Thread 106996705

lol, lmao

https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/10/audiophiles-budget-vs-highend-turntable-blind-test/

>In 2022, an AVS Forum member known as m. zillch ran a blind listening test that has resurfaced in 2025 amid fresh debates over whether high-end vinyl gear is truly worth it.
>In this test, he wanted to see if people could tell the difference between two turntable systems. One of which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and another was worth less than a basic dinner out.
>When all votes were counted, 58.3% of 60 participants picked Turntable A as the half-million-dollar rig. But, they were wrong. Turntable A was the $78 Acoustic Research AR-XA, while Turntable B, chosen correctly by only 41.7%, was the ultra-luxury TechDAS Air Force Zero setup.

>>106996705 (OP)
audiophilia is another one of those hobbies that guys will make the focus of their lives because it gives them something resembling validation and purpose

>>106996705 (OP)
>Totem tards can't tell apart granite from concrete

>>106996705 (OP)
>only 41.7%,
That's a lot isn't it
drugs get approved with less success rates than that

>>106997056
considering they would have had better stats by flipping a coin, its not that great

>>106997056
To be approved drugs must be more effective than the best drug available or placebo if it's new. Besides its side effect shouldn't be terrible.
Audiophiles are worse than random monkeys and are wasting a lot of money. Thus: rejected.

>>106996705 (OP)
as you get older (mid 30s etc) you go deaf

>>106996705 (OP)
Audiophoolery is complete autism, fucking retards lmfao...

so that means 40% were the true audiophiles and the rest were just larping

>>106996705 (OP)
people really misunderstand why vinyl is the "gold standard" for some music
due to a quirk in its design vinyl doesn't work well with "overly loud" tracks, and it just so happens that for over a decade there was an endless loudness war (loud music sounds better -> haha let's make my song sound as loud as possible -> noise crowds out everything else)
this also means that a $100 vinyl is pretty much the same as $500k vinyl. the discs are kinda shitty, the hardware in general is kinda shitty and in a sane world (ie a world where loudness war wasn't a thing) nobody would give a shit about this tech because digital is superior when mastered properly
tldr audiophiles are retarded and know nothing about anything

>>106997384
>due to a quirk in its design vinyl doesn't work well with "overly loud" tracks, and it just so happens that for over a decade there was an endless loudness war (loud music sounds better -> haha let's make my song sound as loud as possible -> noise crowds out everything else)
and since vinyl just can't do that, vinyl tracks weren't boosted to shit so it contained what the tracks "should" sound like, before retards mulched it with MOAR LOUD*
accidentally a sentence

Unless you actually do music production, you just don't have a good ear for listening, honestly

>>106997056
If you guessed randomly you would get 50%.

>>106997501
no, a random guess would be wrong

"Luxury" doesn't always mean "High end components"
I mean I'm not defending the audiophile hardware market, that's pure snake oil, but the machine being very expensive doesn't mean it's designed and built as cutting-edge equipment.

>>106997569
idk man the average person would probably assume that half a milly sound system is at least moderately better at playing music than a $78 device

>>106997569
Like some (normal) audio gadgets using the same designs from the 1980s. More expensive and worse than a 2010s design but hey, "Sony" or "German Brand".

>>106997590
Yeah, that's how they get you

>>106996705 (OP)
Good reminder that accurate =/= good. It's possible that people could hear a difference but they just liked the sound of the cheaper one better. The 500k system might have been a more accurate reproduction of the sound, but if the cheaper one is particularly bassy and the headphones are lacking in bass, it's gonna get picked

Only young ears can discern the differences, and they are slight at best. Audiophilia has always been a midlife crisis hobby.

>>106997682
I was thinking this. Something you'd have to be there to find out, though.

>>106996705 (OP)
Wasn't that already well known? My signal processing professor at university used to mock audiophiles pretty much every class

>>106997056
Nigga, it's a 50-50 and they still managed to get only 41%.

>>106997015
It's a consoomerist hobby through and through

>>106996705 (OP)
>One of which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars
What the fuck.

>>106996705 (OP)
Deaf boomers. Turntable B is obviously brighter. Don't need to be an expert to know that's the more expensive one.

>>106997682
>vinyl
>bassy

>>106997075
>>106997501
>>106999000
If they asked 1 question for each person then 41% is barely better than random. However if they asked 5 questions for each person and 41% got all of them consistently right, that would not be random at all

I cant be fucked looking at the methodology

>>106999128
>audiophilia is consoomerist
Just download a flac torrent then press play. be blown away for zilch.

never go beyond measurement

>>106996705 (OP)
>>106997056
They need a test with 30 sound systems so we can see audioretards vote for bose so I can laugh

i can't hear anything in a frequency sweep over 14khz with HD650s

is it over?

>>107000855
maximum illiteracy

>>107001054
He's probably talking about the idiots that pay 5000 dollars for a headset or something.
Also FLACs are useless. People claim they can hear lossy audio but in real world tests most fail to distinguish between the two

96kbps opus is all you need
flac only for archival

>>107001232
>FLACs are useless
flac is lossless, ie you can change it in any way you want (like cut off that retarded intro part or whatever) and still keep the original quality
it's also nice to have a 'source' you can always go back to, like if your phone doesn't support ReplayGain you can just bake it into the waveform on throwaway AAC 160 kbps converted files because who cares your desktop has the originals
>>107001269
opus has shitty hardware support

>>106996705 (OP)
Okay but if I was filthy rich I would still rather have the $500K system than the $78 one

>>106996705 (OP)
Tests like this should also include samplings where they provide the testers with numerous samples, and even some batches of samples where it's all one machine or the other. A simple coin flip doesn't carry much weight, but showing that people consistently hear imaginary differences between identical hookups gives you a baseline. None of this new. Audiophiles cannot distinguish between a metal coat hanger and a 500 dollar cable. You can (possibly) measure it on an oscilloscope, but as long as you aren't connecting it on a corroded part with alligator clips, you cannot tell the difference.

I'm what most people would call an audiophile, but I try to be realistic about stuff. Yeah, I can hear the difference between flac and mp3@320. No it doesn't matter if you're not mixing/mastering and have background noise, so shut the fuck up about it. Nobody sane cares. Trying to find reasonably coherent technical reviews on audio equipment is maddening because every goddam forum is filled with retards that will insist a blind ABX test is bullshit and that they can totally hear the difference between two things that are literally the same physical equipment. It's not like the moderators on those forums do anything about it either. Hell, half the time they're the problems.

I swear to god, if you gave me a red button and told me that pressing it would erase all audiophiles from existence I'd embrace oblivion and slam that fucker through the table in a state of utter tranquility.

>>106997373
Without additional data you can't say that. 60% of 60 participants is still within a reasonable confidence interval, so you can't even rule out that it was total coin flip guesses. You need more tests and tests where participants are given random samples without knowing if they are sample a or b to establish if people can even tell the difference between the two (hint: you'll most likely find that very very few can, so the preferred results are going to be random guesses.)

>>107001272
>hardware support
what hardware are you putting mp3 or aac into exactly

I like wow and flutter.
I digitally simulate it.

>>107001147
it's over boomer

>>106996705 (OP)
The other 40% are just lucky guess.

>have headphones I like
>reviews on my headphones are bad and other headphone is good
>order other headphones to see what I'm missing
>if it wasn't for one being infinitely more comfrtable to wear than the other I wouldn't be able to tell them apart
Buy whatever looks comfy and is repairable. What a joke.

>>106998921
Mine did as well. Even had someone get really bent out of shape about it, which made the prof needle him with sarcasm for the rest of the semester. We'd be talking about attenuation in data busses and he'd find some way to mention hooking up headphones to a MHz or GHz signal to hear the color tones.

Can't do that shit anymore. Someone might get their feefees hurt.

>>106997015
The only hobby that I'm aware of that attracts more drug addict conspiracy theorist living in basements and middle aged white men with 6-7 figure incomes than audiophilia is aquariums.

I knew a guy that sold stuff to audiophiles. The peak audiophile product was him taking those extra flat decorative glass marbles you put in aquariums, giving them a decent scuffing with extra coarse grit sandpaper, and putting a few of them in a cheap wooden box with slots he carved with a dremel for each marble. He sold them as frequency filter sets for some made up wave type that you could put in your speakers.
>Effectively telling audiophiles to put rocks in their speakers
>Charge 250 dollars per marble
>MFW he had people spend over 2000 dollars to get a full set for their 7.1 system
>MFW he had people come back for more to further enhance their new system that had multiple speakers in each enclosure
>MFW he had people ask him if he could make special ones for their headphones.

He also sold wooden spacers for keeping your cables off the floor and had people request custom ones all the time. People actually believed that different types of wood impacted their sound. I wish I could make this shit up.

>>106996705 (OP)
40% random answers or guess work

I'm not going to bother reading the article.

So all they tested was the turntable?
Yeah no shit nobody can tell the difference.

>>107001606
It's a 500k turntable. There should be a difference.

There shouldn't be a difference if the first one is already reproducing with enough fidelity that the human ear can't tell the difference.

Good speakers in a properly set up room are peak audiokino, despite audiophile delusions.

>>107001147
when you get older you won't be able to hear women

>>107001159
Yeah you should get it treated anon.

>>106997401
Max loudness has it's place in certain genres
On a large club or festival sound system, especially if it's NOT something really high end like funktion ones or similar, a track that is mastered louder will sound clearer, brighter, less muffled than a track that is not mastered as loud. When I DJ, I'm playing mostly my own music, so it's not as consequential. My girlfriend DJs sometimes, and even though I've explained this to her, she isn't always thinking about the need to gradually dim the highs on the modern track before mixing into 90s acid house, but it will sound muffled in comparison. Max loudness has no place in genres that involve normal singing and instruments, or in softer genres of pop music, or even certain styles of hip hop or metal. It removes dynamic range when it's actually desired, and while it will still sound brighter and clearer, this is mostly a factor of shitty speakers. Also, it makes it harder for the sound board guys to get a live result that sounds true to the original, because the original needed so much heavy side chaining and other tricks to work without clipping.
But at the same time, I don't give a fuck about dynamic range when I'm just trying to make some rave sluts shake their ass. In fact, I want those tracks to be as loud as possible. Tipper is a good example of really good sound engineering for loudness. At red rocks with their noise ordnance, his music sounds clear and loud at a lower volume compared to his openers, because it's designed from the ground up to be as clear and loud as possible.

>>106997682
They were being specifically asked 'Which here is the $500k system?' tho.

>>106996705 (OP)
>if people could tell the difference
for music production reasons i trained myself to be able to know what frequency a sound is making so i can tell what notes are being played, so i can tell what frequencies are being heard. if you can't do this then you are not an audiophile, you are just a sound enjoyer.
it is fundamentally a pointless skill so i wouldn't recommend learning it.

>>106997384
vinyl mastering exists to make vinyl sound as good as it can. if you have heard poorly mastered and well mastered versions of the same track during the production process then you know you can get good versions on vinyl. a vinyl track doesn't need to be loud coming from the vinyl, it can be made loud by the equipment. it needs to be clear across the frequency spectrum of the track so it can be boosted by equipment.

>>106996705 (OP)
if he had done the test properly im sure the percentage would have been way lower.

>>106996705 (OP)
You can build a much cheaper setup that's going to beat vinyl lol. At some point you hit negative returns.

>>107001606
>>107003516
There is an obvious difference in frequency response but it's probably the needle/cartridge not the turntable.

>>107000104
You haven't even heard anything you fucking nutjob.

>>107001339
>A simple coin flip doesn't carry much weight
Not what this is, you didn't read the article, stop fucking kvetching, you loon.

>>107007910
You haven't even listened. I can ABX them perfectly just from the first few seconds. They should have match EQed them for a fair comparison. Turntable B has more treble.

>>107001344
2010 Civic

>>107007964
>Doesn't understand stat analysis.

>40% got it right
so they guessed at random

>>106996705 (OP)
That expensive one looks more like an art piece. I'm not into this shit but Googled them to see. The cheap one is also like 500 bucks on eBay?

Sound systems are a scam though. You hear actual differences with musical instruments, like every piano sounds quite dramatically different, you couldn't even think it's POSSIBLY placebo because it's stark. Same for some violins etc.

The reproduction of recorded music though, is pretty indistinguishable. It usually only sounds notably different if you accidentally have surround sound mode on for headphones or something weird like that.

>>107001232
nah there are noticeable differences. i can tell im a wedding dj and played years and years. but you need a decent pair of headphones/equipment. you can absolutely tell when a dj is playing mp3s

>>107008466
>you can absolutely tell when a dj is playing mp3s
Easy at 128kbps.
With great difficulty at 192kbps.
Impossible at 320kbps (except maybe a rare few "killer sample" exceptions). Assuming good encodes with modern LAME of course.
Try for yourself:
https://abx.digitalfeed.net/lame.320.html

records sound nuanced, not better.

>>106996705 (OP)
audiophiles are gay as aids but this test feels retarded at best and deliberately poor on purpose. with a good set of speakers youre 95% of the way there. Theres so much that happens in between recording and it getting to my speakers, i dont worry myself with such marginal gains outside of making sure my needle is good. Theres so much nonsense when it comes to audio and people talking about shit that they dont understand its unreal. I like buying and playing vinyl but theres only so much you can pull out of a record if the shit was recorded on a single sm57 stuck in the middle of the room.
>pic related
literally all you need and even this is a little much.

>>107008514
I don't care about a faggoted test, I just want the highest sound quality possible. Anything above CD quality is a fabrication though.

>>106996705 (OP)
lmao his methodology is pure garbage, only one audio file each and people needs to listen to it throught their own setup, 0 control over the experiment, it's basically a coin toss and it most likely produced garbage data.
>>107008022
there is A LOT of things they should have done for this shitty comparison to be meaningful.
>>107009373
>Theres so much nonsense when it comes to audio and people talking about shit that they dont understand its unreal
placebo is INCREDIBLY strong with audio for humans sadly...

>>106996705 (OP)
my shitty old sony 650 amp sounded better than a brand new denon its all a meme
put the old amp upstairs in my doofcave and it drives two 15" party speakers lol

>>106996705 (OP)
has anyone done these tests with digital systems (rather than vinyl) and compared headphones?

>>107003789
howmuch you wanna bet the second ine was made of the first one but with "hand crafted wood" mand fancy knobs maybe added a fake transistor tube

>>107010017
Yes but it doesn't give any useful data other than what people have a preference for. Which tends to be Apple/Beats shit.

>>107010017
honestly ive had shitty speakers and amps sound better than expensive stuff, ironically car audio mogs consumer stuff especially older 00s-2010s stuff so i use it in my htpc builds

>>106996705 (OP)
i mean we all knew this, audiophiles have always been histrionic coping retards

>>106996705 (OP)
I am not surprised whatsoever. I feel like good audio is "solved" to large degrees and making something competent isn't THAT expensive. You might not get it in $10 trash but some of the prices charged on the high-end are truly ridiculous.