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Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

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Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#121

Post by ericabiz »

confounded wrote: post #97

A tangent, but seeing as this thread has awoken the HN audiophiles: What should I look for/avoid in a DAC? Does it really matter if my source device is an iPhone/iPad? Reading blogs and review sites talk about the personality of DACs has started to grind on me. Surely it’s just a question of accuracy which can be summarized in a metric? (I’m currently probably going to get a NAD D 3045 integrated amp/DAC, mainly for…

Recovering audiophile here...my favorite DAC right now is the EarStudio ES100. In addition to functioning as a USB DAC, it also enables regular headphones to "become" Bluetooth devices.

It's by far my favorite because my nice wired headphones are now no longer obsolete. I often use it with my iPhone + Roku + Roku iPhone app's "headphone" option. It's perfect for listening to TV late at night after my kid is asleep.

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#122

Post by lucas_membrane »

eigenvector wrote: post #50
Izmaki wrote: post #3

When I'm playing music on my stereo from my PC through USB, turning off the lights on my bathroom on the other side of the wall will momentarily kill my USB driver and as a result Spotify stops working. Electromagnetic interference is no joke.

I had an old Dell laptop where I could "hear" an external USB hard drive spinning up in my headphones, but only if it was connected to a USB port on the same side of the laptop as the audio jack.

Did you buy it from the guy who took his battery powered Dell with him as he sailed from California to Hawaii? 1000 miles from land, he could still hear the 60 Hz. hum.

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#123

Post by jd20 »

confounded wrote: post #97

A tangent, but seeing as this thread has awoken the HN audiophiles: What should I look for/avoid in a DAC? Does it really matter if my source device is an iPhone/iPad? Reading blogs and review sites talk about the personality of DACs has started to grind on me. Surely it’s just a question of accuracy which can be summarized in a metric? (I’m currently probably going to get a NAD D 3045 integrated amp/DAC, mainly for…

There's a sharp curve of diminishing returns, for DAC's especially. The super cheap units you find for like $10-20 will usually have serious shielding / noise issues, which is immediately apparent upon listening. Beyond $100-200, the design and components are usually pretty competent, and what you are mainly hearing is just how the implementation was "tuned" by the manufacturer (not necessarily better or worse).

Playing from an iPhone or iPad is perfectly fine. Make sure EQ and Sound Check are turned off. Most music streaming formats are nearly impossible to differentiate from lossless (i.e. Apple Music, Tidal, Spotify), so I wouldn't sweat that.

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#124

Post by ada1981 »

zw123456 wrote: post #110

Tubes, cables now this. It seems more like religion or superstition than technology IMHO. If you want to take it to the limit, hire someone to come into your home and perform live for you, then you can eliminate all the sources of distortion. Not only would you be hearing the ultimate perfect sound, you would be providing employment for artists. Seems like a win - win to me :)

And perhaps at a fraction of the cost ;)

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#125

Post by sjwright »

fabioborellini wrote: post #116
AdrianB1 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't understand the power of naivety, placebo effect, dreams and stupidity composed (multiply all). Not in any way intended to insult these people, I know a few (not as rich) and they simply do not want to understand the basic principles behind digital signals, error corrections etc. I know people that work in IT and still pretend that audio transmission over USB can add jitter to music and that a DAC can "open"…

What kind of arguments you've been using? Are you talking specifically about the DA chips or the black boxes containing them? I pretty much can agree with you regarding the digital side of things, but could the actual appliances have notable differences in their analogue side or configuration? Maybe the actual value of having a $400 DAC appliance (built around a $2 Wolfson DAC chip) is going around problems in a comp…

Spend a lot of money on object —> Expect difference that doesn't exist —> Listen for this difference —> Careful listening reveals previously unnoticed nuance —> Revelation is attributed to new object.

Rinse, repeat.

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#126

Post by foobar1962 »

tlrobinson wrote: post #49
andrewvc wrote: post #16

Even if you buy into this theory, how is this cheaper or better than using batteries to power your gear?

Good question. Sounds like a great opportunity to sell overpriced batteries to audiophiles.

Heavy metal batteries. Classical batteries.

If only there was a genre of music called “deep cycle” we’d be on the gravy train for life. (Ref: HHGG)

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#127

Post by twic »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #18
remcob wrote: post #9

$100k in equipment, but I bet none of that went to an oscilloscope to actually quantify the problems they are imagining.

I bet you some of those dollars went towards the acquisition of some Brilliant Pebbles [0]! [0] http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina31.htm

And hopefully not the other Brilliant Pebbles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Pebbles

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#128

Post by itchyouch »

walrus01 wrote: post #70
bayindirh wrote: post #59

I don't understand this type of audiophiles. I also have a fairly high end, vintage audio system at home, but I'd never do anything like that in the name of audio quality. There's a quote I love about these people: A normal person uses the audio system to listen music, while an audiophile uses music to listen to his audio system.

One of the things I truly will never understand about "Audiophiles" is their willingness to spend money on products that are, from a technical basis, indisputably categorized as snake oil. For instance: https://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-Diamond-feet-Braided-Cable... It's an HDMI cable! The video signal has CRC in it and is packetized, it's either going to make it or it isn't. The quality of video delivered at, for in…

One thing I can say about copper is that it is noisy.

We are running FPGAs (with NICs) and were getting lots of packet errors over the copper cable SFP cables. Turns out, we either needed to write out noise cleanup logic into the FPGA, or add in a noise cleanup module which would add an extra 50ns to packet processing to the FPGA. Simple solution was to convert to fiber and the noise and errors all went away.

I'd say if audiophiles truly want unmolested electricity, they ought to use optical fiber for as much of the run as possible.

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#129

Post by sjwright »

tlrobinson wrote: post #118
rubito wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

huh, besides the BS, isn't the file loaded into RAM first anyway?

Yes, which is why this is one of the more absurd pieces of audiophile gear.

Anything "audiophile" in the digital domain is all equally absurd. The only difference is that some require a half-second of consideration and others require literally no thought at all to identify as stupid.

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#130

Post by kuratkull »

rixrax wrote: post #113

I always wondered how people selling some of these audiophile gadgets can justify to themselves over long run what might appear as a scam to many outsiders. But then I was explained that this is little different than my|your|their wife spending $$$ on some ridiculously expensive Bottega|Hermes|Burberry|... handbag. Which after all is functionally about the same as $1 handbag. Some people choose handbags, or cars, and…

Handbag producers don't claim their bags contain magic. The audiophile stuff producers do. The are making false claims.
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