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Audiophilia - From skeptic to believer

WDB said:
Can you offer us any explanation as to the mechanism by which this power cord improves sound quality ?
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Paul breaks out in song...............

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
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Paul

:) :) :)
 
Fortunately, I live in a country, where we don't respond automatically to slights with gunfire!
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why waste a bullet when you have boomerangs. well, the American ones come back to you.
 
pipelineaudio said:
I LOVE to make fun of audiophiles as much as the next guy

We like to say around here " If pedophiles molest children what do you think audiophiles do to audio "

I can hear the thought police and word nazis groaning already but whatever.

These right here are kind of bad examples.

IIRC Johnson was able to pick those different batteries in a PCABX test ( http://www.pcavtech.com/test_data/ )

They werent different brands of batteries but different technologies, which could make a humoungous difference if the pedal in question is an effect containing a Low Frequency Oscillator such as a flanger or chorus.

Hand wired amps are pretty much a guarantee you wont end up with chinese crap in your amp of someone stamping out a PC board and then sticking a tube in it just to make it glow. I dont believe that handwired point to point is necessarily better than a WELL MADE PC board, but there are lots of ways to wire the exact same circuit, layout the components too close together and really screw things up. This also is easy to test.

Oddly coated strings? Well if theyre Elixirs for instance, they resist corrosion and keep their new tone for a lot longer...Similar processes are used in many technologies, such as plastic wrap around twinkies or galvanizing nails

Custom wound pickups are an extravagance but they make perfect sense...They change the electrical characteristics of the device. This is easily testable.

Its not like the guy is telling us to buy shakti stones, or these stupid 1500 dollar power cables that are suckering some of my fellow engineers.
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Wow, I'm late getting back to this one.

Nah, the flaw wasn't with my examples, exactly, but with my lack of clarity. Still all my fault, just in a different way.

Most of the replacing of gizmos and gadgets, while having real-world effects on sound, seem to come from rather illogical motivations, bordering on woo. Guitar pickups, for instance, have a noticeable effect on a guitar's sound, but it doesn't mean that any pickup can go in any guitar, and it will be an automatic improvement. The same goes for cables, tubes, strings, and any other gadget you can possibly buy.

Nevertheless, you can find people daily who are buying replacement parts for equipment that they don't even own yet, on the quasi-woo principle that all stock equipment is junk, every modification improves sound regardless of equipment or planned usage.

I posted to a website over the weekend about the new amplifier I'm getting(tomorrow!). They don't know what other equipment I have, or even what style of music I play, but I have already been advised that I need to change every tube in it to match whatever tubes the cool kids are using, I need to scrap the speaker cabinet for one of a handful of handmade boutique speaker cabinets, and been told all sorts of interesting things about electrical resistance, at least some of which could possibly cause the amplifier to catch on fire.

Yes, rationally, different components will cause different sounds to be produced... but there seems to be little rationality in the application of that.
 
jimlintott said:
You know what? He's right about this. Without cables my, expensive, audio system made no sound at all. With cables it sounds great.
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Nice catch... I should go out and gets me some of them there cable things.
 
JoeEllison said:
Yes, rationally, different components will cause different sounds to be produced... but there seems to be little rationality in the application of that.
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Somewhat on topic: Last night I finally got around to setting up my new stereo, consisting of an old Luxman receiver, one of the early Philips CD decks, and a 10 kg Bang & Olufsen / Thorens record player from 1972. That, and a minidisc plus the computer, naturally. Everything scrounged, except for the (I'm guessing seventies DIY) speakers, which I bought for ~$10 along with an amp. Speaker cable is some lamp wire I had lying around, and I had to solder up a DIN/phono converter and mess around with getting a decent grounding on the record deck.

But, now it's perfect! Sounds way better than the (also scrounged) Sanyo crap I had before, better radio reception, can hear everything that's going on in some Indian classical music on vinyl. Yay! Amazing what people throw away. To be fair, the CD player had a Helmuth Lotti disc in it, might have something to do with it.

I wonder how ES would rate this $10 wonder?
 
ThatSoundAgain said:
Somewhat on topic: Last night I finally got around to setting up my new stereo, consisting of an old Luxman receiver, one of the early Philips CD decks, and a 10 kg Bang & Olufsen / Thorens record player from 1972. That, and a minidisc plus the computer, naturally. Everything scrounged, except for the (I'm guessing seventies DIY) speakers, which I bought for ~$10 along with an amp. Speaker cable is some lamp wire I had lying around, and I had to solder up a DIN/phono converter and mess around with getting a decent grounding on the record deck.

But, now it's perfect! Sounds way better than the (also scrounged) Sanyo crap I had before, better radio reception, can hear everything that's going on in some Indian classical music on vinyl. Yay! Amazing what people throw away. To be fair, the CD player had a Helmuth Lotti disc in it, might have something to do with it.

I wonder how ES would rate this $10 wonder?
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Maybe you need to suspend the whole thing in motor oil to cool it down and absorb vibration?
 
ExtremeSkeptic, at what point does the benefit/cost ratio drop to the point where buying additional crap gear is no longer worth it to you?
 
illogical said:
why waste a bullet when you have boomerangs. well, the American ones come back to you.
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Boomerangs don't work so well in cities. Too many people in the way of the target. Getting up close with a big stick, then running away seems more effective.
I still don't understand why someone, apparently unrelated to ES, should respond so aggressively to concerns over ES's health. There are some, who are quite proud to display their certificates of sanity and request to see yours. My sanity has been confirmed by Spike Milligan and I have the letter to prove it!
 
JonnyFive said:
ExtremeSkeptic, at what point does the benefit/cost ratio drop to the point where buying additional crap gear is no longer worth it to you?
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When I don't hear anything wrong anymore. If I hear something in the sound that annoys me, I need to get down on my knees and keep tweaking under the table until the problem is solved.
 
ExtremeSkeptic said:
When I don't hear anything wrong anymore. If I hear something in the sound that annoys me, I need to get down on my knees and keep tweaking under the table until the problem is solved.
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There first sign that it is all in you head and not real, if it was real you wouldn't have to tweak it again. But I think you will not understand that, because I couldn't get my friend to understand that either, and all he did for 25 years was tweak the wire. Oh it is OK now, he would say and then, oh no it isn't OK, tweak again and again and again. You guys just don't get it that ii is all in you head.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
JoeEllison said:
Maybe you need to suspend the whole thing in motor oil to cool it down and absorb vibration?
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First I need to find some friends that care enough about this that they'll feel inferior if I do that. Else, what's the point of making inaudible "tweaks" and sitting around claiming there's a difference?
 
LTC8K6 said:
Does it sound better than live yet?
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After a long stretch listening to synths in my studio, I went out to hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall.

That big soundstage! The highs on the strings--they absolutely shimmered! The occasional clam in the brass! The amazing 1024-bit reverb! The incredibly life-like simulation of an old lady unwrapping her candy! The amazing speech-synthesis of yokels yakking!

All so incredibly...real.

After being shut up in a padded studio for a long time, everything sounded like it was a simulation--an incredibly high-fidelity simulation.
 
ExtremeSkeptic said:
ohp said:
Just nod and smile, and back away...
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That's what people who are afraid of the truth do.
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Yes, I'll freely admit I am a little scared of you...


ExtremeSkeptic said:
ohp said:
how do you color the sound?
when you say "removes low level detail" what does this mean? is it like a high pass filter?
cleaner? faster?
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If you own an audio system, try some cables, nobody is going to convince you otherwise.

I like the Valhalla power cord coloration, it makes it sounds clean, smooth and open. There is no muddiness or greyness, it's just clean. Valhalla is cleaner than real life. The longer it is, the cleaner it sounds like. I have found that using the longest Valhalla for the transport and shortest for everything else gives the most low-level detail and strongest bass.
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Nope. I still don't understand how a power cord makes music sound "clean"

I think that perhaps this is the wrong way to discuss the topic... Could you post a link to two sound clips, one of which sounds "muddy" with the other sounding "clean" ? then I can hear for myself.
 
calebprime said:
After a long stretch listening to synths in my studio, I went out to hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall.

That big soundstage! The highs on the strings--they absolutely shimmered! The occasional clam in the brass! The amazing 1024-bit reverb! The incredibly life-like simulation of an old lady unwrapping her candy! The amazing speech-synthesis of yokels yakking!

All so incredibly...real.

After being shut up in a padded studio for a long time, everything sounded like it was a simulation--an incredibly high-fidelity simulation.
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*grins*

I'm leaving the world of simulations today... I wonder how it will sound to my ears? I'll bet it will be a bit odd and awkward for my ears, since they have gotten so used to digital simulations.

If you listen to anything long enough, you can convince yourself of almost anything about it. If you look at it negatively, you will convince yourself that it needs more tweaking. If you have a positive outlook, it will sound better to your ears.
 
ExtremeSkeptic said:
When I don't hear anything wrong anymore. If I hear something in the sound that annoys me, I need to get down on my knees and keep tweaking under the table until the problem is solved.
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So there is no cost you wouldn't be willing to pay in order to tweak a minor annoyance? Am I reading you correctly on that? (given that you've probably spent more on cables than I did on a brand new car, I'm guessing I am)
 
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