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Topic: Article: Why We Need Audiophiles (Read 501093 times) previous topic - next topic
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Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #125 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
Oh, I wasn't going to go that far - I was going to use the standard analogue outputs of each piece of equipment.

Cheers,
David.


My thoughts on this were to limit the damage to the delicate sensibilities of that audiophile. If they think the musical magic can go away by introducing anything antagonistic to their ethos, then limit the antagonism, especially as it shouldn't change the end result.

That being said, someone would end up ascribing special powers to the Wadia iPod dock.

A pity none of the magazines have the stones to do this, as they could assemble the products and even the test subjects easier than we could. And for them, it would probably be more than just sport and academic interest. I guess advertisers trump inquiry.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #126 –
Quote from: MichaelW on
Lastly, cliveb's experience of hearing, once only, a full 3D soundstage reminds me of an optical trick that might be comparable. Stereo pictures are made with a pair of photographs, made from slightly different points of view. Normally you use a stereo viewer to feed the appropriate image to each eye, but it is possible to learn to see them without a viewer, and apparently reconnaissance photo interpreters learned to do this routinely.

The difference though, is that I wasn't trying to hear that holographic sound. I just put on a record that I already knew well, on my normal stereo system, and for some inexplicable reason that particular night I heard a soundstage that was utterly different and more convincing than any I've heard before or since. I'm not talking about width, depth (and to a certain extent height) - which can be discerned on many recordings. The best word I can use is "focus": everything just snapped into place with a solidity that was unnerving - and supremely enjoyable. Not only can I remember it happening all those years ago, I can also remember the times I put the same LP on hoping to hear the effect again, only to be disappointed.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #127 –
I have heard that in the US evil hippies sometimes contaminate drinking water with LSD. Now take into account that evil hippies, when they get older and come into money, often turn into subjectivistic audiophiles. I am pretty sure that some audiophile wannabe synesthesiac tried to recruit followers through the local waterworks on that day. Who knows, maybe it was even F. himself.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #128 –
Quote from: cliveb on
Quote from: MichaelW on
Lastly, cliveb's experience of hearing, once only, a full 3D soundstage reminds me of an optical trick that might be comparable. Stereo pictures <etc. etc.>

The difference though, is that I wasn't trying to hear that holographic sound. <SNIP>


That's interesting. I wasn't pushing a close analogy--apart from sight and hearing being different, there are also physical factors in stereo vision you have to control, especially decoupling focus and convergence. What I was suggesting was that a lot of our perception is in the brain/mind, and that soundstage might be a mind trick, conscious or unconscious.

For me, the virtue of stereo (which I noticed the first time I actually played a stereo record on a stereo set) is that I can hear different lines or voices in the music with greater clarity; spatial location is not a big deal. Though, when I once misconnected my speakers, it was surprisingly disturbing to hear the double basses in my left ear.

cliveb, a pity it only happened once, but at least it happened and made an obviously lasting impression: maybe you should write a sequel to Flanders and Swann's "High Fidelity" about "The Lost Soundstage."

Edit: fixed punctuation.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #129 –
I think the best experiences of live music I've experienced has always been in churches, both amped an un-amped. You'd probably need a multichannel system to reproduce something like that due to the amount of reverb and feeling of being "in the middle of the sound". I think it sounds great - often enhanced by the  fact that you are listening to talented female voices (solo or chorus) either on their own or with a single instrument, making for a very puristic listening experience.







Thorbjorn

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #130 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
Now there's a blind test I'd like to see (!) - an iPod vs a Linn CD12.

Both sides of this debate find that idea laughable for opposite reasons. So it's a great test case.


Do you expect them to sound different?

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The practicalities of such a DBT are a headache, but not insurmountable.


It's just another test where time-synching is the hard part.

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This "sound stage" thing - do people really not hear instruments spread out between their two speakers?


To me most audiophiles talk about "sound stage" as if it was a holoistic representation of their overall listening experience. It means nothing in particular to them. It most definately is not limited to imaging or spatial presentaion.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #131 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
It means nothing in particular to them. It most definately is not limited to imaging or spatial presentaion.
Par for the course, really. Ignorance feeds on generalization.
elevatorladylevitateme

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #132 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
If you EQ something, it's a change from the ideal, and maybe a kind of distortion, but it's similar to what you experience by listening on different speakers, or at a different distance from a real instrument, or listening in a different room etc.

I think the point is that equalization is damaging to the "purity" of the original signal. Running a signal through an analog equalizer, even when not making any boosts or cuts or utilizing any filters, is still going to degrade the signal somewhat by introducing noise. Doing the same thing in the digital realm, if we run a 24-bit recording through a 32-bit float DAW and a 64-bit float EQ plug-in (a common thing for one to do), the plug-in has to dither down to 32-bit to get injected back in the DAW's 32-bit mixer and we then have to dither once again to get the file back down to 24-bit. This again is signal degradation -- even if we don't so much as touch any of the "knobs" on the EQ.

So, it's the from the "departure from purity" standpoint that equalization is distortion: distortion that is, more often than not, relevant to our perceptions. Psychoacoustic lossy encoding is distortion that is specifically designed to be irrelevant to our perceptions.

Quote from: 2Bdecided on
The very process of capturing a live sound via a microphone is a terrible distortion of the original sound field. That's probably an order of magnitude worse than anything else we do to it subsequently.

There's no question of that. It's hard to describe how abysmal even the best mic is at accurately capturing the sound of an any instrument.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #133 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
If you EQ something, it's a change from the ideal, and maybe a kind of distortion, but it's similar to what you experience by listening on different speakers, or at a different distance from a real instrument, or listening in a different room etc.


The original purpose of equalization was to add back in the sonic balance that existed in the original source, but was lost due to non-ideal frequency response of the equipment along the way.

In the original context the most damaging of all the equipment commonly used related to recording and playing back optical sound, which makes the LP and all of its faults look (and sound) pretty good.

So lets do a little mind experiment. A record/playback chain happens to have some component in it that rolls off the bass below 100 Hz, which makes many natural sounds seem thin. All I have is a recording processed using that chain of equipment with no recourse to any orginal. If I whip out a parametric equalizer and tweak back in a reasonable semblance of natural bass response, have I forever damaged the overall sound quality?

Quote
I think the point is that equalization is damaging to the "purity" of the original signal. Running a signal through an analog equalizer, even when not making any boosts or cuts or utilizing any filters, is still going to degrade the signal somewhat by introducing noise.


Counterpoint - the dynamic range of some of the better but not exceptional analog equalizers is in excess of 110 dB. A 24 bit digital equalizer has more than 140 dB dynamic range. Exactly what is the effect of using such a device on even the finest recordings with dynamic range on the order of 80 dB?


Quote
Doing the same thing in the digital realm, if we run a 24-bit recording through a 32-bit float DAW and a 64-bit float EQ plug-in (a common thing for one to do), the plug-in has to dither down to 32-bit to get injected back in the DAW's 32-bit mixer and we then have to dither once again to get the file back down to 24-bit. This again is signal degradation -- even if we don't so much as touch any of the "knobs" on the EQ.


Ever do the math and figure out how much degradation an equalizer like this inflicts on anything recorded in 16 bits?

If memory serves, and if you presume that the noise spectrum of the equalizer and the music source are the same, passing  music with xx dB dynamic range through something that has dynamic range equal to xx+10 dB, hurts the finished product by about 0.1 dB. 


Quote
So, it's the from the "departure from purity" standpoint that equalization is distortion: distortion that is, more often than not, relevant to our perceptions. Psychoacoustic lossy encoding is distortion that is specifically designed to be irrelevant to our perceptions.


Like many such claims, the above claim does not suffer the test of real-world quantification. Sure there is some theoretical loss, but back in the real world... ;-)

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The very process of capturing a live sound via a microphone is a terrible distortion of the original sound field. That's probably an order of magnitude worse than anything else we do to it subsequently.


Any experienced recordist should be able to confirm that.

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There's no question of that. It's hard to describe how abysmal even the best mic is at accurately capturing the sound of an any instrument.


It has to be that way, because mics transform a 3 dimensional sound field into a 2 dimensional signal.  Linear algebra says that there might be an infinite number of 3 dimensional sound fields that a mic would tranform into the same 2 dimensional signal.  Therefore, we are very limited in terms of what we can deduce about the original sound field from the output of a single microphone.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #134 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
Now there's a blind test I'd like to see (!) - an iPod vs a Linn CD12.

Both sides of this debate find that idea laughable for opposite reasons. So it's a great test case.


Do you expect them to sound different?


That's immaterial.

I suspect this is the kind of thing that needs to be repeatedly run and re-run to 'demonstrate whether there is - or is not - a difference'. The problem with challenging dogma is that it doesn't crumble at the first challenge. 

If we come on strong with 'been there, seen it, done it' to a bunch of people who not only haven't, haven't and haven't, but think they have... you just run up against the faith. You have to keep challenging this to get the message across. Gradually, you overturn the previous mind-set.

Or we just keep drawing up the same battle lines.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #135 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
Now there's a blind test I'd like to see (!) - an iPod vs a Linn CD12.

Both sides of this debate find that idea laughable for opposite reasons. So it's a great test case.
Do you expect them to sound different?
If they don't, then very little does.

Hence it's a good test. Either way.

Cheers,
David.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #136 –
Stereophile's own test measurements of the CD12 show that it doesn't add any color, but that it works exactly as expected from any properly designed DAC. Any artifacts are way below 100db. So it should not be ABXable against an iPod unless you can hear a needle drop beside a jet engine at full thrust (literally).

The CD12 has only two extra features:

1. Complete source jitter immunity by employing an asynchronous sample rate converter. So the whole mechanical overkill for its transport is eye candy.

2. Optional dithering.


Part costs to add 1. to a modern DAC are single digit $. 2. really should be done at the studio and probably does more harm than good for most records.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #137 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
If I whip out a parametric equalizer and tweak back in a reasonable semblance of natural bass response, have I forever damaged the overall sound quality?

Technically, I feel you have. The sound quality, as I define sound quality, has technically been "damaged". If you used another word, like "desirable tonality" in place of "sound quality", then I would say the subjective quality of the signal has improved, much like how a recording can be subjectively "improved" by adding in even-order harmonic distortion. Not every listener will necessarily prefer the distorted signal, but it may appear more pleasing on some level to a moderate or large percentage of listeners (for whatever reason that may be).

You may feel differently, but I've always hated the idea of using the term "sound quality" to describe anything that could be thought of as subjective. To me, sound quality is a metric of the level of adherence to a recording. A concept that is purely technical and not in any way tied to our particular preferences for what sound should be.

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Counterpoint - the dynamic range of some of the better but not exceptional analog equalizers is in excess of 110 dB. A 24 bit digital equalizer has more than 140 dB dynamic range. Exactly what is the effect of using such a device on even the finest recordings with dynamic range on the order of 80 dB?

Nothing in practical terms, but that's not quite what we're discussing.

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Ever do the math and figure out how much degradation an equalizer like this inflicts on anything recorded in 16 bits? If memory serves, and if you presume that the noise spectrum of the equalizer and the music source are the same, passing  music with xx dB dynamic range through something that has dynamic range equal to xx+10 dB, hurts the finished product by about 0.1 dB.

I'd say that sounds about right to me. The point, however, is not the severity of degradation but the mere act of degrading. I use the example of a zeroed equalizer only to demonstrate that anything we do to a signal -- even if our intent is to not really do anything "productive" at all, but to merely route it through some device -- is degradation due to the introduction of noise and/or other anomalies (some subjectively desirable to some; others typically not). We are of course talking about barely measurable changes in the original signal when we shoot something through an analog equalizer or a DAW, but that's not really the point.

In the real world, when we're tweaking knobs and moving faders in both the analog and digital realms, we're utilizing what are, in all reality, tools of destruction to shape sound to our liking. We do it because the subjective qualities are for the most part enhanced by doing so.

B0RK gave myself and others the impression that an audiophile like Fremer is someone who utilizes an often expensive playback system to attempt to achieve purity with respect to the originally recorded event; that purity to the originally recorded instrument is, in some way, the goal (and that vinyl is somehow central to achieving that, for some undefined reason). That he and others like him should be admired for that. I said it was ridiculous given the fact that engineers intelligently destroy such purity, even if, as you said, the idea is to approximate the original sound of the instrument due to deficiencies in recording gear or techniques. In that way, their pursuits are nonsensical given what engineers do to recordings.

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote
So, it's the from the "departure from purity" standpoint that equalization is distortion: distortion that is, more often than not, relevant to our perceptions. Psychoacoustic lossy encoding is distortion that is specifically designed to be irrelevant to our perceptions.


Like many such claims, the above claim does not suffer the test of real-world quantification. Sure there is some theoretical loss, but back in the real world... ;-)

We're talking two different things here. You're seem to be making the case for the intentional manipulation and specific degradation of a recording to achieve subjective desirability, while I'm arguing purely on a scale of black and white: that the post-processing of a recording is, from a purely technical perspective, degrading in almost every scenario even if the effect is barely measurable. If the effects of that on the original are the introduction of broadband noise, harmonic distortion or what have you, they are still distortions. A so-called "departure from purity".

Like I said before, don't get me wrong. I'm all for this stuff. I'm for equalization, low- and high-pass filtering, compression, harmonic excitation, noise reduction...all of that stuff. They're tools we can use to achieve certain results we like -- results we tend to find more pleasing. I use most of these tools daily, though some sparingly. That's not to say that they're beneficial to a given signal on a technical level, however, because they aren't, but I'm not arguing for this concept of so-called purity: the idea that listening to a recording of a cello should always seem like listening to a real cellist. I don't think that should be the pursuit of engineering nor the pursuit of listening.

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Linear algebra says that there might be an infinite number of 3 dimensional sound fields that a mic would tranform into the same 2 dimensional signal. Therefore, we are very limited in terms of what we can deduce about the original sound field from the output of a single microphone.

I'm not debating this. A mic is only as effective at recording an event as its technical limitations allow.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #138 –
Quote from: Ron Jones on
A so-called "departure from purity".


This purity is not achievable when you look at the whole chain. In the end air has to be moved for what mass has to be moved. Mass is at least subject to inertia and resonance. The endpoint of your chain will always act as a filter. For "purity" you have to eliminate these effects by inversion, either physically (e. g. damping), digitally, or analog. All three are not free from the universal tradeoff between phase and frequency accuracy, but the only way to go for maximum "purity".

So neglecting equalizing elements, that have practically no side effects (<0.1db impact), within the signal path for purely theoretical reasons does not make sense in a world were considerable amounts of mass necessarily have to be moved very accurately at some point.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #139 –
Quote from: Ron Jones on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Linear algebra says that there might be an infinite number of 3 dimensional sound fields that a mic would tranform into the same 2 dimensional signal. Therefore, we are very limited in terms of what we can deduce about the original sound field from the output of a single microphone.

I'm not debating this. A mic is only as effective at recording an event as its technical limitations allow.

That's not a technical limitation, it's a theoretical one.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #140 –
Hm. My own experiences with the iPod are that it's a touch on the noisy side...

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #141 –
Quote from: rpp3po on
This purity is not achievable when you look at the whole chain.

I suppose "departure from purity" isn't really a fitting phrase since it would seem to indicate that "purity" is a destination that one could realistically reach. A more appropriate phrase, I guess, would be "deviation from purity". I'm not suggesting what I refer to as "purity" is ever achievable nor would it be particularly desirable.

Quote from: rpp3po on
So neglecting equalizing elements, that have practically no side effects (<0.1db impact), within the signal path for purely theoretical reasons does not make sense in a world were considerable amounts of mass necessarily have to be moved very accurately at some point.

Agreed.

Quote from: pdq on
Quote from: Ron Jones on
I'm not debating this. A mic is only as effective at recording an event as its technical limitations allow.

That's not a technical limitation, it's a theoretical one.

I'm actually fairly happy with the way I worded that. Technical restrictions often revolve around theoretical ones

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #142 –
I agree with Canar, the SNR of an iPod is great, but it is finite, and I can hear the noise with ER-4Ps in a quiet room. One of the most substantial mods I've encoutered at a Head-Fi meet (... and that's not saying much)  is the RWA iMod, which rips out the output buffer on the iPod's DAC, which requires you to use a (presumably lower noise) outboard headphone amp.  (Sighted evaluation, grain of salt, TOS8 etc etc.) There was a pretty substantial noise improvement with the iMod compared to an unmodded iPod of the same vintage, with several different amps in use.

That said, the ambient noise levels in a speaker listening test might not be low enough for that to be an issue...

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #143 –
Quote
Well there we have it don't we.
This is what people like yourself do all the time.

You are not looking for ABX Tests .. now are you ?


Yes, I am...I'm always on the look out for good ones.

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Let's face it What you are Really looking for was FAILED ABX tests.


No, I looked for the ABX test you reported, and found that your interpretation of it was statistically flawed.


Quote
When The Foobar ABX test result is negative , you just get all rosy & cherish the moment.


No but it has been known to happen when I see a fool prove his mettle, in public.

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But when Foobars own stats system says when you guess 14/20 (%5.8 chance of guessing) that is just not good enough for you , & you dismiss it altogether.


This only means that you don't know how to interpret the Foobar 'stats system'.  If you did, you'd know that that nothing I wrote contradicts the 'Foobar stats system's report... indeed, they both indicate that the
results did not pass the p<0.05  (that's  < 5%) threshold.

Quote
You are so quick to dismiss it , that you didn't even notice I included more then one test result &  got the chance to test a casual listener & posted the results, please do try & have another half a look before you post.



I am quick to dismiss your belief that a '5.8% chance of guessing'  -- that's better than 1 in 20 chance of guessing, btw -- means it couldn't have been due to chance.

2bdecided, please explain again why I should treat this guy  with respect?
 

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #144 –
There's a difference between respecting someone and being respectful of a discussion. None of us have to respect anyone here, though we should try to have respectful discussions and generally try to treat people in a respectful manner nonetheless.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #145 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
Can we stop treating BORK like he's the devil please?

Thank you.


The devil makes ignorant claims about ABX stats and digital audio?  Who would have thought it?

Quote
Many of the individual ABX test runs in the lossyWAV thread (and also the 16-bit thread) were inconclusive on their own, but if added together and treated as one big run, became more conclusive. I'm not sure how statistically valid this is, but it makes some kind of sense: if you do lots and lots of tests, and you don't cherry pick them, then overall if there's no real effect you should converge on a 50/50 distribution of correct vs incorrect answers. A 55/45 distribution might be meaningless in a few tests, but over lots and lots of tests, the stats tell you that it's very unlikely to happen by chance. The high number of mistakes shows it's very hard to correctly identify the problem, but the fact there are more correct answers than mistakes shows there's something real there.


You're not sure how statistically valid it is...well, that's what statistics are for, eh?  It becomes important at some point to crunch the actual numbers, rather than rely on impressions that 'lots and lots' of tests have supported the difference.  I also made reference to a p<0.1 for good reason...heck, Pio even discusses it in the HA sticky on ABX.


Quote
In that scenario, I think it's worth listening to those listeners, and what they say about their experience of ABX testing.


We were all challenged to get 'a taste' of BORK's ABXing....so I did. 

Quote
I think there's a huge tendency developing here to jump in with a knee jerk reaction when ever people perceive that someone might have some sympathy with a subjectivist mindset.

This causes people to over state things:


OK, you've got us sussed, now what explains BORK?   

Quote
There's endless praise for lossy audio in this thread, despite there being many successful ABX results of 320kbps mp3 documented right here on HA!


Yes, and please put that in context: very few can consistently 'succeed' at that, and very few find it anything like 'easy' in the first place.  And often some training to hear mp3 artifacts specifically is involved. That points to mp3 technology being pretty fucking amazing these days.  But does it point to the self-proclaimed 'audiophile'  being RIGHT when they claim they can always tell any mp3 from source.. as they often do?

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There's complete scorn at the idea that an "expensive" system is any better than in iPod, despite the obvious advantages of hearing music over good speakers driven by capable amplifiers.


Oh, come on, *that's* an overstatement.  The scorn is for those who say an iPod *connected* to the expensive system (including its capable amps), playing good mp3s,  would be obviously inferior to their high-end digital player playing SACDs or HD or whateverthehell flavor of the week 'hi rez' is presenting itself as today.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #146 –
Btw, I always thought audio synaesthesia referred to seeing sound as colors, a la the composer Scriabin, who wrote a treatise on the matter.  'Holographic' audio reproduction on the other hand is a matter of things like room acoustics, channel configuration, and recording quality, not some amazing mental quirk.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #147 –
Quote from: rpp3po on
Stereophile's own test measurements of the CD12 show that it doesn't add any color, but that it works exactly as expected from any properly designed DAC. Any artifacts are way below 100db. So it should not be ABXable against an iPod unless you can hear a needle drop beside a jet engine at full thrust (literally).

The CD12 has only two extra features:

1. Complete source jitter immunity by employing an asynchronous sample rate converter. So the whole mechanical overkill for its transport is eye candy.

2. Optional dithering.


Part costs to add 1. to a modern DAC are single digit $. 2. really should be done at the studio and probably does more harm than good for most records.



Stereophile also tested the 2003-vintage iPod.  And it performed rather well.

http://www.stereophile.com/mediaservers/934/index5.html

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The iPod's measured behavior is better than many CD players—ironic, considering that most of the time it will be used to play MP3 and AAC files, which will not immediately benefit from such good performance. But if you're willing to trade off maximum playing time against the ability to play uncompressed AIFF or WAV files, the iPod will do an excellent job of decoding them. Excellent, cost-effective audio engineering from an unexpected source.—John Atkinson

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #148 –
Quote from: Ron Jones on
There's a difference between respecting someone and being respectful of a discussion. None of us have to respect anyone here, though we should try to have respectful discussions and generally try to treat people in a respectful manner nonetheless.


Hmm, well, I took BORK up on his offer to check out his 'ABXing', and reported a clear misunderstanding on his part, of his own 'ABXing'.  He responded with free psychoanalysis.  !respect!

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #149 –
Quote from: botface on
Do musicians have better ears than the rest of us? Probably not.


Probably so, some of them.

I sell audio gear as a side line (I won't get into what gear to avoid the whole question of advertising), but it's enough to say that I've had a goodly number of people into my home, listening to music. Because it's an audiophile speaker line, but not atmospheric in price, I get everything from the wealthy looking for shiny toys, to music lovers and musicians, to full-out audiofools who come with their own power cords.

It's the musicians, of all the customers I've had, who I've come to respect. Most of them don't give a soaked clam about graphs, wires and components, but they can pick out a lifeless passage, a loss of clarity or a depressed frequency without effort. Some of them don't care that much, because they listen to recordings from the 30s and 40s when recording techniques were often poor anyway. But by and large it's the musical folk who can listen carefully, and accurately pick out very fine detail.

I have no idea if it's the keen ear'd folk who become musicians, or if it's that a lifetime of music trains the mind to greater perceptiveness and accuracy. I'd guess the latter; I have good ears but I'm no musician.

One of my customers went through absolute misery with a piano he owned. He'd sunk a considerable sum of money into getting a high end piano, and again I'll leave out brand names. It was a good piano, and he liked it. All but one note. That one note sounded harsh to him. It didn't sound harsh to him on other pianos, even of the same type. It wasn't a room effect, because I worked him through tricks like moving the piano around, and adding absorption in the room. It was just a slight harshness on one note, and the chief engineer the company sent out couldn't hear the problem, even though he was risking having the piano returned by being unable to fix it.

I was sent a recording of a scale played on that piano, and I picked the harsh note out on the first listen - not very bothersome to me, but, yeah, noticeable if I paid attention, something wrong with the overtones. For him it was little short of glaring misery. And to that professional piano engineer - completely inaudible.

So, yeah. We don't all have ears that work the same, and some people's really are just plain better than others. I don't know if we "need audiophiles", but there are people out there that can hear things you and I can't, and I can hear things you can't, and most likely vice versa. And there are people who simply aren't very perceptive at all. So when I hear people categorically claim that the difference between an .mp3 and a .wav is inaudible, or that no one can pick out the directionality of a tone under y Hz, any other such claim, I roll my eyes. Some people are simply capable of surprising things, and if you want to find the keen-eared, I'd suggest starting with musicians.