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ColdPie
Jun 9, 2006

Collateral Damage posted:

Idea: Sell diesel generators for audiophiles, using marketing bullshit about how electricity from Big Power can't be trusted not to taint the sound.

Also recommend that for optimal quality they only run it on your brand name audiophile grade diesel.

Generator should be located within listening room for maximum results.

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Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!

88h88 posted:

I came to post this article but from WSJ: http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-gift-for-music-lovers-who-have-it-all-a-personal-utility-pole-1471189463

I'm impressed they'd even bother with such a request!



:v:

Check this other private pole dude out in his listening room;



No SCPH-1001, voted 1

Josh Lyman
May 24, 2009


$150 for a headphone stand that smushes your earcups, loving lol: https://www.massdrop.com/buy/sieveking-omega-headphone-stand?mode=guest_open

dc3k
Feb 18, 2003

what.

Josh Lyman posted:

$150 for a headphone stand that smushes your earcups, loving lol: https://www.massdrop.com/buy/sieveking-omega-headphone-stand?mode=guest_open

Looks like I saved myself $150



edit;
or you can just get the same drat thing from the same company on Amazon for 24 dollars https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F2L1NOO

dc3k fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Aug 21, 2016

Endless Mike
Aug 13, 2003



There's like a 90% chance the one on Amazon is a knockoff and a 100% chance that doesn't matter in the slightest.

dc3k
Feb 18, 2003

what.

Endless Mike posted:

There's like a 90% chance the one on Amazon is a knockoff and a 100% chance that doesn't matter in the slightest.

lol, I clicked the seller link and it's a shitload of juicers and blenders

evilcat
May 16, 2009
I think I found an all new level of insanity.

quote:

MIT Cables' core audio cable technology is our exclusive Poles of Articulation, named after the fact that every audio cable has a single point where it is most efficient at storing and transporting energy. At this point in the audio frequency spectrum, the cable will articulate best, and represents the cables' particular Articulation Pole.

Utilizing our Poles of Articulation, we can provide levels of performance for each listener’s needs, from our Oracle Series of interfaces for the ultimate experience, to our StyleLine series of interfaces for the budget-minded audiophile. Our newest SL-Matrix series of audio interfaces offers our legendary High End performance distilled down to more reasonable price points.

quote:

It's the difference between an audio cable and an audio interface.
That's right, all audio cables are just cables and will only send one part of the audio frequency range well, so they have cables made just to do something with that information and it changes gear from just a cable to an interconnect.
Possibly the best part is the product reflections done by in image of the product placed upside down under the other with a gap in between.

Have a speaker interconnect with a box!

Possibly best of all, it's a box that controls the articulation or something of the cables and you can turn on and off and adjust bass, mid and treble from dials on it. 200 hours of hand assembly of the internals and it doesn't actually seem to need external power, so it's either running off the amplifier output or it's mostly just cutting down certain ranges, probably with a crossover and resistors, or it's an empty box.
For $80k.

Of course they have a power delivery section. Were you expecting cables? Well, they also sell an orange duplex outlet with six parallel tuned LC circuits to cover the widest frequency range to eliminate all noise. Also it eliminates all common mode noise and differential mode noise and it won't limit dynamics or reflect noise back at the amplifier. For $300 each.


I... I don't even really know what to say, other than hoping their entire site is a hoax or someone seeing just what they can sell to people.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


MIT Cables are 100% serious, it's not a joke page.

BurritoJustice
Oct 9, 2012

Are the Yamaha NX-N500 actually good speakers or audiophile poppycock? I hear good things about the Yamaha passive stereo monitors, and my dad is looking at buying some open box NX-N500 for ~$700 AUD to replace his old (literally 1970s) Mordaunt-Shorts. He would actually use the networking and streaming bullshit, so I'm just asking if the monitors themselves are any good.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


I've only heard positive things about them. Based on their looks and some of the internal components, I'm fairly sure they share most major components with the HS50M or HS5 studio monitors, which are very highly regarded.

Animale
Sep 30, 2009
I just imported some Dynaudio Emit speakers from the UK, the shop I bought them from shipped pretty quickly and I received them a couple of days ago. They used the olde "gift" designation so I didn't have to worry about any additional duties from customs. All in all I ended up saving around $300 from the US price of the speakers after shipping so I highly recommend it. Note: if you end up importing use a card that has no foreign transaction fees.

As for the speakers, they're pretty great so far but most anything is better than the Polk T15's I've been meaning to replace for years.

evobatman
Jul 30, 2006

it means nothing, but says everything!
Pillbug
Hey guys, remember how audiophiles said that drawing in green marker on the edge of your CDs would somehow make them sound better?

Ever hear of Pioneers stable platter CD players, where you put in CDs upside down on a platter, and the laser sits above it like a turntable stylus?

What do you think happens when a wannabe audiophile idiot combines these two technologies?

:nms: http://imgur.com/gpRyYjj :nms:

I paid $5 for it untested at a flea market. In addition to cleaning green goo for hours, I also had to superglue the laser lens back in place, and the inside of the metal cover was covered in aluminum foil! It's like a bunch of idiots got together and made a list of the stupidest audiophile theories, because I can't see just one person making up such a bunch of idiocy!

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!
Weren't you supposed to use a Sharpie and not paint? :wtc:

evobatman
Jul 30, 2006

it means nothing, but says everything!
Pillbug

Panty Saluter posted:

Weren't you supposed to use a Sharpie and not paint? :wtc:

Yes, and you were supposed to do it on the CD, not on the player. And the laser on this player (Pioneer PD-9700) is nowhere near where the green paint is.

ynohtna
Feb 16, 2007

backwoods compatible
Illegal Hen
The placebo effect doubles when delivered by cargo cult!

Palladium
May 8, 2012

Very Good
✔️✔️✔️✔️

ColdPie posted:

Generator should be located within listening room for maximum results.

Carbon monoxide makes everything sounds better!

Storysmith
Dec 31, 2006

evilcat posted:

I think I found an all new level of insanity.


That's right, all audio cables are just cables and will only send one part of the audio frequency range well, so they have cables made just to do something with that information and it changes gear from just a cable to an interconnect.

It's like someone heard actual electrical engineers talking about poles and zeros while doing frequency analysis of electronics from the other side of an insulated hotel room wall and just went "I can make a product to do that."

synthetik
Feb 28, 2007

I forgive you, Will. Will you forgive me?
Kinda a takedown of a small 'audiophile' bullshit - response to an article applauding the removeal of the 3.5mm jack on the iphone7.

quote:

Hello Amy,
I recently read your article about the supposed improvements that Apple's decision creates. I am not very sure of your background in audio equipment and headphones specifically, but there seems to be a lot of major holes in your article that make it not very accurate.

Starting with "Apple designed its custom Lightning port to supply much more power to headphones than the traditional 3.5mm jack." This is simply not true. The power limit that an analog jack can provide is based solely on the amp. The jack it self has no impact on the power capabilities until you get into extremely higher voltage and current than any headphone will ever call for. You would lose your hearing and destroy the headphone driver before the current limit on the 3.5mm jack becomes an issue. As for, the lightning port, it will not be what powers headphones. It simply will provide power for whatever amp is integrated into the headphone, so there is much more to how much power there is; for example the efficiency of the amplifier stage of the headphone.

Secondly, "the audio signal is transferred to our headphones digitally—meaning that the signal isn’t degraded like it is with a traditional 3.5mm jack." Again, the analog jack does not degrade the audio signal, the jack is simply a conductor with negligible resistance, and virtually no effect on the audio signal. The only thing that will affect the analog signal is the DAC and amplifier stage inside a traditional phone with a 3.5mm jack. But you will have an amp and DAC in both cases, 3.5mm or wireless. The amp and DAC just move from in the phone, to being apart of the headphone. So either way the signal is analog at some point. As to why you berate the analog signal in a 3.5mm jack, but then go on to appreciate analog with " the smooth analogue sound we know", is uncertain to me.

You also state that the signal isn't degraded over either Lightning or Bluetooth. For Lightning that is true, but for Bluetooth it is not. Bluetooth was not originally designed as a digital audio medium. It was designed for much less information. So when you force high bit rate audio over it, it chokes. And while Bluetooth quality has increased with technological improvement over time, it will never be as strong as a wired direct digital connection.

The statement "the audio signals are decoded by the digital-analogue converter (DAC) in our headphones, pulling the bits apart and making them into the smooth analogue sound we know" again falls into the case that their was a DAC in both cases of 3.5mm or Apple. It again just changes where the DAC is located. And with an integrated DAC in the phone you at least get a DAC ofa level of quality that Apple is willing to sell. But when you put the DAC in the headphone, then the quality is not insured. It is another step in the chain that can cause quality reduction.

Here are some more quotes that were refuted by my earlier arguments.

"So, Lightning-connecting headphones and wireless headphones both offer superior quality over what you can get out of the 3.5mm jack."
"Wireless Bluetooth technology, too, offers more pristine quality"

Then you go on to state "Audio engineers are actually applauding Apple (the article you link here contradicts your point when it states "the research director for audio company Harman International, says the jack connector actually has little impact on acoustic quality") for scrapping the headphone jack, and the decision should delight hardcore music enthusiasts." I am not sure why audio engineers and audiophiles you are hearing this from, but every audio community that I am part of is giving it mixed reviews at best. Mainly because it is another adapter that is needed to integrate the iPhone into a traditional audio setup. And when you say it is an upgrade for those who "complained for years about mediocre sound quality coming out of their iPhones", this does not promise an increase. It will only allow for an increase in quality of the DAC and amp of the users headphones are better than what was in the prior iPhone. And any audiophile was likely using an external DAC/Amp with their previous phone so there is no increase.

Based on your statements and use of flowery description words and terms like "data transference", "decoded by the digital-analogue converter", "crystalline" you may be able to convince those who are audio ignorant that it is truly an increase, but that is lying and poor journalism.
I am curious as to what your experience in audio is? What sources provide the info that you based your article on? I don't think it is fair as an honest reporter (which I am sure you hope to be) to leave that article posted with all the misinformation in it.

Thank You


Original Article

GonadTheBallbarian
Jul 23, 2007


Nothing about that decision isn't completely hilarious

Dr. Fishopolis
Aug 31, 2004

ROBOT

synthetik posted:

Kinda a takedown of a small 'audiophile' bullshit - response to an article applauding the removeal of the 3.5mm jack on the iphone7.



Original Article

i dunno if that's audiophile bullshit as much as it is just lovely management. They tasked a design columnist to write about tech stuff, she clearly just doesn't know what she's talking about and cobbled together a bunch of random sources and marketing bullshit into an article. It happens all the time.

MrBond
Feb 19, 2004

FYI, Cheese NIPS are not the same as Cheez ITS
A friend of a friend on FB is losing his poo poo over the iPhone headphone jack and as part of that posted this:

quote:

Yes, that's what I'm saying - the actual device that turns an electrical signal into sound waves is an analogue device. There's no way around it. Those comments indicate to me that you've never heard a truly high-end analogue system. My current setup is a Well Tempered Versalex turntable with a Dynavector 20X2 cartridge and a Pass Labs Aleph Ono phono preamp. It has far better dynamics, stereo imaging, and overall musicality than any of the top-of-the-line digital sources from companies such as Naim, Krell, Wadia, Meridian, and Classé, and for about a quarter the price. Digital sampling introduces noise and distortion which has to be addressed through complex filtering and anti-aliasing. Some degree of jitter is present in all digital sources. It's worse when you're talking about wireless headphones, because the audio signal has to be packetized before transmission, then buffered and re-clocked inside the headphones, making the jitter miserable. The Bluetooth spec samples audio at around 8k, so there's a ton of distortion and about 2 octaves missing at the top end. Also the majority of "digital" headphones out there have a crappy DAC.

EL BROMANCE
Jun 10, 2006

COWABUNGA DUDES!
🥷🐢😬



Sounds exactly like the kind of person who'd sneer at playing music on an iPhone regardless.

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!
Imagine if someone told him that his precious vinyl was not a direct analog of the original sound but continuously encoded signal :smug:

e: or continuously modulated, I can't remember the exact term.

Panty Saluter fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Sep 11, 2016

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Panty Saluter posted:

Imagine if someone told him that his precious vinyl was not a direct analog of the original sound but continuously encoded signal :smug:

e: or continuously modulated, I can't remember the exact term.

Plus, most LPs released since the early/mid-80s have been mixed digitally, or at the very least been through a digital delay line during the cutting stage.

Only batshit insane audiophile labels use a 100% analog process these days.

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!
The most "purist" recording I ever heard was absolutely awful. It's a perfect example of someone recording based on an idea, and not on the actual result. The result was noisy (all you can hear is air moving around the room), screechy, and worst of all, completely flat. Of course they would have blamed that on the final product being on a CD, and not keeping the signal chain pure.

Palladium
May 8, 2012

Very Good
✔️✔️✔️✔️

synthetik posted:

Kinda a takedown of a small 'audiophile' bullshit - response to an article applauding the removeal of the 3.5mm jack on the iphone7.

Original Article



Kinda tangential but the Lightning->3.5mm dongle actually performs better than the 6S 3.5mm jack. Basically 2dB worse in useless dynamic range in exchange for a much, much more significant reduction in output impedance.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


They could just as easily have improved the built in socket to the same low impedance.

ColdPie
Jun 9, 2006

KozmoNaut posted:

They could just as easily have improved the built in socket to the same low impedance.

Sure, but how would they sell more Apple-owned Beats wireless headphones that way?

Dr. Fishopolis
Aug 31, 2004

ROBOT

KozmoNaut posted:

They could just as easily have improved the built in socket to the same low impedance.

The fact that the Axon 7 has a monstrously good amp in a competitively specced phone for $400 flat out kind of shits on the whole "there's no space” argument

Konstantin
Jun 20, 2005
And the Lord said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
In one of the most blatant audiophile money grabs yet, have a $90,000 digital audio player that only plays WAV or AIFF files from a SD card. The website has no actual technical specifications, but instead has claims like this:

quote:


The all-new Laminar Streamer finally solves the problem of digital audio harshness by using only a single clock source for the formation of the pristine digital audio stream. Although the device plays .wav and .aiff files off of SD cards, LessLoss did not incorporate the use of Windows, MAC OS, or Linux for its operating system. Instead, from ground up, a dedicated audiophile operating system was built, streamlined for the specialized task of serving the topmost quality data while avoiding jitter. Unlike any other computer audio playback system, the Laminar Streamer's operating system runs synchronously at the audio sampling rate via the very same high quality audio clock used for the formation of the audio data stream. Thus, a new level of quality is achieved in digital playback, previously unattainable due to the inherent complexity of running an OS clock and an audio clock separately. The intricacies of asynchronous re-clocking, buffering, and jitter reduction have been solved at their very source, a world first for digital audio!

The whole page is just one massive :psyduck:.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Translated: "We put a $2 off-the-shelf single-chip PCM playback board in a fancy enclosure"

TheMadMilkman
Dec 10, 2007

Konstantin posted:

In one of the most blatant audiophile money grabs yet, have a $90,000 digital audio player that only plays WAV or AIFF files from a SD card. The website has no actual technical specifications, but instead has claims like this:


The whole page is just one massive :psyduck:.

Hey now, that thing is future proof:

quote:

An expansion port is foreseen for a future remote control station, whose electrical contacts are optically decoupled to ensure no noise enters from there to the sensitive circuitry within the Laminar Streamer.

Also, that cheap LCD screen looks REALLY bad next to the polished wood and metal. Surely you can do better for $90k.

TheMadMilkman fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Nov 29, 2016

Storysmith
Dec 31, 2006

Uhhh, my eyes kinda slide around that page because of how mediocre everything is, but they're talking a lot about being able to choose your own DAC. Does that mean that that $90k doesn't even buy you the 50 precision resistors to make an R-2R? It's literally a hunk of ugly CNCed wood and some buttons and a uC that reads PCM samples off an SD card?

Pile Of Garbage
May 28, 2007



How anyone can look at this:



And see $90k worth of materials is insane.

But hey, audiophiles...

Collateral Damage
Jun 13, 2009

Remember these are the people who will pay thousands of dollars for a piece of hardwood with a lamp cable through it.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


This is not ridicule. This is awe and admiration and a lot of envy.





LSR6332 studio monitors

4645c subwoofer

And an LSR305 (and possibly a couple more as surrounds).

:circlefap:

KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Dec 4, 2016

GokieKS
Dec 15, 2012

Mostly Harmless.
Is that part of the wall just used as a projector screen? Because otherwise that single LSR305 has me thoroughly confused.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Yeah, that's what I gathered as well, it's both for movies and music.

metallicaeg
Nov 28, 2005

Evil Red Wings Owner Wario Lemieux Steals Stanley Cup
hahaha I just got this gem on a Massdrop comment page of all things:

No you are a "Digital Infallibility Computer Weenie" please silence your noob cheapskate nonsense. AUDIOPHILE IS GOD and all who defy it are merely the unwashed(by pure sound) masses. You have no taste and you disgust me.
OCC(Ohno Continuous Cast) Silver Plated copper wire does sound better and it is the best bang for the buck wire you can use for headphone cables and unshielded(or you could make a shield with spaghetti tubing aluminum powder and some other outer tubing like primoflex advanced lrt(expensive option but it shouldnt yellow as much over the years) yes this will make a very heavy and expensive interconnect but it will also have god shielding and is a near foolproof homebrew method which doesnt require expensive equipment. I've also been looking for aluminum flake like glitter but with no adulterants just pure aluminum flake like used in fireworks but this firework market also makes it more expensive looking for a cheap aluminum firework flake source or aluminum direct manufacturer contact but its not one of the easiest things to find on the internet for the same price you can buy aluminum powder(which is boring looking) on ebay.
Pure Silver OCC is even better but its prohibitively expensive(even when purchased directly from china) and unless its for a very short cable or internal component wiring the price will probably be too rich for your blood if you dont know this already and are a noob audiophile and flat wire is better than round wire and welding is better than tin solder even if its 5% silver solder but 5% silver solder is better than regular solder by a longshot tho hydraulic crimps and either sonic welding or microwelding are better still assuming you weld with copper or silver or the copper or silver wire directly to the connector. Silver is really amazing when it comes to audio people say its too bright but this is because they have listened to copper their entire lives. I find it just transmits more audio data(quantum level?) and is far more clear. I have also learned repairing things that often headphone manfacturer will pick a set of very bright drivers and then tone down the highs with some kind of low grade or resistive solder and this solder may even be tuned for a specific resistivity or frequency limitation like a bandpass filter because when I resolder these headphones cables back on the drivers with silver solder 5% they become way brighter at first you think its too much but even if you are forced to EQ the highs down the EQd down highs will sound better than the resistive solder they put on there and the bass will also have more punch and clarity not just in the highs but in the entire frequency range. So look out for that.
I also buy cheap trs jack splitters from china off ebay and tin all the internal brass vias inside with 5% silver solder and it makes them sound a million times better. I would love to read a study testing various levels of silver solder or brazing with silver rod or welding and various concentrations to see where the most performance occurs because if just 5% in solder does so much I think just a small amount of silver atoms greatly increases some aspect of the entire piece. Just like a power cable will make gear sound better you have to remember ac the electrons just go back and forth and electrons travel like 8cm per hour give or take so its just the wave transmitting the data then why does a well constructed power cable make the piece of gear sound better? Better geometry of the wires and more uniformity of electron flow? Pools of electrons? the real audiophile gurus already know allot of these things but the noobs just blow off what they dont understand because its not taught in school but when you play with things in the real world you find these things do work and so there has to be an explanation you are not taught and also basic electricity does not teach you every aspect of a circuit(and all the resulting attributes and specs and readings when you make adjustments). They still discover new things about electricity all the time especially as they shrink electronics smaller and smaller and I'm sorry audiophile gear always sounds far better its easy to hear the difference the first time you listen to it. The devil is always in the details and audiophiles and equipment manufacturers are just people who study these tricks and details and the result is clearer and more engaging sound.

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KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Wow, that is some deep Time Cube-type alchemical voodoo poo poo.

It's up there with a certain batshit insane contingent of Danish audiophiles, who worship everything related to some engineer named Duelund. He did all kinds of weird poo poo, homemade cables with linseed oil-impregnated paper and silk for insulation, modifying speakers so the cones were suspended with sewing thread instead the usual spider arrangement, and all kinds of poo poo. The man himself passed away some years ago, but the bullshit lives on in the form of Duelund Coherent Audio.

The product description for their flagship capacitor is something to behold: http://duelundaudio.com/cast-capacitor/

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