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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

#321

Post by Nordo »

janekm wrote: post #171
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?

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 w…

I've always wondered if the headphone adapter contains a DAC or if it just acts as a breakout box for a DAC already in the phone. I found some people claiming it does, but none that I can see cite a source for it.

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#322

Post by andybak »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #297
tlrobinson wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a DAC can "open" or "close" "the stage" by low quality processing of the signal In principle a low enough quality DAC certainly could affect "the stage", but in reality even cheap ones are likely good enough. > There is no way to convince these people they are wrong I'm pretty sure many of them don't want to be convinced since it would make their hobby pretty boring. I also wouldn't be surprised if industry players…

No, cheap DACs are not “good enough” unless you’re completely indifferent to audio quality. There’s certainly woo and outright fraud in audio. But there’s also attention to detail. Professional studio engineers will spend $3000 on a high-precision digital clock for their DACs because it makes a clearly audible difference. Software people don’t understand that human hearing, and human sensitivity to timbre and distort…

> People who have neither shouldn’t be telling people who do what they can and can’t perceive.

Even if every properly conducted blind placebo test seems to indicate otherwise?

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#323

Post by azinman2 »

Seems like it’d be easier, cheaper, and more “accurate” to put conditioners on the input to the equipment directly... by doing this to the transformer you’re still including your whole house and any noisy equipment (like lights) on your power line.

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#324

Post by deanCommie »

bsaul wrote: post #295
thaumasiotes wrote: post #192

Earlier 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".

I understand what you mean, but just for the record, professional winetasters can pretty much guess which part of land in a given region a wine comes from in blind tests. So, i can tell you that there is a huge difference between a bottle labelled 1000$ and a 5$ one. One telling indicator is that wine does practice blind tests a lot, and has blind test wine competitions that lead to prices, that help small wine produ…

super sommeliers can. They are 1 in a thousand (amongst even professionals)

Most professional wine tasters crumble in blind taste tests.

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#325

Post by Simon_says »

janekm wrote: post #172
sopooneo wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then maybe you don't need to equalize it? Run your experiment with both sources at a wide range of volumes. If there's actually a noticeable difference, it should come across in the data.

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#326

Post by [deleted] »

fvdessen wrote: post #310
deltron3030 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good DACs and ADCs are useful for recording studios who have a lot of analog outboard gear (where the signal leaves and enters their digital setup multiple times). But for normal listening where there are only one or a few conversions, the point of diminishing returns is pretty low. Most of the perceived gains in quality of higher end equipment (DACs, Amps etc.) come from the higher voltage of the outputs (where you…

I have a decent hi-fi audio system at home, and there is a clearly audible difference between playing from my high-end CD player, and playing FLAC from the audio out of my Macbook. The difference is not one of loudness but of 'energy'. A snare hit played from the high-end cd player sounds like someone actually hitting a snare; you can feel there's actual energy in the hit, while the macbook out sounds flat, even at h…

[deleted]

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#327

Post by jayalpha »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #297
tlrobinson wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a DAC can "open" or "close" "the stage" by low quality processing of the signal In principle a low enough quality DAC certainly could affect "the stage", but in reality even cheap ones are likely good enough. > There is no way to convince these people they are wrong I'm pretty sure many of them don't want to be convinced since it would make their hobby pretty boring. I also wouldn't be surprised if industry players…

No, cheap DACs are not “good enough” unless you’re completely indifferent to audio quality. There’s certainly woo and outright fraud in audio. But there’s also attention to detail. Professional studio engineers will spend $3000 on a high-precision digital clock for their DACs because it makes a clearly audible difference. Software people don’t understand that human hearing, and human sensitivity to timbre and distort…

"Some people’s brains and ears are better at all of this than others. Those people can hear things other people can’t."

Well, a lot of this Audiophile stuff is voodoo but if it makes them happy, who cares. But I am skeptical about your statement. The easiest way is to always do a blind or double blind study. A German computer magazine did this once with CD vs. mp3:

https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Kreuzverhoertest-287592.html

The guy who was best in spotting the difference and assign it correctly had an ear damage. Since mp3 was developed for "healthy" ears this is not too surprising.

"People who have neither shouldn’t be telling people who do what they can and can’t perceive. "

Let's agree on the scientific method. Anything that shows a significant difference in a double blind study, even for a specific individual I accept.

By the way, I hear my music on my computer via mp3 and send it into my super old tube amplifier. :-)

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#328

Post by coldtea »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #95
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.

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"…

>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.

You also don't understand that these people have found a pastime that makes them happy and engaged. Who cares about the actual difference in sound compared to that?

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#329

Post by setquk »

walrus01 wrote: post #219
zaxomi wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once saw a shop that sold gold plated fiber optic cables...

Many years ago I saw gold plated TOSLINK cables. They were $500. TOSLINK is a pure fiber audio connection standard that uses multimode fat plastic fiber.

This made me snigger perhaps more than I should do. I wonder if the people selling this shit actually know or not. They have to I suppose.

Re: Audiophiles in Japan Are Installing Their Own Power Poles

#330

Post by nabla9 »

samatman wrote: post #167
nabla9 wrote: post #146

Since audiophiles are so gullible I wonder if you could sell even more stuff for them. For example: * plastic surgery for ear lobes (Ferengi audio Inc.) * ear wax removal and ear hair trimming services

You joke but there is no a priori reason that improvements in cochlear implants have to plateau at human-normal hearing. This is an implant I would actually consider having done.

Hyperspectral cochlear implant would be cool thing to have.

When I had my ear wax removed by a nurse first time, it was really awesome experience. I had no idea how much it helped. For example when I was walking on the street, I heard strange rhythmic sound just behind me. Every time I stopped the sound stopped. Finally I figured out that the sound was coming from my backpack that was chafing against my jacket. Habituation removed the hyper-hearing sensation in 3-6 hours afterwards.

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