SQ or SNAKEOIL

[firedog]

13 hours ago, GUTB said:

The only way to know is to have been there to witness the event.

Not even. Hallucinations are still hallucinations. 

[GUTB]

3 hours ago, firedog said:

Not even. Hallucinations are still hallucinations. 

 

The only way to know that is to have been there. "Uh, guys, seriously it's just a flood light..."

 

For example, what if it was a projection put up by the church there gain converts? In that case it wasn't a hallucination.

[R1200CL]

3 hours ago, mansr said:

Uptone and their ilk might actually believe what they're saying/selling.

 

What are you actually trying to say ?

[firedog]

6 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 

The only way to know that is to have been there. "Uh, guys, seriously it's just a flood light..."

 

For example, what if it was a projection put up by the church there gain converts? In that case it wasn't a hallucination.

Well, then they weren't seeing the VM, were they? So about the same as hallucinating as far as it's relationship to reality and truth. 

[GUTB]

Just now, firedog said:

Well, then they weren't seeing the VM, were they?

 

REGARDLESS of what it actually was, the crowd THOUGHT they were looking at an image of Mary.

[Samuel T Cogley]

3 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 

REGARDLESS of what it actually was, the crowd THOUGHT they were looking at an image of Mary.

 

How is it not a textbook example of mass hysteria?

[mansr]

8 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

What are you actually trying to say ?

That they are not obviously being intentionally fraudulent.

[firedog]

1 minute ago, GUTB said:

 

REGARDLESS of what it actually was, the crowd THOUGHT they were looking at an image of Mary.

Which means nothing as far as I'm concerned. The only point you are scoring here about audio is basically saying that audiophiles imagine lots of what they hear. 

 

I don't care what anyone listens to or what setup, add ons, file formats, speaker type or amp class anyone listens to and likes - and thinks "sounds better". Even if they are 100% fooling themselves. Their business. 

 

I do object when they turn their personal preferences into some kind of rule about what must sound better - that A is by definition better than B. All the time, for everyone. Then they try and make it my business and to enforce their personal taste on me and everyone else. 

It's like when every time Class D amps gets mentioned,  a certain poster says "they suck". Well no they don't. That person thinks they suck. It's not a universal truth. 

[Spacehound]

14 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 

The only way to know that is to have been there. "Uh, guys, seriously it's just a flood light..."

 

For example, what if it was a projection put up by the church there gain converts? In that case it wasn't a hallucination.

So you've backed off it being the VM?

[Ralf11]

12 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

 

The gold standard in audio is still vinyl 

 

 

 

That is because vinyl is easy to mold into QRDs.  

 

People who want to make QRDs on the cheap often use wood.

[Bufo Bill]

My own thoughts on this idea some audio technicians have "I can't detect this with my equipment, therefore it doesn't exist" are to use the example of Dark Matter. Physics tells us it exists and that it's really rather common, but we can't detect it with current technology. I don't suppose that principle applies to most of what we're discussing here, I just think that both sides in this argument should accept that one should never say never, as it were. 

Regards from Bill.

[Ralf11]

kind of a WIMPy argument

[Bufo Bill]

I do enjoy a good pun and CA users are top notch. Well done sir!

[Don Hills]

45 minutes ago, Bufo Bill said:

My own thoughts on this idea some audio technicians have "I can't detect this with my equipment, therefore it doesn't exist" are to use the example of Dark Matter. Physics tells us it exists and that it's really rather common, but we can't detect it with current technology. ...

 

While I generally agree with your argument, Dark Matter is a poor example. It's existence has not been proven, it's just a theory that fits the observed (measured) phenomena.

[mansr]

51 minutes ago, Bufo Bill said:

My own thoughts on this idea some audio technicians have "I can't detect this with my equipment, therefore it doesn't exist" are to use the example of Dark Matter. Physics tells us it exists and that it's really rather common, but we can't detect it with current technology. I don't suppose that principle applies to most of what we're discussing here, I just think that both sides in this argument should accept that one should never say never, as it were. 

Regards from Bill.

 

[Ralf11]

1 hour ago, Bufo Bill said:

I do enjoy a good pun and CA users are top notch. Well done sir!

 

 

Thanks!

 

You aren't a herpetologist, are you?

[KingRex]

21 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

You know what I find most funny about the above posts? Most of the people who develop and sell these ‘magic’ boxes are practically to a man engineers or scientists. Almost all are well educated and well qualified for the job they do and all those I’ve met believed fully in the products they’d developed. They would be horrified if they thought people believed they were selling snake oil to the gullible. 

 

The other thing I’ve noticed? In more than 40 years around hi-if, including hi-fi shows, audiophile home visits, dealer open days, dealer demos, I can count on two hands the number of systems I’ve heard that were fully resolving all the information on a CD.  Sound nice? Plenty. Extracting and presenting all the information? Very few. 

 

The gold standard in audio is still vinyl, but frankly a very well set up and optimised digital system makes vinyl sound very old. Lots of interference, noise, surface noise, lack of dynamic range.....but in the context of many systems, vinyl still handily outperforms digital. 

 

For the most part, in order to hear the effects of many of these ‘improvements’ listed above a system has got to be fairly capable.  If you go to the ‘Your Systems’ threads in most Forums and look at the pictures of some of the installations, you’ll already understand why a lot of people aren’t going to hear subtle improvements.  Overly large speakers jammed into small rooms, sited in corners or against walls or asymmetrically installed. Turntables and electronics sitting on large, resonant cabinets, with TVs and large pieces of furniture between speakers. Electronics plugged into B&Q power strips or regular house ring main wall sockets, electronics installed in room corners, power cords and signal cables bundled together.....

 

Finally its worth bearing in mind the inherent ‘self fulfilling prophecy’ associated with proper system set up and optimisation.  If you don’t believe it matters and so don’t do it properly, you’ll NEVER hear the difference it can make, neatly reinforcing your belief.   Here’s what I believe. A well installed, optimally set-up middle of the road hi-if system will almost always outperform some high end gear placed in a room with no consideration given to issues like electrical supply, cabling (type and routing), vibration control, noise control (EMI, RFI), proper speaker placement, room optimisation, siting of electronics etc.  I’m a scientist with 40 years employed by one of the World’s premier test and measurement companies and I would say this. Anyone who can’t hear for example the quite dramatic effects of initial aging or so-called burn-in needs to recognise that the reason they can’t hear it isn’t because the phenomenon isn’t real. Its because their system is simply not sufficiently revealing. And if your system doesn’t reveal burn-in you can be certain there’s a whole lot of musical information its also keeping from you. 

 

Now I honestly don’t care if you believe me or not, but just know that your disbelief in such phenomena may be signing you up to a life time of audio mediocrity. 

I completely agree.  For example, quite a few people say they don't believe software optimization affects SQ.  I have a duel boot computer and my original install of Win 7 is not anywhere close to the musicality of my  Win 2016 server with AO and HQ player software.  The 2016 boot is so good it far surpasses my analog at this time.  The analog is better than my

Win 7 boot.  The analog is a nice modded Rega RP6 with a remote mounted motor with an Allnic phono stage and a denon 103R in a midas headshell.  A TT setup I was so proud of I took it to a friends house who is a dealer and played it along side the expensive rigs he sells.  Mine sounded pretty good.  Prior to my software upgrades the vinyl was more musical and pleasant than my digital.  After I upgraded the software only, I hear mild shout and a lot of midrange bloat in my vinyl.  It made my vinyl unlistenable to me at this time.  

 

I believe the reason the difference is so apparent in my system is I also spend a lot of time testing power to my rack.  I installed 10awg wire in metal and pvc pipe.  I ran silver coated mil spec wire and ofc cord from my panel to my rack.  I made a custom acrylic and corian distribution strip with high end receptacles and in the end wired it direct from my panel into the power dist strip with the ofc coard.  That alone is a massive improvement over a standard wall receptacle fed with 12awg romex.  I have also spent a lot of time using different room treatments in my listening space.  I have spent a lot of time trying isolation materials under equipment.  I have tuned with interconnects and cords.  I have tuned with large isolation transformers in my basement.   In short I have spent a lot of time tuning my stereo to sound musical and revealing.  I am in the process of changing the wire lace, chokes and caps in my speakers.  Every step has been an improvement.   I was actually so impressed with the upgrade in performance of my digital after the software changes I invited 2 friend to listen. One builds amps for a living, the other owns a audio sales business.  Both found my system to sound very musical and heard attributes to instruments such as piano, violin and voices that were normally only heard on very expensive analog systems.  Software only.  Per Blackmorec comment, the reason this change made such a difference was all the optimization ahead of this change that allowed it to be revealed.  Prior to all the tuning I have done over the years, I would not have heard such a difference.  

 

I would say, anyone who has spent a lot of time listening and optimizing their setup may have reached a point where it resolves well enough to hear micro changes.  This evening I was playing with some stands I made from small 1.5 inch square pieces of acrylic with a dimple in them and a bead on top.  I put them under my front end gear.  I had taken them out to move some stuff around,  My setup did not sound right.  I put them back but did not install the felt under the blocks under my DAC.  It still was not quite right,  When I put the felt back, the sound stage had the air and fluidity I wanted with clean articulate bass.   It takes time an patience but tuning pays off.    

 

I have heard many of the items in the above questioneir make a difference in my system.  The only ones I did not say improved the sound was the USB reclock as I have not tried it, nor upsampling as in my system it takes the computer to much computing power that makes more noise than improvement.  That could just be a limitation of my setup.  Another person with something such as a Chord product that does the upsampling in the CD player may have a totally different point of view.  I do know a guy with such a setup and he swears, 1,000.000 taps of upsampling makes a world of difference. 

[diecaster]

Felt? Wow! My life is now complete....

[Spacehound]

9 hours ago, Bufo Bill said:

My own thoughts on this idea some audio technicians have "I can't detect this with my equipment, therefore it doesn't exist" are to use the example of Dark Matter. Physics tells us it exists and that it's really rather common, but we can't detect it with current technology. I don't suppose that principle applies to most of what we're discussing here, I just think that both sides in this argument should accept that one should never say never, as it were. 

Regards from Bill.

Invalid argument re Dark Matter or anything else..

 

You should never say "never" but "probably exists" is fine. (Poke it with a stick often enough and if  it's there it will eventually do something.)

[Spacehound]

17 minutes ago, diecaster said:

Felt? Wow! My life is now complete....

I find putting a bright green plastic Tyrannosaurus Rex on top of my DAC is far better than silver coated wire or Windows 10.

[Blackmorec]

21 hours ago, mansr said:

I for one am convinced that the likes of Shunyata and Synergistic "Research" know full well what they're doing, i.e. making shit up and selling it to the gullible. Uptone and their ilk might actually believe what they're saying/selling.

Let's have a look at the logic underpinning your post. One of the main product types built and sold by both companies is cables of all varieties.  Your post infers a binary construct,  either cables make a difference, or they don't. Your assertion is that they don't.

In order for your assertion to be correct, there are some physical attributes of cables that should, by definition. have no effect on sound quality. Impedance, capacitance, inductance, RFI, EMI, conductor geometry, metallurgy, dielectric composition, conductor gauge, etc. etc

My conclusion, based on a rudimentary understanding of physics? Shunyata and Synergistic Research are  not the ones making stuff up.

 

[Blackmorec]

26 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

I find putting a bright green plastic Tyrannosaurus Rex on top of my DAC is far better than silver coated wire or Windows 10.

You picked a dinosaur to illustrate your point. How entirely appropriate

[Spacehound]

35 minutes ago, Blackmorec said:

 

You picked a dinosaur to illustrate your point. What a perfect example of the Freudian slip!

A good one 

 

But he's  the only plastic animal  I've got. He's a bit small as T Rex's go too.

And the cat works equally well but he won't stay there.

 

You don't ACTUALLY believe all this cable and stuff BS do you? If they know  something we don't why won't they show us their Nobel Prizes for physics? 

 

PS; A thoroughly BAD cable for  analogue interconnects or wiring the speakers can make a difference. But they are quite hard to make which may explain their high prices.

[sandyk]

18 hours ago, R1200CL said:

 

What are you actually trying to say ?

 

mansr is saying that the several thousand C.A. members who have purchased Uptone products AND been happy with the results, are all imagining the perceived improvements, and should have saved their hard earned money by taking his advice.

[Spacehound]

1 minute ago, sandyk said:

 

mansr is saying that the several thousand C.A. members who have purchased Uptone products AND been happy with the results, are all imagining the perceived improvements, and should have saved their hard earned money by taking his advice.

He's asking you what  you said.

 

He isn't asking you to misquote mansr