 Social media are often accused of keeping you inside your bubble, and that might be true. But that is by experience that often people feel comfortable in their bubble, also in audio. If you did your music player keep strike of the music you play most, you will see it's only a small number of your collection. And that's fine of course, whatever pleases you. On the other hand it can be inspiring to discover the world outside of your bubble. One of the reasons I make videos on music I like, hoping it will inspire you. But it's not only with music. There's a vast group of audio files that got stuck in a given audio technique, for instance with amps, tube amps, either single ended or push full, class A solid state, class D, class G and so on. It's the same with digital to analog converters, ladder converters, low bit converters, non-oversampling DACs, non-oversampling NOS DACs, FPGA DACs, not to mention the use of specific chips. And again it's the same with loudspeakers. Vented boxes, closed boxes, transmission lines, electrostatic loudspeakers, magnetostats, horns, omnidirectional speakers, bidirectional ones, dipoles, active or passive and so on. Once you've found your path to the sound you like, you're not likely to go and to leave it. It's an ealtrap that makes it harder to escape the deeper you go. It mostly has to do with your listening history. I think I've told you this before, but it's so illustrative I use it again here. When I was young there were just vacuum tube radios where I lived. There were two main camps of buyers, the Grundy and the Philips camp. Grundy radios had a deep brown warm sound while Philips radios sounded open and bright. Both were far from high-fi and no one was right choosing one for the other. There were Grundy families and there were Philips families and of course there were those that went for the less popular brands, the non-conformists. Some children, when they got older for radios were expensive, that wanted to make the point against a family that they were different by choosing another brand their family didn't choose. Clearly demonstrating they didn't like the family bubble. A choice that didn't have anything to do with the sound character. Believe it or not, but there is a big chance that your auditory system is influenced more by your listening history than you think. Chances are you judge your stereo as a stereo, weighted against other stereos you have heard and not against real-life music. Take for instance the focusing of instruments in your stereo image, especially with an orchestra playing in a concert hall that normally is less focused than I hear in quality stereo setups. And what about a double bass in a jazz combo? You will sell them here that sound as dry and detailed in the real. You could of course say it's recorded wrongly, an argument that holds from a purest point of view. From the view that the recording is a perfect registration of what happened in the studio or on stage in the physical sense. But wouldn't it be more enjoyable if the recording gives you the experience of live music? A recording that is compensated for the lack of visual clues by slightly pushing the fader open instruments have a solo. By modifying early reflections in recordings for a more emerging and enjoyable acoustic environment. I'm very curious what you think of that. I'd love to hear from you in the comments, but please keep it civilized and motivate your opinions. And please no name-calling swearing or other misbehavior. In the comments I frequently see people that, being excited about products they have bought, produce a soulful comment in which that product or products are advocated as the best around. Despite whether that is true or not, I understand that. And I congratulate them for they are happy people enjoying music and or equipment to the max. But in the comments they pose a problem. Firstly, the standard maintained might not be yours. Liked it 100 euro RIM mini streamer that is applauded by many viewers. There are even those that think a higher quality is not possible and higher priced streamers are a rip-off. If that was the case, why did I buy a 10k streamer? Because I'm part of the scam? I don't think so. I'm too proud of my good name and standing. Luckily the difference between equipment of low price and high end gear is easily heard. While the RIM users are happy in their own bubble, and rightly so. Prejudices also play a big role, heavily spread by people advocating their findings on the web. You could say that of me too, but for me it's my profession and almost full time job. I also have access to people and products. I use investigative journalism techniques to enrich my knowledge. An example? Silver audio cables. Webmeats say that they sound sharp. And that's true for some cables. These cables sometimes are used to brighten up a stereo that sounds dull or lacks brightness. But pure silver is the best conductor there is, so how come? Well, silver cables seldom are pure silver. They often are an alloy with other metals to keep them affordable. Or they use silver-plated copper. In those cases the transitions between the silver and the other metal crystals behave like semiconductors, causing distortion. Minute, but enough for our ears to hear. Don't forget that our auditory system distills a lot of information from the attack of a signal. And it's that attack that can be influenced by the semiconductor behavior. But what if pure silver is used? Well, 100% pure silver is not obtainable for as far as I know, but they can come very close. It's hard to manufacture and will have oxide in between the crystals. That will cause corrosion so that the transition between the crystals again is not linear. As is done with copper, silver can be made oxygen free. Again, it's not cheap, but it sounds very good. Silver has developed a procedure to replace the oxygen by gold, and later even a monocrystal cable, so there is no transition between the crystals anymore, since there is only one. It's not cheap, think 10 to 25 k in euros for a 1 meter interconnect. But I'm sure you never say again that silver sounds sharp. The truth never is universal. Yes, the right tube amps that sounds wooly, but the good ones don't. Yes, transmission lines can sound tidy, but the modern transmission lines don't. My prejudice is class D amps. They color in the midrange but have a deep and firm lows. It's what I thought of class D for a long time and for quite some time it was true, but over time there came designs that lost the coloration in the midrange and kept the firm lows. Earlier experiences are no guarantee for correctness later on, so they must be kept up to date. It's one of the things I have to do to watch out for reviewing equipment. I recall in the 80s a CD player from a manufacturer that produced quite some very good CD players over the years. That one wasn't and then you start questioning yourself. Is it something I did wrong? Did I have a bad day? It can't be that player, can it? Luckily a colleague had the same experience. Well, if you now think it's a hassle to buy a good stereo, go to a good dealer and let him demonstrate some setups within your budget, or ask him to demonstrate the best setup he knows within 60% of your budget, and don't tell him it's 60%. Then ask him to do a demo with a setup one notch up. If you hear improvements and find it worthy extra money, buy it or ask for a demo of a setup yet another step up. If that's not possible or if you want to do it all yourself, since it's part of the fun and ideas, find good sources of info. There are no secrets, only things you don't know. Read and watch critically. Don't trust everything you read and hear, and the most important, deal with your own prejudices. Also be honest to yourself. It's no problem if the appearance of a device also is taken into account when buying new gear, but be honest about it to yourself and free yourself from any bubble. If you have the pleasure of having friends that also have hi-fi slash hi-end as a hobby, don't let them force you in their direction. That's another bubble you don't want to get caught in. Use your ears, inform yourself and make your choice. Try to have the gear demonstrated on the conditions you can relate to, or better, ask if you can try it at home. Which brings us to the end of this video. As usual, there will be a new video next Friday at 5pm central european time. If you don't want to miss that, subscribe to my channel or follow me on the social media so you will be informed when new videos are out. Help me reach even more people by giving this video a thumb up or link to this video on the social media. It is much appreciated. Many thanks to those viewers that support this channel financially. It keeps me independent and lets me improve the channel further. That makes you feel like supporting my work too. The links are in the comments below this video on YouTube. I'm Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you on the next show or on theHBproject.com. Whatever you do, enjoy the music.