For those who endorse high priced tweaks

[atrocity]

Many salesmen didn't have a clue what they were talking about!

"We're not getting any more MiniDisc equipment because DVD is about to come out and will be recordable." (Summary of a circa 1996 call with The Good Guys.)

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Many salesmen didn't have a clue what they were talking about!

My only really goofy experiance was way back in maybe '72 I went shopping for my 1st "good" speakers. I was demo'ed the Empire Jupiter speakers:

I was told that due to the cylindrical shape they produced excellent sound and "good seperation" no matter where you put them in a room or position them.where. To prove this he actually laid them on the floor like this:

Well, I bought 'em! Mainly cuz I loved the bass, better than little 8" 2 way KLH's they were replacing. Now then, looking back I wonder why anyone at Empire thought low freq bass needed to be diffused.

Edit: Now that I read my own post I'm thinking the salesman knew exactly what he was doing: messing with the long haired punk kid he was sure wasn't going to buy anything anyway!

 

[4-earredwonder]

My only really goofy experiance was way back in maybe '72 I went shopping for my 1st "good" speakers. I was demo'ed the Empire Jupiter speakers:

View attachment 58741

I was told that due to the cylindrical shape they produced excellent sound and "good seperation" no matter where you put them in a room or position them.where. To prove this he actually laid them on the floor like this:

View attachment 58742

Well, I bought 'em! Mainly cuz I loved the bass, better than little 8" 2 way KLH's they were replacing. Now then, looking back I wonder why anyone at Empire thought low freq bass needed to be diffused.

Edit: Now that I read my own post I'm thinking the salesman knew exactly what he was doing: messing with the long haired punk kid he was sure wasn't going to buy anything anyway!

Back in those days, A Long Haired 'PUNK' Hippie with MONEY?????????

 

[Sal1950]

Why bother with Oxygen free, what benefits could there possibly be?

It's only real value is in a implied guarantee that it isn't some type of copper plated aluminum or some other cheaper material.
No real guarantee, but a gives me a bit of "piece of mind" that I'm getting quality material.
Definitely no better sounding than a slightly more contaminated copper base unless your runs are like 500 ft or better. LOL

I LOVE BEEF! Oh, sorry...got a bit fired up there....fired up? I see what I did....

+1

I like tweaks. Not sure what rates a high priced tweak, but I probably purchase upper end Audioquest cables but not there highest priced.

I believe you have to separate real, honest tweaks from the snake-oil tweaks. The real tweaks have a measurable result after completion. Snake-oil, magic dust tweaks are the ones whose results are unmeasurable and supported only by the claimed subjective difference listeners make when done with absolutely no controls over the listening procedure. Sighted listening where the listener knows under which condition he's hearing, the levels weren't matched to within a 1/4 db, etc, etc. For listening tests to offer valid results, bias controls must be strictly enforced, human perception is the easiest of factors to influence and fool. Yep, yep,, David Copperfield really did make that 747 disappear off the runway, I seen it with my own two eyes.

No it was the cables, they had very few strands of wire in them and very poor shielding, ultra cheap molded plugs. The amp was a tube one with high input impedance which made things even worse!

I had the same experience around 25 years ago when the unshielded Kimber PBJ interconnects were all the rage and I was still a bit naive. I had VTL tube amps and very high efficiency Klipsch La Scala speakers and bought a pair of PBJ interconnects for preamp to amps, on the strength of Stereophile and other rave reviews. They weren't terribly expensive and rivaled the very expensive spread according to the magic dust writers. Plugged them in and as soon as the tubes warmed up I heard the hum immediately. I spent a couple weeks playing all the ground loop, routing, and other hum fighting games I knew. Actually did reduce it by maybe half but it was still easily heard at the listening position with no music playing. Finally gave up and put the old no-name cables back in, hum gone again. The good news is they went into the spare cable box till a year of so back when I sold them on ebay at about 20% more than for what I paid new in the 90s LOL

Biggest surprise to me was learning that the 120v outlet in the laundry room is the only thing on its 20 amp circuit.

Washer motors can be under heavy loads with the tub full of heavy water, it's transmission shifting gears for the different washing cycles and high speed spin drying. A good dedicated line for it is a very good hedge against popped breakers.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

I thought a dedicated washer line was required on new builds. Has been for a while now.

 

[Sal1950]

I thought a dedicated washer line was required on new builds. Has been for a while now.

Sounds right, I never had a new house.

 

[Soundfield]

Washer motors can be under heavy loads with the tub full of heavy water

Using heavy water in your washing machine is surely a tweak too far.

 

[bluelightning]

Using heavy water in your washing machine is surely a tweak too far.

What about using heavy metal ?

 

[JohnN]

"We're not getting any more MiniDisc equipment because DVD is about to come out and will be recordable." (Summary of a circa 1996 call with The Good Guys.)

Looking to the future from 2000:

 

[milt]

In fact its probably gone through miles and miles of Aluminium (shock , horror)! Aluminium and has long been used for long distance power HV lines as it is so much lighter (and cheaper) than copper even given the slightly larger cable diameter required to compensate for its marginally lower conductivity.

There is no probably about it. The power coming into your house has gone through 1,000s of wire feet of aluminum or in your case aluminium
What kills me is that when it comes to Audio, 500 years of Scientific knowledge is suddenly rendered irrelevant.
"I know what I'm hearing" becomes the mantra and people are willing to throw gobs of money chasing the impossible.
Working in IT since the mid 80's, the switch to digital networks has rendered stupendous improvements in everything.
Yet in the audio world, a playback system originating 140+ years ago is somehow superior.
It's equivalent to preferring a 1968 Zenith CRT TV to a 2020 4k OLED panel.
Hey if folks prefer vinyl fine with me could not care less, knock yourself out.
But touting its innate superiority is denial of fact.

In Video there are standards that define everything. I've been a proponent of having my video displays professionally calibrated since home calibration
was available. But there are still people who feel they know what a display should look like and tweaking by eye is as good as it gets or feel calibration is waste of money

 

[jimfisheye]

Garbage in, garbage out!

Imagine what kind of talk you'd have on video forums if most bluray discs ever made contained grainy copies of VHS tapes of black and white TV broadcasts?

That kind of happened with CDs. Not as exaggerated as my example maybe (although some literally are that bad). But the CD is forever associated with loud, shrill, & tinny because of it. We may be in the golden age of audio now with 24 bit everything and HD sample rates but 16/44.1 had the potential as a format to be better than most vinyl or cassette systems.

You end up with examples of better end result fidelity in lower potential quality formats than higher potential quality formats. Vinyl with a better copy of the master than a CD edition. An mp3 with a better copy of a master than a bluray edition. People get confused.

 

[Doug G.]

"I trust my ears!"



Doug

 

[JohnN]

"I trust my ears!"



Doug

https://www.wired.com/2010/11/ears-biometric-identification/

 

[Marcsten]

Looking to the future from 2000:

Urgh. Ian. How many times can someone be wrong in the same interview! OK, the Beethoven comment is correct. I agree that the Angel records theory of quad classical mixes is better than putting the instruments around the listener for classical. But what is that silly nonsense about we have two ears so two speakers is enough. I guess when he goes out into the world, sounds are all ahead of him and no where else. Stupid. And he hates vinyl and prefers digital? I notice he doesn't say why. Such crap. Sorry to speak ill of an icon, but this is gibberish.

 

[par4ken]

Urgh. Ian. How many times can someone be wrong in the same interview! OK, the Beethoven comment is correct. I agree that the Angel records theory of quad classical mixes is better than putting the instruments around the listener for classical. But what is that silly nonsense about we have two ears so two speakers is enough. I guess when he goes out into the world, sounds are all ahead of him and no where else. Stupid. And he hates vinyl and prefers digital? I notice he doesn't say why. Such crap. Sorry to speak ill of an icon, but this is gibberish.

Yes, I disagree with just about everything that he has to say!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[jimfisheye]

I think Mr Wilson just may have helped My Anderson evolve a little bit with his surround opinions!

I wonder if some of that is venting over flawed surround releases in the quad days too? He WAS after all one of the ones to mix and release in quad back in the day.

Just absolutely 1000% agree with digital storage over analog storage though! (We're all still listening to the analog output stages. Unless you listen to digital data streams like modem startup sounds and interpret your music that way?) The digital age ushered in this golden age of audio we now live in. Pristine exact clone copies of 24 bit HD surround sound can be downloaded now. The mutilated mayhem is left in the past. The bell curve for performance with tape and vinyl is so extremely narrow. Most people never got that dialed in. (The sound cue in movies for a record playing is that of heavily damaged vinyl on an obviously malfunctioning system. Just like the cue for someone walking up to a mic on a live stage is that of the sound guy massively screwing up with a feedback burst. A nod to widespread incompetent live audio work.)

It's also opened the door to a lower level of amateur madness than ever seen before! The shrill volume war CDs. "Mastering" like that heard on that new Lennon set! Some of the most outrageous mistakes anyone could imagine. Don't mind that. We have so much more happiness and light than ever before! I'm with Ian on this. Think of it from the artists perspective too. You spend time crafting the mix just right in the studio. Then you hear the vinyl pressing on an average (ie not ever set up) turntable system or the pre-recorded cassette on an average (ie not calibrated) tape deck and you rage!

There's some digital bs to wade through. AV receivers with who know what for the internal signal paths and restricting playback or lowering playback quality. A computer, audio interface with a nice DAC, and some hard drives and it's all happiness and light now.

 

[ar surround]

Urgh. Ian. How many times can someone be wrong in the same interview! OK, the Beethoven comment is correct. I agree that the Angel records theory of quad classical mixes is better than putting the instruments around the listener for classical. But what is that silly nonsense about we have two ears so two speakers is enough. I guess when he goes out into the world, sounds are all ahead of him and no where else. Stupid. And he hates vinyl and prefers digital? I notice he doesn't say why. Such crap. Sorry to speak ill of an icon, but this is gibberish.

And yet we've been getting the Tull catalog as well as TAAB2 in Steven Wilson mixed glorious 5.1. If every artist who said stereo is enough gave us their catalog in surround sound, then wouldn't that be grand?!!!

Don't squeal on me but I'm a heathen who also likes classical music mixed from the perspective of being surrounded by the orchestra.

 

[Marcsten]

I think Mr Wilson just may have helped My Anderson evolve a little bit with his surround opinions!

I wonder if some of that is venting over flawed surround releases in the quad days too? He WAS after all one of the ones to mix and release in quad back in the day.

Just absolutely 1000% agree with digital storage over analog storage though! (We're all still listening to the analog output stages. Unless you listen to digital data streams like modem startup sounds and interpret your music that way?) The digital age ushered in this golden age of audio we now live in. Pristine exact clone copies of 24 bit HD surround sound can be downloaded now. The mutilated mayhem is left in the past. The bell curve for performance with tape and vinyl is so extremely narrow. Most people never got that dialed in. (The sound cue in movies for a record playing is that of heavily damaged vinyl on an obviously malfunctioning system. Just like the cue for someone walking up to a mic on a live stage is that of the sound guy massively screwing up with a feedback burst. A nod to widespread incompetent live audio work.)

It's also opened the door to a lower level of amateur madness than ever seen before! The shrill volume war CDs. "Mastering" like that heard on that new Lennon set! Some of the most outrageous mistakes anyone could imagine. Don't mind that. We have so much more happiness and light than ever before! I'm with Ian on this. Think of it from the artists perspective too. You spend time crafting the mix just right in the studio. Then you hear the vinyl pressing on an average (ie not ever set up) turntable system or the pre-recorded cassette on an average (ie not calibrated) tape deck and you rage!

There's some digital bs to wade through. AV receivers with who know what for the internal signal paths and restricting playback or lowering playback quality. A computer, audio interface with a nice DAC, and some hard drives and it's all happiness and light now.

Partially agree. The worst thing brought upon us by the digital revolution is compressed lossy storage, such as mp3s. How many people do you know today who are under 25 who's entire music collection is on their iPhone in a similar form? When you ask them about a decent format they shrug. I can't hear the difference on why ear buds so who cares? I have three kids. One falls into the above category. The other two have decent analogue and digital systems. As Meatloaf said, two out of three...

 

[Sal1950]

Looking to the future from 2000:

Ian bats 50/50 there..
Many old schooler's can't come to terms with the immersive experience. When done well as shone by Wilson, Parson, Waldrep and the rest, it is a art of the producer all his own. I for one love it and an hoping the current interest in Atmos spurs a revolution all it's own.
On the vinyl side, he hits it right on target. Vinyl is a medium of the 1900s who's last gasp should have been heard by 1990. It rose to a admirable level of sound quality but hits a wall of techincal and mechanical problems that can't be bypassed. RIP LP

 

[Doug G.]

He uses the same old tired arguments many others have used to denigrate quad/surround sound. A limited viewpoint.

Doug