More 'Audiophile' bullsh*t

[robbyd]

Well that's amazing - I have virtually no surface noise whatsoever, regardless of lp, new or old, secondhand or not. A large part of that has to do with using a proper record cleaning machine - the VPI 16.5.
What I have come to appreciate is that in a really good system the pops or crackles (if they can't be removed with a clean) appear on the soundstage in a different plane from the music - that is to say they are two dimensional as opposed to three dimensional and 'placed'. A few years ago I had an SME 30/2 as my front end, having gone through the whole SME line-up. Now I have a deck that blows it away. A friend brought round his new Linn CD12 and we compared several discs; well actually there was no comparison and he put it up for sale the same week. Despite the scratches, I'm afraid vinyl is still the purest sound out there for me.

Edited by robbyd on Saturday 26th January 22:10

[Globs]

3000GT ANT said:

TonyRPH said:

Any amp that requires specialist cables to work is a poor design IMHO.

There are plenty of decent, very high quality amps out there that will quite happily work with a wide variety of speaker cables.

A fool and his money are easily parted.

This man talks sense! My dad is an audiophile and i have seen many different cables used and everytime i always have the same argument.......what is the average age of an audiophile 40!? IF and this is a big if, there is any difference theres no way someone aged 40+ can hear the difference. Get a scope on the output of one of these systems and change between two cables and there will be no difference!

Yup, Tony has it right, there IS no cable to design for, as for MIT, I mean really - Degrees of Articulation? FFS what a load of crap.

http://www.audiobilityuk.net/oracleseries.html



And if they really think that they can influence a digital signal with that then they are more deluded than I'd thought. Shame the ASA doesn't close them down, they are even more fraudulent than Russ Andrews (who the ASA did scold).

[robbyd]

I have PM'd you - come and listen - there is no surface noise!

[IforB]

robbyd said:

So would you say that the CD sampling rate of 44.1 kHz was adequate? After all, we can't hear beyond 20k at absolute best. I suspect frequencies outside the accepted range of hearing contribute to what we do hear - isn't that what harmonics are all about?

What has sampling rate and hearing range got to do with eachother? You seem to be trying to match to very different things here.

[otolith]

TonyRPH said:

Mine is mostly streamed from a Logitech Squeezebox Duet (over ethernet for what that's worth!!!)

I just wrote a spoof invitation to you to buy audiophile cat5e cable from me. Then thought I would google to see if there was such a thing. Seems it's an old joke, but a profitable one.

[Piersman2]

IforB said:

robbyd said:

So would you say that the CD sampling rate of 44.1 kHz was adequate? After all, we can't hear beyond 20k at absolute best. I suspect frequencies outside the accepted range of hearing contribute to what we do hear - isn't that what harmonics are all about?

What has sampling rate and hearing range got to do with eachother? You seem to be trying to match to very different things here.

Yep, someone is getting themselves a little confused!

[IforB]

custodian said:

I give up.

Somebody show him what the typical red book frequency curve looks like.

When did Chairman Mao get into Hi-Fi?

I've read his red book and he doesn't mention anything about frequency response or CD mastering.

Please do me a favour my dear fellow and try to tone down your responses. Whilst I may agree with you some of the time, your combatative tone makes me want call you names, so all you are doing is makingit harder for people to actually ge past the the idea that esoteric wierd stuff might not be made of snake oil and unicorn dreams.

[BliarOut]

otolith said:

TonyRPH said:

Mine is mostly streamed from a Logitech Squeezebox Duet (over ethernet for what that's worth!!!)

I just wrote a spoof invitation to you to buy audiophile cat5e cable from me. Then thought I would google to see if there was such a thing. Seems it's an old joke, but a profitable one.

A $500 CAT 5 cable? They're under a quid for a decent quality 1M bonded boot cable.

Muppets.

[DavidY]

There are audio systems that use CAT5 style cable and connectors but do not transmit regular ethernet data over them, in these cases a better cable may improve things, an example being Meridian's speakerlink, which transmits balanced digital signals, along with control information. Don't assume that because a cable looks like a CAT5 cable that its being used for regular ethernet data.

Though in most cases you are right!

[BliarOut]

Ethernet

[otolith]

You will benefit from smoother and more rounded zeroes and sharper ones.

[BliarOut]

We want nice sharp ones and zeros for Ethernet

I love it, a packet is either good or it isn't, no bullst

[TonyRPH]

BliarOut said:

I love it, a packet is either good or it isn't, no bullst

In the same way that a bit is either good or it isn't? (in a cd player context of course)

[TonyRPH]

But just because theory suggests that "xyz" is happening, doesn't necessarily mean that it always is...

ETA: I'm struggling to correlate the effects of ethernet jitter on streamed music.

If the effects are as bad as some would suggest, then a radio station streaming from the other side of the world would be unlistenable.

Sure, perhaps jitter does exist on the ethernet medium, but I suggest that it has *zero* effect on streaming audio data.

Edited by TonyRPH on Sunday 27th January 10:17

[BliarOut]

custodian said:

I suggest a little light reading:

http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1394/b/copperheads/...

You wanna talk Manchester Encoding and Differential Manchester I'm all ears. Remember Princess Diana Never Tried Sex with Prince Andrew. I studied it and got me certificates and everything...

I've forgotten more about CRC theory and modulo zero than most people will ever know

It's easy to eliminate bullst with Ethernet

[BliarOut]

You're welcome

If I come across as brief and glib at times it's probably because I understand binary data pretty well and start with the assumption that everyone else gets it too.

[TonyRPH]

custodian said:

A nice rational post. Thank you.

Do you think that rational and some of the claims about mains leads go hand in hand?

[Globs]

Piersman2 said:

IforB said:

robbyd said:

So would you say that the CD sampling rate of 44.1 kHz was adequate? After all, we can't hear beyond 20k at absolute best. I suspect frequencies outside the accepted range of hearing contribute to what we do hear - isn't that what harmonics are all about?

What has sampling rate and hearing range got to do with eachother? You seem to be trying to match to very different things here.

Yep, someone is getting themselves a little confused!

Yes, it must have been Philips.

[TonyRPH]

Regarding the ethernet cables mentioned above - I did a bit of 'Googling' and found this

theabsolutesound.com said:

Who would have thought Ethernet cables could make such a big sonic difference? AudioQuest compared its new Vodka Ethernet cable ($250/1 meter) against three other Ethernet cables and the results were dramatic. You don’t know how much you’re missing in terms of naturalness, detail, and focus until you replace your stock Ethernet cable with a good one like the Vodka. AudioQuest also offers Forest, Cinnamon, and Diamond Ethernet cables, too.

Taking Ethernet cabling even further, Synergistic Research demoed its “Active Ethernet Cable” with a router and hard drive sitting atop a Synergistic Tranquility Base. This active cable removes compression by integrating the ground and electrical grid, allowing the music to soar, with a more open, dynamic, and dimensional sound. The difference is not subtle.

I really must try one of those "Active ethernet cables" to see if I can finally get perfect, jitter free data transfer on my home network.

But wait...

I already have it with my 37p cables from Comms Express

It's the same old st all over again. 50m of bog standard ethernet cable running through a building, with 1m of $500 ethernet fly lead on each end making all the difference to the sound.

I await the day that one of these audiophile cable boutiques launches their own "perfect sound" router and switch.

Cisco, Brocade and HP will be shivering in the aisles...

[BliarOut]

I've read some old bks in my time but that's right up there with the best of 'em

Active Ethernet my fking arse