Okay, we’re all agreed about the snake-oil. The funny thing is, a lot of people spend megabucks on these nonexistant or incredibly trivial improvements, while ignoring the things that can cause real improvements. Like:
[ul]
[li]Get your ears syringed. The wax deposits removed will improve the sound tremendously.[/li][li]Improve your room acoustics. This is the big one. A googlephonic stereo with a moon-rock needle will still sound like crap if you listen to it in a tin hut. A bookshelf along the back wall with uneven-height books in it could improve the sound in a room with a high reverb time. Get an accurate sound meter and a reference CD and try to equalize the room.[/li][li]Proper component placement. If your speakers are too close to the walls, you’ll get muddy, boomy bass response. If the listener isn’t in the proper location, the sound will degrade rapidly.[/li][/ul]
If you want to upgrade your stereo sound, these are the things you should do first before you spend a nickel.
Gold CD’s I have a good few of them but the reason I bought them was that they were remastered versions of the original recordings and sounded much better than the CD’s being sold at the time that had been lifted from the vinyl masters.
When they started to reissue vinyl recordings that’s all they did, used the vinyl masters, but the dynamic range is compressed for vinyl and decompressed in your turntable pre-amp using RIAA industry standards.
To remaster a CD properly you need to go right back to the pre-production masters, which is not necessarily the same as the studio master, and set up your eq desk to suit.
If you go out and get the CD special edition box sets they have usually been properly remastered.
I have a copy of the Doors Greatest Hits which was supposedly remastered but when you compare the same tracks with those on albums such as on my gold CD edition of the ‘The Doors’ there is quite a differance. I’m not going to go into the tonal differances as I don’t want to end up seeming like one of those technically bereft but wordy hifi reviwers but I think the gold CD sounds better.
Remastering can be done well or not and this can make a huge differance I have come across remastered works that are pretty poor for instance the first eponymously titled Queen album remaster is not as good as it should be.
Your 50 grand stereo won’t make a lick of difference when you listen to my very first band’s very first demo tape, recorded on a dusty no-name 2 track RTR we dug out of somebody’s basement. Mexican Squires and Crate amps will still sound like Mexican Squires and Crate amps no matter what you’re listening to them on.
We musicians are generally starving. When we do manage to scrape together a large amount of lawn mowing or pizza delivery jack, we tend to spend it on ridiculously overpriced guitars (or snare heads)… if the mix or the acetate sounds good enough through the $70 mini system we inherited from our ex-girlfriend’s grandfather or our $20 car tape deck, it sounds good enough to press.
Audiophiles should keep in mind that they’re not usually the target market for most musicians or engineers… it’s the teenage girls with walkmans or the schlub with the shelf system he got from Best Buy that buy the vast majority of the records. Those “nuances” that you pick up with your giant cables and multithousand dollar recievers were probably never noticed during the recording process in the first place.
What the hell, everybody needs a hobby. Knock yourselves out.
Please let me clarify that I don’t think all so-called “audiophiles” are nuts, or that anyone spending more than X amount on a system is wasting their money.
I was basically referring to the “snake oil” products, and, to a lesser extent, the heavily-overpriced gadgetry- the $1,800 cables being among them.
Yes, I can understand the shielding being soldered at only one end, I’m familiar with the same concept for antenna coax. (Grounding the shield at one end only.) But does that turn $35 cables into $500 cables, or is there some “more expensive parts MUST therefore be better than the less expensive stuff” thought going on, with the buyer then convincing himself that yes indeedy, there IS a “big difference” between the two?
The items Randi mentioned are what stick in my head, possibly because they’re some of the most outlandish of the gimcracks. For example, just what IS the idea behind that green felt tip pen? Further, what mental gyrations must a person go through to not only believe a plastic-and-aluminum disc can not only have a magnetic field “residue”, but that said field is powerful enough to affect a beam of laser light?
You could be wrong. There is some speculation that aluminum CDs will rot with time, and the aluminum will slowly oxidize from oxygen penetration into the plastic. Gold CDs should not have that problem since gold cannot oxidize. Of course we won’t know for about another few decades.
Music actually takes place in the brain. The subjective experience of listening to music does not always have anything to do with the physical characteristics of the sound presented to the ears. Many audiophiles listen to the equipment, not the music. You can tell the difference by whether they say, “Barber’s Adaggio is so moving” vs. “Wow, this is so cool, did you hear that dime drop out of the bass player’s pocket?”
<sigh> You said it, Doc. I once worked for an audiophile. The man was an electronics tech–he repaired audio equipment as well as TVs and VCRs–but his capacity for self-delusion was phenomenal. When the “CD demagnetizers” first came out, he talked about them incessantly for days. I told him that they were a scam. I told him why they couldn’t possibly do anything. I showed him why they wouldn’t have any effect, using a scrapped optical pickup to illustrate the physics of the situation.
He bought one anyway, and insisted that he could hear a difference. He asked me what principle I thought it worked upon.
<disgusted look>
“The P.T. Barnum Principle.”
</disgusted look>
Some audiophiles are reasonable people who just have a hobby that I not interested in–nothing wrong with that. Then there are the fanatics…
Some excellent points have been made here (particularly by Sam Stone).
I used to be in the hi-fi business. A friend and I started our first store in the 70’s and we sold pretty good brands, because we just plain loved stereo equipment.
We sold (at various times): Magneplanar, Nakamichi, Acoustat, Klipsch, Hafler, Conrad-Johnson, JoLida, Yamaha, Sony, DCM, Crown, NAD, McIntosh, Threshold and about 30 other brands that I’ve probably forgotten.
Anyway, there are things that matter and things that don’t. There are honest products, and there are vile scams. Some audiophiles are deluding themselves, and some aren’t.
We always refused to sell anything that we didn’t believe in, but who knows? Maybe we got scammed ourselves a time or two.
One tip: In general, if you have $X to spend, buy the product with the worst specs for the price.
ha… that talk about magnetic influence on laser light reminds me of an experiment I did years ago when I was in High School taking physics… time for an anecdote…
I read in a physics text that the polarization angle of laser light could be affected by a magnetic field. I asked the teacher about it, he wouldn’t tell a thing, he said that I should do an experiment to test the effect. So a friend and I got a laser, and some big horseshoe magnets, and tried to rig an experiment. We shot the beam down the longest hall in the school, and rigged a couple of polarizing filters, one at the laser end, and one at the target end, about 100 yards apart. This was a big hassle because the slightest vibration from people walking around the classrooms would shake the beam all over the target, we had to wait until after school when everyone left the building to do the experiments. We took some big magnets and put the magnetic gap over the beam and then took it away, and we could not measure the slightest change in polarization angle. We kept bugging the teacher for bigger magnets, and he came up with some really HUGE ones, the biggest one took two of us to lift it. Finally, we gave up, and told the teacher. He laughed and said he was wondering how long it would take us to give up, because it would take massive magnets weighing many many TONS before we could create a measurable effect.
Huh??!? I think you misspoke there. What you’re saying is that the worst specs would give the highest performance for the money. Given two amps (for example) that cost the same, you should buy the one with the WORST specs?!?
Not a typo, and in general true. You should buy the worst specs.
Many manufacturers will, for instance, overstate their power spec. A 100 watt Pioneer receiver may produce 100 watts into a static load (i.e. an 8-ohm resistor) but be completely unable to deliver power into a real-world 2-ohm load.
In order to get a very low THD (total harmonic distortion) rating these same manufacturers will use LOTS of negative feedback. Unfortunately negative feedback causes TIM (transient intermodulation distortion). TIM is far more audible than THD, but no one ever talks about it.
So if you have $300 to spend, look for the amp that states the lowest power rating and the highest THD. That’ll be the one that sounds best (maybe an NAD or something similar) and is being marketed by an honest company.
This is a generalization and, of course, is not always true in every case.
I can’t understand it. I think what you’re describing for antennas is a balun, not a shield. These are to keep the currents on the antenna balanced. A balun is typically about 1/4 wavelength long. At 20,000 Hz, that would be 3.75 kilometers.
The explanation at mikahw’s link sounds like crap to me. They say “…we do not solder the shield on the signal’s destination. This ensures that any noise picked up by the shield will not be transmitted into your signal path.” If noise gets in at either end of the cable, half of it will go forward and half will go backward. This is true whether the cable is hooked up backwards or forwards, because the cable is so short in terms of the audio signal wavelength (15 km and up).
Everyone here should read elmwood’s link to the power cord article, not just the quote. It’s amazing. Next they’ll be telling us which credit card we use to make the purchase affects the system: The system purchased with a Chase Manhattan MasterCard Gold card generated warmer sound from most recordings, but for best over-all sound, including deeper bass, greater dynamics and improved soundstage accuracy, this author recommends using a Citibank Platinum Visa card for all audio purchases.
If you’re using “twisted pair in a shield” cable (a.k.a. “balanced configuration” and “differential connection”), then it’s usually advantageous to ground one end only. You can get away with doing this because the shield is not carrying signal information. It is beneficial because it helps keep ground loops at bay while still being effective at shielding the signal-carrying conductors from nasty EMI.
Most systems, however, use cables consisting of a single center conductor and shield, similar in construction to coax. These systems are called “single ended.” For this configuration the shield is usually connected at both ends, since the signal on the center conductor is referenced to the shield. Note that, at least theoretically, it doesn’t have to be this way, as the unit on the receiving end may already be grounded through other means. Sometimes connecting the shield at one end only in a single ended system will decrease hum, sometimes it will increase it. The potential for ground loops is one of the reasons why single ended systems are inferior to differential systems.
Think that’s something? Looking through the Web site, I found more BS. Take, for instance, a speaker cable review ($9800 per eight-foot pair) that recommended “burning in the cables” for 100 hours for optimum performance, and basing part of the review off a recording from the late 1950s.
My conclusion … audiophiles, the extremely well-off ones that can afford to drop ten large on a set of cables that won’t really do diddly, are nuts. The “inreased presence” and “brighter soundstage” they experience is all in the mind. They better hear it, because they don’t want to admit that there’s actually no difference between a roll of thick Radio Shack cable and some oxygen-free gold wire running thousands a meter.
Meanwhile, I dediced to drop $5,000 on a power cord for my 1.2 gig Athlon. I was immediately impressed with the greater clarity and presence of my computing power, lending to a more fufulling, richer Web surfing experience. While the Straight Dope bulletin board normally appears in my browser window with a sense of obligation, it now makes its presence known with authority. Using Microsoft’s “Windows 2000,” I was able to discern a gestalt in the operating system that were normally below the black surface of the ones and zeros that made up my hard drive, recalling the warm, rich data generated by tube-based computers which, sadly, is now a distant collective memory.
“Each Kaptovator is hand assembled and tested using only the finest materials and uniquely serial numbered. They come in their own hand-made, velvet lined wooden case with our logo LASER cut into the cover, and with a matching genuine JPS Labs Certificate of Authenticity embossed and signed. We guarantee this is the finest AC cord available at any price.”
That’s right, it comes in a wooden box!
Just for shts and grins, I called JPS on the phone. I told the guy I was thinking about purchasing the Kaptovator. He got all excited, and told me how great it was. He asked me what type of amp I have. Quick, quick, think of something, Crafter_Man! I said “Mark Levinson.” He said, “Oh, that’s great, this power cord make it sound like blaa blaa blaa.” He then asked me what model I had. Oh, sht! Make something up! I mumbled “ML5.” He said, “Oh, that’s a good one, this power cord will work great blaa blaa.” What an idiot.
He said the Kaptovator has the biggest improvement in power amps and CD players. That’s right, your CD player’s power cord should cost more than the CD player itself!
Now if The Kaptovator isn’t even good enough for you, they have an even better one that will go on sale this September. It will be called “The Illuminati,” and will sell for $3500!!!
These guys are making my money. I could do this. Listen, right now your stereo’s performance is being gradually downgraded by cosmic particles from space that make it through the atmosphere, go right through the roof of your house, plow straight through your double-foil EMP shield and knock electrons out of the `holes’ in your semiconducting materials, causing your signal to ablate, basically sounding like there’s a barrier of humid air between you and your speakers. What you need is to protect all your transistors, diodes and microchips with my fast-drying crystal polymer diffraction spray, which will obliquate all incoming alpha, beta, or gamma particles, as well as any neutrinos or tachyons (which can cause synchronization problems).
Noted author and designer G. Randy Slone is a true expert in high-power solid-state amplifier theory & design. IMHO you won’t find a more knowledgeable, experienced, and down-to-earth amplifier designer than Mr. Slone. (Bob Carver? Yea, right.)
“The belief that certain sonic problems result from high levels of global (i.e. overall) negative feedback is a myth. In reality, high levels of feedback improve virtually every performance aspect of audio power amplifiers.”
and
“It has been scientifically proven on a number of occasions and with a variety of tests that there are no mysterious sonic qualities undetectable to analysis equipment.”
I think that this whole situation is frustrating and sad. There is something wrong with the hobby. High end audio is such a great hobby. It’s about music, so one never runs out of “software”. The hardware can make a guy drool just as if he saw a fancy car. But sometimes it just doesn’t seem fun anymore. I sort of trace the decline to when Stereophile went from being a book-size magazine to it’s present larger size format. So I started reading the Sensible Sound, which is a fun magazine, but now they have gone from book-size to magazine size. There was something so wonderful about the early eighties, when the high end was starting to take off.
P.S. The scientifically minded might like a magazine called the Audio Critic.