Measurements, blind listening tests, acoustics, psychoacoustics, cables, snake oil, and you name it. We audiophiles are a very strange breed indeed. Loyal and fanatical, zealous and irrational. Ultimately it’s all for the quest of the ever-elusive audio nirvana.
I came across this interesting article by Roger Skoff in the PartTime Audiophile (no, he’s not my more affluent relative in case you were wondering). http://parttimeaudiophile.com/2013/09/02/ab-see/
The article, entitled,”A/B See?” is a very interesting read on the audiophile pursuit of whether or not differences exist between audio gear.
Roger talks about some of the biases and pursuits of audiophiles as well as the inherent biases that sometimes infiltrate the industry. Sometimes those biases are not in support but rather an ardent attempt to discredit some audiophile claims.
As Roger puts it best, “Audiophiles battle, too, but over different things: They may be the only group in the whole world who will gleefully fight, seemingly to the death, and do it over and over again, NOT about which one of a number of contending variables is best, but whether there’s any difference between those variables at all!”
I particularly find the story about the cable comparison very funny (I won’t spoil it, you just need to read it).
It’s a good article that doesn’t go out on a limb to claim all the differences between gear, cables, and the like, but rather pokes fun at the way our hobby has evolved into debating whether or not such differences even exist.
