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GWBBQ posted:Apparently we're supposed to take advice on audio components from someone who can't prevent a lapel mic from clipping. And who sells expensive power cords that have been proven (by cat teardown) to be nothing more than ordinary lamp cord in a garden hose, with really shoddy build quality. If brass screws made such a massive improvement, why aren't all manufacturers fitting them? They're not that expensive. I'd love to hear his explanation for how this supposed improvement works.
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Feb 24, 2014 00:30
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Vibrations, man! (I think that's actually their explanation for them screws.) As far as expenses go, don't underestimate the penny pinchers in companies. My place managed to ruin several hundred thousands Euro of cables, because some jackass in management thought it'd be a great idea to save 2 cent on the multilayer sieves we use. The machine in question uses three of them, and that thing usually runs all work week without a stop. So it's 6 cents of savings a week that led to a shitload of scrap and lots of hours of tracking down the issue (the way the cheaper sieves were welded caused dead zones in the material flow, that kept throwing cured particulate causing the semi-conductor layer of the affected product to fail). Combat Pretzel fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Feb 24, 2014 |
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Feb 24, 2014 03:15
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KozmoNaut join the 21st century and do your crossovers in software.
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Feb 24, 2014 03:34
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I'm still using a PCI Audigy card for my sound. I wonder if I could pick up some jitter with an oscilloscope. In other news, Sound Blaster has gotten a bit better at making Windows 7 drivers for their older hardware. The card works fine unless I put my computer to sleep, then I have to disable and reenable it or it sounds ridiculously distorted.
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Feb 24, 2014 05:04
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If you put enough current through it I'm sure. The question is if you'll burn the card before detecting jitter.
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Feb 24, 2014 07:41
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Boiled Water posted:If you put enough current through it I'm sure. I hadn't considered water cooling my audio card before... it's the last main component in my computer not on
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Feb 24, 2014 07:48
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Waldo P Barnstormer posted:KozmoNaut join the 21st century and do your crossovers in software. How? I'm using the TOSLINK output from my motherboard, feeding it to a DAC, then to the preamp and then to the crossover. The only way I could see to do it "in software" would be to buy a DSP box instead of the crossover, but those are significantly more expensive than a normal active crossover and way overkill for my needs. If I did the crossover in software on my PC, I would have to control the volume level from my PC to match the speakers and sub, and I wouldn't be able to connect my Xbox.
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Feb 24, 2014 08:44
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Do you want to hear "the music as the artists heard it in the studio"? Well, cough up £50,000 for a Linn Exakt system, then! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-2564008/Linn-Exakt-The-future-hi-fis-theres-problem-youll-need-remortgage-house-afford-it.html 
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Feb 24, 2014 11:40
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Isn't the dailymail a yellow paper trash rag for complete morons anyway? It's odd to see the usual faux-science flowery language nonsense mashed up in a way as if they were explaining it to a 5 year old.
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Feb 24, 2014 12:23
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The mail is right-wing poo poo with pretensions of being a broadsheet (it's not). When they're not shrieking about immigrants or publishing photos of 'older than her years' teenage girls, they're pushing all kinds of woo and pseudoscience, some of it really damaging. Don't give them the clicks, never mind read any of that poo poo
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Feb 25, 2014 01:08
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KozmoNaut posted:Do you want to hear "the music as the artists heard it in the studio"? As near as I can tell (and Linn's marketing has been terrible), this is little more than a network player with a digital link to speakers with built in amplifiers. Honestly, in terms of "lifestyle" systems, the idea makes sense (but not at their price). An attractive networked box that can pull data from your computer/tablet/phone and play it directly to speakers without any middle ground components is a good thing. It will never catch on with audiophiles, though, because it eliminates the neurotic gear swapping.
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Feb 25, 2014 07:19
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So they invented an expensive Sonos?
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Feb 25, 2014 12:50
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lookslikerain posted:So they invented an expensive Sonos? Yes, but it's better than Sonos because reasons.
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Feb 25, 2014 13:48
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Well Linn have been into networked audio players for years, this is just the latest iteration at their attempts to fleece gullible audiophiles. *edit* I interned in a high-end audio store in 1997, I seem to remember Linn having a line of multi-room audio equipment that was networked through some kind of networking protocol. This was also the heyday of the terrible K600 speaker cable (shown on the bottom of the pic) they had which featured  TRI WIRING  *edit2* It was the Linn Knekt system Willeh fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Feb 25, 2014 |
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Feb 25, 2014 13:54
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Willeh posted:Well Linn have been into networked audio players for years, this is just the latest iteration at their attempts to fleece gullible audiophiles. Obviously a bad solution because the naturally binaural sound atoms get confused.
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Feb 25, 2014 17:59
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Jerry Cotton posted:Obviously a bad solution because the naturally binaural sound atoms get confused. That's obviously bullshit. Sounds are transmitted by bosons. 
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Feb 26, 2014 00:18
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Sigh the triple cable configuration is designed to allow electroscopic phase tuning, to interact with and separately influence the three separate atoms in a water molecule, including dipolar alignment for lower vibration resistance and faster transient response. The human body is 60% water, so the benefits and implications are clear
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Feb 26, 2014 00:34
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Clearly the center pair is suppose to absorb and then re-transmit the inductive fields the outer pair of wires emit, as well as preventing the inductive streams from crossing.
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Feb 26, 2014 00:55
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I found this interesting. It's from whatsbestforum in a thread about an $8,400 power cable. The author is the owner and lead designer of Atma-Sphere Music Systems. quote:If you want to know what power cords work, I can explain that. the principle is different from why power conditioners work. I don't have the EE background to qualify what he's saying, but it echoes my personal view on power cables, etc., which is basically that they only make an audible difference when they're physically deficient. In other words, if you hear a measurable difference one of the two cables is basically broken. What is very entertaining is how much hate he got from other people for making this post. It's apparently sacrilege to try and measure things to determine why you can hear a difference.
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Feb 26, 2014 05:55
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Bandwidth? Power cable?
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Feb 26, 2014 06:29
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TheMadMilkman posted:In other words, if you hear a measurable difference one of the two cables is basically broken. True. Of course, power cables are never ever ever ever broken when you buy them.
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Feb 26, 2014 16:20
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I have never ever heard of anyone who bought a power cord that turned out to be broken. Signal cables yeah, but a power cable is really hard to gently caress up. The only broken power cables I've ever encountered were either severely mistreated, or the connectors were assembled by a monkey on crack. KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Feb 26, 2014 |
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Feb 26, 2014 16:41
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This is from a local classified ad. Dude is selling his $26,500 preamp for a bargain - only $14,500 Gloss black finish with gold knobs and tasteless overuse of script lettering ("b-b-b-b-but marantz uses script lettering!!!!"). I couldn't make an uglier piece of equipment if I tried.  Also lol at the cable management: 
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Feb 26, 2014 21:30
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quote:But if you live in an older building where the wiring is not up to code, you may find that you don't hear the effects of some highly revered cables. Its not their fault, its yours- fix the building wiring and the power cables will become more audible. That will be a good thing BTW. But the old wiring has been burned in longer! That's why the 3' cable between your wall outlet and your device is so critical and everything else between the coal/nuke/solar/wind/hydro plant and your home doesn't matter--unless the power company needs to recable anything due to storms or whatever. If the power lines or transformers get replaced, pack up your poo poo because it's time to move. I'm seeing some real estate opportunities in
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Feb 26, 2014 22:05
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BANME.sh posted:This is from a local classified ad. Dude is selling his $26,500 preamp for a bargain - only $14,500 Man, that thing is ugly. Are there any pictures of the insides? I kinda want to see if it's overbuilt to even nearly the same degree as my NAD C165BEE, which weighs more than my old 2x50w NAD integrated amp and has a bigger power supply for some reason.
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Feb 26, 2014 22:43
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The seller didn't post any, but it's an MBL 6010D
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Feb 26, 2014 23:20
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There's a lot of warmth in those photos, exhibiting a really wide cinescape. Must've used a $400 USB cable to get those kinds of results, very nice.
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Feb 26, 2014 23:36
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Also the amp is sitting on an Audiophile Grade (c) slab of marble on top of the stand it's already on
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Feb 26, 2014 23:40
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It's like you guys don't realize the value of script lettering on the sound stage. Pathetic.
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Feb 27, 2014 01:40
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Why is that thing's "name" just "THE PREAMP" but in german? Is that like japanese throwing in random english words in random spots to sound cool, except for audiophiles it's gotta be KNALLHARTES DEUTSCH for some reason?
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Feb 27, 2014 01:56
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I know that the power cable stuff is bullshit, but if it held a shred of truth, the obvious solution would be to use three phase power for constant delivery. These guys must be a special breed of  to misapply EE but then not look at how EE would solve the problem.
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Feb 27, 2014 03:12
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Why stop at three phases?
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Feb 27, 2014 06:35
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BANME.sh posted:The seller didn't post any, but it's an MBL 6010D It's actually surprisingly underwhelming to look at:  Wimpy little power supply, probably dual mono inputs (because EVERYTHING must be SEPARATED!), all that normal jazz. It probably uses opamps and integrated circuits, not even custom class A gain modules  Although I'm guessing the big old copper plates in there are used as both shielding and a massive groundplane. I wonder if that could actually cause some noise to do it that way. According to the spec sheet, the CD input is directly coupled to the output when selected, only passing through the volume control. Which in effect makes the preamp a $26K attenuator knob. The claimed frequency response is 0hz-1MHz, so I guess you can listen to raw AM broadcasts  Willeh posted:Also the amp is sitting on an Audiophile Grade (c) slab of marble on top of the stand it's already on Vibration is one of those really big things in the audiophile world. I think their reasoning goes that because turntables are affected by vibration and because sound is nothing but vibrating pressure changes in a medium, everything else related to sound MUST be affected by vibration as well. Hence the availability of ridiculously overpriced hifi racks, suspended spring-dampened platforms, granite slabs and third party replacement feet for hifi equipment. Some crazy people have actually pronounced the Ikea Lack side table to be the bestest hifi rack evar, because standard audio and 19" rack equipment fit perfectly between the table legs. The flimsy cardboard and veneer construction supposedly also dampens vibrations really well. I have a hifi rack that I built from a couple of Lack tables, because they were super cheap, easy to work with and the end result looks pretty good. There's no shame in admitting that you're a cheapass, and no need to dress it up with audiophile nonsense. I did see one pretty cool idea that used thick threaded rods for legs, with birch planks for shelves. Nuts threaded onto the rods then acted as spacers, making the entire rack easily adjustable, which was kind of a neat idea. A lot of tweaking goes on in this area as well, mostly relatively benign stuff such as tennis balls cut in half or semi-inflated bicycle innertubes, both used as "vibration-damping" stands for everything from CD players to phono preamps. At least those are quite inexpensive and harmless. But I'm sure there is at least one crazy audiophile out there who has decoupled his entire listening room somehow. KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 09:05 on Feb 27, 2014 |
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Feb 27, 2014 08:58
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Don't you guys see where you are going wrong a power cable isn't the last 3 feet in your system after 50 miles of that untreated copper cable from the power station (it probably even has lots of oxygen in it), it's the first 3 feet towards an unbelievable listening experience. Something something wider soundstage, better imaging, blacker blacks, more musicality, and tighter bass.
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Feb 27, 2014 10:54
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I like to match the power source to the music I'm listening to. Wind power for classical music, a diesel generator for Industrial and I've installed a steam turbine to catch the heat from my town's tire fire for thrash metal 
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Feb 27, 2014 11:02
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Yeah, that's a good idea for the highest level of authenticity, but top-end cigars for a proper Cuban jazz setup are getting really expensive and hard to import. And I'm running out of stave churches for my black metal setup 
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Feb 27, 2014 11:09
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Willeh posted:I like to match the power source to the music I'm listening to. Yes I do the same, which is why I have a fart-powered generator for listening to King Crimson.
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Feb 27, 2014 17:53
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KozmoNaut posted:I have never ever heard of anyone who bought a power cord that turned out to be broken. Signal cables yeah, but a power cable is really hard to gently caress up. I called them to report a defect and they sent me 4 new ones. Monoprice is awesome.
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Feb 27, 2014 18:04
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That's broken bad, not this hypothetical narrows-my-stereo-image bad.
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Feb 27, 2014 18:25
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So why doesn't their logic of having imaginary bullshit have a noticeable affect on digital data being processed ever get applied to photography? Better gear makes for better display of your digital camera photos. But then I think that there are probably are sperg-nerds who spend thousands on various displays and such, so never mind.
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Feb 27, 2014 19:01
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