221–230 of 405 posts
I'm interested in the playlists of these guys. What are the songs that are worthy of being played on your $100K+ setup? I had never heard of that Queen song before, wonder what his top 10 songs are.
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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"…
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" or "close" "the stage" by low quality processing of the signal. Audio transmission over USB with cheap converters and poorly chosen levels can result in loss of sound quality. I'm pretty sure you can tell the difference between 8 bit, 12 bit, and 16 bit sound. Choosing levels poorly can r…
There are definitely things which can perceptually detract from audio which people just don't think about.
I'm about to buy a couple power conditioners for my electronics because the wiring in my new apartment is garbage and every little spike in voltage comes through as a loud pop in my speakers and headphones.
But more subtly, my audio is constantly being degraded because I have a few cheap dimmers which cause a constant interference pattern in my electrical circuit that weren't a problem in my last apartments, and I can even hear fluctuations caused by my refrigerator if I listen closely.
And all of these things which can subtly degrade audio are 100x more of an issue when you're recording audio. Run any given song through a spectrogram analyzer and you'll usually see a horizontal line or two which could be anything from a little cable noise to a CRT screen.
My telephone pole keeps me going...
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 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".
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Digital transmission/storage ensures the signal is not affected no matter how much noise is on the line (well, as long as it can be transmitted at all...) Now, what I think you mean is that the copper in the cable picks up noise either from the device on the other end or from the surroundings and that has the possibility of affecting the DAC. Even moderately well designed receiver should be able to galvanically isola…
> Digital transmission/storage ensures the signal is not affected no matter how much noise is on the line (well, as long as it can be transmitted at all...) There is no such thing as a digital transmission. All signals are analog.
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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"…
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" or "close" "the stage" by low quality processing of the signal. Audio transmission over USB with cheap converters and poorly chosen levels can result in loss of sound quality. I'm pretty sure you can tell the difference between 8 bit, 12 bit, and 16 bit sound. Choosing levels poorly can r…
However audiophiles are a whole different level. People spend tens of thousands of dollars on items that have questionable difference in quality. I guess people do the same with cars though, a Toyota Corolla will get you to work just as well as a Rolls Royce Phantom.
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 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".
Well for one thing, that's wrong- distinguishing wine is easy. Even people who are just pretty into wine can identify different vinyards etc. and actual sommeliers can nail wine down to the year it was bottled and the conditions it was stored[1].
The thing you're referring to is that when you line up regular people and give them $5 and $1000 bottles of wine, they will rank them in essentially random order. That should be no surprise at all. People have their own favorites. When you line up experts, they can differentiate cheap wine from expensive wine, but inside a broad category (say $200-$1000) they will rank essentially randomly. Again, that shouldn't be surprising at all, because "quality" itself isn't what's being paid for or looked for. Each wine is developed for a taste, not for some abstract quality metric that is the exact same for every wine.
Normal audiophiles will typically aim for objective metrics like THD, but the extreme guys are often aiming for subjective/vague things like timbre, color and soundstage. That leads to some esotericism. They also tend to have gobs of money to throw at this stuff, so a $1000 knob may be more about getting exactly what you want, or even just prestige. Both rational choices. Regardless, its inherently way more absurd than wine because even audiophiles with the most virgin ears will get nothing from .001% THD (very high end) vs [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZQc0wfkU7I
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I wish it was all an elaborate joke, but unfortunately it's not. The rest of that site is just as perplexing and appears to cater to the same sort of people who believe in psychics. Here's one example: http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina60.htm
Wow, and I thought "audiophile" SATA cables were the dumbest audiophile gear you could buy https://jcat.eu/audiophile-sata-cable/
https://i.imgur.com/zFdITcQ.png
And if you are interested I also have a scattering-free, anti-jitter bridge to sell
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That's not 'noise', that is packets that didn't make it. It's not having a perfect picture vs. no picture, but about data packets either going from A to B or not going from A to B. Say the HDMI cable is crap and it can only do 100 packets per second, and HDR needs 1000 packets per second, the HDMI chips are going to negotiate a HDMI transfer settings without HDR. Going back further, say the HDMI data path is negotiat…
HDMI doesn't have packets. It's largely digital VGA. It's very easy to flick individual bits, and the effect is basically the same as analog noise. The only difference is the threshold.
Is there any error correcting code/protocol in HDMI spec to fix individual bit flips?
