After getting tinnitus, none of these things matter to me anymore.
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Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
201–210 of 405 posts
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#202I 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 peopl…
How do $1,000 aftermarket wooden knobs (with no detectable physical effect) differ from, say, a $1,000 bottle of wine (which cannot be distinguished in a blind taste test from a $5 bottle)? They're just class signifiers. The difference I see is that audiophiles are less prestigious than oenophiles, but I don't see how you get from there to "audiophiles have a mental illness".
Good point. I think that by their logic selling "enthusiast" versions of anything will almost always be classifiable as a practice that "preys upon the mentally ill".
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do $1,000 aftermarket wooden knobs (with no detectable physical effect) differ from, say, a $1,000 bottle of wine (which cannot be distinguished in a blind taste test from a $5 bottle)? They're just class signifiers. The difference I see is that audiophiles are less prestigious than oenophiles, but I don't see how you get from there to "audiophiles have a mental illness".
A $1000 bottle of wine is going to be from a specific year, from a specific vineyard. There's naturally a limited supply, so price will increase with demand like any collectible. A wooden knob is not unique and anyone could manufacture an unlimited amount at low cost.
I've had a $400 bottle of scotch (37 yr McCallan over 15 years ago), and it was significantly better than the 18 yr old you could get at the time for about $120. Was it worth it? Yes-once. I wouldn't do it again, but I enjoyed that bottle over a 3 month period.
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#204$100k in equipment, but I bet none of that went to an oscilloscope to actually quantify the problems they are imagining.
One of the guys in the article actually did have someone use an oscilloscope to measure the interference from his neighbor's appliances.
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#205I work in the audio industry, and I can say two things: 1) most everything they do is audio mysticism (i.e. complete BS), and 2) they are very profitable customers.
As what do you work in the audio industry? Marketing? Sales? Engineering? Programming?
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#206Does anyone remember the tests they did where 'serious' audiophiles couldn't tell the difference between the $200 cable and a coat hanger?
No. But I remember those tests, where they actually could!
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#207I work in the audio industry, and I can say two things: 1) most everything they do is audio mysticism (i.e. complete BS), and 2) they are very profitable customers.
As a trained EE, non-practicing, I would think it would be far easier to install filters/conditioners on the line to normalize the voltage and current (e.g. performing phase correction). Also, if you had a local AC->DC->AC conversion, could probably get a more uniform power source frequency. Not sure, been a long time since ive studied this, but I think a lot of thw high-end audiophile stuff is snake oil. I've been able to listen to a couple of high end audiophile installs. The electrostatic speakers are amazing, but I'm not going to appreciate enough to justify a $120k install over my $2k commodity home theater sound.
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#208I 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…
HDMI cables used to be a great example, but now there are something like 8 different levels of certification and only the highest have the bandwidth to carry a 2160p, 60fps, 10 bit, 4:4:4 signal. And as far as I can tell, they are all passive so your source or sink can't warn you that your cable isn't compatible. You'll just get artifacts.
The AmazonBasics cable will do 18Gbps, so it can do 2160p, 60fps, 10 bit, but only with chroma subsampling (which is fine because most video sources have chroma subsampling). The Amazon cable may work with a 4:4:4 signal, but it's not certified for it. There's a level above that for 48Gbps cables.
I totally agree with the general idea, though. As long as a cable for a digital signal meets the specifications set by the standards body, you're good.
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#209Earlier 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…
> 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. I don't disagree with your main point, but this actually isn't quite true. The HDMI signal is split into 3 distinct interleaved periods: video data, data island and control. Video data is not packetized and the only possible error detection it has is from TMDS signaling, but no such error handling is requ…
Yes, but when when there's signal degradation in an HDMI cable it shows obviously, not as a subtle video quality change. If you can see an HDMI signal with white blinking dots everywhere, you can be confident that the cable is not altering the signal in any really detectable way.
Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles
#210Earlier 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…
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…
Certainly there are bad cables, and sparkles are clear signal dropouts.
The description of that cable though, says Perfect-Surface Technology applied to extreme-purity silver provides unprecedented clarity and dynamic contrast.
An HDMI cable can not affect the "clarity" or contrast of the image or audio it carries. It can just succeed or fail (and failure results in obvious pixel noise, not some overall lowering of contrast or clarity like in analog)