difference in perception between brand new audio gears and video gears

TOGA -- Mon, 04/06/2009 - 15:10

For a brand new audio gears, even cables, we clearly hear its unpleasant sound and try to
play music tru them until 300 hours has passed. But Why we dont feel this when we watch
video from brand new video gears such as scaler,DVD player or projector despite they has lots of electronic
parts as well. ? We never feel like having to play video gears all day for many days before they're watchable.
Are our brain are more sensitive to signal from ears than those from our eyes ?

Robert Harley -- Mon, 04/06/2009 - 16:22

I think that our hearing is considerably more discriminating than our vision, at least for some people (myself included). I've often been exposed to super-high-end front projection systems (costing more than $150k) expertly set-up and although very enjoyable, they don't thrill me the way a great hi-fi system thrills me. Small differences are important to me in music reproduction, and less so in video. In my own system, I have $148k left/right speakers (Wilson X-2s) and a $5000 front projector (Sony VPL-WV50).

I know people who have the reverse priority; they are extremely picky about their video but audio is an afterthought.

And then there are those individuals such as my colleague, Jonathan Valin, who are visually and aurally discriminating, finding parallels between the two. See, for example, his fascinating blog on the visual differences between analog and digital photography (and how they relate to audio) here:

http://www.avguide.com/blog/analog-versus-digital-another-perspective

TOGA -- Tue, 04/07/2009 - 00:29

Thanks for link to JV blog, it's really interesting.
Do you think buring-in a computer or soundcard is required for music server based system ?How about an iPod ?
Do you feel any different in sound quality between brand new and used ones ? Also CD itself ? is the disc sound better
when played for several times ? I think I am like you, enjoy good video playback but not picky about it, will not spend more
money for brand name video cable. But will do for audio cable and accessories.

Robert Harley -- Tue, 04/07/2009 - 09:05

I don't know whether computer sound cards sound different after they've been used. In CD players and DACs, the temperature of the DAC affects conversion accuracy.

Steven Stone -- Fri, 04/10/2009 - 09:56

I've found that any and all electronics do require some "start-up time" if they have been left unused for a decent period of time. Even if gear is well-used and broken in, if you turn it off for several weeks it will need some time to sound its best again. This is even true of speaker's internal passive crossover parts.

A good example of this would be the stereo in your summer or winter vacation house that has been unplugged for several weeks and then is used. It will sound pretty groady for at least a half hour...

Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications