View Single Post
Old 11th Oct 2017, 4:49 pm   #73
GrimJosef
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Oxfordshire, UK.
Posts: 4,310
Default Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!

And yet ... and yet ... in the end this involves people spending their own money and getting pleasure in return. Given the well-established fact that people's experience of sound can be significantly enhanced by their beliefs about it, the fundamental questions as I see it are

1. Are there levels of pleasure that can only be delivered by misleading people ? If the truth is that all CD transports, DACs and electronic amplifiers (I've deliberately excluded speakers) which reach a certain, actually quite affordable, standard will essentially deliver music in the same way, then there's no mechanism for delivering more pleasure by selling more expensive equipment (=taking money) which doesn't involve making misleading claims about it.

2. If the above is true is it still wrong to mislead people and right to deny them the pleasure ? The 'small picture' is that they will have parted with their money in return for pleasure and what's so bad about that ? Perhaps the 'bigger' picture is that by encouraging them to reject conventional science in this case, where it doesn't matter (much), they're also being encouraged to doubt science in general where it sometimes does matter (health issues, climate change, wasting of natural resources etc).

Personally I draw the line at misleading people. Not only would it leave a bad taste in my mouth but my professional body (the Institute of Physics) could, in principle at least, chuck me out if I were caught bringing the subject into disrepute . But I hesitate to go out of my way to attack their beliefs. Some of them seem genuinely happy as a result of them and who am I to ruin that. It would be like saying there's no Santa Claus. Or no (reasonable) chance of winning the lottery.

VB
__________________
http://www.ampregen.com
GrimJosef is offline   Reply With Quote