Lots of Audiophiles turn their noses up at Bang & Olufsen, and I will bet someone here will also do it.
Fact is, they have possibly the best acoustic research facilities available anywhere.
It is also true that you can get more for your money, but in many cases it is difficult to get all that much better.
Much audio stuff is built usiing B&O technology, especially in the AD/DA area, and even more so in the class D amplifiers - you’ll find their ‘ICEpower’ modules installed in all the high end makes.
As for their speakers, in a double blind test, their Beolab 5s came out ahead of speakers costing several times more, however at $15k they ain’t exactly cheap.
It still isn’t right at the highest end of audio reproduction, you can get better, but then its also not just about the sound - its also about integration and ease of use - its just that it is trendy among audiophiles to denigrate anything that is designed to look nice in a ‘home decor’ sort of way.
So, facts first: Intermorphics’s CW3-0s are the greatest sound-refining tweak since the advent of porcelain cable elevators.
Boxed as several highly-polished opaque prisms, the strikingly unpretentious design isn’t just a curiosity; the hazelnut waves are designed to redirect nonreverberant envelopes.
Placed according to the manufacturer’s specifications, the effects were obvious: sherrylike, heavy bottoms and syrupy mids polished with an opulent backbone that reveals the CW3-0’s earthy, perhaps too-earthy tang. Delightful flavors of cream polish it off.
Available in walnut, cherrywood, and as a Riesling, the CW3-0 is available now. Be sure to inform the manufacturer how much you’ve spent on stereo equipment so it can best serve your needs.
Apologize for the hijack, but since we’re on the subject…
Here is a review for a pair of $39,000 speaker cables:
According to this site, the manufacturer claims this cable “has the lowest measured distortion of any brand of audio cable. They do so by reducing the microscopic cracks (crystalline boundaries) in the silver and filling the remaining ones with gold.”
Hmm. The more I think about it, the more I think I need these cables in my system in order to counteract the harsh treatment imposed upon the electrons when they flowed in the recording studio’s inferior cables…
That is like saying that conventional test equipment is just not sensitive enough to show how a Monster cable sounds better than a conventional cable, even though the two are the same on all measures. The blind testing shows that experienced players with 15+ years of experience and competing or judging at a high level competition could not make the determination by sound or feel. That is pretty good science.
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While we’re on the subject of reviews: I give you a $500 (originally, it has since been discontinued) 50cm CAT 5 link cable:
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Good to hear that blue Cat5 cables are suitable for audio as my subwoofer and rear channel speakers are connected with the stuff. Oh wait, I ran gray cable in the wall. Rats.
Yes, but that is on pure copper or gold-plated traces, very good conductors. Also, it’s usually a digital signal by that point, so most of the worries about signal degradation don’t apply.
Friedo and Francis Vaughan have covered most of the main points on cables in studios. The main goal is utilitarian – useful & reliable. Solid XLR connectors, on cables with a balanced pair shielded eliminate most problems. The only other aspect not already mentioned is consistent maintenance. Equipment in professional studios is carefully maintained – even mundane items like cables. They are inspected regularly, and immediately repaired or replaced when needed.
Just a few blocks from my home is Steve Orfield’s Labs (formerly the Sound 80 studio), home of ‘the quietest room on earth’. An extremely careful, professional studio. But for cables they mostly use standard audio cable & connectors.
What’s making those uber-cables more ridiculous is the fact that sound signals, being low frequency, are very forgiving.
In most cases you can get away with minimal or no shielding at all, the PCBs do not need to be very carefully laid out, and there are no weird coupling effects, standing waves, reflections and all the other stuff that plague high frequency circuits.
No it isn’t. This is exactly what the test is not. My point is that every violin is different, two different strads sound different, and play differently, two virtuoso instrumentalists will approach the same instrument differently, and some virtuosos do indeed prefer their modern instruments. The whole point is that individual violins will measure differently in simple objective tests. They will also sound and play differently. But the million dollar strad, whilst different may not be better.
The blind testing shows that experienced players with 15+ years of experience and competing or judging at a high level competition could not make the determination by sound or feel. That is pretty good science. Si
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Actually the linked article doesn’t show this, and it does not contradict what I said. They were not testing that no-one could pick a strad from another violin, indeed there is no mention at all about differences in sound or quality being indistinguishable. The test showed that there were clear discernible differences. There was a clear dislike for a strad, this exactly proves the point that there are differences that the players could tell. Further, 2/3rds of the players chose one particular (modern) violin as their preferred one - which is again clear proof that there was a difference in violin quality. It actually disproves any hypothesis that all violins sound the same. What it does show is that the sillyness about million dollar instruments is misplaced. That I do agree with, and never disputed.
This is true to a point. Whereas there aren’t the transmission line types of effects in analog electronics, PCB layout can be quite critical in active circuits. Layout around opamps and laying out discrete circuits is an often misunderstood and critical skill. There are silly error in layouts that can lead to measurable and remarkably large increases in distortion. Another error is assuming that the common mode rejection of a circuit will ameliorate common mode noise. This ignores the fact that the CMMR falls dramatically with frequency, and is is usually quoted with no DC offset. It is possible to end up with circuits that perform remarkably worse than expected with poor attention to layout. Doing silly things with layout of balanced lines and depending upon common mode rejection can lead to intermodulation issues that are hard to track down and cure.
Actually, I think we are arguing the same point but doing so using words we interpret differently, and thus missing agreement. I may have misinterpreted your post.
I agree that instruments all sound and feel different - if they didn’t, I wouldn’t keep looking at new guitars. But the Strad “purists” claim that they do have characteristics (as a class) that set them apart. The test demonstrated that this was not the case - all the instruments were different, but the vintage instruments could not be separated from the modern ones on any basis, so they are indistinguishable (as a class). It would be interesting to see if the players could reliably identify an instrument as one they had previously played, to find out if individual instruments are actually distinguishable or memorable.
And I agree with your comment - sillyness about million dollar instruments is misplaced.
It is a perfectly rational decision on the part of the audiophile to turn up his nose at any equipment that he feels modifies the sound in any way in his home stereo setup, even if that maligned equipment is on par with what is used in professional recording. The purpose of audio equipment in a recording studio is indeed quite different from the purpose of audio equipment used by listeners. Every piece of equipment in the chain leading up to the mastering engineer is intended to contribute to the sound intended by that engineer, whereas everything after that (ie, the home audio equipment used by listeners) is intended to reproduce that specific sound. So where anything that modifies the sound in the chain up to the mastering engineer helps contribute to the intended sound, anything after that point that modifies the sound is detracting from it.
That said, I have no sympathy for ridiculously overpriced audio woo.
I could see your point if all these people were looking for was high fidelity reproduction. How do you explain passages like this:
That doesn’t sound like a desire for electrically pure reproduction to me. A cable is supposed to shape sound? I suspect that most of these people simply have no idea what goes on inside a recording studio (or inside professional audio gear, for that matter).
