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.
1,598 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Headphones suck… no soundstage…
Ash Williams you need a headphone amp that has cross feed and maybe even time delay….a good phono amp makes a huge difference…its a whole different kind of listening….to keep it cheap try a audio-technica am-150 90′s 2 channel stereo mixer as a headphone amp….you then feed the record output back into the 2nd line in with the L/R flipped…..you now have an analog crossfeed capable headphone amp,,,you can pick these units up cheap on ebay for about $40 in great condition.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Justin Robert I use HeSuVi for crossfeed, works with anything that can be used with a Windows OS based PC… for FREE!
https://youtu.be/4dNVPamWO5c
Pair with this… ya don’t always be needing bit-perfect.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/ending-the-windows-audio-quality-debate.19438/#:~:text=A%20debate%20has%20been%20long,an%20over%2Dactive%20audiophile%20imagination
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.
Some are made of nice feeling rubber or fabric and some are prettier than others, so there are sometimes benefits
Tomi Engdahl says:
I don’t get it. They either make the cables like 50mm thick or 0.5mm thick. I guess the usual cable thickness is just for mere peasants.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Cables should NOT affect the signals they transport.”
Real life cables affect the signals going through them somewhat. Some more, some less. The cable capacitance attenuates high frequencies. Some noise can get into cable from environment if shield does not bloc. The signal source properties (output impedance) affect how much capacitance affects noise gets to cable.
“Can you imagine if your TV aerial cable affected the resultant sound & picture on your TV? Doesn’t happen, does it? Unless the cable is… faulty!”
Have seen that happen with both analog and digital signals. Especially when comparing long and short cables.
Tomi Engdahl says:
I wonder how many of these people who say “oooh, this cable is warmer” or “that cable brings out the bass” understand what the placebo effect or expectation bias are.
At the end of the day the analog or digital signal that exits a cable can be highly accurately analyzed and compared. The sound that comes out of the speaker/headphones can be analyzed far less accurately. Funnily enough, I never see these audiophools offering any kind of objective data.
That’s not even to mention that our hearing degrades as we get older, so half of us can’t even hear the audio as it is supposed to sound.
Don’t buy the $1 cable: buy the $5 dollar cable that looks like it won’t fall apart after a week. That’s as far as I’ll go with this stuff.
Mike Timberlake Some guy with the kit to measure headphones did a comparison between inexpensive copper wires and an expensive silver cable upgrade for the same cans. Here’s the result (that FR is typical for headphones, fyi):
Copper is the black trace, silver is the pink. Of course, the trace for the copper wire isn’t visible because the pink line for silver perfectly covers it without the slightest deviation or blip. So much for different cables having an audible difference, eh?
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/FrAvdfJSPDwkWrT8/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scientific Study Claims to Prove That Expensive Cables Do Matter in Sound Quality
https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/05/scientific-study-prove-expensive-cables-sound-quality/?fbclid=IwY2xjawEe5elleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHanawQhmlPTv_tOZS0VwORMn4yh0DRFILmz07WpI0ghnBiioTfiRwRqxrw_aem_rG3jST6lfADpJcHQqhASPw
But the cable debate still isn’t over.
As most audiophiles know, the debate over whether expensive cables actually improve sound quality has raged for decades.
The skeptics have long dismissed it as nonsense, claiming any perceived differences are just in people’s minds. But a recent scientific study might just be the new evidence we’ve been waiting for.
This offers compelling evidence that cable construction and materials can indeed have a measurable impact on a system’s sound.
Kunchur’s study takes an objective, scientific approach to the cable debate. Here, he moved beyond the usual reliance on subjective listening tests. Instead, he focused on often-overlooked factors like time-domain effects and noise measurements.
These detailed measurements prove that the electrical performance of cables can vary a lot based on design and construction. Based on these differences, Kunchur suggests that cables can shape the perceived sound quality in high-fidelity audio systems.
But that’s not all. Kunchur also delved into the world of microphonics and triboelectric noise.
He found that, unlike loudspeaker cables, interconnects are less prone to microphonic effects due to their high impedance and low current characteristics.
Sure, triboelectric noise from internal motion could theoretically degrade signal quality. But it’s estimated to be a whopping 180 dB below typical signal levels, making it unlikely to have an audible impact.
Of course, in the world of audio, no stone goes unturned.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Peter Schouten Yeah, I like the look, so I’m willing to pay a little for something that doesn’t look like shit in my living room.
Not willing to pay for a name or snake oil though.
Not sure why everyone is laughing though because it was a serious question
Tomi Engdahl says:
The audiophile pseudoscientific nonsense is crazy overpriced and does absolutely nothing special but damn do they look good doing nothing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Some of the stuff I bought on AliExpress is built by the same OEM factory, or it’s better than the western brand counterpart for 20 to 90% off the price.
Not sure where’s the joke here. There’s plenty of reasonably priced brands with high quality products on ali. Openheart is one example.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/cJVTybjiXJWNcFBY/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://youtu.be/cSqb8SOB3oI?si=l7CUbghoRzG-kd8o
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dasu Župan The “paper” was published in the IOSR-JECE, IOSR being the “International Organization of Scientific Research.” It’s one of the more infamous fake journal publishers out there that pretends to be peer reviewed, but is actually a predatory “pay-to-publish” journal that will publish absolutely any submission so long as the check doesn’t bounce.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A study of single ended analogue cables?
What use is a single ended cable?
I only buy cables with two ends otherwise my speakers are really quiet
Steve Monk meaning you have one contact that is “ground” and one that is “signal”. The alternative is “balanced” where both contacts carry signal with opposite polarity, which reduces noise
Tomi Engdahl says:
The science is all backwards. Start with an observation. ‘In double-blind testing cables do sound different’. Once that is established, it’s worth looking for reasons. Has it been established yet?
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://allaboutfakejournal.blogspot.com/2013/06/is-iosr-journal-is-fake-indian-journal.html?m=1&fbclid=IwY2xjawEfkf1leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHWGh2tnR3qT4Y2Q1fDqfoDVOmuw0nwrZMiWSz_ZrABuNKoJzhOuj2eIl9Q_aem_-Tg3IOeLs4q5aWyaUsrKVw
Tomi Engdahl says:
Let’s step back a bit…
Is this fraud? Probably not. Why not?
Because they claim to have amazing cables that deliver performance in dimensions that no one can define let alone measure.
Even if there were internal documents that stated “we believe there are customers stupid enough to buy our cables when we can’t quantify our claims, that we made up while drinking” they are probably still in the clear as long as they offer refunds to customers who complain.
The fact that they and others make money on crazy-expensive cables points to the real truth: customers want to believe the cables are better and are invested in defending the cables’ efficacy.
The alternative is to believe they have been duped (probably multiple times).
Plus, anyone who has money for these things probably doesn’t care enough to ask for a refund – ask long as there is some visual appeal or weirdness that can be described to party guests.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Confessions of a Recovering Audiophile: How Gear Acquisition Syndrome Almost Ruined My Life
https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/08/confessions-recovering-audiophile/
If you’re wondering about your next step as an audiophile, try saying ‘no’.
I never thought I’d be writing this, but here I am, a 47-year-old man, confessing to an addiction that almost ruined my life.
No, it wasn’t drugs or gambling. It was headphones.
Yes, you read that right. I was addicted to buying audio gear in what’s known as Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS).
The First Taste
It all started simply enough. I grew up in a house where high-fidelity audio was valued. We weren’t rich, but we were comfortable, and my dad (who was also an audiophile) had invested in an impressive speaker system that filled our home with top-level music.
I fell into a cycle of buying, selling (although rarely), and inevitably losing money on gear as I kept chasing the next big thing.
As my collection grew, so did my isolation. While my friends were out partying and socializing, I was stuck in my room, comparing the small differences between headphones
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/BiNCCaNNhRzMp7Y8/
For those who listen to digital files but they wish the sound will be analog as much as it can be. I present you our references USB – Expression / RUBY MK2 .
We are sending for tests / for more info please contact us .
Or check with your local DL DEALER .
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#usb #cable #highend #highendusb #highendgear #highendcompany #hifi #hifiaudio #hifisound #hifisystem #dlcables
“the sound will be analog as much as it can be”
At least the guy is not lying.
To alter the sound it would need to 1) make some errors during digital data transfer (and cable should have knowledge which and how). 2) convert it to analog, change the sound and convert to digital again.
Amazing
The guy charges about $3000 for one meter of cable. For the price, I’m pretty sure I can design a USB cable that will do all you describe and add some reverb on top for more soundstage.
Ya think if you cut it open it’s Amazon Basics USB cable wrapped in foam, nylon, and heat shrink?
That’s the thickest cable I have ever seen. It looks well made, but that price, and the claims are all BS.
Having a thick usb cable is a also extremely impractical, and it will put a lot of unneccessary strain on the device ports
Tomi Engdahl says:
It is not your imagination. Much of the audiophile gear, cables, and conditioners out there are borderline scams… Sometimes they literally are scams.
It’s a religion with cultish rituals, which cost good money. It’s no different from many other religions, other than that its claims are scientifically falsifable.
Tomi Engdahl says:
No, expensive cables absolutely do not matter.
But (very) cheap ones actually do.
Bullshit. Aliexpress cables go brrrrrrrr.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Yes, Price tag boosts the lume-effect
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/j7HAkPt19fpJbAcz/
Is it just my imagination, or does a large proportion of Audioquest stuff seem a bit improbable?
It is not your imagination. Much of the audiophile gear, cables, and conditioners out there are borderline scams… Sometimes they literally are scams.
Just call ‘em Fraudioquest.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scientific Study Claims to Prove That Expensive Cables Do Matter in Sound Quality
https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/05/scientific-study-prove-expensive-cables-sound-quality/
Tomi Engdahl says:
13 Most Common Audiophile Myths, Debunked
https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/04/most-common-audiophile-myths/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Audiophile communities often buzz with popular claims that don’t always hold up under scrutiny. These come from a mix of marketing tricks, personal experiences, and the placebo effect that lead to widespread myths.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What Makes a Cable a Good Cable?
Gear
Mathias on 9. August 2021 reading time: 5 Min
cable / cables / jack / jacks / patch
Us musicians stock up on the highest quality equipment such as cool guitars, trendy workstations, fancy effects, mixers, amplifiers and cabinets, and we’re happy. And then we pick up a puny cable and wonder why our signal path is noisy, creaky or unstable. Shouldn’t we focus more on our signal path? It would be pretty logical to invest in good cables. But what on earth is a good cable?
https://www.thomann.de/blog/en/what-makes-a-cable-a-good-cable/
Tomi Engdahl says:
So, yes, it’s important to avoid badly made cables. Just don’t expect a big improvement in sound quality from spending a lot on “audiophile-grade” cables.
https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/04/most-common-audiophile-myths/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ennen kuului paremmin
Suomessa on tuhansia vanhojen audiolaitteiden, vintage audion, harrastajia. Miksi Harman Kardonin viritinvahvistin vuodelta 1973 tai B&O:n Beomaster 901 on parempi kuin uusi? Janne Flinkkilä ja Mika Selänne kertovat.
https://tekniikanmaailma.fi/lehti/15a-2024/ennen-kuului-paremmin/
Tomi Engdahl says:
This is nonsense and perpetuates dangerous misconceptions.
Yes, if you implement the same little numerical example the same way in Python and C, you’ll get this kind of disparity in performance / CO2 / etc. However, in a real-world realistic example where Python is used for performance critical tasks, it isn’t to reimplement “Calculate the Fibonacci series”, but something like, e.g., “Scrape irregular data, reprocess/analyze it, then apply machine learning method X on the resulting terabyte-sized dataset”. For applications like this, the expressful nature of high-level languages makes it quite convenient to shuffle data between many highly optimized layers of layers of libraries created by experts to use algorithmically optimal implementations. The lowest layers will be, e.g., Intel MKL’s hand-optimized assembler for things like large scale matrix operations. The end result is likely to be orders-of-magnitude faster and more efficient than a misguided attempt to write it all yourself in C “because Python is slow”.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/KPXhyymqHp9xZ4q2/
C is the greenest programming language
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/18/c-is-the-greenest-programming-language/
Whilst I would have known that it’s be far higher in terms of energy consumption I still find it surprising that Python uses so much as 75.88 times more energy than C
Tomi Engdahl says:
I was told that tubes make the sound “warmer.” What does a warm sound mean?
Distortion
So, it doesn’t sound better, it sounds different in a way some people like.
What is even more fun is that Tube Distortion is predictable and easily modelled mathematically. If you like the Tube Sound, you can get filters for VLC that will add Tube Distortion…without the need to buy a tube amp.
It means you build a solid state preamp, then stick a tube in the circuit, like a light bulb. Except there’s not enough voltage for it to light up, so you put a yellow LED behind it to make it “glow”. That’s the warmth.
“pleasing” harmonic resonance and distortion. Because that’s how earlier amplifiers were built, some assume this means that tube amps are superior.
William Carter warm can also mean (at least for audio engineers) an imbalance of more low frequencies vs high frequencies. Running a low-pass filter (or high-cut if you use that convention) will make it sound warmer. Typically tube distortion will saturate towards the high energy low frequencies, adding harmonics in the low-mids range that creates the imbalance.
Basically, the opposite of Hi-Fi as it is literally lowering the fidelity
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tube amps produce even harmonic frequencies in their distortion. Solid state amps (not all) produce odd harmonic frequencies. The even harmonics sound warmer or more pleasant to the ear.
In professional audio engineering, warm sound refers to frequency response. A warm sounding recording has more lower midrange energy in the 200-800hz range which certainly gives a warmer sound.
Tomi Engdahl says:
the vocabulary is not that easy. Yes you laugh at it, but hey, we need words to describe things we feel, and what we try to describe correspond to those words. I know it is not precise and leads to a ton of interpretation. But funny enough it is not all that different to wine and food, and nobody laughs at wine vocabulary. Even if a god Sancerre can be described as “pipi de chat” (cat piss). Audiophiles are not more idiot than wine lovers, we just have deficient vocabulary to describe the nuances between a recording and another or a piece of equipment vs another.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jasom Kovac phool vs phile is more like – the true self-aware phile says “I like the low-mid boost and harmonics ‘warmth’ from tubes, even tho I know it’s not as ‘accurate’” while the phone indeed says “tubes lift the veil and reveal the nuances more accurately!” And then goes on and on with additional hyperbole about the superior ‘reproduction’.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias?fbclid=IwY2xjawEuTxFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHV5jnP0xCwD4hOjWDxajPhOybzaA4uC8UeQGAPvWYUBYCnh9fX4lJl8mcA_aem_cKREBvqWLflhw_Di7F60nA
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tubes are great for producing music–if it’s the sound you want. But they are not good for reproducing music.
The irony of tube amps is that they’re typically used by people who will argue that they want to hear the music as the artist intended.
And so they play it through a device that objectively introduces even order harmonic distortion.
It doesn’t bother me that people like the sound of even order harmonic distortion but I’d appreciate some consistency in claims. Either you want it like the artist made it or you want it with your favorite distortion added.
But you gotta pick one.
Brandon Buck solid state power are (switching) devices. Whether you realize this distortion is present or not it is there. (And not really measurable). SeT tube power with zero feedback is totally absent of this. This is where tubes give you the perception that it digs deeper into the sound bringing you closer to the the truth. (Despite how bad they look on white paper)
The power transistors used in solid state audio amplifiers (excluding Class D amps, of course) are chosen for their _linear_ characteristics. They are the opposite of switching devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ronald Kline total bullshit.
You confuse it with Class D amps – they are switching. Class A, B are analog, not switching. Solid state amps have disharmonic distortion, tube amps have harmonic distortion. Distortion in solid state amps are hundreds of a percent, in tube amps, several percent.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tube amps are strange. Some of the most expensive tube amps are made using tubes and circuits that are antique even as tube circuits. Directly heated triodes, no negative feedback. These amps have high distortion and very uneven frequency response when connected to an actual reactive speaker. It’s true that distortion of tubes sound musical and an uneven response can also sound subjectively good, but any acceptable solid-state amp is measurably better. Tube amps that use negative feedback are closer to solid-state amps, but still not hi-fi.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Richard Vandersteen spills the beans on the sneaky audio industry tricks that fool our ears and empty our pockets.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/08/vandersteen-exposes-hifi-wasteful-practices/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Where’s the shitpost?
A lot of vinyl pressing today DOES use, he guessed it, a CD as the master!
That said, they do run the signal through a vinyl mastering chain where part of that is to “cut iff the top and bottom” AKA high pass and low pass filtering… along with mono bass, level adjustments, and RIAA EQ, mostly for the purpose of handling the limitations of the medium: to keep the needle from jumping out of the grooves and from groove cuts running into one another.
Tomi Engdahl says:
No, expensive cables absolutely do not matter.
But (very) cheap ones actually do.
Bullshit. Aliexpress cables go brrrrrrrr.
Filip Třeba copper is copper, cross section is cross section, nothing else matters
but you do you
Ladislav Ezr yeah, but Chinese copper is not always copper, and Chinese cross-section is not always what it says on the label.
But most common offender is the (lack of) shielding and /or ill-fitting connectors
Tomi Engdahl says:
Filip Třeba then what you are talking about is an incorrectly specified cable – if the manufacturer does not make a cable that complies with the specification, that is not an issue of cheap or expensive cable – it is a function of compliance to the spec.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Burn-in still isn’t real
A myth goes up in smoke.
https://www.soundguys.com/burn-in-still-isnt-real-120930/
Audiophile myths tend to survive long after they’ve been thoroughly debunked, and I’ve been seeing claims of burn-in being a thing again. So, I figured showing more work would help us understand exactly what’s going on to get people to enjoy their headphones rather than perform some bizarre and unnecessary ritual before doing so.
Where does this leave us?
If someone tells you that you need to burn in your headphones, it’s probably a safe bet that you don’t really need to. The process of “burning in” should involve you listening to your music like normal and allowing the pads to break in, instead of waiting a certain number of hours while your headphones blast noise or signals in a drawer near the computer. While some manufacturers suggest continuing with a “break-in” or “burn-in” period, it does not make much of a measurable difference in my experience. If it did, that would be cause for concern.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Abdurrahman Moustafa All the stuff they sell follow a very simple formula that somehow people fall for.
It’s a $5 off the shelf product available from any Walmart or electronics store, with a little colored piece of tape. Thats it. Then they say it has quantum tech and sell it for $10,000. It’s insane anybody has ever fallen for it.
A $1 fuse they sell for 15,000
A $5 plug adapter, $8,000.
A $5 LAN adapter, $5000
Tomi Engdahl says:
They do not make fuses, they print stickers and install o-rings. just buy one from the thardware store.
Tomi Engdahl says:
I wonder if there’s any psychological parallels between lotto addiction (the thrill of a the hunt for the win, which can only come rarely) and audiophile upgradeitis/parts swapitis (the thrill of the search for perfection, which doesn’t exist).
To be clear, “perfect” (harmless to reproduction) fuses exist, but people who assume that any money they spend on their system can result in an audible performance increase throw money at things that don’t matter.
Its also kinda funny how upgraded parts never make the sound worse or equivalent. Its /always/ better. Like swapping A to B improved the sound, also swapping B to A improved the sound.
Tomi Engdahl says:
and this is their description of their awesome fuse :
“QSA fuses aim to minimise bottle-neck distortions, potentially resulting in a quieter background that allows the music to emerge with improved dynamics and liveliness. Regarding the burn-in process, it is suggested that the QSA fuse may take between 24 and 250 hours to fully settle, with the majority of the changes occurring within the initial 72 hours of usage. The direction in which the fuse faces is considered important, and each fuse is marked with an arrow indicating the correct orientation. Should the sound be perceived as harsh or bright, it is recommended to try switching the direction of the fuse to potentially achieve a more favourable outcome.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/qPi85wjfGt2XZj8R/
I have a theory… Related to cabling that proposes to have amazing capabilities due to polarization, material composition , etc.
My theory is that if you can make a cable that does sound even slightly different in some way from another cable, some number of buyers will legitimately claim that their new cable sounds better than their alternative.
I suspect your goal as a cable maker is to hit 50% of listeners voting ‘yes’ to ‘better’. You really can’t get higher (in a reliable, repeatable way), and you don’t want to be much lower.
The smaller the difference in sound quality the better – larger differences open the door to >50% of listeners saying that the new cable definitely sounds worse.
You also do need some difference to minimize the number of people who say there is no difference.
I suppose this theory can be extended to all sorts of ‘sound improving devices’.
I’m sure some readers will say that all you need is marketing and you can sell anything to someone. I think this true – but it doesn’t maximize sales. My theory is more about maximizing sales of a product.
Bottom line: I’d be willing to bet that the exotic cables that sell the best do sound slightly different than alternatives of lower-to-similar price points.
Tomi Engdahl says:
That is, in my social media circles, if there is one thing guaranteed to trigger the ire of the general HiFi user, its cables. The one thing that tops that in terms of heated debate is fuses. The only other item that will spark a full-scale riot is filtering accessories around Ethernet ports.
Silly, isn’t it? But the Internet is full of silly things.
The problem that most general HiFi users have with digital is their view that it is perfect. It isn’t. Not in its broadest sense.
The view is this. That digital is either 1 or 0. It’s either on or off. You can’t alter it or change it in a HiFi chain. That’s not the answer. That’s not even the question.
Analogue – whose signal also can’t be changed within a HiFi chain, incidentally, only enhanced and improved (like digital) does it’s thing but is subject to a range of external high-frequency noise. All of that noise is applied outside of the actual signal. And when I say outside, that signal is subject to the machinations of your HiFi system. But it also means your shelving, the rest of your room, your house, your mains supply, your phone equipment, other appliances in your house and your neighbour’s house, the traffic outside, the street lighting outside and on…and on. All of that can affect digital too.
You might think that digital is “perfect”. I do not but that’s a different bucket of resistors. Via a half-decent DAC, digital offers a degree of computational accuracy and a certain amount of efficiency
Digital is only a carrier. It is not the music.
More than that, there’s nothing stopping outside influences giving this “perfect” carrier signal a jab, a push and a tweak. Although for digital we give this parasitic noise infection different terms. So words like jitter is used a lot, crosstalk makes an introduction but other annoyances remain too like EMI (not the record label), RF and the rest. All outside influences, all latching on to the digital signal and all of which we can hear.
To repeat, we hear this parasitic rubbish. In addition to the digital signal. As well as the digital signal.
It’s like listening to a dusty record.
Why? Because the digital signal is not pumped into your ears via a perfect delivery system. It is delivered to your ears via a wholly imperfect, clunky, hammered-in-a-factory-somewhere box with flashing lights and a power button. All of that is weak to parasitic aural rubbish.
So you see? You are not only listening to a music signal when you listen to HiFi. You are listening to a sound signal + parasitic rubbish of various stripes and colours produced by a gamut of devices and technologies, most of which have nothing to do with sound. Shouldn’t be connected to the sound. Have no reason to be anywhere near the sound.
The SmoothLAN from Stack Audio, aims to remove at least some of that (there is no silver-bullet product out there that tackles everything
https://theaudiophileman.com/smoothlan-network-enhancer-from-stack/?fbclid=IwY2xjawE_kgdleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHSE3Hrbvsjwc-dJaXF-olbdA8C73NBFmsIutIquIWlwcwDviMErgevA23Q_aem_2FVPKZjhxX56yzfkjiiVpw
Tomi Engdahl says:
“What actually happened with the SmoothLAN in place? A lot. Firstly? The gain rose. I had to pull back on that by a couple of clicks on my pre-amp to find the earlier volume. Presumably because there wasn’t the same amount of rubbish dumbing the sound down all of the natural studio (over) compression.”
Tomi Engdahl some of these people really want to have digital be the same as analogue. His “streamer” must be absolute garbage if noise from the ethernet cable is leaking into the analogue part in a way that makes any kind of difference.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://6moons.com/audioreview_articles/lessloss17/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFE23FleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHdAPOgB9O71HI0ZukfC_l0j_L6BOeiCy-DBjSiSL8ML9ZTQoB6e7P44A4Q_aem_TPNFjA-eJ7EOGBoyzOQpXw