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.
Maybe you just need some HD ram to bring out the sparkling highs.
Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
131–140 of 405 posts
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#132A 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). Play…
> The super cheap units you find for like $10-20 will usually have serious shielding / noise issues
That's not true if even possible (because dac and amplifier are on a single cheap). I've tested like five different DACs, from $2 to $150, even those for $2 that play distorted sound and don't bother putting output capacitors for headphones have no noise/shielding problems.
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#133I 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.
That's a very apt quote. The way I look at things like this is: Do recording studios go to the same lengths? After all, if the effect is real, and the studio didn't do something to mitigate it, then it's going to be on the track regardless of what you do in playback at home. Much more so, even, because of the gain stages involved when recording a microphone signal. (Spoiler alert: Recording studios do not install the…
Indeed they do. Some high end studios install balanced power. Which is more involved than just a power pole.
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, you can absolutely sell "HD SATA" cables. To paraphrase, "There's a new audiophile born every minute". https://jcat.eu/audiophile-sata-cable/
huh, besides the BS, isn't the file loaded into RAM first anyway?
You know what's next - sell audiophile-grade RAM. Gold-plate everything.
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#135Tubes, 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 ;)
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Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
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). Play…
> The super cheap units you find for like $10-20 will usually have serious shielding / noise issues That's not true if even possible (because dac and amplifier are on a single cheap). I've tested like five different DACs, from $2 to $150, even those for $2 that play distorted sound and don't bother putting output capacitors for headphones have no noise/shielding problems.
Not sure why it's not possible, though I could've had a defective unit. Specifically, I had a Fiio D3 ($20) which had bad background noise, even when not playing. I always assumed it was a power supply or shielding issue. The audio output from it actually sounded decent, just I could always hear the background noise. Don't think it was a grounding issue either, because it was the only DAC I ever had that consistently did that, no matter what system I plugged it into.
I've played around with the DAC built-in to the Raspberry Pi 3 as well, and that one was more of a distorted output problem, similar to what you describe with the $2 DAC.
Other DAC's I've tried (from around $75 and up) I've never heard noise / shielding issues, so again rapidly diminishing returns once you get past the super budget options, in my experience.
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#137Tubes, 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 ;)
So true, a friend and I had a holiday party at my house and we talked about having a DJ but instead we went online and got a piano player instead for less money and honestly way classier and BTW, it was fun and nice, sort of a cool thing really.
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#138Even if noise in the power signal were to influence audio quality to an appreciable amount, this way of solving the problem is rather curious for the uncompromising audiophiles. Why would you install your own secondary transformer when you could just rectify the current, accumulate it and then use an inverter for a fraction of the price? Or even better just store the current and use it to power the audio equipment wi…
Audio amplifiers already contain transformers, large capacitors, and rectifiers.
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#139The 82-year-old lawyer already had a $60,000 American-made amplifier, 1960s German loudspeakers that once belonged to a theater, Japanese audio cables threaded with gold and silver, and other pricey equipment.
Meanwhile, my wife plays her Dean Martin records through her own personal 15-watt AM radio station in the closet, picked up on vintage tube radios scattered around the house so the music sounds like it was intended by the audio engineers of the day.
There are all kinds of audiophiles. I don't understand any of them.
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
to an extent, it's often part of the ~value of new devices too. your new computer seems so much better when most people have zero idea if it is or where it is.