ScrofulousBinturong
100+ Head-Fier
Background for this thread: I'm on the objectivist and engineering side of the world. I'm a musician, and because of medications induced tinnitus, I have had audiograms done showing my hearing is unusually keen for my age with no loss (through a combination of genetics, protection, and sheer luck, I imagine) and good frequency discrimination. And I am aware of the very real, audible effects of e.g. capacitance over the length of a wire (though not for the typical 1-meter wire that comes with IEMs), or microphonics, etc.
There's a lot of nonsense designed to part wealthier middle aged men with their money in the audiophile world. Even if we ignore the mystical junk like those weirdo audio stones, and only focus on e.g. audiophile Ethernet cables or analog headphone cables that purportedly improve soundstage or $30k-per-meter power cables, there's a lot of engineering and manufacturing activity that goes into making all those things.
My quandary is this: I have a hard time imagining that the thousands of engineers and materials science people working on those are all entirely greedy, cynical marketers just making luxury items that make no difference to take advantage of dumb people.
Something in me wants to believe an engineer would believe what science and their training say about electrical signals going through conductors, or digital protocols like TCP, and be objective enough to not believe auditory illusions.
Im also thinking those folks would not be interested in faffing around endlessly braiding strands of miscellaneous wire to improve sound in ways they cannot, like using brighter wire to trick people into believing they reproduce trebles better, or "removing noise" in TCP, etc.
I have no issue with engineering used to improve measurable physical characteristics of a cable or connectors, be it for hand feel, less tangling, esthetics, durability, a satisfying "click" when connecting, etc.
So what gives? What motivates engineers to work on parts of the signal chain that cannot make a difference?
There's a lot of nonsense designed to part wealthier middle aged men with their money in the audiophile world. Even if we ignore the mystical junk like those weirdo audio stones, and only focus on e.g. audiophile Ethernet cables or analog headphone cables that purportedly improve soundstage or $30k-per-meter power cables, there's a lot of engineering and manufacturing activity that goes into making all those things.
My quandary is this: I have a hard time imagining that the thousands of engineers and materials science people working on those are all entirely greedy, cynical marketers just making luxury items that make no difference to take advantage of dumb people.
Something in me wants to believe an engineer would believe what science and their training say about electrical signals going through conductors, or digital protocols like TCP, and be objective enough to not believe auditory illusions.
Im also thinking those folks would not be interested in faffing around endlessly braiding strands of miscellaneous wire to improve sound in ways they cannot, like using brighter wire to trick people into believing they reproduce trebles better, or "removing noise" in TCP, etc.
I have no issue with engineering used to improve measurable physical characteristics of a cable or connectors, be it for hand feel, less tangling, esthetics, durability, a satisfying "click" when connecting, etc.
So what gives? What motivates engineers to work on parts of the signal chain that cannot make a difference?
Last edited: