A scope will "hear" everything.
Just to clarify: A scope is utterly useless in audio engineering, other than troubleshooting. A healthy human hearing is at least 1000x better than any scope I know of. But we do have microphones that are more sensitive or can handle more sound pressure than a human, and we have audio analyzers that can give a number and to a variable and in many aspects, can measure smaller details that we might be able to hear. So, "measurements" is a better word.
There are companies that use solid science to make good-sounding devices (such as Dolby), and there are industries where quality is paramount and professionals who can hear a channel out of phase (sound technicians are generally an object of my admiration).
A channel out of phase is blatantly obvious error, btw.
But all this has nothing to do with audiophilia, which has absolutely no relation to reality, or anything measurable.
A very insulting generalization. Sure, there are con mans in the industry and fools to be fooled. There always is everywhere where money moves. However, by my experience most of the companies really do solid engineering and research and many consumers do know what they are talking about.
#2: Real life situations very seldom are blind. And the hearing sensation is real, even if it might only partly come from movement of air molecules. We know (as a proven, scientific facts) that color TVs don't sound as loud as B&W TVs but they have a better sound; black speakers sound better than red ones; big speakers have better bass etc.
Lol. When I pay for audio equipment, I am interested in sound quality, not in how its looks (and price) will affect my subjective perception of the sound. If hi-fi stuff was marketed honestly, like saying "this black mahogany supertextured finish and the impressive size of the unit will be a highlight of your living room", I'd say it's okay. But instead they spout shit like "our scientifically engineered mahogany finish absorbs subspace particle resonations and evens out the warp field for an optimal listening experience."
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Lol yourself: Which is the fool, the one who understands what is going on and can be wary (or appreciate) of non-technical issues or the one that thinks he's immune to stuff no human is not? And for your marketing language examples, the former sounds much more familiar than the latter. There are con mans, but not that many. Sounds like you believe a spec sheet tells you everything there is to know about a car?
Are you by any chance involved in selling this snake oil stuff? You sound awfully apologetic.
Not apologetic; I'd try to be realistic. But yes, I have experience in designing high quality audio stuff; no snakes harmed! Are you by any change running a store selling run-of-the-mill "hifi"?
- Measurements: I'm an engineer, so I believe in measurements. I also believe that we don't have enough knowledge about how humans hear to know what to measure. Besides, I haven't yet seen any audio equipment with different designs that measure equally(!).
There are lots of honest companies who have put in years of research into finding out exactly what to measure. Dolby, once again... And we have practical and really cool stuff to thank that research, for example mp3 compression.
Sure, we know a lot. I tried to point out that we don't know it all. At the moment, Dolby (an others) are hiring more researches to find out more, they are not closing the research department because all has been found out.
To take a very, very simple example: It is known and approved that channel separation in stereo equipment has an effect on sound field reproduction (and that is why in most reviews, that is measured.) However, we don't know precisely how: I can measure the symmetry of the leakage (is L to R the same as R to L) and the distortion and frequency response of the leaked signal very accurately. But we don't know what effect those details might have to the perceived sound. (And that is why you seldom see channel separation detail specs.)
One time, in an informal A-B test (we knew what we were listening to, but the point was to find out if there was a difference or not) we had otherwise identical (or changes that we thought should be inaudible) devices; same basic design and parts, slightly different circuit topology: One had better but uneven channel separation, the other was worse in numbers, but even in frequency. I thought I might have heard a minor difference, a college was sure there was one. But which one was better? We couldn't say, and the industry does not have much research nor a consensus on the subject either. And did I say channel separation is about as simple as it can be?
Most of the issues are much more complex.
I doubt the ones selling the magical $10000 amps do the science.
You'd be surprised. You'd be very surprised.
Plus, for an engineer, you're making far too many excuses not to trust measurements. I'm sensing an ulterior (financial?) motive here.
Oh, I do trust measurements, I'm an engineer. But I'm experienced enough to know that I don't know it all. As said, no two devices measure equally, so I'm not surprised that there is an entire (if small) industry around minute differences. What is slightly surprising is that we don't have a clear correlation between the measured differences and perceived sound quality. Therefore we have endless debate about the merits of some equipment. Either we don't know what to measure or the human hearing is much more sensitive than we know of. Personally, I'd vote for both.
which I still believe should be inaudible by a wide margin. Still, the press (sometimes in comparison tests) gave comments about the other products high-end, like "Nothing is missing, but it is a bit smoother than X", far too many for me to believe those were random guesses.
Of course it's not random. The press is trying to "impress" its sponsors. I'd like to see the same result in double blind tests. (That said, it's not impossible that such a minute difference is actually audible. That said, we're talking about a pretty specific, measurable difference.)
In this case, the reporters did not know that the products used the same circuit boards. At least one magazine had not opened the products, and I'm rather sure the others did not find out either, otherwise they would surely have written about it. I believe the reporters genuinely heard a difference. What I find perplexing in this anecdote is that the difference should be inaudible by a far margin. I think that on the "keeping up the illusion" level, minute details matter, even if you might not be able to pinpoint what it is. Certainly, 0.1dB at 20kHz is inaudible as a frequency response deviation, but in right conditions, it seems to be enough to trigger the brain between "this [is]/[is not] really real". Or they wrote what they wrote to fill in the pages - but I don't think so.
You can see all there is to see from most windows, just like you can hear all there is to be heard with most hifi. But it takes an incredibly good and clean window to make you believe there is no glass.