Found this on a mailing list I subscribe to, not scientific, but an interesting read:
"
The Wall Street Journal
January 16, 2008
PORTALS
By LEE GOMES
If You're Not Insane About Sound, Maybe You Can Just Go Crazy
January 16, 2008; Page B1
If you had to choose between two sets of speaker cables, one costing a
few dollars and sounding fine, the other a few thousand dollars but
perhaps sounding slightly better, and you chose the second pair, then
you would have had a great time last week in Las Vegas.
The city's many goings-on included The Home Entertainment Show, an
audiophile trade show held in two small motels off the Strip.
Audiophiles, as you probably know, are the hi-fi zealots who think
nothing of spending $50,000 on a turntable. I've learned over the
years that audiophiles actually come in two varieties: the totally
insane and the merely crazy.
The latter have a sense of humor and shrug that theirs is just one of
many hobbies -- like wine -- for people with money, expansive
vocabularies and the ability to discern differences lost on the rest
of us.
By contrast, my interests involve the extent to which beliefs
influence perceptions. Scientists have discovered that brain scans of
wine drinkers show they physically enjoy a wine more if they think it
is expensive. Can audiophiles really hear all the differences they say
they can, without being influenced by the brand or price of their
equipment?
To find out, Portals became an official exhibitor at T.H.E. Show last
week. I set up a room with two sound systems, identical except for one
component. Everything except the speakers was hidden behind screens.
(A shout-out to Totem Acoustics for the Forest speakers loan and to
Magnum Dynalab for the MD-308 amps. They all sounded sensational.)
With the same music playing on both, participants used a remote
control to switch between the two, and then tell me which sounded better.
One of the tests compared a high-quality MP3 file from an iPod with a
CD on a $3,000 player. Three-quarters of the 24 people taking this
test preferred the CD.
That was no surprise. However, when I played .wav files on the iPod --
these are digital but uncompressed files; I was connecting the
headphone jack to the amplifier -- 52% of the 21 who took this test
preferred the iPod.
That made me smile, not because snooty audiophiles got the "wrong"
answer, but because it suggests great sound can come from popular,
cheap gear.
I also tested speaker cables, which are controversial even among
audiophiles. Some spend tens of thousands of dollars on cabling, while
others consider it an absurd waste of money.
Using two identical CD players, I tested a $2,000, eight-foot pair of
Sigma Retro Gold cables from Monster Cable, which are as thick as your
thumb, against 14-gauge, hardware-store speaker cable. Many
audiophiles say they are equally good. I couldn't hear a difference
and was a wee bit suspicious that anyone else could. But of the 39
people who took this test, 61% said they preferred the expensive cable.
That may not be much of a margin for two products with such
drastically different prices, but I was struck by how the
best-informed people at the show -- like John Atkinson and Michael
Fremer of Stereophile Magazine -- easily picked the expensive cable.
Its sound was described as "richer," "crisper" and "more coherent."
Like some wines, come to think of it.
In absolute terms, though, the differences weren't great. Mr. Atkinson
guesstimated the expensive cables sounded roughly 5% better. Remember,
by definition, an audiophile is one who will bear any burden, pay any
price, to get even a tiny improvement in sound.
Attendance at the show was disappointing, so I didn't get the numbers
of participants I wanted. Even if I had, I'm not sure I would have
settled anything. These "A-B" tests have limits, including the fact
that differences you might not pick up right away can become more
apparent with extended listening.
Skeptics out there might think I've gone all mushy and credulous on them.
Not so.
Consider the thriving audiophile product category of power-line
conditioners, said to remove noise and distortions caused by your
electrical supply, a problem you may not realize you have. A rep from
Audience LLC accepted my invitation for an A-B test of the company's
$2,800 AdeptResponse aR6 conditioner.
He picked the system using his conditioner -- the other was plugged
into the wall -- two out of three times.
Note that the aforementioned "merely crazy" audiophiles say that while
they might have home setups costing six figures, the rest of us can
get splendid sound for under $1,000 by shopping at specialty audio
shops, the sort that sell unfamiliar brands.
I can't help you with brands, but my tests suggest you might want to
do your ripping as .wav files. While they take up a lot more room than
MP3s, falling disk prices make this feasible even for big collections.
As for cables, good ones can cost well under $2,000. I'd still be
happy at the hardware store, but you may be the golden-ear sort who
can hear a difference. As in "Dirty Harry," you've got to ask
yourself, "Do I feel lucky?"
Well, do you?
Write to Lee Gomes at [email protected]1
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120044692027492991.html
"
"
The Wall Street Journal
January 16, 2008
PORTALS
By LEE GOMES
If You're Not Insane About Sound, Maybe You Can Just Go Crazy
January 16, 2008; Page B1
If you had to choose between two sets of speaker cables, one costing a
few dollars and sounding fine, the other a few thousand dollars but
perhaps sounding slightly better, and you chose the second pair, then
you would have had a great time last week in Las Vegas.
The city's many goings-on included The Home Entertainment Show, an
audiophile trade show held in two small motels off the Strip.
Audiophiles, as you probably know, are the hi-fi zealots who think
nothing of spending $50,000 on a turntable. I've learned over the
years that audiophiles actually come in two varieties: the totally
insane and the merely crazy.
The latter have a sense of humor and shrug that theirs is just one of
many hobbies -- like wine -- for people with money, expansive
vocabularies and the ability to discern differences lost on the rest
of us.
By contrast, my interests involve the extent to which beliefs
influence perceptions. Scientists have discovered that brain scans of
wine drinkers show they physically enjoy a wine more if they think it
is expensive. Can audiophiles really hear all the differences they say
they can, without being influenced by the brand or price of their
equipment?
To find out, Portals became an official exhibitor at T.H.E. Show last
week. I set up a room with two sound systems, identical except for one
component. Everything except the speakers was hidden behind screens.
(A shout-out to Totem Acoustics for the Forest speakers loan and to
Magnum Dynalab for the MD-308 amps. They all sounded sensational.)
With the same music playing on both, participants used a remote
control to switch between the two, and then tell me which sounded better.
One of the tests compared a high-quality MP3 file from an iPod with a
CD on a $3,000 player. Three-quarters of the 24 people taking this
test preferred the CD.
That was no surprise. However, when I played .wav files on the iPod --
these are digital but uncompressed files; I was connecting the
headphone jack to the amplifier -- 52% of the 21 who took this test
preferred the iPod.
That made me smile, not because snooty audiophiles got the "wrong"
answer, but because it suggests great sound can come from popular,
cheap gear.
I also tested speaker cables, which are controversial even among
audiophiles. Some spend tens of thousands of dollars on cabling, while
others consider it an absurd waste of money.
Using two identical CD players, I tested a $2,000, eight-foot pair of
Sigma Retro Gold cables from Monster Cable, which are as thick as your
thumb, against 14-gauge, hardware-store speaker cable. Many
audiophiles say they are equally good. I couldn't hear a difference
and was a wee bit suspicious that anyone else could. But of the 39
people who took this test, 61% said they preferred the expensive cable.
That may not be much of a margin for two products with such
drastically different prices, but I was struck by how the
best-informed people at the show -- like John Atkinson and Michael
Fremer of Stereophile Magazine -- easily picked the expensive cable.
Its sound was described as "richer," "crisper" and "more coherent."
Like some wines, come to think of it.
In absolute terms, though, the differences weren't great. Mr. Atkinson
guesstimated the expensive cables sounded roughly 5% better. Remember,
by definition, an audiophile is one who will bear any burden, pay any
price, to get even a tiny improvement in sound.
Attendance at the show was disappointing, so I didn't get the numbers
of participants I wanted. Even if I had, I'm not sure I would have
settled anything. These "A-B" tests have limits, including the fact
that differences you might not pick up right away can become more
apparent with extended listening.
Skeptics out there might think I've gone all mushy and credulous on them.
Not so.
Consider the thriving audiophile product category of power-line
conditioners, said to remove noise and distortions caused by your
electrical supply, a problem you may not realize you have. A rep from
Audience LLC accepted my invitation for an A-B test of the company's
$2,800 AdeptResponse aR6 conditioner.
He picked the system using his conditioner -- the other was plugged
into the wall -- two out of three times.
Note that the aforementioned "merely crazy" audiophiles say that while
they might have home setups costing six figures, the rest of us can
get splendid sound for under $1,000 by shopping at specialty audio
shops, the sort that sell unfamiliar brands.
I can't help you with brands, but my tests suggest you might want to
do your ripping as .wav files. While they take up a lot more room than
MP3s, falling disk prices make this feasible even for big collections.
As for cables, good ones can cost well under $2,000. I'd still be
happy at the hardware store, but you may be the golden-ear sort who
can hear a difference. As in "Dirty Harry," you've got to ask
yourself, "Do I feel lucky?"
Well, do you?
Write to Lee Gomes at [email protected]1
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120044692027492991.html
"
