How do $1,000 aftermarket wooden knobs (with no detectable physical effect) differ from, say, a $1,000 bottle of wine (which cannot be distinguished in a blind taste test from a $5 bottle)?
They're just class signifiers. The difference I see is that audiophiles are less prestigious than oenophiles, but I don't see how you get from there to "audiophiles have a mental illness".
> say, a $1,000 bottle of wine (which cannot be distinguished in a blind taste test from a $5 bottle)?
Well for one thing, that's wrong- distinguishing wine is easy. Even people who are just pretty into wine can identify different vinyards etc. and actual sommeliers can nail wine down to the year it was bottled and the conditions it was stored[1].
The thing you're referring to is that when you line up regular people and give them $5 and $1000 bottles of wine, they will rank them in essentially random order. That should be no surprise at all. People have their own favorites. When you line up experts, they can differentiate cheap wine from expensive wine, but inside a broad category (say $200-$1000) they will rank essentially randomly. Again, that shouldn't be surprising at all, because "quality" itself isn't what's being paid for or looked for. Each wine is developed for a taste, not for some abstract quality metric that is the exact same for every wine.
Normal audiophiles will typically aim for objective metrics like THD, but the extreme guys are often aiming for subjective/vague things like timbre, color and soundstage. That leads to some esotericism. They also tend to have gobs of money to throw at this stuff, so a $1000 knob may be more about getting exactly what you want, or even just prestige. Both rational choices. Regardless, its inherently way more absurd than wine because even audiophiles with the most virgin ears will get nothing from .001% THD (very high end) vs <.0001% THD (verging on a lab setup), and virtually all will get nothing from <.01% THD. On the other hand, wine fanatics who have found their favorite wine will be able to recognize it quite accurately.
> The two wines were actually the same white wine as before, but one was dyed with tasteless red food coloring
Yes, Oenologists assumed that the wine which was red was actually... red wine. This study is always quoted and is a sham IMO. What this is saying more than anything is "the placebo affect does work." which is totally true.
But IMO it doesn't say a whole lot about wine tasting being BS.
They were students and as such did not dare to question authority or were afraid to make a fool of themselves.
This "study" has no value. I can certainly distinguish between the average $10 bottle and $50 bottle.
Actually the study does have a value: It induces people to think there are no differences between wines and keeps the prices for the good stuff lower. So please continue to post it.
> Normal audiophiles will typically aim for objective metrics like THD, but the extreme guys are often aiming for subjective/vague things like timbre, color and soundstage.
They should probably be using $200 equalizers to get that, not buying $10000 components where more than half of them couldn't possibly change the sound.
What I find interesting is that equalization seems to be looked down on among a lot of audiophiles. If you don't like how your $2000 amplifier is voiced, get a different one instead of dropping a cheap equalizer inline.
A $1000 bottle of wine is going to be from a specific year, from a specific vineyard. There's naturally a limited supply, so price will increase with demand like any collectible.
A wooden knob is not unique and anyone could manufacture an unlimited amount at low cost.
Oh, clearly you haven’t dug deeply enough. The wood is handchosen to minimize resonance, handcrafted by an artisan coming from a generation of Italian woodworkers, etc etc. Exactly the same as wine.
There is no natural limit on bottles that are labeled with a specific year and a specific vineyard. The only way to know the label is genuine is the stringent chain-of-custody requirements that have become normal in the world of expensive artwork under pressure from forgeries. As far as I know, those are not yet the norm for wine.
I wouldn't say they are the norm, but they're certainly expected by any re-seller (auction house, retailer, restaurant) when dealing with the highest echelon of wine (1st Growth Bordeaux, Premier Cru Burgundy, Vintage Champagne) they'll also expect a description of the storage conditions over time.
See the documentary Sour Grapes to understand how this system was undermined and trust evaporated from the industry.
I've had a $400 bottle of scotch (37 yr McCallan over 15 years ago), and it was significantly better than the 18 yr old you could get at the time for about $120. Was it worth it? Yes-once. I wouldn't do it again, but I enjoyed that bottle over a 3 month period.
I understand what you mean, but just for the record, professional winetasters can pretty much guess which part of land in a given region a wine comes from in blind tests. So, i can tell you that there is a huge difference between a bottle labelled 1000$ and a 5$ one.
One telling indicator is that wine does practice blind tests a lot, and has blind test wine competitions that lead to prices, that help small wine producers get their brand recognized ( search for wine labelled with « medaille d’argent » or « medaille d’or » of any french wine contest and you won’t be disappointed) .
There's a slight difference. AFAIK oenophiles don't typically try to use pseudoscience to justify their purchases (or encourage others to make purchases)
If someone told me I should buy a wine because the doorknobs in the winery were special wooden knobs I would also question their judgement/sanity.
You evidently haven't encountered the biodynamic viticulture people, who are everywhere these days. They will tell you to buy a wine because its grapes were harvested when the stars were in a particular alignment and the moonlight a particular intensity.
It would be like if the $5 bottle was glass, and the $1000 bottle contained the same wine in a special wooden bottle that allegedly dampened any disruptive vibrations without any research at all.
$5 is tough to hit. My 'cheap' goto is anything from Rosemount. It's in the $10 range, and is consistently good. The shiraz was their original known variety, but they have others now.
It also used to be cheaper at just under $10, but popularity pushed the price up.
"I don't share these values, the person must be mentally ill. Wine is not at all the same thing, because let me explain my values which are obviously universal."
I don't know enough about wine, but judgding from experience, I can definetly tell the $1,000 and $20,000 whisky bottles apart by taste. And controlled double blind studies usually tell the same story: people can taste them apart.
Good point. I think that by their logic selling "enthusiast" versions of anything will almost always be classifiable as a practice that "preys upon the mentally ill".
They're just class signifiers. The difference I see is that audiophiles are less prestigious than oenophiles, but I don't see how you get from there to "audiophiles have a mental illness".