Interesting video from Alpha Audio with Grimm Audio. Time point is the beginning of the question on streaming vs local file differences. Link should start the video directly at that point in the interview:
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One thing puzzles me about these debates. And that is, why does it matter if you feel it sounds better that you cannot explain it? Or to put it another way, what’s wrong with an improvement being psychosomatic? If you enjoy the result then does it have to be scientifically grounded? Do experts have to be declared wrong or misguided to make it acceptable?
I worked as an architect. I can tell you so much detail about how buildings work in ways that are completely contrary to how most people think they do. Some of it gets so specialised that we’d first have to establish a common vocabulary to discuss it. However, when you design a building, a huge amount of effort has to go into trying to influence how people will feel being in it. I can tell you about light levels, sound and temperature modelling, materials science and how surfaces change acoustics. None of this will tell me how you feel about being in a room though. How touching a particular handrail or hearing a particular sound will evoke memories that are entirely unique to you. How it will make you feel. That’s entirely something that happens in your brain and there is no way to model that in advance but it can fundamentally determine how the room feels to you.
I think music is the same. There is the science between source and output and then there is the last stage, from the source to your brain, via air and ear canal and nerves. That last bit is something we never talk about. Partly because it is even harder to grasp, I suspect. It’s often dismissed as not being able to be reproduced but… but what if we accept it matters? Then maybe it is fine to say there is no reason for something to sound different but to you, to your brain, it does and that this is ok and we accept that your experience is valid to you, regardless. In short, embrace the subjective but be honest with yourself about where it starts and ends, then celebrate it!
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One of the most rational explanations I’ve seen, I’d be interested in seeing where they measured the difference in PSU behavior. I see a lot of speculation around the mechanism, but little to no attempt to measure it.
Well if your building equipment and understand the why you can attempt to address it.
From an end user standpoint, it’s nice to know your not imagining it, but I’m very much in the if you hear a difference and have a preference don’t get tied up in the why, trust your impressions and go with it.
I think the desire for a scientific explanation stems from the prevalence of snake oil in the audiophile space and the warnings surrounding it, there isn’t as much as a lot postulate, but it’s certainly there.
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They have a lot of good videos on their channel and are very good about explaining how the measurements are done. Well worth a watch in my opinion.
Here’s the link to one: https://youtu.be/eaBKqpw9M3Y?si=63Mw6gjsfFeuWOXx
Looks like they measure on the analog output of the streamer/DAC. There are definitely more videos than this.
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Bingo.
Probably why people try and find explanations are:
- You heard XYZ was amazing, but I didn’t. I want to know why I didn’t, because I want to be in the hooray camp too.
- I want to maximize my value/spending, and we can’t rely on subjectives (even though all appreciation of art is subjective and qualitative). So instead, people rely on measurements and what they CAN quantify, and use metrics that may even be invalid to justify “how good” their equipment is.
- Some people believe good data = sounds better. Or in converse, if you can’t measure it using available tools, then it must not be real.
I love your architectural analogy. My very crass equivalent would be if people coveted another person’s happy marriage and beautiful wife. “Oh, if I get a 5’5” brunette, with those measurements and eye color, and that age/education/fertility/wealth/family/religion/etc then it must all be great and I’ll be happy"…
… RIGHT.
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This original post also stems because:
"I'm a civil engineer. PE, long career and I do this for a living!.... there is no way that people would like your building design A vs B vs C, because structurally they're all the same! Dammit, there are rules and permits and analysis that are unshakable.,.. otherwise buildings would be falling all the time! But they don't, so your buildings are the same! I can measure the safety margin of how this structure can bear weight, withstand X amount of wind force, or cyclical fatigue, and I can tell you they're all well above what is needed."
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There might be some unease there that if it’s psychosomatic, and you are just imagining it, then you could very easily one day stop imagining it. Since some of the things that we put into our chains cost significant amounts of money, it’s understandable why people would want to know that it not only is making an audible difference, but why that change is happening.
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The inverse is also a problem:
Just because it measures differently/better it doesn’t mean it’ll sound better…
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I like these points.
It makes sense to me in engineering, science, the measurable that we aspire to the best. But those are just numbers and sound is a wave that moves through the air. Which is sometimes denser, or more humid, or the opposite, which affects that wave. Does music sound the same at sea level as at a mountain peak? Does it matter? It becomes a really interesting philosophical conversation and to me that is the most interesting part. Not “why does this sound better to me when there is no basis for it” but “what does it mean that I think this sounds different”
Instead of this the hobby is perma stuck in the objectivist vs subjectivist debate which, to my mind, is like staying in the shallows rather than going for a swim in the ocean.
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Nothing. I have long argued that we should intentionally factor in psychosomatic effects into our purchasing decisions. Outside of speakers and room acoustics, I believe most of what we perceive in this hobby is psychosomatic, even when there are some minor differences in the measurements. Everything about a product will affect your perception: How it looks, how it feels, what reviews you have read, comments people make in forums, etc.
Even when you believe it’s ALL snake oil, you will still perceive differences based on how something looks.
I just accept it as part of the hobby. I try to pick things that:
- Don’t measure poorly
- Look like they sound good
- Have positive reviews from people I trust
- Get lots of positive comments on forums
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Knew I should have stuck to my Sony minidisc player…
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I really liked MiniDiscs as a portable medium. They didn’t look like they sounded better than CDs, though. Those were a much better choice for at home.
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It’s all personal preference, all of it. There’s a dollar level at which you really are going to be hard pressed to find “crap”. And what we argue about is just people talking past each other about the words used to define their tastes in their chain at a specific period in the progression of their hobby.
I will say this, anyone is welcomed to come to my house, change a cable and you WILL hear a difference. No psychosomatics involved, you will see. Now, that we throw money to solve problems and see no results as an outcome while someone else did, you can call it psychosomatic, but it would be a rationalization to explain why you can’t hear a difference and they can as psychosomatic on their part.
Then, there are people out there parroting crap they heard, often time with zero first hand experience, while others actually have resolving enough system to hear a dramatic difference. It doesn’t mean they’re making shit up.
I like to use the tire and brake analogy. Putting Brembo brakes on your shit box isn’t going to make the car stop any faster if you haven’t replaced the brake lines, the tires, the right pads for the type of driving (autocross) you’re going to do. Without all of that, you’re going to say those Brembo brake did hardly anything to improve your braking and you paid so much money for it and they’re a waste. Or worse, someone will say they worked fantastically because it’s the brake upgrade to get on your hot hatch When for your specific car you would have been way better off getting better tires first.
I’m hearing things in my chain today that I would have never heard four years ago, because I wasn’t as good listener and the system wouldn’t be able to show it to me. Back then however I thought it sounded fantastic, the best I’d ever heard and couldn’t imagine why someone would spend $1k on a power cable, they’d have to be crazy. I had a total of give or take $5k invested in it at the time. It would have been fine to stop there I guess, certainly smarter and easier for my retirement fund goals.
I know better today what is possible, I’ve also got 8X that outlay sunk into the chain and a few years learning to listen. I can only imagine what more upscale systems would sound like but I’m frankly not interested and financially willing to put the levels of money it would take to further improve where I am today to a meaningful degree, certainly could never justify the expense. Now THAT would be psychosomatic. lol
Enjoy what you’ve got, don’t spend time arguing semantics or talking past people cause that’s the gist of most back and forth and it’s not very productive. If you trust someone and they recommend things you like, that’s great. I did that for a good long while and made a lot of progress. But as my listening skills evolved and I found more and more what I preferred and what I valued and looked for in a chain, I’ve had to make decisions on my own based on the experience I’ve gathered and very often in the hobby what everyone likes is not going to be what you like and that’s a valuable lesson.
The one fortunate thing, at least for me, is that I have been able to break even more often than not on my equipment purchases (the large ones at least) and I’ve used that to my advantage in the trial and error game.
It’s all about taste, all about preference and all about synergy. The best piece of gear in a lousy chain is a gimped purchase IMO.
Spend a Saturday morning reading the entire shit list cover to cover and IMO, you’ll never have to go into a forum again. Spare yourself lots of time forevermore. 
Disclaimer, everything I said above is opinion, some fact (about me being good at buying/selling) and a lot of concentrated experience and hands on tinkering.
Still, my room and its acoustics account for most of the issues I’ve had to work around, work through or embrace.
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What is psychosomatic to me is:
I had a dac, and thought it sounded amazing.
I upgrade to another dac, and thought it was amazing. Blew me away.
Then I upgraded to another dac, and thought wow, the last one sounds broken in comparison, so amazing. How can it get better than this?
Then I upgraded to the Pacific 2, and thought wow this must be the end game…
… and now it impresses me less, and I’m looking for the next thing.
I really wish that this is all just in my head. Is it? Or do I even wish that at all…
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Scarlett Johansson has had three husbands. It’s one way to look at it… but we change, we grow we learn to appreciate the nuanced. We improve cables, footers, upgrade the chain. Often times we’re listening to something especially at the beginning of our journey in not the best of chains. Our very own M0N regrets writing his first (widely read) High End DAC review specifically because he hadn’t taken the synergy of the chain as a prominent enough aspect to his results at the time. There’s nothing wrong with the scenario you’ve just described.
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Ok. Here’s what’s been rolling:
- TPLink → Cat5e → N.A. Eno filter → Innuos PhoenixNET → QSA-Lanedri Gamma Ethernet cable → streamer. (starting state)
- TPLink → Cat5e → Innuos PhoenixNET → Muon streaming cable → N.A. Muon filter → streamer
- TPLink → Cat5e → N.A. Muon filter → streamer
- TPLink → Cat5e → N.A. Muon filter → Innuos PhoenixNET → Muon streaming cable → streamer
All of them sounds noticeable different.
This placebo thing is YUGE.
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my advice is to not listen to your system for a week. i promise it’ll sound better than you remembered every time 
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Works for relationships too.
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Actually… I strive to get my system to the point where it blows me away every time I play music. And it’s getting there.
To bring this back on topic: The Muon filter in front of my audiophile switch seems to have the greatest impact, and it’s surprisingly substantial. Much more so than the Eno filter previously.
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sadly ive realized i don’t like chasing the dragon; i know ill never be satisfied. im going to stick to my gear as long as i can and i still get to impress my pals with what i got ^.^
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