Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stereophile: A Personal Odyssey

stereophile.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 61 posts

Re: Stereophile: A Personal Odyssey

#21

Post by [deleted] »

im_down_w_otp wrote: post #19
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“It's morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money.” - W. C. Fields My first impression most "audiophile gear" and specifically on ShakiStones below is "well, that's so ridiculous it shouldn't be legal" but on better consideration, good for them. If someone is that dumb, they need to be relieved of their money before they do something dangerous with it.

Does this sentiment only apply to rich dumb people, or does the "good" of exploiting people's gullibility for profit also extend to taking advantage of the poor and vulnerable? I ask because I've often wondered if this trait of American culture, wherein we've decided that defending oneself against predators & charlatans is up to the individual and not up to society (and if the individual fails at this, then "good for…

[deleted]

Re: Stereophile: A Personal Odyssey

#22

Post by malandrew »

janekm wrote: post #12
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is the history of a successful charlatan. Agreed. Its tough though... I know of a couple times in my life I've thought something was OK until I saw something else. Examples, Glass. Binoculars, camera lenses, rifle scopes, telescopes. Glass differences are very real. You might be A-OK with some Bushnell Binos, but USE Swarovski or Vortex Razor or something lower-highend and you'll get it. Now, I didn't write LOO…

You can measure all the differences in TV picture you described (and you didn't even mention colour gamut & dynamic range). You can measure the differences in optical glass. You can't measure the difference between a $10/m speaker cable and $10000/m speaker cable (usually... some of the expensive speaker cable is so crazy it may mess up the sound), or an amplifier sitting on a $5000 stand. And $1000 power cables, plu…

I used to live on the Avenida Paulista in São Paulo, Brazil and one of the interesting quirks about that location is the number of high power TV and Radio antennas in the immediate vicinity. At the time I had a hi-fi system that had previously sounded great, but in this particular location was impacted by the high electromagnetic interference in the area. Most of the noise got in between the RCA cables between the pre-amp and the power amps.

I spent the better part of a year building cables and trying out different designs to isolate the noise, such as having a floating woven metal shield with a small capacitor at one end to ground the shield. I don't remember all the different things I tried, but they definitely had varying levels of material impact. That said, with RCA cables I never got the noise completely out of the system and eventually switched everything out for something with balanced XLR connectors, which eliminated the problem.

tl:dr; expensive cables don't really matter. cable design does to a point, but if you really want great sound without interference, you need to switch to a system with a balanced design. Unfortunately, this requires changing all components, not just the cables.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balanced_audio

Re: Stereophile: A Personal Odyssey

#23

Post by dan_quixote »

dsr_ wrote: post #5
mbell wrote: post #2

Stereophile routinely recommends $20,000 'power conditioners' and multi-thousand dollar cables. FFS they've claimed CD players 'sound better' sitting on 'special' racks. ( https://www.stereophile.com/standsracks/206finite/index.html ) This is the history of a successful charlatan.

Shakti Stones. http://www.shakti-innovations.com/product/shakti-stone/

If only the Shakti Stone could absorb all that JPEG in its product pic...

Re: Stereophile: A Personal Odyssey

#24

Post by mikeash »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #9
mbell wrote: post #2

Stereophile routinely recommends $20,000 'power conditioners' and multi-thousand dollar cables. FFS they've claimed CD players 'sound better' sitting on 'special' racks. ( https://www.stereophile.com/standsracks/206finite/index.html ) This is the history of a successful charlatan.

>This is the history of a successful charlatan. Agreed. Its tough though... I know of a couple times in my life I've thought something was OK until I saw something else. Examples, Glass. Binoculars, camera lenses, rifle scopes, telescopes. Glass differences are very real. You might be A-OK with some Bushnell Binos, but USE Swarovski or Vortex Razor or something lower-highend and you'll get it. Now, I didn't write LOO…

Audio is subjective but differences in quality can still be objectively measured. You play the same music through different equipment and have the listener rate them without knowing what they are. Consistent improvements will show up across different listeners, and differences that come down to personal taste will still show up across different sessions with the same listener.

The most telling thing about the audiophile world is how allergic they are to anything that resembles this sort of blind testing.

Re: Stereophile: A Personal Odyssey

#25

Post by smolder »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #10
compiler-guy wrote: post #4

Stereophile is a terrific view into a culture of pseudo science and science denialism, but with extremely low stakes: it's just rich people wasting their money. It's worth reading because the prose is actually quite good and you can also see just how people determined to believe things can ignore or dismiss rational arguments.

“It's morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money.” - W. C. Fields My first impression most "audiophile gear" and specifically on ShakiStones below is "well, that's so ridiculous it shouldn't be legal" but on better consideration, good for them. If someone is that dumb, they need to be relieved of their money before they do something dangerous with it.

I think the saddest aspect of the pseudoscience around high end audio is these nonsense gimmicky products dilute the market for actual premium audio equipment.

Typical mass produced consumer stuff is often pretty awful, but there are so many disingenuous or foolish reviews of equipment out there, the lesson people learn is that anything more expensive than the current deal on massdrop or at best buy is just a waste of money.

I have figured out through a lot of research and consultation with honest experts what gets you good bang for the buck in the "higher quality" audio space, and what is purely gimmick, but it should not be so hard.

Re: Stereophile: A Personal Odyssey

#26

Post by PretzelFisch »

mikeash wrote: post #24
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is the history of a successful charlatan. Agreed. Its tough though... I know of a couple times in my life I've thought something was OK until I saw something else. Examples, Glass. Binoculars, camera lenses, rifle scopes, telescopes. Glass differences are very real. You might be A-OK with some Bushnell Binos, but USE Swarovski or Vortex Razor or something lower-highend and you'll get it. Now, I didn't write LOO…

Audio is subjective but differences in quality can still be objectively measured. You play the same music through different equipment and have the listener rate them without knowing what they are . Consistent improvements will show up across different listeners, and differences that come down to personal taste will still show up across different sessions with the same listener. The most telling thing about the audiop…

Right but, people often match volume/level when testing so things sound different, because +3db tends to sound better to the human ear.

Re: Stereophile: A Personal Odyssey

#27

Post by smolder »

smhinsey wrote: post #8
dsr_ wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shakti Stones. http://www.shakti-innovations.com/product/shakti-stone/

"The SHAKTI Electromagnetic Stabilizer (aka “the Stone”) has three internal trap circuits (Microwave, RF and Electric Field) to absorb the broadest spectrum of EMI. Placement on automotive CPUs has measurably increased engine horsepower." Sheesh.

Ha! I'd like to see them back that engine computer claim up. There is NO way a fair test would show any improvement outside the margin of error, and that's not a measurement problem.

Re: Stereophile: A Personal Odyssey

#28

Post by [deleted] »

mbell wrote: post #2

Stereophile routinely recommends $20,000 'power conditioners' and multi-thousand dollar cables. FFS they've claimed CD players 'sound better' sitting on 'special' racks. ( https://www.stereophile.com/standsracks/206finite/index.html ) This is the history of a successful charlatan.

[deleted]

Re: Stereophile: A Personal Odyssey

#29

Post by brigade »

compiler-guy wrote: post #4

Stereophile is a terrific view into a culture of pseudo science and science denialism, but with extremely low stakes: it's just rich people wasting their money. It's worth reading because the prose is actually quite good and you can also see just how people determined to believe things can ignore or dismiss rational arguments.

Interestingly, it’s also one of the few sources of comprehensive objective measurements of high-end speakers and other equipment.

They’re just careful to never let the actual measurements influence the glowing prose of their main review; at most Atkinson gets off a mild shot or two in the conclusion to the measurement section (“somewhat idiosyncratic measured behavior”, “even with its rather lively cabinet”, “don’t measure as well as they could”)

Re: Stereophile: A Personal Odyssey

#30

Post by fwip »

janekm wrote: post #12
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is the history of a successful charlatan. Agreed. Its tough though... I know of a couple times in my life I've thought something was OK until I saw something else. Examples, Glass. Binoculars, camera lenses, rifle scopes, telescopes. Glass differences are very real. You might be A-OK with some Bushnell Binos, but USE Swarovski or Vortex Razor or something lower-highend and you'll get it. Now, I didn't write LOO…

You can measure all the differences in TV picture you described (and you didn't even mention colour gamut & dynamic range). You can measure the differences in optical glass. You can't measure the difference between a $10/m speaker cable and $10000/m speaker cable (usually... some of the expensive speaker cable is so crazy it may mess up the sound), or an amplifier sitting on a $5000 stand. And $1000 power cables, plu…

A microphone is just a camera for sound.
Post reply on HN