What annoys me today in marketing and media that too often today then talking on hi-fi, science is replaced by bizarre belief structures and marketing fluff, leading to a decades-long stagnation of the audiophile domain. Science makes progress, pseudo-science doesn’t. Hi-fi world is filled by pseudoscience, dogma and fruitloopery to the extent that it resembles a fundamentalist religion. Loudspeaker performance hasn’t tangibly improved in forty years and vast sums are spent addressing the wrong problems.
Business for Engineers: Marketers Lie article points tout that marketing tells lies — falsehoods — things that serve to convey a false impression. Marketing’s purpose is to determining how the product will be branded, positioned, and sold. It seems that there too many snake oil rubbish products marketed in the name of hifi. It is irritating to watch the stupid people in the world be fooled.
In EEVblog #29 – Audiophile Audiophoolery video David L. Jones (from EEVBlog) cuts loose on the Golden Ear Audiophiles and all their Audiophoolery snake oil rubbish. The information presented in Dave’s unique non-scripted overly enthusiastic style! He’s an enthusiastic chap, but couldn’t agree more with many of the opinions he expressed: Directional cables, thousand dollar IEC power cables, and all that rubbish. Monster Cable gets mostered. Note what he says right at the end: “If you pay ridiculous money for these cable you will hear a difference, but don’t expect your friends to”. If you want to believe, you will.
My points on hifi-nonsense:
One of the tenets of audiophile systems is that they are assembled from components, allegedly so that the user can “choose” the best combination. This is pretty largely a myth. The main advantage of component systems is that the dealer can sell ridiculously expensive cables, hand-knitted by Peruvian virgins and soaked in snake oil, to connect it all up. Say goodbye to the noughties: Yesterday’s hi-fi biz is BUSTED, bro article asks are the days of floorstanders and separates numbered? If traditional two-channel audio does have a future, then it could be as the preserve of high resolution audio. Sony has taken the industry lead in High-Res Audio.
HIFI Cable Humbug and Snake oil etc. blog posting rightly points out that there is too much emphasis placed on spending huge sums of money on HIFI cables. Most of what is written about this subject is complete tripe. HIFI magazines promote myths about the benefits of all sorts of equipment. I am as amazed as the writer that that so called audiophiles and HIFI journalists can be fooled into thinking that very expensive speaker cables etc. improve performance. I generally agree – most of this expensive interconnect cable stuff is just plain overpriced.
I can agree that in analogue interconnect cables there are few cases where better cables can really result in cleaner sound, but usually getting any noticeable difference needs that the one you compare with was very bad yo start with (clearly too thin speaker wires with resistance, interconnect that picks interference etc..) or the equipment in the systems are so that they are overly-sensitive to cable characteristics (generally bad equipment designs can make for example cable capacitance affect 100 times or more than it should). Definitely too much snake oil. Good solid engineering is all that is required (like keep LCR low, Teflon or other good insulation, shielding if required, proper gauge for application and the distance traveled). Geometry is a factor but not in the same sense these yahoos preach and deceive.
In digital interconnect cables story is different than on those analogue interconnect cables. Generally in digital interconnect cables the communication either works, does not work or sometimes work unreliably. The digital cable either gets the bits to the other end or not, it does not magically alter the sound that goes through the cable. You need to have active electronics like digital signal processor to change the tone of the audio signal traveling on the digital cable, cable will just not do that.
But this digital interconnect cables characteristics has not stopped hifi marketers to make very expensive cable products that are marketed with unbelievable claims. Ethernet has come to audio world, so there are hifi Ethernet cables. How about 500 dollar Ethernet cable? That’s ridiculous. And it’s only 1.5 meters. Then how about $10,000 audiophile ethernet cable? Bias your dielectrics with the Dielectric-Bias ethernet cable from AudioQuest: “When insulation is unbiased, it slows down parts of the signal differently, a big problem for very time-sensitive multi-octave audio.” I see this as complete marketing crap speak. It seems that they’re made for gullible idiots. No professional would EVER waste money on those cables. Audioquest even produces iPhone sync cables in similar price ranges.
HIFI Cable insulators/supports (expensive blocks that keep cables few centimeters off the floor) are a product category I don’t get. They typically claim to offer incredible performance as well as appealing appearance. Conventional cable isolation theory holds that optimal cable performance can be achieved by elevating cables from the floor in an attempt to control vibrations and manage static fields. Typical cable elevators are made from electrically insulating materials such as wood, glass, plastic or ceramics. Most of these products claim superior performance based upon the materials or methods of elevation. I don’t get those claims.
Along with green magic markers on CDs and audio bricks is another item called the wire conditioner. The claim is that unused wires do not sound the same as wires that have been used for a period of time. I don’t get this product category. And I don’t believe claims in the line like “Natural Quartz crystals along with proprietary materials cause a molecular restructuring of the media, which reduces stress, and significantly improves its mechanical, acoustic, electric, and optical characteristics.” All sounds like just pure marketing with no real benefits.
CD no evil, hear no evil. But the key thing about the CD was that it represented an obvious leap from earlier recording media that simply weren’t good enough for delivery of post-produced material to the consumer to one that was. Once you have made that leap, there is no requirement to go further. The 16 bits of CD were effectively extended to 18 bits by the development of noise shaping, which allows over 100dB signal to noise ratio. That falls a bit short of the 140dB maximum range of human hearing, but that has never been a real goal. If you improve the digital media, the sound quality limiting problem became the transducers; the headphones and the speakers.
We need to talk about SPEAKERS: Soz, ‘audiophiles’, only IT will break the sound barrier article says that today’s loudspeakers are nowhere near as good as they could be, due in no small measure to the presence of “traditional” audiophile products. that today’s loudspeakers are nowhere near as good as they could be, due in no small measure to the presence of “traditional” audiophile products. I can agree with this. Loudspeaker performance hasn’t tangibly improved in forty years and vast sums are spent addressing the wrong problems.
We need to talk about SPEAKERS: Soz, ‘audiophiles’, only IT will break the sound barrier article makes good points on design, DSPs and the debunking of traditional hi-fi. Science makes progress, pseudo-science doesn’t. Legacy loudspeakers are omni-directional at low frequencies, but as frequency rises, the radiation becomes more directional until at the highest frequencies the sound only emerges directly forwards. Thus to enjoy the full frequency range, the listener has to sit in the so-called sweet spot. As a result legacy loudspeakers with sweet spots need extensive room treatment to soak up the deficient off-axis sound. New tools that can change speaker system designs in the future are omni-directional speakers and DSP-based room correction. It’s a scenario ripe for “disruption”.
Computers have become an integrated part of many audio setups. Back in the day integrated audio solutions in PCs had trouble earning respect. Ode To Sound Blaster: Are Discrete Audio Cards Still Worth the Investment? posting tells that it’s been 25 years since the first Sound Blaster card was introduced (a pretty remarkable feat considering the diminished reliance on discrete audio in PCs) and many enthusiasts still consider a sound card an essential piece to the PC building puzzle. It seems that in general onboard sound is finally “Good Enough”, and has been “Good Enough” for a long time now. For most users it is hard to justify the high price of special sound card on PC anymore. There are still some PCs with bad sound hardware on motherboard and buttload of cheap USB adapters with very poor performance. However, what if you want the best sound possible, the lowest noise possible, and don’t really game or use the various audio enhancements? You just want a plain-vanilla sound card, but with the highest quality audio (products typically made for music makers). You can find some really good USB solutions that will blow on-board audio out of the water for about $100 or so.
Although solid-state technology overwhelmingly dominates today’s world of electronics, vacuum tubes are holding out in two small but vibrant areas. Some people like the sound of tubes. The Cool Sound of Tubes article says that a commercially viable number of people find that they prefer the sound produced by tubed equipment in three areas: musical-instrument (MI) amplifiers (mainly guitar amps), some processing devices used in recording studios, and a small but growing percentage of high-fidelity equipment at the high end of the audiophile market. Keep those filaments lit, Design your own Vacuum Tube Audio Equipment article claims that vacuum tubes do sound better than transistors (before you hate in the comments check out this scholarly article on the topic). The difficulty is cost; tube gear is very expensive because it uses lots of copper, iron, often point-to-point wired by hand, and requires a heavy metal chassis to support all of these parts. With this high cost and relative simplicity of circuitry (compared to modern electronics) comes good justification for building your own gear. Maybe this is one of the last frontiers of do-it-yourself that is actually worth doing.
1,556 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
This guy reviews USB cables. …it seems that they all comprise filters which heavily modify the sound in the digital domain. Impressive.
The War of the Poor: Cheap Usb Cables Round-up
http://www.soundbsessive.com/cheap-usb-cables/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1XP2AIOPbz6EaJBNM1HOHyx6SJj-SzoRyhb1cERmoytuBK_fM5mZ8WDYE_aem_AQL0yyZ6srKvLyABJ2VvyYbO0tf19zPZVlHy525PgGtXEQId61PJMIQX8PecVUrH4h0JCJHIuJ2T6iB4X7IvG8Ym
Tomi Engdahl says:
If USB cables fit within the strange constraints of other Audiophool cables as far as their perceptions go, then technically they just need to have a black nylon braid added over the outside, a fancy name screen printed on the plugs and they are golden – pleasing textured sound for all
Apparently, they also need gold color all over the plastic part of the connectors.
Tell them it’s packed with graphene and add an extra digit into the price – those two things are known to make a digital(!) cable sound better.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Everyone knows it’s 16bit or 24bit format running at either 44, 48, 96 kHz via Coaxial or Toslink to a DAC. Duh…no analog just packets of data under protocol of verification. Common knowledge
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is this a joke or are these people actually that stupid? Why not just get a proper Fluke cable tester and measure the transfer function? If it works it works, if not, it´s either out of spec, defective or both. There is no inbetween, especially at these low transfer speeds. We run 64 channels (32 in/32 out) simultaneously at 24 bit 48kHz from some mixers to a laptop over any cheap USB cable. Jeez.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.futureshop.co.uk/blue-horizon-proburn-cable-conditioning-system/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sounds about right. You could use a switcher but then “something something switcher is not good enough blargh!”
The response to any immediate test is that you have to live with the sound for awhile, weeks or more. Plus cables need to be burned in. So you live with the cables for a week, let your brain get used to the sound and then switch back to your old cables. The difference should be startling & you miss the previous cables. Didn’t happen. If there was a difference I couldn’t hear it & wasn’t prepared to pay for it.
Yes and when he comes and listens with you he will say thing such as “yeah wow don’t hear that so much more space and that guitar has extra crispness to the notes…”
This is just a confirmation of bias… But for some, it’s impossible to acknowledge. Their life would literally fall apart!
There’s always going to be an excuse. They are like any other conspiracy theorist. They believe they have found a truth and possess an ability or knowledge that is far beyond a person who disagrees with them. They will not be open to any data, but only data that strengthens their already held beliefs.
To allow themselves to be challenged and open to skepticism would break take away that sense of superiorority and egoism. “If I was wrong about this, what else was I wrong about?” Is a scary question. Don’t forget about the comrodary and belonging that these groups have, and breaking away from them presents intense feelings of isolation.
You cannot win over these people. They have to change themselves and unravel the falsities they have been sleeping on for years.
I have felt all of these things before. I have been in situations where I’ve found myself caught in the web and it’s a very difficult feeling. It’s much easier, and “safer” to say the adverse opinions and data is wrong. At a certain point, curiosity should begin to win and you should search for unbiased methods and data to test what it is you believe in. It takes time and there is a lot of back and forth but if you really and truly value the truth above all else, you will reach a conclusion. More importantly, if new and reliable data comes to challenge your previous conclusions, you should be open to letting it go.
Only the fools are certain and assured.
– Michel de Montaigne
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wasn’t there a speaker wire test done 20 years ago with mega$$ speaker cable vs cost hanger wire – and no one could hear the difference, including seasoned engineers?
Neil Parfitt yes there was – Monster Cable vs wire coathangers straightened out and welded together. Shouldn’t surprise any EE. It’s all about LCR, folks!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Actually these people like their Bias. That’s what make them happy, it’s an addiction. They get that hormone boost just by thinking how much better their system will sound if they change this and that. I guess we all have our dependencies , but for them it’s part of the joy of life, impossible to question it. It mAkes them happy just like religion does. They don’t have to hear the difference with actual proof, they just need to believe it , and They’re fine with it. It makes their day ! So trying to confront belief is almost impossible. That’s why you got those reactions !
Tomi Engdahl says:
Using conventional methods, it’s extremely difficult to condition the dielectric of a cable, yet this is exactly where effort should be focused. Using carefully controlled energy levels and frequencies, electrons are forced and attempt to enter the dielectric. Imagine a high-frequency, high-energy force zipping along the conductor surface in a corkscrew fashion between the conductor and into the dielectric; the malingering electrons and negative charges are then forced to join the procession. = Complete horseshit
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/fairchild-660-670
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.ovnilab.com/articles/cables.shtml?fbclid=IwAR2oWn2QTLTI3pyhRWOkdJSVOpQCXKUaAxxK4lLkuM2F2E1N-S2LwW0S_Ws
Tomi Engdahl says:
John van Son The change in capacitance with applied voltage is known as the capacitor’s voltage coefficient, and it can be the dominant source of distortion in the low-frequency spectrum where capacitor impedance is relatively high. Furthermore, as the signal amplitude increases, greater distortion occurs.
With some ceramic capacitors the voltage distortion can be significant. In some electrolytics this can be noticed. For most other types rather insignificant.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Two separate wires like this inside cable does not have lower impedance than typical coaxial cable. Typical coaxial cables have typically impedance in 50-93 ohms range. This kind of two wires side by side would typically be around 100-150 impedance range.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HiEnd audio cables are the second biggest scam ever
Tomi Engdahl says:
with enough markup you don’t need to move units fast to make a profit.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://elusivedisc.com/audioquest-level-x-dbs-pack-72v/
https://www.audioquest.com/accessories/audio-enhancements/noise-trapping-dbs-packs
Tomi Engdahl says:
From my understanding the basic electrical parameters are the only ones that matter and are influenced by the length of the connection and voltage of the audio signal: resistance, capacitance, inductance, and connectors/soldering of the cables to the connectors. Everything else is just crap.
Tomi Engdahl says:
When professionals design and build studios, they don’t use monster cables or any of that crap – we buy high quality professional grade cable from companies such as Belden, Draka, Canare etc.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/jD4NyQqEGBP8kyfb/
Every time someone says “the music comes alive” with equipment and piece changes, I wonder how alive it was before. And before that. If they manage to actually self-actualize their music into living form, when does that music start paying rent?
Keep on fiddling, it’ll be eating up all the food in your house and pissing on the toilet seat before you even know it. You are only one $100,000 cable set from that dream.
“Real” audio engineers, sound techs, etc do that too. You’re always looking to upgrade or find the next new thing.
The difference is that in the pro audio world, results are measurable. You can compare spec sheets between different brands.
I suspect a lot of what the phools perceive as “air”’or “an open soundstage” is either noise, distortion or impedance issues in their poorly made equipment, that results in a lot of high mids, which their old guy ears can actually hear
Related: multiband compression making the music “come alive” by sounding “punchier.”
(Remember the Led Zeppelin _Remasters_ boxed set?)
Mastering engineers got obsessed with highs and high mids in the CD era.
I have an Aerosmith Rocks “20 bit remaster” that’s basically unlistenable due to all the “air” they added
John Shaughnessy I can understand why some engineers felt the need to show off how good CDs were at reproducing high frequencies back in the 1980s: cassettes were notorious for losing their high end over time, and you couldn’t put too much high end on vinyl because of the resulting sibilant distortion. (Maybe hearing loss among some engineers played a role too.). But that was nothing compared to what was coming: the horrific abuse of the medium that we’ve come to call the “Loudness Wars.”
As bad at it is in the mastering phase, the Loudness Wars have also corrupted the mixing process: esteemed engineer Chris Lord-Alge developed a signature sound based on aggressive compression applied to individual channels and submixes, and the marketplace has rewarded him handsomely for it. Interestingly, Chris Lord-Alge’s preferred monitor, the Avantone CLA-10, is said to be even shriller than the Yamaha NS-10m.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Probably the fact he disconnected /reconnected cables after years of immobility made the biggest effect on the sound.
This is the core truth of the whole thing, oxide buildup on the surface of the contact area, occurs especially on certain combinations of electroplating materials like nickel etc.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Snake oil
https://black-rhodium.co.uk/why-does-the-direction-of-a-cable-affect-the-way-it-sounds
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/FkW1bYXf4VCJXWAG/
I’m guessing more than a few people here have observed some common traits in other audiophile groups. I’ve hi lighted the 5 most common ones I have observed. Anyone have a few more favorites to share ?
1. All cables matter, especially with multiple words and syllables required to pronounce the name of the cable.
2. If you don’t have a $10,000 system, your opinion has no value. The buy in to have an opinion is a minimum of $10,000, but you start gaining respect at a $25,000 system.
3. Cables costing less than $1-2,000 are dismissed, and you should return to discuss only after you have bought in with at least that amount. Otherwise, you may be silenced.
4. Providing any previous knowledge gained to your cable experience is immediately dismissed if it contains any type of specification, other than adjectives describing inductance, capacitance, and resistance. Also throw in geometry and dielectric. Absolutely no knowledge of scientific literature or established technology is allowed.
5. Your lifetime of education is worth nothing to the discussion. Absolutely do not reference being an EE. EE’s have no knowledge of how audio works no matter how many years they may have spent in the industry.
Tomi Engdahl says:
6. Blind ABX tests are invalid because they’re more biased than sighted listening comparisons.
Blind ABX tests are invalid because they put too much stress on the listeners.
Well, proper ABX tests are extremely difficult to accomplish with more subtle things. Still very easy to get results that indicate differences even when there are none. There are PhDs with decades of experience specializing in it who still have trouble.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Related to #2… criticism is probably because you are a POOR with no money, therefore just jealous (and also strongly implied that being non well to do means your opinion is useless regardless)
Different characteristic but similar bigotry: if you don’t hear it you’re just jealous because you’re genetically inferior with defective ears and possibly brain.
It’s usually in order of 1 then 2. i.e. “Have you purchased and listened to Super-Expensive Cable yourself for an extended period? Yes? Well if you didn’t notice a difference you must just not have as good of ears as I have”
Tomi Engdahl says:
RCA no shielding really opens the sound for RF interference. You will hear entirely new sound details that were never there in the original recording. It gives you slightly different listening experience every time – even with digital source!
Tomi Engdahl says:
It is hard to produce the full acoustic image with the usually limited stereo PA system. Stereo PA can produce in best case quite convincing acoustic image to listeners that sit in a small “sweet spot”. People in other locations do not get accurate sound image. Often in real-life situations even the people in sheet spot do not get a good acoustic image. But together with stage visuals the end result is often quite enjoyable.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rather “A carefully blended unique infusion of home manufactured extra virgin snake oil and alpine bullshit refined through generations of determined, indefatigable craftsmen”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
It’s arrogant to request measurements instead of just believing my obviously correct option and superior taste
“their superior and I-know-better attitude” describes the sales pitch for these magic cables.
Hey they paid good money for that placebo effect!
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/qPjM2EqNmMqxHgmf/
Apparently, members of the Audiophile Cables group are leaving that group because there are too many posts requesting factual data to support the magical musical effect claims of $10,000 speaker cables:
“…it’s been hijacked by a few argumentative individuals who are totally dismissive of those who believe cables make a difference and have made it their mission in life to spoil it for the majority here. Their superior and I-know -better attitude with their constant diatribe on measurements is tiresome to put it mildly and smacks of arrogance and hubris.”
Asking for quantifiable data and accurate measurements to support that data is “arrogance and hubris” in that group.
Tomi Engdahl says:
That’s how many of the more looney end forums got started. AudioAsylum, for instance, was formed when subjectivists on the AudioReview forums didn’t like having their unsubstantiated claims questioned when they tried to shout down non-believers and wanted their own safe space where everyone had to agree with them. AudioKarma got a similar start when some guys on AudioUtopia tried to bully everyone into the belief of the superiority of ’70s Japanese mid-fi and were eventually run off where they formed their own forum where no one could question that a $300 receiver from 1974 was superior to competently designed high end modern gear.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Good. Let’s destroy their junk science… Well, it isn’t even junk science, it’s unprovable conjecture.
Tomi Engdahl says:
This sound-suppressing silk can create quiet spaces
Researchers engineered a hair-thin fabric to create a lightweight, compact, and efficient mechanism to reduce noise transmission in a large room.
https://news.mit.edu/2024/sound-suppressing-silk-can-create-quiet-spaces-0507
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://pwbelectronics.co.uk/product-information
Tomi Engdahl says:
Richard Lyonn No. Vinyl has better headroom, and music is recorded with a better crest factor on vinyl, thus less compression.
The 0dBFS glass ceiling comes at a cost as Bob Katz explains (if you dont know who he is i suggest you look him up)
Look up ‘Bob Katz Loudness War and Peace’ video on youtube (it wont let me post the link)
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/savcZC2qi4PYjH8E/
Richard Talmage I’m sorry, but the size of the vinyl molecules makes the possible amplitude resolution equivalent to about 12 bit digital, if I remember correctly. it’s superior in temporal resolution, but not “headroom”
Richard Talmage As a recording engineer who has worked with both rock and classical genres, 24bit digital recordings with up to 64 bit level mixing DO offer no compromise full dynamic range recordings. Analogue never did, as the noise floor was never low enough to not need to reduce the dynamic range to fit between noise and clipping / distortion. This was done by “fader riding”, the master fader being reduced for FFFF and increased by sometimes 20dB for pppp. Rock recordings were nearly always compressed, whether for analogue or digital distributions. Recording a rock vocal needs a limiter and some 3 or 5 to one compression, so don’t give us this crap about vinyl headroom. If you’re talking about the 0dB glass ceiling then that can be easily avoided when digitally recording, whereas overcutting makes unplayable vinyl masters.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Next step to take after expensive power cables?
https://thevinylfactory.com/news/japanese-audiophiles-personal-utility-pole/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-gift-for-music-lovers-who-have-it-all-a-personal-utility-pole-1471189463
https://hypebeast.com/2016/8/japanese-audiophiles-personal-utility-poles
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/e7Btd5CG2GGjthHp/
44KHz/16Bit CD Audio is perfectly fine.
DAC-s since the late 90s are good enough.
Tube amps are a scam and provide little to no value over solid state in a home system.
Studio monitors are actually great for listening to music.
Jitter in digital audio and stuff like it is nonsense – perfectly inaudible.
The shittiest twisted pair Ethernet cables are fine for speakers.
Most people cannot tell the difference between 320k MP3 and FLAC.
Bluetooth audio nowadays is perfectly fine.
Most PSU-s are built well enough to not introduce noise into the signal chain.
While vinyls are great as a music listening experience, a cheap well-built system is perfectly fine and mostly adds the value of vinyl mixes not being that much affected by the loudness war.
You can correct much of the rooms acoustics with a DSP.
Any other anti-audifool truth nuggets to troll them?
The best class D amps are as good if not better than the best class A and A/B amps.
Studio monitors are great for listening to music, but generally at a different distance from the speaker to the ear than home speakers. They’re nearfield sources, designed for a different purpose.
And, to the earlier point about class D being perfectly good, many well-regarded studio monitors, including the ones we use in our studio, have built-in class-D amplifiers.
The electrical noise in analog gear is worse than the quantization noise in digital gear
If a RCA cable makes conducts it will sound the same as others.
The mild harmonic distortion of a tube amp gives it the impression of a “warmer” sound.
Really only great if you like oldies to early 70s music, but not really that good with newer music, for the nostalgia factor.
The increase in quality between a phone to a Bluetooth speaker is much greater than Bluetooth speaker to audiophile rig
You can do pretty much anything with a DSP or in software. Systems like Audyssey or Dirac can correct a room and make a decent set of speakers or headphones sound like anything you want. The difference it makes in my home theater is astounding.
You can even get surround sound out of two speakers or a pair headphones if you know the room and the position of the listener.
Spatial audio is a neat trick on Apple devices, my AirPods can do it (and fine tune it by using the phone’s sensors to scan your ear shape!) but so can my MacBook. All you have to do is be in the sweet spot and sounds come from behind you and to the side, not just from the speakers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
As a end consumer format 16 bit 44.1 is great and perfectly fine, I always get shot down when ever I say this. When making music it’s another thing though, 24 bit recording and 32/64 bit floats in what ever DAW do matter when you’re mixing multiple tracks and higher sample rates are useful depending on the source material your recording as A-D converters still don’t have perfect filters and can introduce aliasing, some instruments especially when recorded or hit loud can produce harmonics above 20k and old analogue synths chuck out mega mess above too.. whether or not you can hear it is another thing but it is a thing. Obviously the final project will be dithered and sample rate converted and you’ll get all the benefits of higher bit rates etc on your lovely CD release
Funny re the MP3 debate, I had few blind tests some years ago and could hear the difference with normal music i.e. acoustic piano etc but found it very hard to tell what is what with modern pop music.
“Most” peoples perception of audio tho is trash now days as in they play everything on their mono phone speaker so anything above that must be amazing hahah
Tomi Engdahl says:
A vinyl LP has the equivalent dynamic range of 12 bit digital audio or less on the inner tracks
Tomi Engdahl says:
The human ear cannot distinguish between 16 bit and 24 bit audio
Haych Mart right. 24-bit and sample rates of 96 or higher are important when mixing/mastering so you don’t lose information in processing, but it does not matter for playback.
Haych Mart 16 bit is 98dB SNR, 24 bit is 146dB SNR. Human hearing has a dynamic range of about 120dB. So 16 bit is a little low to cover everything the ear can hear, 24 is a little high.
That said, the upstream recording process is probably noiser than the quantization error, so maybe it doesn’t matter that much in the real world.
A vinyl LP has the equivalent dynamic range of 12 bit digital audio or less on the inner tracks
There is no meaningful difference in fidelity between a 320kbps MP3 and uncompressed PCM audio
Tomi Engdahl says:
Levinson says the current high-end audio world has become a mafia that tries to take as much money as possible from music lovers while only giving the same things over and over again in new packages.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/05/audiophile-icon-calls-mafia-tactics-luxury-audio/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Don’t use a 741 for low noise preamp. 5532 or TL072 would be a much quieter choice. Plus the slew rate is much better(ability to handle transients).
The 5532 is a better choice. An old, tried and tested ic, very high performance and negligable noise.
Still used today, also in many professional analogue equipment.
And, unlike the 741, you have two very high quality devices
Tomi Engdahl says:
Levinson also criticizes the stagnation in technological advancement within the industry. According to him, companies often rely on old technologies. Yet, they repackage these with high price tags and market them as “new innovations”.
“Using this old technology with nothing new, just higher and higher prices, bigger and heavier,” he notes.
Another big issue that Levinson brings up is the cyclical nature of the high-end audio business model, which he says is made to sell the same thing over and over.
https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/05/audiophile-icon-calls-mafia-tactics-luxury-audio/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Could someone please explain to me the supposed benefit of all of the cabling being raised off the floor like that ? I’d “research” it myself but I have the feeling it’d be 100 paragraphs of unicorn piss to get an answer.
Nick Pekarsky it’s a misapplication of RF test and measurement technique. When you test sensitive equipment like radio receivers, you do it inside room with metal walls, floor, and ceiling to block stray radio waves. It’s like a soundproof room for radio waves. No shielding system is perfect though, and there can be stray current running through the floor. If your cables are on the floor, it could pick up some tiny bit of noise. It’s like even if you’re in a soundproof room, if you your ear up against the walls you still might hear something. But you wont have this kind off of issue at audio frequencies.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/Gr4YPLHQH8bKogAW/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cables offer a very low barrier to entry in the audiophile market. That’s why there are so many of them. Unlike amplifiers or speakers, there’s essentially no engineering or capital investment required to design or manufacture them. The only thing lower on the scale would be the “box of dirt” class of mystery devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
12″ 45rpm records are a thing for audiophiles. Getting more groove for the playback time helps reduce the tremendous limitations of the format. Might get vinyl to to the fidelity of a poorly encoded 128kbps MP3 instead of much worse per the typical LP.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/krvkJDCXtNA5f74z/
For this price I would expect pure silver, not silver plated ofc…https://www.futureshop.co.uk/nordost-odin-2-audio-interconnect-rca-pair/
Anyone willing to pay the obscene prices for these cables (that consist of no more than £100 in materials) deserve to be ripped off. The manufacturers of these are taking the proverbial pi*s.
Colin Lloyd There’s probs less then £15 in materials in that cable.
Nobody actually buys this stuff for its intended use. It’s just an avenue for money laundering.
Brent Neill interesting hypothesis. Makes sense on a few levels.
Where is the dividing line between true “not real product just cleaning the cash” and “suckers getting hosed because they think their ears are special”?
Brent Neill yoooo this is the best explanation I’ve heard. Its the audio version of the “fine art” industry
70k would get you 90kg of pure silver or a new Audi RS4.
Should someone tell them that ferrite blocks should be made out of ferrite, not wood?
(Ferrite blocks on cables can actually block some high frequency digital interference, which may, or may not, improve the quality, depending on the input stage)
Tomi Engdahl says:
The thing that always gets me, no recording engineer is aiming for this holographic imaging in the source material. Do these cables create something that was never even there?
I have witnessed how RCA interconnection cables create something that was never even there in the recording. Those poorly shielded cables picked up mains humming and RFI.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why pick up that long expensive cable for this short distance connection? If you are so worried on cable effects that pay a lot of money on special cable, why not use shortest possible cable to minimize the issues? Technically a piece of copper plate cut to shape or few centimeters of any reasonably thick copper cable would be better than this loop of expensive cable.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Well Can You Hear Audio Quality?
https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality
Many listeners cannot hear the difference between uncompressed audio files and MP3s, but when it comes to audio quality, the size of the file isn’t (ahem) everything. There are plenty of other ingredients to consider, from the quality of your headphones to the size of the room you’re sitting in to, well, your own ears.