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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

#171

Post by janekm »

reaperducer wrote: post #154
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"…

To me, my iPod Shuffles, launch day iPhone, and modern iPhone all sound very different from one another when I play the same song. (I prefer the Shuffles.) Is this a real thing, or should I upgrade to a better brand of crack?

Probably mostly the latter. The headphone adapter with recent iPhones measures remarkably well for such a tiny device: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/what-is-the-sound-quality-of... (scroll down a little for lots of geeky measurements).

It's hard for our brain to comprehend that such a tiny gadget can sound so good, so I suspect that accounts for a lot of the perceived difference. Also, some music can sound better with a poorer output device by e.g. smearing noise in the treble or rolling off excessive bass.

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#172

Post by janekm »

sopooneo wrote: post #166
reaperducer wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, my iPod Shuffles, launch day iPhone, and modern iPhone all sound very different from one another when I play the same song. (I prefer the Shuffles.) Is this a real thing, or should I upgrade to a better brand of crack?

Could you have a couple friends help you set up some double blind comparisons? I'd be interested if learning the results.

Forgot to mention in my other response... the volume is the biggest influence in perceived sound quality. Equalising that in such devices can be tricky in an impromptu setup.

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#173

Post by mbruce »

itchyouch wrote: post #128
walrus01 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sorry, copper is not ‘noisy’! Any medium has limits and methods to properly use it. E.g. shielding / grounding. Have to look at whole system. Agree fibre might be more practical in some situations.

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#175

Post by amluto »

I suppose these folks don’t want to know that utility transformers transmit noise both directions, so this doesn’t do much. It may help isolate from noise that comes from the audiophile’s house, though — nasty current waveforms will cause noisy voltage drops in the house’s wiring, and that will cause nasty voltage waveforms in the house (and everywhere else on the block, but less so).

A much better approach would be to buy a motor-generator pair with a decent-sized flywheel.

But this is all silly. The noise in question might cause audible noise in the power supply, but the power supply can go in a different room. As anyone who has listened to a problematic audio system can attest, the noise that really matters is the 50/60 Hz AC hum, and none of these hacks will help.

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#176

Post by GuB-42 »

village-idiot wrote: post #88
walrus01 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I’ll pay a bit extra for a nicely wrapped cable with really good anti-tangle and strain relief properties, because that’s convenient.

And that's exactly what real high quality cable is.

Professional cables are usually flexible, with robust insulation and connectors. They may also be fire rated. Quality control ensures that cables will always be up to specs because people doing the installation have other things to do than dealing with defective cables.

Like most pro stuff, pro cables are not "better", they are cables that won't be a problem.

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#177

Post by lmilcin »

sopooneo wrote: post #169
baddox wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously don’t spend $1000 on a normal passive HDMI cable, but I’ve found that increasingly the all-or-nothing argument doesn’t work for some reason. I recently had to upgrade all my HDMI cables to get 4k HDR video working reliably. Before upgrading, the video would work, but I would occasionally see white “sparkles” on the video output. Googling this problem led me to many people recommending upgrading HDMI cables…

I don't know this world. But could it be because the HDMI protocol doesn't require correcting all errors? And newer cables produced fewer corrupt packets which might have resulted in "sparkle"?

Different HDMI cables have different bandwidth which is a result of their physical construction, same way as you have different bandwidth ethernet cables. Sending signal on the edge of cable's capability may be causing intermittent problems.

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#179

Post by IAmGraydon »

I think that you can consider extreme audiophilia to be an expression of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and therefore the audiophile industry is predatory in that it preys upon the mentally ill. I’ve seen it all - including $1,000 aftermarket wooden knobs that were said to dampen sound-corrupting vibrations in your power amplifier. The people who sell these items know exactly what they’re doing, and I hope more people will see them for what they are - common con men.

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#180

Post by lmilcin »

bb88 wrote: post #85
walrus01 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Technically there is jitter in the digital domain, and it's possible to see problems at high bandwidth signals, but in low bandwidth transmissions like Flac, you're absolutely right. If you have nanosecond timing requirements, then those might be useful, but for audio they are overkill. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jitter

The difference is that with digital signal there is limited number of components that actually make a difference and as soon as a certain level of quality is reached (basically reliable transmission) nothing can be improved further.

For listening purposes the transmitted data can be buffered on the receiver DAC. This means that as long as the buffer on DAC is not emptied everything else may be failing badly and it will have zero effect on your listening experience.

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