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Audiophiles Annoy Me

Haywood

Haywood

Well-Known Member
Famous
I just got into an argument with an idiot on AVS who insists that my media player recommendation was bad because it did not support DSD, MQA or .iso, three things the poster did not even ask for. I did some digging and discovered that the Plex Media Player and OpenPHT clients running on a PC, will play DSD, FLAC and ALAC natively (MQA is murky) and that the server will transcode all of them to PCM for devices that do not natively support them. This was then deemed unacceptable on the grounds that PCM is audibly inferior and that he can hear a clear difference between an original file and one transcoded to PCM. This came wrapped in all the golden-eared condescension that comes with being a true audiophile. If I, as a plebe, can accept listening to PCM, that is not his problem, but I should not suggest that such things may not matter.

I am getting to the point where I hate venturing on other audio forums because they are filled with stupid cunts like this. If a room full of recording engineers cannot reliably distinguish between a Red Book CD and a properly encoded 320kbps MP3 in an acoustically treated room on $10,000+ speakers, there is no way in hell anyone can convince me that they can hear the difference between native FLAC and PCM. I am so pissed off right now that I can barely put together a coherent sentence. This is not my first draft of this post, but I think I will give up and post it.

Oh, I forgot the best part. Some of the options shot down by Captain Goldenear where due to the fact that they could play DSD natively, but not through an external DAC. Apparently, the DAC in a PC or an NVidia Shield is not good enough.
 
Wait... Like, 95% of all music is created in PCM or converted to PCM at some point in the production process. Does that guy only listen to the very limited selection of music which never goes through a PCM phase?
 
Haywood said:
I just got into an argument with an idiot on AVS who insists that my media player recommendation was bad because it did not support DSD, MQA or .iso, three things the poster did not even ask for. I did some digging and discovered that the Plex Media Player and OpenPHT clients running on a PC, will play DSD, FLAC and ALAC natively (MQA is murky) and that the server will transcode all of them to PCM for devices that do not natively support them. This was then deemed unacceptable on the grounds that PCM is audibly inferior and that he can hear a clear difference between an original file and one transcoded to PCM. This came wrapped in all the golden-eared condescension that comes with being a true audiophile. If I, as a plebe, can accept listening to PCM, that is not his problem, but I should not suggest that such things may not matter.

I am getting to the point where I hate venturing on other audio forums because they are filled with stupid cunts like this. If a room full of recording engineers cannot reliably distinguish between a Red Book CD and a properly encoded 320kbps MP3 in an acoustically treated room on $10,000+ speakers, there is no way in hell anyone can convince me that they can hear the difference between native FLAC and PCM. I am so pissed off right now that I can barely put together a coherent sentence. This is not my first draft of this post, but I think I will give up and post it.

Oh, I forgot the best part. Some of the options shot down by Captain Goldenear where due to the fact that they could play DSD natively, but not through an external DAC. Apparently, the DAC in a PC or an NVidia Shield is not good enough.
Click to expand...

How 'bout a link to the AVS thread?


Edit: I think I found it.
 
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Well, this is why I don't read AVS or any other audio forums other than this one. Audiophiles, or people to claim to be audiophiles, are idiots who could really use an actual life. I look at it like this; I don't like the smell of farts (other than my own), so I don't go into small rooms where everybody's been eating beans.

Flint is completely correct. PWM is the way that audio is recorded in the overwhelming majority of cases. Even where native DSD is used in the capture phase, any places where edits are necessary have to be converted to PCM to make the edit and then back to DSD. DSD does not sound "superior" to PCM; its just a different process of achieving the same result. Shit, just blowing your nose temporarily changes your hearing by several orders of magnitude more than any possible change which could be the result of DSD vs PCM (or between two audio amplifiers for that matter)!
 
The only thing I can add to the discussion, is blow your nose with your mouth open, it won't clog your ears that way.
 
heeman said:
Cunt is a very STRONG word.......................

Just Sayin'
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Yeah, that's the first time I remember hearing that on here. I don't care because I can certainly understand the spirit in which Haywood used it, the guy sounds like an assbag beyond belief. Now, on the CTS-V owners forum they throw that word around like nobody's business, actually over there I think it is a badge of honor. Oh well, don't act like one and you probably wont be referred to as one.
 
That AVS thread didn't go down anywhere near the way I was expecting it to. While your point is taken, Haywood, I think you got off easy.
 
Zing said:
That AVS thread didn't go down anywhere near the way I was expecting it to. While your point is taken, Haywood, I think you got off easy.
Click to expand...

The guy was flat out wrong. His claims about Plex were incorrect and based on outdated information. I did research and explained where he was incorrect. He never responded to the substance of my responses. Never once did he attempt to back up his claims. For example, he claimed that conversion from lossless to PCM is a lossy process. That is not true and he never provided evidence that it was true. He claimed that Plex does not support DSD when it does. He claimed the Sonos does not support high resolution audio. That depends on your definition, because it does support both ALAC and FLAC, which are widely referred to as high resolution despite being 16-bit. He claimed that transcoding DSD or MQA to PCM produced audible losses. I called bullshit, because it is bullshit. The ability to play .iso images is irrelevant to most people and the original poster never mentioned it, so I am unclear why that is a big deal when suggesting a good overall solution.

I don't think I got off easy at all. The only valid point he made in the entire discussion is that I briefly referenced my own use case with regard to his list of limitations. He's right. That was not relevant. The rest of what I said was relevant, accurate and supported with a direct quote from a Plex employee.

I went back and re-read the thread. Perhaps I am over-reacting, but this is a constant occurrence over there. There is this idea that anyone who accepts any form of compromise from an arbitrary standard has departed from the true faith and should be shunned. This was simply the straw that broke the camel's back. This is the same kind of stupid crap that drove me from the gun boards ("You think requiring a gun safety class for a concealed carry license is reasonable? You are a moon-bat liberal gun grabbing traitor!"). Maybe my rant should be, "I hate the internet, which is full of assholes."
 
I have to stand corrected. In my annoyance, I conflated two different irritating conversations on AVS into one post. The DAC clown was on another thread. There was DAC talk on this tread, but it was related to efforts to get the Shield to natively play DSD files. Doesn't matter unless you go hunting for the thread, which is a waste of time to read. I'm just ranting, because I am tired of arguing with idiots on the internet.
 
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