What the, and I cannot overstate this, fuck?
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@bloor
Speak to me like I am five and explain to me what is an "audiophile"? (^_^)In theory, it’s people who care a lot about audio quality. They often claim to have better than average frequency range in their ears (many do, but a lot claim to hear things only bats can actually hear).
For a long time, a lot of consumer audio equipment was pretty terrible, so there were real reasons for wanting something better, I remember listening to a CD that I’d heard many times on my CD player and ripped to my iPad and discovering that CD player from the ‘80s had completely lost a load of low-volume bits and there was material that would probably have been audible on an expensive player in the ‘80s and was easily audible on a cheap player in the early 2000s.
At the same time, the Loudness War happened. Music execs found that people were more likely to like music if it was loud the first time they heard it. So they started making CDs louder. But CDs have a fixed dynamic range, so making it loader lost detail. They couldn’t do this with records because the needle would jump out of the track, so we had a weird period where LPs had better audio fidelity than CDs. Unfortunately, LPs are really finicky and it’s very easy to scratch them if you don’t perfectly balance the stylus to avoid more than minuscule pressure on the surface.
So, to listen to the highest-quality music, you needed a moderately expensive record deck, a decent amplifier (and pre-amp: again, LPs are annoying to play), and speakers. And it was fairly noticeable if you got any of these wrong.
But then DACs got a lot better. Cheap USB audio adaptors for computers had much better precision than anything available in the ‘80s, and could be placed outside of the case and away from RF interference from the computer. AAC audio supports a variable dynamic range (so bumping the loudness is just a scaling factor, not a loss of precision). Baseline speaker and amplifier quality improved a lot. By the mid 2000s, fairly cheap equipment gave better sound quality than anything you could buy in the ‘90s.
By then, an entire industry had grown up to cater to people who wanted the best sound quality possible and an even larger group of people who wanted to be seen as having the best sound quality. It moved from music appreciation to conspicuous consumption as a primary market driver. And that made it a ripe target for scams.
For analogue things, there were obvious things you could sell, like cables with gold-plated connectors. Gold is a good conductor and, unlike copper, doesn’t corrode, so this would make a difference (whether the difference is audible is another matter). But the move to mostly digital paths made this harder. You got very silly things like ‘audiophile grade’ Ethernet cables and optical connectors, which ignored the fact that the digital protocols had built-in error correction and that audio is staggeringly low bandwidth in comparison to other things carried over these connections so there’s space for a lot of error correction. A load of these things can be run over a wire coathanger with no loss in quality.
The entire ecosystem became dominated by very silly things. But they’re all quite interesting because they have some plausible-looking science behind them, which then goes off in a nonsense direction. For example, Ethernet is an electrical protocol, so signal quality matters. Gold is a good conductor. Gold connectors on Ethernet cables will reduce signal degradation. Pay no attention to the fact that the Ethernet standard is specified based on specifically rated cables and won’t be any better on ones with marginally better connectors.
My guess from the picture is that someone has noticed that electrical noise from a power supply can be a problem and has built something that looks very plausibly like it would solve that.
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Oh, there are plenty of possibilities to "improve" this design further - or coming up with something else being even more absurd, shifting the revenue stream in your direction. There are always room for "improving" cables and it will always sell.
But you need to be quite cynical playing on the psychology aspects related to making people believe they hear a difference - and have some quasi research papers supporting what they "hear". The rest is plain marketing and marketing strategies.
And don't forget: In this user segment - the sound always gets better the more expensive the cables or equipment is.
Good luck!
@dazo @drwho @tony @bloor Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/670/
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@bloor I remember the good olden days when every household had some nice, mostly midrange hifi system. Was a bit of a status symbol and I guess mobility and space grew more important for the majority.
And now you only have super enthusiasts or people that listen to audio on a sh.. bluetooth speaker.
On the other hand that allowed me to gather some equipment for cheap.
Addit: preowened 90s /2k midrange stuff
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@bloor audiophile rocks
Yes they want you to buy rocks meant to improve sound somehow???
These are almost $500 but there's more expensive ones
https://www.ebay.com/itm/296707135133
https://youtu.be/3uCYXER3oZI@Jes @bloor
This revew of audiophile rocks is hilarious. Sadly the website and youtube channel are now closedhttp://www.adventuresinhifiaudio.com/26/01/2018/audiophile-rocks-down-the-rabbit-hole-once-again/
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@bloor is that a cope cage for the cable within, to defend against FPV drone-armed rabbits who'd like to chew on it ?
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@bloor Those would make great movie props. As for making great audio cables, they'd probably do exactly as well as everything else
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@dazo @tony @bloor Psychology works both ways. When I bought an amp and speakers (1990s) I declined to buy cable. I said that I'd use mains flex (Electronics Australia had tested it and shown good results), knowing it would wind up the salesperson. He couldn't bear for that to be done so ended up giving me about 4m of silly Kimber Kable. It does the job, but no way was I paying for it.
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@bloor
No, seriously, I need some answers -
@ericphelps there will be zero cancellation though, because they aren’t twisted and (i think) they’re single pole.
To my eye they’ve created a cage dipole. I think if anything it’ll pick up more rubbish.
@bloor Yah, it's difficult to see what they've done with the black wires. I may have assumed they were weaved (if not twisted) – and my assumption might be wrong.
At first I thought they were doing something to minimize skin effect, but when it turned out to be power lines, it required a re-think.
I try to assume people aren't complete idiots and that there is some small effect they're chasing. Your cage dipole, effectively making a coaxial line, may be a better guess.
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@bloor @fabi1cazenave what's this supposed to do, apart from quickly separating your from your hard-earned cash? Faraday cage around your cable to avoid noise on the signal?
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In theory, it’s people who care a lot about audio quality. They often claim to have better than average frequency range in their ears (many do, but a lot claim to hear things only bats can actually hear).
For a long time, a lot of consumer audio equipment was pretty terrible, so there were real reasons for wanting something better, I remember listening to a CD that I’d heard many times on my CD player and ripped to my iPad and discovering that CD player from the ‘80s had completely lost a load of low-volume bits and there was material that would probably have been audible on an expensive player in the ‘80s and was easily audible on a cheap player in the early 2000s.
At the same time, the Loudness War happened. Music execs found that people were more likely to like music if it was loud the first time they heard it. So they started making CDs louder. But CDs have a fixed dynamic range, so making it loader lost detail. They couldn’t do this with records because the needle would jump out of the track, so we had a weird period where LPs had better audio fidelity than CDs. Unfortunately, LPs are really finicky and it’s very easy to scratch them if you don’t perfectly balance the stylus to avoid more than minuscule pressure on the surface.
So, to listen to the highest-quality music, you needed a moderately expensive record deck, a decent amplifier (and pre-amp: again, LPs are annoying to play), and speakers. And it was fairly noticeable if you got any of these wrong.
But then DACs got a lot better. Cheap USB audio adaptors for computers had much better precision than anything available in the ‘80s, and could be placed outside of the case and away from RF interference from the computer. AAC audio supports a variable dynamic range (so bumping the loudness is just a scaling factor, not a loss of precision). Baseline speaker and amplifier quality improved a lot. By the mid 2000s, fairly cheap equipment gave better sound quality than anything you could buy in the ‘90s.
By then, an entire industry had grown up to cater to people who wanted the best sound quality possible and an even larger group of people who wanted to be seen as having the best sound quality. It moved from music appreciation to conspicuous consumption as a primary market driver. And that made it a ripe target for scams.
For analogue things, there were obvious things you could sell, like cables with gold-plated connectors. Gold is a good conductor and, unlike copper, doesn’t corrode, so this would make a difference (whether the difference is audible is another matter). But the move to mostly digital paths made this harder. You got very silly things like ‘audiophile grade’ Ethernet cables and optical connectors, which ignored the fact that the digital protocols had built-in error correction and that audio is staggeringly low bandwidth in comparison to other things carried over these connections so there’s space for a lot of error correction. A load of these things can be run over a wire coathanger with no loss in quality.
The entire ecosystem became dominated by very silly things. But they’re all quite interesting because they have some plausible-looking science behind them, which then goes off in a nonsense direction. For example, Ethernet is an electrical protocol, so signal quality matters. Gold is a good conductor. Gold connectors on Ethernet cables will reduce signal degradation. Pay no attention to the fact that the Ethernet standard is specified based on specifically rated cables and won’t be any better on ones with marginally better connectors.
My guess from the picture is that someone has noticed that electrical noise from a power supply can be a problem and has built something that looks very plausibly like it would solve that.
@david_chisnall @hiisikoloart @bloor In photography, we have measurbators.
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@dazo @tony @bloor Psychology works both ways. When I bought an amp and speakers (1990s) I declined to buy cable. I said that I'd use mains flex (Electronics Australia had tested it and shown good results), knowing it would wind up the salesperson. He couldn't bear for that to be done so ended up giving me about 4m of silly Kimber Kable. It does the job, but no way was I paying for it.
If it would have been me, I would have accepted as well - but sold the cables afterwards 🤪
I see Kimble twists the pairs. The physics behind the twisting does have an effect. That can be calculated and there will be scientific evidence of the effect. There are no doubts here.
But it will not be noticeable on shorter lengths for home hifi equipment use, as well as the current and voltage in home hifi systems. You probably need to go at least 20-30m, probably even higher like closer to 100m and above to have a noticeable effect. Which is why the Electronics Australia findings are accurate and valid.
And if your home hifi loudspeaker and amp are 20-100m or more apart ... then you have a setup which would require some rethinking for a lot of other reasons.
Of course, such details like this stings a lot if you've cashed out a lot of money for 5m of speaker cables. Then you "need" to claim you hear the difference to feel less like an, well, idiot.
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@bloor
Missing some led lighting here.
Or will that be the next version?
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@bloor breakout cable
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@ben @dazo @bloor Like this for example.. looks suspiciously like someone rebranded a £10 netgear switch..
https://www.audioaffair.co.uk/english-electric-8switch-audio-grade-ethernet-switch
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@bloor Looks like an special type of antenna feed line: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reusenleitung Love the aesthetics, but hope the insulation is up for the mains task.
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@ben @dazo @bloor Like this for example.. looks suspiciously like someone rebranded a £10 netgear switch..
https://www.audioaffair.co.uk/english-electric-8switch-audio-grade-ethernet-switch
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@bloor absolutely brilliant. I love it.
