the Passband . They point out that commonly-used consumer-grade Digital-to-analog Converter s (DACs) exhibit very poor linearity at low levels. Both problems, at first dismissed, were then addressed by such solutions as Digital Filter ing, Oversampling , and the use of DACs operating at 20-bit (or higher) resolution. The introduction of the new higher-bandwidth high-resolution music formats is a tacit admission of the reality of this issue. Musician Neil Young , for example, is a harsh critic of the sound of the original CD format but has approved of the sound of the newer SACD format with its greater Safety Margin between its ideal behavior and the requirements set by the limits of human hearing.
- --- Long before universal acceptance, subjectivists believed that sound quality was degraded by large levels of Negative Feedback in amplifiers. Subjectivists believed that, while negative feedback was indeed beneficial to amplifier stability and produced good test results using steady-state waveforms, it was inherently problematic for constantly-changing waveforms such as those that occur in music. This results in amplifiers that test well and sound bad.
- --- Long before universal acceptance, subjectivists were insistent on the improvement in sound they heard with higher-quality Capacitor s such as those made with Tantalum . Sound quality improved when inferior large Electrolytics or Paper Capacitor s were replaced or bypassed with these improved capacitors in the signal path. Subjectivists believe that the inferior capacitors were due to significant Inductance caused by their Spiral-wound construction which interferes with the passage of the highest audio frequencies.
- Subjectivists were experimenting with improved power supplies for CD players in the early days of the medium. They wanted the digital section around the DAC to be isolated from the CD drive's mechanical section and hence improve sound quality. They were concerned that the power supply's voltage fluctuations produced by the motor's load would affect the digital section's internal digital clock and that such digital-clock Jitter would cause audible distortion. This was explored by subjectivists long before it was validated by manufacturers.
- Clearly audible levels of very objectionable distortion was demonstrated early in the digital-audio era by simply running a signal source through an Analog-to-digital Converter and the result through a Digital-to-analog Converter and electronically subtracting that result from the source, at a time when these devices were claimed to be measurably perfect.
- Subjectivists were experimenting with room acoustics long before component manufacturers began to consider them a factor.
- Subjectivists noted the differences in response speed between various Loudspeaker Driver s used in a single loudspeaker system and began experimenting with fewer drivers, stepped loudspeaker boxes, and so on.
- Many vendors and retailers offer free trials or money-back guarantees if their products are unsatisfactory, and they remain in business.
- Despite a lack of an electrical-engineering degree, scientific training, formal education, or technical knowledge, experienced listeners can be relied upon for subjective advice on how equipment sounds and whether it is worth the money.
Having said all this, many subjectivists admit that their pastime does contain a measure of cultish behavior and in particular that there is charlatanry among some vendors. Unfortunately, the gulf between purist subjectivists and purist objectivists continues. ''Audio'' magazine, one of the few which combined lengthy listening reviews with lengthy technical analysis of measurements, has ceased publication. However, the venerable ''Stereophile'' magazine, which combines aspects of subjectivism and objectivism, still publishes every month. It was recently purchased by Primedia Specialty Group, Inc., publisher of numerous hunting, fishing, boating, action sports, and on and off-road vehicle magazines.
- [http://www.theabsolutesound.com ''The Absolute Sound''.] Second oldest and second most prestigious subjectivist high-end magazine.
- [http://www.audioasylum.com/index.html Audio Asylum.] "Inmates" discuss all that is high-end.
- The Audio Critic. A 30 year publication (now online only) that offers in-depth independent verification of manufacturer's claims.
- [http://www.audiocircle.com AudioCircle.] Discussion forum.
- [http://www.audiocircuit.com The Audio Circuit.] Information on and user reviews of loudspeakers, headphones, amplifiers, and playback equipment.
- [http://www.audiogon.com Audiogon.] Marketplace and discussion forum.
- [http://www.audiophilia.com Audiophilia.] Equipment reviews and articles of general interest to audiophiles. Heh, Mr. Kershaw
- [http://www.audioreview.com AudioReview.] Consumer and Pro reviews of home theater and audio equipment, discussion forums, gallery, and marketplace.
- [http://www.high-endaudio.com/magaz.html The Audio Press.] Criticism of industry and subjectivist magazines and reviewers.
- [http://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/ Boston Audio Society.] Scientific approach to the hobby.
- [http://bruce.coppola.name/audio/Amp_Sound.pdf Do All Amplifiers Sound the Same?] PDF file.
- [http://www.head-fi.org Head-Fi.] (Head Fidelity.) Discussion forum for high-fidelity products with an emphasis on headphones and portable audio.
- [http://www.vxm.com/21R.64.html Lies, Damn Lies, and Cables.] The wire controversy.
- Cable nonsense
- Cable Mojo
- [http://positive-feedback.com/ Positive Feedback Online.] Print magazine that merged with ''audioMUSINGS'' and morphed into an online forum for the audio arts.
- [http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/ampins/pseudo/subjectv.htm Science and Subjectivism in Audio.] Technically-detailed article by the objectivist Douglas Self.
- 6Moons.com. Online magazine.
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