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grack
Jan 10, 2012

COACH TOTORO SAY REFEREE CAN BANISH WHISTLE TO LAND OF WIND AND GHOSTS!

KozmoNaut posted:

I'm just angry that I'm not in on the cable racket.

Just think, you could go to the hardware store and get some lamp cord, decent-looking connectors, a bit of garden hose, some fancy-looking wrapping and hot glue, and you can make 500% profit on selling power cords to idiotic audiophiles!

(I'm sure there are rules and regulations for power cords, though. So it may be best to stick with speaker wire and "interconnects")

Don't forget to stick 'em in your freezer for a couple of hours so you can claim they're "cryo treated"

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KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Allow me to quote myself from one of the other AV threads:

KozmoNaut posted:

MMD3 posted:

this is why I still go to SA over more specialized messageboards, this made me chortle something fierce

It's infinitely better than dedicated AV boards (possibly excepting hydrogenaudio), that's for sure.

Here, we are spared the horrors of 27-page threads discussing the best power cables for your hifi, how to convince an electrician to wire up a completely separate dedicated 32A circuit for AV equipment, whether circuit breakers or fuses in the breaker panel give the best sound and which order to plug the devices into audiophile power strips for the best sound. In the last of couple of pages it even veered into discussion about the best polishing compounds to polish the fuses in the breaker panel for the best sound :pwn:

Please note that I am not exaggerating even a little bit. They are literally that insane.

longview
Dec 25, 2006

heh.
has anyone tried to sell blackberry as the greatest low-jitter audiophile grade experience yet? it's literally a real time OS

if you really want to make a really pro looking cable, look no further than shrink tubing with glue inside.
I bought some $300 RF cables and the professional grade cable strain relief was a couple of layers of that shrink tubing (not complaining, it's good stuff), of course designing an 18 GHz test cable is nothing compared to getting a wide sound-stage so what do RF cable designers know?

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Here's some more jitter nonsense:

http://www.audiostream.com/content/ps-audio-and-ted-smith-jitter

This guy claims that he can hear 0.2 picoseconds of jitter. That's 1/5000000000000th of a second of jitter. Amazing!

He also claims that jitter affects whether people tap their toes to music.

E: I managed to get the cable nonsense thread closed, but not until after I was "challenged" to post pictures and descriptions of my setup, most likely in the hope that the challenger could shoot it down as obviously inferior for critical power cord listening. He even wanted to come by and have me listen to my own system with his power cords. Joke's on him if he even shows up, though, everything is powered by integrated cables, wall warts and USB power :v:

KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Feb 2, 2014

RoadCrewWorker
Nov 19, 2007

camels aren't so great
That man is clearly a being beyond our understanding, his head has evolved to self-embedd in majestic sound-insulation.

e: Actually that makes me curious, what are audiophiles' feelings on all that noisy biological crap (blood gushing, air flushing, muscle tension/vibration, heart beating) that pollutes their sound receiving organ via direct mechanical transmission? Has someone offered literal snake oil to self-insulate your organs or dampen your inherent noise-generators?

RoadCrewWorker fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Feb 2, 2014

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Someone clearly needs to market Audiophile Herptile Lubricant, laced with cyanide to cut out all those biological noise sources.

Combat Pretzel
Jun 23, 2004

No, seriously... what kurds?!

KozmoNaut posted:

This guy claims that he can hear 0.2 picoseconds of jitter. That's 1/5000000000000th of a second of jitter. Amazing!
It also implies he could discern between sampling rates up to 5 terahertz. --edit: No wai, forgot Nyquist... So 10 terahertz. What a moron.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibmETcjcWdg

brb buying brass screws :pwn:

AlternateAccount
Apr 25, 2005
FYGM

KozmoNaut posted:

Here's some more jitter nonsense:

This guy claims that he can hear 0.2 picoseconds of jitter. That's 1/5000000000000th of a second of jitter. Amazing!

Uhhh, at that point micro-temperature fluctuations in the air of a thousandth of a degree with affect the density of the air enough to change the speed of sound enough to cause more than .2 picoseconds of variation in waves hitting your ears.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Well, I certainly managed to get banned from a local audiophile forum today. Apparently, trying to bring facts into the discussion was not well-received. Especially with such a touchy and "controversial" subject as power cables :rolleyes:

Oddly enough, a fair number of user kinda sorta agreed with me, but as soon as the Big Bad Site Owner And Administrator For Life entered the discussion, everyone fell back to parroting the party line of "cheap power cables bad, expensive power cables good".

I'm pretty sure all of the "reviews" posted on the site are paid puff pieces anyway, and they're all written by the site owner.

Oh well, good riddance, that site has been rotten for years. Such a shame, since it used to be a semi-decent discussion forum.

LRADIKAL
Jun 10, 2001

Fun Shoe
Name. Shame.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


The forum is Hifi4All.dk, and the administrator is Mikkel Gige.

Dunno how much good that'll do for people who don't speak Danish, since anyone even slightly involved in the Danish hifi scene already knows his site and him by name, and what an outright dictator he is. Not to mention his sponsored equipment "reviews", which he continues to vehemently deny receiving manufacturer/reseller payment for at every possible opportunity, provoked or non-provoked.

(Yes, I am aware of the severe irony in naming a highly exclusionary website "Hifi4All")

KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 11:22 on Feb 16, 2014

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Oh wow, I just received an email from the admin and Dictator For Life of the site.

Apparently I have a severe social disorder that causes me to disturb any serious discussion and makes me unworthy to participate in any online discussion forum. Furthermore, I seem have my opinions set in stone and am completely unable to accept arguments that do not fit into my tiny fact-based worldview. According to him, my inability to accept common audiophile "wisdom" is because I am hampered by my education and knowledge of electronics and digital technology. (Apparently facts get in the way of true audio nirvana)

Even better, because I speak fondly of studio monitors as high-quality loudspeakers for music playback that are often better than what the hi-fi world can offer at the same price level, I am completely unable to grasp the intricate world of high fidelity home audio.

What a massive steaming shitlord of a wannabe dictator.

(I may have replied to the above-mentioned mail and called him a fascist dictator with no sense of reality and a massive Napoleon complex. I can't help it, I have a severe social disorder, you know.)

E: And I received a reply almost instantly. It says "You're just another hater, but do you even have a website? I do!"

:rolleyes:

KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 13:23 on Feb 16, 2014

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

Well, do you?

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Jerry Cotton posted:

Well, do you?

I think I had one back in 7th grade or something. It was hosted on Freeserve and functioned as a way to upload funny pictures to share with people before Imgur, Photobucket, Flickr and the like became popular.

But these days? No, and it is a constant source of anguish and personal suffering that I am apparently completely unable to write basic HTML and upload it to a cheap hosting provider. But I try to keep the pain inside.

Combat Pretzel
Jun 23, 2004

No, seriously... what kurds?!
A while ago I used this argument, altho it was in a discussion about dowsing, but I suppose it would apply to audiophiles, too:

The science community can show you the edge of the visible universe, some loving 46 billion lightyears away, by capturing stray photons, reliably slingshotting metal boxes around objects several hundred million kilometers away, reliably accelerate matter to lightspeed on a very tight circular part, then have them collide and explode into tons of inconceivably tiny subatomar particles and measure their mass and flight paths... and you're telling me that [insert idiotic pseudoscientific topic] eludes them?

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Yet another event unfolds!

My other, personal mail address (the one I didn't use to sign up for the website, and which he should have no knowledge of) just received a mail from the admin dictator dude, apparently because I posted a negative review of his site on Trustpilot. Here is the email he sent me, in full Google translation:

quote:

Hello [my real name]!

How sad it is that you can not just drop it and move on ... you must partout out in the big Internet, and sending a mess off. You hold grudges, and it is one of the saddest features of people with lust and greed. Thus, you have once again confirmed my fears ... you're no better than screaming chorus of Nerds!

I feel sorry for you and I hope you find peace with the situation. Otherwise, life becomes a continuous ride uphill. Do not nagged control you. Find peace in that it is not required to be accepted by all. Recognition is good, while longing for it, is a disease ...

If you think that you hit me this way, then you are wrong. You just tells the world that you are filled with rancor and revenge. You put not me in a bad light ... only yourself.

Have a good time and find peace in their lives - which I sincerely believe!

Sincerely,
Mikkel Gige
Owner & Editor

So yeah, internet stalking can be added to his list of personal faults.

KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Feb 16, 2014

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

I bet stalking you and composing emails heightens his senses, and lends a scintillating depth to the perceived soundstage of his anime soundtracks. It's only a short step from here to the tears of orphans

Dunite
Oct 12, 2013
I'm curious with the way some audiophiles display a blind ignorance to a well presented argument.

Their absolute belief in the doctrine borderlines on religion almost.
Is it because these people are just ignorant or is it a deeper social issue of people not trusting science?

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Some of it comes from being part of an echo chamber, where people continuously praise the "right" products and manufacturers, in part spurred on by sponsored puff piece "reviews" and shills.

Couple this with the basic human need to be special in some way, and this leads to some audiofiles claiming in all seriousness that their ears are finer measuring instruments than anything science could ever come up with. They reject everything they don't understand and criticize everything outside their sphere of understanding as made up nonsense. Trying to explain the well-established performance parameters of a common power cable (of which only resistance really matters) is met with derision and cries of "just use your ears!".

There's also a certain inherent "specialness" to preferring vinyl playback. In the olden days of purely analog sound, some tweaks could indeed chance the sound. A good example is better-quality interconnects for turntables, because they operate at much lower levels the modern line level equipment, and are thus much more vulnerable to noise. Thus, you could be "part of the club" if you took more care in your audio system than most people did, and more often than not you would actually get a marginally better sound quality from your tweaks. Today, they think everything is too easy, it's almost a no-brainer to connect an MP3 player to any old amp and a set of decent speakers and get good quality sound. They also seem to be stuck in the bad old days of 128kbit Xing-encoded Napster MP3s in their critiques of digital audio formats. They're luddites who see anything new as dangerous and to be avoided.

And then you have the blindly devoted brand-specific crazies. Take the Linn/Naim crowd for examples, the so-called "flat-earthers". They literally believe that "pace, rhythm and timing" are valid performance parameters for amplifiers and digital media players. (It's humorously shortened as "PRaT")

And don't get me started on the completely basic misunderstandings about digital audio ("it's all stairsteps and squares!") that continue to reverberate in the audiophile echo chamber, despite extremely informational videos such as this http://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml being presented to them. Even my dad believes in that "stairsteps" bullshit, and he's normally a very rational and well-grounded person in these matters.

KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Feb 16, 2014

Dunite
Oct 12, 2013
Thanks dashing my faith in humanity to ever be rational in the next 50 years.

If people who can afford to be audiophiles are hopelessly ignorant my hopes for the lower class to drag themselves up is all lost.

Luckily I can bury myself from the world in my Ortho and never have to listen to hopeless cries against science and enlightenment.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Here, have some more faith-dashing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs1aUws0Lrs

Audiophilia is a bit like gout: A disease for rich old white men.

slothzilla
Dec 19, 2003

Dunite posted:

I'm curious with the way some audiophiles display a blind ignorance to a well presented argument.

Their absolute belief in the doctrine borderlines on religion almost.
Is it because these people are just ignorant or is it a deeper social issue of people not trusting science?

I think the audiophile phenomena has very little to do with logic and most everything to do with emotion.

There is a lot of good research about the power of confirmation bias (people trust things they already believe to be true and disregard opposing views), so rational argumentation will never be received well. Especially when people get together and reinforce their stupid ideas.

Combined that with studies that show people enjoy things more simply because they are more expensive (when people taste test wine, if researchers tell them that one sample is more expensive --even if they are actually the same wine-- people will report that it tastes better).

And no one likes to be wrong, especially when being wrong would mean that they have wasted a shitload of money.

I'm trying to think of some kind of interference that I could market with pseudoscience that I could sell to audiophiles. Seems like a great opportunity to take money from old rich assholes.

Maybe long waves from geothermal activity? Solar flares?

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Dunite posted:

If people who can afford to be audiophiles are hopelessly ignorant my hopes for the lower class to drag themselves up is all lost.

Uh you know that social inequality actively works against reason and meritocracy, right? People with privilege tend to be completely blind to it, and are more likely to believe they're where they are because they're special, and not because of the social position they were born into. Having money doesn't make you a more rational and self-aware person, if anything it's more likely to give you an unfounded sense of superiority.

Hence people spending ridiculous amounts of wealth on magic beans that only they can truly appreciate - everyone else is just jealous that they can't hear it/can't afford it

GonadTheBallbarian
Jul 23, 2007


slothzilla posted:

I think the audiophile phenomena has very little to do with logic and most everything to do with emotion.

There is a lot of good research about the power of confirmation bias (people trust things they already believe to be true and disregard opposing views), so rational argumentation will never be received well. Especially when people get together and reinforce their stupid ideas.

Combined that with studies that show people enjoy things more simply because they are more expensive (when people taste test wine, if researchers tell them that one sample is more expensive --even if they are actually the same wine-- people will report that it tastes better).

And no one likes to be wrong, especially when being wrong would mean that they have wasted a shitload of money.

I'm trying to think of some kind of interference that I could market with pseudoscience that I could sell to audiophiles. Seems like a great opportunity to take money from old rich assholes.

Maybe long waves from geothermal activity? Solar flares?

I'd be willing to bet an amp with a solar battery and low power opamp chips could be marketed as the "best of both worlds" with high, sustainable performance driven by the cleanest possible power source, the sun! Think your music was warm before? Try driving your cans with power from a thing with a surface temp of 5778 degrees Kelvin!

Ugh.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Here you go, an amplifier with a built-in battery, so you can listen to your music without all that nasty power line noise infesting your clarity and focus:

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/redwine8/302.html

There's a used one for sale locally at ~$1850, which I admit is peanuts compared to other similar products. One could even says it's a steal a that price!

KillHour
Oct 28, 2007



Thanks for this, it was super informative. I have no electrical engineering background, so I didn't know most of this stuff.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


KillHour posted:

Thanks for this, it was super informative. I have no electrical engineering background, so I didn't know most of this stuff.

This one is also good, a complete debunking of 24bit and high samplerate audio for playback:

http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

TomR
Apr 1, 2003
I both own and operate a pirate ship.

KozmoNaut posted:

This one is also good, a complete debunking of 24bit and high samplerate audio for playback:

http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

I'm glad you posted this. A while ago I got a 24bit DAC so I downloaded some 24bit music and I didn't think it sounded any better.

Mister Kingdom
Dec 14, 2005

And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

KozmoNaut posted:

Yet another event unfolds!

My other, personal mail address (the one I didn't use to sign up for the website, and which he should have no knowledge of) just received a mail from the admin dictator dude, apparently because I posted a negative review of his site on Trustpilot. Here is the email he sent me, in full Google translation:


So yeah, internet stalking can be added to his list of personal faults.

I like to think this guy is sitting in his audio room stroking his $10,000 power cables and whispering, "It's okay, my babies, the mean man won't bother us anymore" while softly crying to himself.

And masturbating.

KillHour
Oct 28, 2007


TomR posted:

I'm glad you posted this. A while ago I got a 24bit DAC so I downloaded some 24bit music and I didn't think it sounded any better.

The point of 24 a bit DAC is that you have 8 bits that you can dedicate to changing volume on the computer without affecting sound quality. Obviously, that still means that music encoded beyond 16 bits is still pointless.

TomR
Apr 1, 2003
I both own and operate a pirate ship.
Yeah, I knew that when I got it. I just wanted to see. The video posted earlier explains bit depth and noise floor very well. I'm glad I watched it.

I can understand why people would start to believe in crazy voodoo magic for their audio hobby. Once you get a decent stereo there isn't a lot of tinkering you can do that will help, unless you want to have a dedicated listening room and do sound treatments. But I suspect most of the audiophiles would rather have a fancy looking room than do anything meaningful.

BANME.sh
Jan 23, 2008

What is this??
Are you some kind of hypnotist??
Grimey Drawer
Like most people with more money than sense, audiophiles seem to have the ugliest room setups imaginable. $10,000 stereo sitting on a $10 component stand. Cables strung all over the place, half of everything just sitting on the floor.

BigFactory
Sep 17, 2002

BANME.sh posted:

Like most people with more money than sense, audiophiles seem to have the ugliest room setups imaginable. $10,000 stereo sitting on a $10 component stand. Cables strung all over the place, half of everything just sitting on the floor.

Lots and lots of bare eggcrate on the walls, in no particular order.

Terminal Entropy
Dec 26, 2012

BigFactory posted:

Lots and lots of bare eggcrate on the walls, in no particular order.

"Now offering acoustic padding arrangement service! We are the Feng shui of audio, only instead of New Age mysticism we use the proven science of Fibonacci sequences and the Golden Ratio to give the final touch you need for perfect listening."

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

BigFactory posted:

Lots and lots of bare eggcrate on the walls, in no particular order.

For the best effect one should only use free-range chicken egg crates. Affix to the wall with Sikaflex 291, Sikaflex 290 is inferior for audio purposes.

A Lone Girl Flier
Sep 29, 2009

This post is dedicated to all those who fell by the forums, for nothing is wasted, and every apparent failure is but a challenge to others.
Did you know the performance of your audio investment is suffering due to acoustic oxidisation? Just like iron, sound waves rust. Our solution to this age old problem is simple. We come to your house, make your hifi room airtight and replace the inferior existing atmosphere with a pure nitrogen solution. You know how the nitrogen bubbles in a pint of Guinness give it that unique smoothness only nitrogen can provide? Our service does the same to your listening station.

After you've tested this amazing new tweak for a few minutes, you will never want for any audio improvements again!

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


:homebrew: :shepspends:

Put that on a website, jazz up the prose with some choice audiophile terms and you'll be rolling in dough in no time.

Start here: http://www.head-fi.org/t/220770/describing-sound-a-glossary

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


The saga continues to unfold!

(Google translations ahead)

quote:

Hello [my real name]!

I'm getting a little worried about the developing situation , after you have created a review on Trustpilot , and thus chose to pull it out in the public domain. And to fix it with a coarser and coarser wording. I have contacted Trustpilot several times since your opinions approaching slander and libel.

You interpret the east and west of our - private - dialogue via email and it will and I can not put up with . I have not a single place called mentally ill, but points out that your behavior similar to that. And your behavior and your opinions beneficial even your own reputation.

I hope Trustpilot resolve the situation . If not , I'll have to contact my lawyer because neither I nor Hifi4all be described in this way in the public domain.

It may also mean that my lawyer will contact you. But hopefully it can be solved by concerted action within ...

Therefore, I would encourage you to focus your review on Trustpilot so that this does not include mention of our - private - dialogue, and stick to the facts.

I have still chosen , still keeping the dialogue between you and me , as it does not benefit anyone to hang each other out on public display . I hope you can see the sense in this. Otherwise we will have the acidic road ...

Sincerely ,
Mikkel Gige

Owner & Editor

So yeah, now he's threatening legal action based on the review that I posted on Trustpilot. I will admit to using a bit of harsh language in the original review, which I have since amended to the following:

quote:

This is not so much on the page itself , but most of the holder as his personality and way of doing next to impossible any serious debate .

The owner has succeeded in breeding a culture where common sense and good culture of debate is thrown overboard in favor of blind faith in supernatural explanations for everything from power cables for analog / digital recording techniques . Attempts factual debate or fact-based arguments are met with derision and if you have an opinion that does not conform with the proprietor superstition and attitudes so threatened you with excommunication from the side if you do not align .

I was banned from the page to make use of facts in my argument and not to believe in expensive power cables' "magical" properties. Subsequently, I received one perfidious and accusatory email after another, the holder accuses me of having deep social behavioral problems and to have trouble communicating with other civilized people.

Addition: I have after writing this review received several emails from the holder , where he is accusing me of doing personal smear campaign against him and to have even more undiagnosed mental disorders. This serves as further evidence of the complete lack of good manners and decent treatment of fellow human beings, be exercised by the holder of Hifi4All . The holder has repeatedly complained about this review and tried to get it removed.

If I wasn't 100% sure before, now I am completely convinced that he is mentally ill and completely unable to accept any kind of critique.

I will continue to completely ignore his ramblings, and keep the trustpilot review online.

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LRADIKAL
Jun 10, 2001

Fun Shoe
You should link him this thread, LT loves legal threats.

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