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.
1,578 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/tech/hi-fi-tweaks-the-simple-ps50-change-that-will-make-your-hi-fi-system-sound-a-million-dollars-4702984
Tomi Engdahl says:
Vinyl
Yeah, ain’t nothing but that good old 12bit fidelity with bass cut at around 80Hz and top end at 12kHz. Mhmmm…
Tomi Engdahl says:
9
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://recordinghistory.org/technology/history-of-the-technologies-for-recording-music-and-sound-an-overview/the-rise-of-the-8-track/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Guess he was really proud of learning to braid hair and got the idea to use it everywhere. I’d rather just have basic coax that does a better job in every metric for a hundredth of the price.
The dude makes custom cables. They are not cheap but not exceedingly expensive (given audiophile prices) either. No snake oil claims no bs. I personally would not buy but I would not make fun of this either.
Chinese A3Ms on ebay- like $2 each. Pile of Mogami pulled from a year-old installation- free. Cool braid at Autozone- whatever.
No criticism -
Just realism.
Tomi Engdahl says:
I am just wondering why many audiophools seem to be fond of braid cables? Is it just the looks of handmade craft that they like?
Because for most applications they are marketed for technically the braiding offers no superiority over other traditional cable constructions (that are usually technically better)
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tomi Engdahl Aside from being pretty? Kimber even lists measurements for capacitance and inductance! And woo-woo claims about “dynamic range” and “pacing”.
https://kimber.com/products/silverstreak
I want to make some braided cables like this sometime just to see how cheaply I can do it. They have a machine that does nice even braids, tho.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gary Wolfe braided cable indeed has somewhat lower capacitance than many normal shielded cables, but the unshielded braided construction has a pretty poor shielding against external noise in single ended connections (RCA), making especially those low level and high impedance signal sources most affected by cable capacitance very easily pick external noise. So you can easily hear the difference – the noise picked by cable.
Braided construction performs half decently with balanced connections (XLR) on noise performance.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Braided cable indeed has somewhat lower capacitance than many normal shielded cables, but the unshielded braided construction has a pretty poor shielding against external noise in single ended connections (RCA), making especially those low level and high impedance signal sources most affected by cable capacitance very easily pick external noise. So you can easily hear the difference – the noise picked by cable.
Braided construction performs half decently with balanced connections (XLR) on noise performance.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://pwbelectronics.co.uk/free-sound-improving-techniques
Tomi Engdahl says:
Measuring the capacitance of some RCA cables
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/measuring-the-capacitance-of-some-rca-cables.285128/
I believe that the capacitance of interconnect cables plays an important role in the quality of reproduced sound, especially if one is using long (10+ feet) cables or possesses audio equipment sensitive to high capacitance.
As a result, I got myself a device capable of measuring cable capacitance with an accuracy of up to 1 pF.
I started with regular/generic RCA cables that came bundled with some of my DVD and CD players. All those cables have a length of 3-6 feet and their capacitance measured from 300 to 600 pF. The best generic cable had a capacitance of 328 pF per meter, which is too high for my tastes.
After that, I turned my attention to some of the premium cables that I had lying around. Surprisingly, the relatively cheap, Monoprice-branded cables were not worse (and sometimes even better) than much more expensive, premium RCA cables.
Monoprice 1.5ft Premium RCA 22AWG Cable (92 pF per meter)
ATLONA Double Shielded Composite Video RCA Cable (78 pF per meter) (1M 3ft Atlona Composite Video RCA Cable TV DVD VCR Double Shielded Gold Plated | eBay):
kenable Pure OFC HQ 2 x RCA Phono Plugs (256 pF per meter)
Unknown brand Component Video Cable (83 pF per meter):
Please note, this post is for information purposes only. I am not urging anyone to purchase $1,000+ OFC gold-plated RCA cables with an ultra low capacitance.
Silver Streak
Electrical Specifications
Single Ended
(Cp) parallel capacitance: 53 pF / meter
(Ls) series inductance: 0.75 uH / meter
(Rdc) dc loop resistance: 0.061 Ohm / meter
Balanced
(Cp) parallel capacitance: 37.1 pF / meter
(Ls) series inductance: 1.07 uH / meter
(Rdc) dc loop resistance: 0.105 Ohm / meter
https://kimber.com/products/silverstreak
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tomi Engdahl I suspect it’s done so it looks like it’s doing something. Folks tend to need something visual so they can “see” the labor and start imagining what might be happening. Human psychology is what’s being targeted here, not sonics.
Tomi Engdahl says:
One of my verification routines before plugging in on new location is to verify power, grounding etc.. outlet tester with voltage display, multimeter etc… if you have right tools just few minutes to do basic verifications for peace of mind before plugging in or valid reason to call the site electrician + find another working outlet.
This is the way to avoid many power related potential disasters.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The more you spend on snake oil, the more you are OBLIGED to believe it was worth it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The main selling point of Yamaha NS10 and Auratone cubes as studio monitors wasn’t that they sounded good. Quite the opposite. They are accurate in phase and rather flat in response. So every error or weakness in a mix stood out like a sore thumb. Get a great balanced mix on NS10s and you can be sure it sounded phenomenal on “better” speakers. So often small changes are perceived as better though they are less accurate. But you can’t sell high end (read expensive) gear by pointing out it actually distorts the music.
ns10′s are everything but flat
Vogel Perspektiven well nothing is absolutely flat.
Studies have shown they have very flat phase response.
Tomi Engdahl says:
That’s the whole point. Our brains can-and will-lie to us and generally our senses are that organ’s translations of information fed into our sense receptors (eyes and ears etc). A lot of what we personally experience is what the brain expects rather than the actual.
That’s why applying testing methods that control for human biases is important. It allows us a better understanding of reality and (as far as hifi is concerned) allows us to make more suitable judgements with our wallets.
I can’t say for sure because I’ve not tested all this crap but I would wager that the changes in sound are wholly psychoacoustic.
When these “fixes” have been tested with test equipment we don’t see any changes but somehow, the human brain can discern the difference.
The same human brain that so effectively convinces us our opinions are correct even in the absense of supporting evidence and often even in the face of refuting evidence. The same human brain that finds patterns where there are none. The same human brain that hallucinates all manner of monsters and other various anomolies that aren’t there. And of course, the same human brain that convinces us the purchase decisions we’ve made are sound, that human brain against a whole host of 100% unbiased machines who’s only function in life are to convert existing signals into visual representations of the physics involved in the manipulation of physical phenomena and the brain wins?
Not One Time. Never.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The placebo effect is strong, especially when you WANT to hear a difference. Going into an evaluation expecting particular changes, makes you more likely to perceive those changes, even if they don’t actually exist.
Switch the price tags between a $20 and a $200 bottle of wine and people will prefer the latter
When people have “made an investment” into anything, they will almost always justify it by assuring the rest of us skeptics that it resulted in noticeable improvements.
A few audio components will make a significant difference. A better amplifier or speaker will make a noticeable difference, usually an improvement. Almost everything else discussed here from cables to feet to green magic markers make no difference. The proof is in blind randomized A/B testing. People who claim to hear a difference in these things consistently fail blind randomized A/B testing.
The more you spend on snake oil, the more you are OBLIGED to believe it was worth it.
Identifying the difference is a mandatory unavoidable prerequisite to be able to identify which is better
Difference is objective.
Better is subjective
This is what the ‘trust your ears’ crowd often fails to understand
I have been saying this forever. To decide if it’s better you need to listen for a while. Otherwise your ears just think different is better.
Paychoacoustics is the term they use for it “doesn’t measure” any different but we can hear a difference. The first part of the word gives it away
Many people think that something has to sound better if it’s more expensive, but I think almost always it just different, like some expensive Bulb amplifier, I don’t really think distortion makes them sound better, it’s just different, some people like the warmer sound more so they say it’s better, at the end of the day audio is such a personal thing, some people will say “hey this headphones sound the best” and other might say “no those sound like complete crap” it all comes down to personal preferences, that’s why I almost never choose my gear from reviews, I try them and see if I like it
If you combine ‘sounds different’ with ‘reassuringly expensive’ it will always be a so call improvement.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/3ijUat6FRdAgjftf/
I wonder how often ”sounds different” is interpreted as “sounds better.” I have never used hair conditioner, just shampoo. I spent a week at a hotel and they provided conditioner free. I decided to try it for a week. My hair did not look different but it felt different when i shampooed the next day! So to sell a successful conditioner i will bet “next day feel” is an important item. So if I sell any so called ”improvement” I expect a tiny but noticeable change is useful. Im not saying that feet or moon crystals can change the sound. Only their marketing can change the sound. But bizarro multi-component cables and added capacitors might subtly affect the sound. And that subtle difference is almost certainly reported as ”better.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
It’s the gear not the ear dude. Add a G to it.
Money is eq
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.audioquest.com/products/level-x-dbs-pack?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0_b_al8EX8fmxn9Qq-e2qnJbdXl5hnKAYUr6VtnRG-g39kQCFSWoueIrs_aem_j8jnBs_PP1JZHRL34xRp7A
Level-X DBS Pack
72V + Noise Dissipation – Only works with DBS-Enabled AQ Cables
AudioQuest’s patented Dielectric Bias System (DBS) puts all of a cable’s dielectric into a strong, stable electrostatic field which saturates (organizes) the molecules of the insulation … continuously from the time the cable is terminated. The exceptionally simple design uses a wire down the middle of the cable, which is simply an extension of a battery’s anode. This wire is attached to negative (-) of a DBS battery pack, and nothing else. It is not in the signal path and has no interaction with the signal.
$139.95 USD
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oh lordy, the things people will believe just to feel better about themselves. They had me at ‘cryogenically cooled infrared powder.’
Extraordinary words between nonsense give them looks something what can’t resists and spend two month salary for
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/pBEmsc61fJks6egM/
Quantum X2 products actively produce energy to stimulate the electronic components. Once powered up, Quantum X2 resonance will be delivered to the rest of the audio equipment via current and optimizes the entire audio system’s electron and proton characteristic.
Every Quantum X2 applied on the signal transmission path of audio equipment and cables produces 75cpm of far-infrared radiation and high density negative ions to further eliminate electrostatic charge within the audio equipment.
The far-infrared and negative ions energy spread throughout the entire system via the signal transmission path improves music playback atmosphere, soundstage, timbre, dynamics and musical fidelity to a certain standard.
Every Quantum X2 stickers contains patented formula infra-red powder (which undergoes 36 hours of cryogenic process at -196oC), patented formula negative ion powder, titanium dioxide photocatalyst materials, silica wafer insulation coating material, pentoxide antistatic agent material, calcium oxide CAO desiccant material, zironia filter material and alumina structural ceramic material.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Use screened cable for the audio as a minimum. Your current setup is picking up everything radiated nearby. At the very least twist the audio input cables together that should negate some of the noise.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“And only ground the screened cable at one end”
Grounding of screened cable shield from one end or both ends are both possible ways to do the connections. Both methods have their pros and cons.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Designed to…” doesn’t mean the design achieved its goals.
so dramatic a change my wife could even tell it was BS.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Company name says it all “Audio Magic”
Tomi Engdahl says:
If lifting your cable in the air is making a difference, then you’ve got other problems like an improperly shielded cable or RF noise from old lights.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The real audiophile changes cables not only for every genre, but for every tempo, every key, for every group and every year. And don’t fool yourselves that the same room acoustics fit for every combination. Room size and shape, wall material, and geographic coordinates also affect the sound. The right clothing is also of paramount importance.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARTICLES
The Ten Biggest Lies in Audio
Don’t be fooled by audiophiles with golden ears when shopping for high-end audio equipment.
https://www.ecoustics.com/articles/ten-biggest-lies-audio/
1. The Cable Lie
Logically this is not the lie to start with because cables are accessories, not primary audio components. But it is the hugest, dirtiest, most cynical, most intelligence-insulting and, above all, most fraudulently profitable lie in audio, and therefore must go to the head of the list.
The lie is that high-priced speaker cables and interconnects sound better than the standard, run-of-the-mill (say, Radio Shack) ones. It is a lie that has been exposed, shamed, and refuted over and over again by every genuine authority under the sun, but the tweako audio cultists hate authority and the innocents can’t distinguish it from self-serving charlatanry.
The simple truth is that resistance, inductance, and capacitance (R, L, and C) are the only cable parameters that affect performance in the range below radio frequencies.
2. The Vacuum-Tube Lie
This lie is also, in a sense, about a peripheral matter, since vacuum tubes are hardly mainstream in the age of silicon. It’s an all-pervasive lie, however, in the high-end audio market; just count the tube-equipment ads as a percentage of total ad pages in the typical high-end magazine. Unbelievable! And so is, of course, the claim that vacuum tubes are inherently superior to transistors in audio applications–don’t you believe it.
Tubes are great for high-powered RF transmitters and microwave ovens but not, at the turn of the century, for amplifiers, preamps, or (good grief!) digital components like CD and DVD players. What’s wrong with tubes? Nothing, really.
Whatever vacuum tubes can do in a piece of audio equipment, solid-state devices can do better, at lower cost, with greater reliability. Even the world’s best-designed tube amplifier will have higher distortion than an equally well-designed transistor amplifier and will almost certainly need more servicing (tube replacements, rebiasing, etc.) during its lifetime. (Idiotic designs such as 8-watt single-ended triode amplifiers are of course exempt, by default, from such comparisons since they have no solid-state counterpart.)
As for the “tube sound,” there are two possibilities: (1) It’s a figment of the deluded audiophile’s imagination, or (2) it’s a deliberate coloration introduced by the manufacturer to appeal to corrupted tastes, in which case a solid-state design could easily mimic the sound if the designer were perverse enough to want it that way.
3. The Anti-Digital Lie
You have heard this one often, in one form or another. To wit: Digital sound is vastly inferior to analog. Digitized audio is a like a crude newspaper photograph made up of dots. The Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem is all wet. The 44.1 kHz sampling rate of the compact disc cannot resolve the highest audio frequencies where there are only two or three sampling points. Digital sound, even in the best cases, is hard and edgy. And so on and so forth–all of it, without exception, ignorant drivel or deliberate misrepresentation.
The most ludicrous manifestation of the antidigital fallacy is the preference for the obsolete LP over the CD. Not the analog master tape over the digital master tape, which remains a semirespectable controversy, but the clicks, crackles and pops of the vinyl over the digital data pits’ background silence, which is a perverse rejection of reality.
Here are the scientific facts any second-year E.E. student can verify for you: Digital audio is bulletproof in a way analog audio never was and never can be.
The reason why certain analog recordings sound better than certain digital recordings is that the engineers did a better job with microphone placement, levels, balance, and equalization, or that the recording venue was acoustically superior. Some early digital recordings were indeed hard and edgy, not because they were digital but because the engineers were still thinking analog, compensating for anticipated losses that did not exist. Today’s best digital recordings are the best recordings ever made.
4. The Listening Test Lie
Regular readers of The Audio Critic know how to refute the various lies invoked by the high-end cultists in opposition to double-blind listening tests at matched levels (ABX testing), but a brief overview is in order here.
The ABX methodology requires device A and device B to be levelmatched within ±0.1 dB, after which you can listen to fully identified A and fully identified B for as long as you like.
The tweako cultists will tell you that ABX tests are completely invalid. Everybody knows that a Krell sounds better than a Pioneer, so if they are indistinguishable from each other in an ABX test, then the ABX method is all wet–that’s their logic.
The standard tweako objections to ABX tests are too much pressure (as in “let’s see how well you really hear”), too little time (as in “get on with it, we need to do 16 trials”), too many devices inserted in the signal path (viz., relays, switches, attenuators, etc.), and of course assorted psychobabble on the subject of aural perception. None of that amounts to anything more than a red herring, of one flavor or another, to divert attention from the basics of controlled testing. The truth is that you can perform an ABX test all by yourself without any pressure from other participants, that you can take as much time as wish
5. The Feedback Lie
Negative feedback, in an amplifier or preamplifier, is baaaad. No feedback at all is gooood. So goes this widely invoked untruth.
The fact is that negative feedback is one of the most useful tools available to the circuit designer. It reduces distortion and increases stability. Only in the Bronze Age of solid-state amplifier design, back in the late ’60s and early ’70s, was feedback applied so recklessly and indiscriminately by certain practitioners that the circuit could get into various kinds of trouble. That was the origin of the no-feedback fetish.
6. The Burn-In Lie
This widely reiterated piece of B.S. would have you believe that audio electronics, and even cables, will “sound better” after a burn-in period of days or weeks or months (yes, months). Pure garbage. Capacitors will “form” in a matter of seconds after power-on. Bias will stabilize in a matter of minutes (and shouldn’t be all that critical in well-designed equipment, to begin with). There is absolutely no difference in performance between a correctly designed amplifier’s (or preamp’s or CD player’s) first-hour and 1000th-hour performance. As for cables, yecch… We’re dealing with audiophile voodoo here rather than science.
Loudspeakers, however, may require a break-in period of a few hours, perhaps even a day or two, before reaching optimum performance. That’s because they are mechanical devices with moving parts under stress that need to settle in. (The same is true of reciprocating engines and firearms.) That doesn’t mean a good loudspeaker won’t “sound good” right out of the box, any more than a new car with 10 miles on it won’t be good to drive.
7. The Biwiring Lie
Even fairly sophisticated audiophiles fall for this hocus-pocus. What’s more, loudspeaker manufacturers participate in the sham when they tell you that those two pairs of terminals on the back of the speaker are for biwiring as well as biamping. Some of the most highly respected names in loudspeakers are guilty of this hypocritical genuflection to the tweako sacraments — they are in effect surrendering to the “realities” of the market.
The truth is that biamping makes sense in certain cases, even with a passive crossover, but biwiring is pure voodoo.
At the same time it is only fair to point out that biwiring does no harm. It just doesn’t do anything. Like magnets in your shoes.
8. The Power Conditioner Lie
Just about all that needs to be said on this subject has been said by Bryston in their owner’s manuals:
“All Bryston amplifiers contain high-quality, dedicated circuitry in the power supplies to reject RF, line spikes and other power-line problems. Bryston power amplifiers do not require specialized power line conditioners. Plug the amplifier directly into its own wall socket.”
What they don’t say is that the same is true, more or less, of all well-designed amplifiers.
9. The CD Treatment Lie
This goes back to the vinyl days, when treating the LP surface with various magic liquids and sprays sometimes (but far from always) resulted in improved playback, especially when the pressing process left some residue in the grooves. Commercial logic then brought forth, in the 1980s and ’90s, similarly magical products for the treatment of CDs.
Just say no to CD treatments, from green markers to spray-ons and rub-ons. The idiophiles who claim to hear the improvement can never, never identify the treated CD blind. (Needless to say, all of the above also goes for DVDs.)
10. The Golden-Ear Lie
This is the catchall lie that should perhaps go to the head of the list as No. 1 but will also do nicely as a wrap-up. The Golden Ears want you to believe that their hearing is so keen, so exquisite, that they can hear tiny nuances of reproduced sound too elusive for the rest of us. Absolutely not true. Anyone without actual hearing impairment can hear what they hear, but only those with training and experience know what to make of it, how to interpret it.
Thus, if a loudspeaker has a huge dip at 3 kHz, it will not sound like one with flat response to any ear, golden or tin, but only the experienced ear will quickly identify the problem.
Now here comes the really bad part. The self-appointed Golden Ears–tweako subjective reviewers, high-end audio-salon salesmen, audioclub ringleaders, etc.–often use their falsely assumed superior hearing to intimidate you. “Can’t you hear that?” they say when comparing two amplifiers. You are supposed to hear huge differences between the two when in reality there are none–the GE’s can’t hear it either; they just say they do, relying on your acceptance of their GE status. Bad scene.
The best defense against the Golden Ear lie is of course the double-blind ABX test (see No. 4 above). That separates those who claim to hear something from those who really do. It is amazing how few, if any, GE’s are left in the room once the ABX results are tallied.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building an RCA Input Shorting Plug
Gather up your parts
For each pair of unused inputs you will need one pair of RCA’s and (2) 470 Ohm resistors and a small amount of solder. We used Neutrik 352 G male RCA’s and Cardas solder.
https://www.takefiveaudio.com/contents/19-rcainputshortingplugs
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Supposedly, the drive can increase audio quality and give you real 3D sound along with an experience that only comes from vinyl recordings”
Solid Snake-Oil Storage: This SSD Is Aimed at Audiophiles
News
By Aaron Klotz, Paul Alcorn last updated December 19, 2021
This SSD purportedly makes your audio sound better.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvme-ssd-for-audiophiles?fbclid=IwY2xjawETNUZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHTppPQma3sIflAY29rFdqVerBlVV40TZl5fW4S64QUDo9qG71Gaj-m5KDQ_aem_otRMVfOC-ZWpXZ7eXa3COw
Tomi Engdahl says:
DIY Audio RCA Plug ( Male / Female) | Aluminium Made
https://www.instructables.com/DIY-RCA-Plug-Male-Female-Aluminium-Made/
This is a Aluminium sheet made custom RCA Plug, both male and female. So you’ll learn how to make one when you are out of plugs or your speaker one is broken. Now easily make one in home and replace the broken one or just use as a connector.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Glass Beams – ‘Snake Oil’ (Official Audio)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=mEhZdxEyYkOMHkIN&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3tFaZVhjUk-YIfVAm75LqgtSWx0NWUb6AO0_In84Ct56oi380ZDqNibIE_aem_Xxm3dvVN6BQaeuylgDV2YQ&v=U1FPaUbRJ8U&feature=youtu.be
Tomi Engdahl says:
These Small Filters Are Popular Devices That Can Be Supplied With A Wide Range Of X And Y Values To Suit Most Purposes.
In a Delta Suppressor, capacitors are connected between the Live, Neutral and Earth terminals. As the frequency of the R.F.I. rise, the impedance of these capacitors falls thus attenuating the R.F.I. at the mains terminals.
These filters are constructed using Class X and Y capacitors with a resistor to discharge the device.
https://lcrcapacitors.co.uk/capacitors/delta-filters/
Tomi Engdahl says:
“It follows, intellectually, that … [t]he more … PWB devices which are used, the greater will be the beneficial linkage.”
That linkage being from the mark’s credit card to the charlatan’s bank account.
Tomi Engdahl says:
In general, WAV files are better quality than MP3 files, but this isn’t always the case if the WAV file has been compressed. A lossless WAV file is always best for recording and for carrying high-quality audio files. MP3 files are not bad quality but WAV is more elite.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Look at this amplifier powering an amplifier
https://youtu.be/3AYJBUaT74Q?si=lP-ZHFqK_zc50U3R
Tomi Engdahl says:
If this isn’t satire, this has to be the peak of audiophile grade pseudoscience.
Tomi Engdahl says:
I’ve had a realisation. All the snake oil nonsense is just like a spiritual church. The sellers are all akin to clairvoyants spouting nonsense, and the people that buy in are more than willing to throw money at the nonsense.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/dkoXZXFz5FVe88oD/
In a way, they tell people what they want to hear. Buy this and it will improve your listening experience. It doesn’t matter that there’s no actual specs or physics behind it, just read our ads.
That’s the best analogy so far! It really is like a fervent religion.
Or, are they actually right and we are all blinded by science? Ehh ever think of that???
Lol
Tomi Engdahl says:
Internal structure: Nordost QRT Qv2 AC Line Harmonizer | odear
https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=lekfUBqXqTiDc4tO&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0RgYGu2oMkreKaiL9iO44jiOoeMSofVG56SedEruhGbey4twBFwbc95Ms_aem_LpOvUPMP54TZkf8-N7270g&v=uw9xdTjZPBQ&feature=youtu.be
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cable break in device
https://youtu.be/0A624KpP45s?si=IbXCcr0BlJhdn_3R
Tomi Engdahl says:
Have Faith and Ye Shall Hear
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chapter 3: Why do Some Listeners Report Hearing Differences Between Cables?
It is important to note that hearing a ‘difference’ does not equate to hearing an ‘improvement’. All too often, any perceived difference is interpreted as improvement in sound, especially when equated with high-end equipment and cables. From the Skeptic point of view, if a cable is designed to function properly, any perceptible change only serves to reduce the functionality to below an acceptable level, and any improvement above the acceptable level is inaudible (even if it is measurable).
Change is not necessarily improvement. Perceiving a difference does not mean it sounds better.
It is possible that the difference heard is attributable to the listener, rather than the cable. If one accepts the blind and ABX testing results, the explanation may be attributed to listener bias (expectation, placebo, purchase justification) or psychoacoustics (the study of the perception of sound). Psychoacoustics studies the ear’s limitations in sensing sound
Listening is a complex process. Our brains discard much of the sensory input, and use pattern matching, memories and experiences to interpret the huge amount of information received. This is not an infallible process and our brains can be fooled into hearing (or seeing) things that are an illusion. One famous example is the McGurk Effect.
https://www.headphonesty.com/2018/06/do-expensive-cables-really-matter/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Marketing team: “Just use big words and they’ll buy it.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.lewitt-audio.com/blog/impedance-in-headphones
Tomi Engdahl says:
These days, around 32 ohms is standard for an impedance rating in small headphones that you plug to smart phones, laptops and small gadgets.
Headphones below 100 Ω are often designed for mobile use. The 32 and 80 should be able to be driven with a laptop headphone output with 32 ohm being the easiest to drive.
Headphones above 80 Ω, on the other hand, are great for stationary systems with a headphone amplifier.
Commo impedance ranges:
18 Ω – Smartphone, tablet
32 Ω – Smartphone, tablet, MP3 player, laptop
80 Ω – Several studio applications laptop, PC, Hi-Res MP3 player
250 Ω – Headphone amplifier, stereo system audio interfaces, studio
600 Ω – High-end headphone amplifier
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.headphonezone.in/blogs/audiophile-101/understanding-impedance
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.headphonesty.com/2018/06/do-expensive-cables-really-matter/
Tomi Engdahl says:
“How does audio equipment affect the properties of a cable?”
The output impedance of RCA / 3.5 mm jack output can be from 20 ohms to few kilo-ohms. How much cable capacitance affects sound is directly proportional to output impedance – higher impedance means more high frequency attenuation. Same for capacitive coupled noise due poor shielding. That’s more than 1:100 difference on two sound properties with same cable on two technical measurable details.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fabien Longeot A headphone cables that is not defective is better than a headphone cable that is defective, but other than that, there is no benefit gained by throwing a ton of money at it as long as it makes good contact and has adequately low resistance. It’s a fundamentally low bandwidth application which is not intrinsically vulnerable to interference.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Debreceni Dezső yes and no. In an ac signal it’s a lot more complex but just for the sake of argument let’s consider speaker cables and damping factor. Speakers are mechanical devices that have mass and moving mass has inertia and that inertia wants the mass of that speaker to keep moving once it has been put in motion. This generates what is called back emf. Essentially the speaker becomes a motor generating current that is fed back to the output stage of the amplifier. The ability of the amp to absorb the back emf is the damping factor and it’s mainly a function of the amplifier’s output impedance. Any impedance between the amplifier and the speaker degrades the amplifier’s damping factor. The problem becomes worse with larger speakers and is one of the main arguments for powered speakers where the amplifier is integrated into the cab. Old PA systems where banks of 18’s were 100’ from the amp racks were probably the most extreme examples but the effect is real. The answer was always heavier cable but if you’ve never wrestled 100’ of touring cable into a roadcase I highly recommend it as a workout. Obviously the effect with a signal that’s driving headphones is many orders of magnitude less and the claims of most of these companies is ludicrous. But wires do affect signal quality. It’s just usually below the threshold of human hearing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Daniel Williams I mean yeah, that exists and by the equation of impedance, the solution is increasing the diameter of the wire, or switching to silver wich is basically the only metal with better conductivity than copper. Not coating it with diamond or what the audiophools are doing and braiding it into shapes incomprehensible by the human mind.