Audiophile here - if they were using a proper master, minimally a true lossless file I don’t really see the problem.
On the other hand, it seems to me like I meet more people who are just into buying new gear rather than enjoying the music, which is what the hobby is to me. Don’t even get me started on snake oil like cables.
Depends on the signal level and the impedance. For speaker cables, all you need is a big enough gauge to carry the current. But for low level signals, especially less than line level (magnetic phono cartridges, microphones, guitar pickups) a good quality cable with proper impedance and low capacitance can make a big difference. If you look at professional studio and broadcast supply catalogs, you will see mic cables with a specified capacitance per foot -- that's a spec that engineers look for. And I can personally vouch that an expensive guitar cable sounds better than a cheap one -- I was a skeptic until I tried one, and compared it with the standard cable I had been using. The difference wasn't subtle.
The average person buying $2000 snake oil cables have no idea about impedance or capacitance. I’m not talking about studio professionals buying gear here.
Idk what the cheap guitar cable was but any decent guitar cable will be indistinguishable from an expensive ass cable sonically. This doesn’t take into account better quality of construction and better connectors etc.
Depends on the music. 320k mp3 is actually pretty good.
Anyway in this case I want a studio promising that their records were pressed from a high quality master to actually use a high quality master. It doesn’t matter if I can’t distinguish it.
Just because a Camry can also transport my ass from a to b does not mean the Porsche dealership gets to sell me one over another car I specifically wanted.
Yes, this is a very important point that a lot of people miss. How are people supposed to learn to appreciate a genuine thing is if they are constantly swindled?
Also, people are not rational beings first and foremost. Sentimentalism makes them vulnerable, but that shouldn't mean that it's open season for swindlers. I can make my origami from any paper basically, but it feels good in a certain way to order special paper from Japan just for this reason. And I'd feel cheated if the paper turned out to be from anywhere else - despite being no different on a material level.
