Reply To: Audiophiles

February 2, 2023 at 7:59 am #4568
Bob Katz
Keymaster

    Excellent question. With kindness and sympathy. I straddle both worlds successfully, somehow. And often just ignore stupid conversations. I pick my battles. If I had to track down every silly postulate made by every audiophile it would fill my day. Many are clearly placebo effect or cognitive bias — like the little “magic” dots that people put on their walls that somehow fix “major” problems. Digital cables is a difficult one — because if you have a susceptible phase locked loop and a crappy-made digital cable, you might have an audible difference. I do a lot of explaining like that. Then there’s the warmup of digital cables thingy, which is particularly amusing. HOWEVER, if a PLL is a dual stage PLL with a very slow second stage, then a DAC can sound like it’s “warming up” over minutes! So that’s what I mean by straddling both worlds, when you have enough science AND listening experience in your head, like me.