How much difference does it make?

[shtf]

On 6/21/2019 at 9:27 AM, Ralf11 said:

....

 

your "%" will change as $$ increases

 

You can always tell the ones who subscribe to Stereophile magazine.   

[shtf]

On 6/21/2019 at 9:09 AM, gordec said:

I have learned a lot of great information from the CA/AS community since joining. I went completely network based frontend and started to use better cable and power supplies. After playing with a lot of streamers and linear power supplies, I came to the conclusion that, to my ears, software, power supply, connection interface (network, USB, optical) and cables make up about 10% difference in overall sound quality. Headphone/speaker probably make up 30%-40%, amp 20%-30%, DAC 15%-30%. I have absolutely no problem spending a lot to get the most out of that 10%, but perhaps the best value is spend on the down stream components that could make a bigger difference in the overall sound quality. 

 

Do others feel that their frontend makes significantly more than 10% difference to their overall listening experience. If so, how much. I'm talking about sound quality alone, not the software/user interface. 

 

Interesting how the responses are all over the map.  But that's only because everybody is just guessing.

 

If we assume every last possible part of the vineyard that makes up a given playback system is already deemed superior, here's how I'd break down where the real performance come from.  

 

Roughly speaking, real performance can be broken down as follows:

• 60% Not your typical vibration mgmt.
• 25% Not your typical electrical mgmt
• 15% Components, speakers, cables, etc
• 00% room acoustics and/or treatments

One caveat or side note.   Assuming we're talking full-range, a speaker's most optimal placement or position within a given room is an absolute requirement before one can achieve a truly musical, deep, tight, well-defined, and natural bass.  Though this effort can take weeks, months, or even years and even then the most optimal location may never be discovered, even though it's probably there somewhere.

 

 

[shtf]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

 

I don't, muffy

 

Sure you do, tiger.  You don’t have enough experience with anything to come up with this on your own.

But I’ve been wrong before.   So let’s put this to the test.  

 

You said, “your "%" will change as $$ increases”.   So why not give maybe 8 – 10 quick real world examples where performance improved in accordance to price. 

 

I’m betting you can’t do it.  So maybe you should include some of the sonic “changes” in performance with each replacement as best as you recollect them and with the hope that you can substantiate your nonsensical statement.

 

[shtf]

3 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

Choke. 

 

I’ve spent a great deal of time looking into and implementing vibration management — NFW it’s even close to 60% nor is electrical management 25 % 

— to suggest that room correction is 0% is equally absurd

— source is #1,  transducers are #2 components #3

 

YFW.   A couple of years ago, you opened a thread about the benefits of vibration mgmt. being controversial and I tried to share then that there was nothing controversial about its benefits.  Around that same time my 3 little Jena Labs passive, dedicated, and bi-directional line conditioners were going through a mechanical settling in process on their way to performing maybe 3 times their already fabulous out-of-the-box performance levels.  Simply because of an extreme mounting method I starting using to attach them to my custom racking system.  Which BTW, does the same for most components.

 

But you see, we’re talking apples and oranges.  There are automobiles and then there are automobiles. There are mechanics and then there are mechanics.  There are hockey players and then there’s Bobby Orr.  There are basketball players and then there’s Michael Jordan.

 

Surely you don’t think there’s just one method to vibration mgmt, do you?  In fact, the one method you’ve spent so much time on I call invalid and a grossly inferior version of the one true method.  At least when it come sensitive instruments where performance is paramount.

 

As for electrical mgmt., I don’t know what you’re thinking there but I know what I’m thinking.

 

As for room acoustic treatments having zero value.  I should explain.  Assuming of course the room is already deemed reasonable in and of itself, my claim there is also true. 

 

Think of it this way.  A given recording contains exactly 100% of the music info we’re potentially able to hear through our playback systems.  From our computer experiences with backups and restores, we already know that reading and processing at or near 100% accuracy is old technology.  But of that roughly 100% music info read and processed, that with a typical SOTA level playback system, I venture only 55-65% of that music info remains above the much raised noise flloor and hence, audible at the speaker.   This is a universal performance-limiting governor that no system can escape.  The result is perhaps more commonly known as a "hi-fi sound".

 

That’s because universal electrically- and mechanically-induced distortions gathered along the signal path greatly raise the noise floor so that much of the music info remains inaudible below the much raised noise floor.  If / when that much raised noise floor is lowered, that much more music info read and processed will remain audible at the speaker. 

 

That said, a good portion of that inaudible music info includes volumes of ambient information from the recording hall we can barely hear from our playback systems.  Now when that is true, you may indeed be competing greatly with your room’s acoustic anomalies.  But I attest that when much of that ambient info remains audible at the speaker, that recording hall ambient info entirely overshadows most any room acoustic anomalies.  Thereby, rendering the room’s acoustic anomalies insignificant at worst and possibly eliminated or a non-issue at best.

 

BTW, since when does spending a great deal of time looking into something make one an expert in anything? 

 

[shtf]

3 hours ago, STC said:

 

Put this on your DAC, speakers, amplifier. Let someone control the switch. When the motor turns on you could feel the vibration strong enough that even at the far side of the equipment you could fill the them when you touch it. Just do the blind test and prove to yourself. Sit far and use this golden opportunity to challenge the non believers how you could hear the negative effects of the vibration. 

 
Not sure who you're directing this toward but I'll tell you what the results are.  This appears to be little slot-car like electric motor.  In every case, the audible differences will be zero.  You could place 500 of these on your components and the sonic differences will still be zero.  You could place a live speaker on your components or stand, which some are known to do, and you still should not hear any degradation in sonics. 

 

For one simple reason....  On second thought, I'll leave that for you to determine.

[shtf]

19 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

there are scientists, and there are ignoramuses

 

Hey, champ (a play on words).  Where's your list of 8 - 10 upgrades to substantiate your claim that performance is tied directly to cost?

[shtf]

17 hours ago, STC said:

 

What? Vibration got no effect on SQ?

 

I never said that.  To the contrary and to the best of my knowledge, unwanted resonant energy cripples our sensitive instruments perhaps more than all other distortions combined.

 

All I said was, given your little vibrating motor experiment or 500 of those motors placed on top of the components or even a live speaker placed on top of your components or stand, you should hear no degradation in sonics. Zero.

 

17 hours ago, STC said:

 

typical write up “some of those vibrations right back up the spikes the way they came and introduce both coloration and distortion to the music.

 

To the best of my knowledge, resonant energy, as with perhaps all energy,  seeks first and foremost to travel away from its point source.  Hence, resonant energy should be quite directional.  Unless of course somebody severs the mechanical conduit somewhere along the path (think isolation) and then the unwanted energy may well return.

 

17 hours ago, STC said:

 

Much of the vibration that causes a lot of distortion is higher-frequency, acute micro-vibration that you cannot really feel or readily detect.....”

 

True, but to the best of my knowledge vibrations induce their sonic harm potentially across the entire bandwidth without discrimination.

 

17 hours ago, STC said:

 

Next I need a simpler experiment for power conditioner. I used far superior stabilizer and conditioner by Cetronics and Watford Control made especially for the cleanest and stable supply for sensitive equipment. The only different it made was to my power amplifier. 

 

 

Then why not try another line conditioner and then another?  There are plenty of line conditioners that do nothing or worse, induce their own sonic harm.  It used to be, the general rule of thumb was, the more popular the manufacturer, the more inferior the product.  And I've no reason to believe that's changed much.  Especially since it seems most still can't spell line conditioner.

 

 

[shtf]

14 hours ago, mansr said:

You seem to be saying room acoustics don't matter, assuming the room has perfect acoustics.

 

I didn't say it like that by any means.  I really don't care much what the room acoustics are.  Perfect or not.  All I care about is whether or not the room is reasonable.  By that I'm implying there's reasonable floor coverings, reasonable symmetry, reasonably minimal reflective furnishings/surfaces, and reasonable dimensions.  Nothing more, unless I'm forgetting something.

 

But what you seem to be overlooking is my statement about keeping audible at the speaker the volumes of ambient info already embedded in most any given recording.  If/when that is achieved, the recording hall's ambient info embedded in the recording and remaining audible at the speaker should in most instances completely overshadow most / all room acoustic anomalies.

 

 

[shtf]

9 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

I never said that.  Please work on your reading comprehension.

 

or ask your mom to help explain the big words

 

So you did not write, "your "%" will change as $$ increases"?

 

[shtf]

16 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

You claimed vibration management makes up 60% of the SQ of an audio system. Now you claim that you’ve got something better than what I’ve implemented (and done comparative listening test on). My views and techniques are well documented on this site so no need to repeat. 60% is absurd for any system. There is also vast literature of vibration mitigation in physics eg graviton detection. So let’s see measurements. Vibrations are eminently measurable. 

 

Yeah, I’d say 60% is a pretty safe conservative estimate.

 

I never claimed to have anything better than you as I do not know you or your work.  But it would seem that you inadvertently claimed what I had was substantially better than anything you’ve assembled when you opened that thread a while back and you said that the distortions induced by unwanted vibrations were controversial which I interpret as insignificant or a potential non-issue. 

 

What I find interesting is that you seem to wanna be labeled here as some type of vibration mgmt. expert (doesn’t everybody?), yet after all your great time spent studying vibrations, their sources, their behaviors, the distortions they induce, experiments, etc, you walked away seemingly empty-handed. 

 

From your perspective, I can absolutely understand why you would think 60% is absurd.  But then based on your findings you’d probably think 6 or 7% was also absurd.

 

You wanna see measurements?  Answer me this.  Do you even know what to measure, much less properly interpret any findings?  Is it not true that every electrical wire and internal electrical component vibrates when current is flowing through them?  How are you going to measure all that?

 

If we’re talking air-borne vibrations, is not the chassis impacted first by that unwanted energy but then every internal object directly or indirectly impacted secondarily?

 

If we’re talking floor-borne vibrations, wouldn’t that impact be quite similar to air-borne vibrations?

 

Now here I just mentioned yesterday that with my methods I was able to extract perhaps 3 times the performance of my already fabulous Jena Labs line conditioners’ out-of-the-box performance and here you are claiming that the sonic harm induced by unwanted vibrations is controversial at best and near zero at worst.

 

With such diametrically opposed findings would that not make one of us a false prophet?

 

Quote

 

You also use this bizarre terminology of a “bi-directional” line filter ... get a grip of some basic electronics. Circuits are circular, bidirectional ... all of it. Noise floor is also trivial to measure — or just listen — no need for bizarro terminology.

 

How superior line conditioners work is clearly outside my scope as I just use them and have been since 2000.  Jena Labs is the manufacturer and my current models are THE Two. 

 

Maybe you should contact Jena Labs directly to let them know how bizarre you think this bi-directional filtering crap is.  Even though it seems fairly well known to some that all digital noise is bi-directional including those digital-like distortions from Class D amps even though they are not digital. 

 

As former NASA contractors / scientists I’m sure they’d love to get your thoughts.  One of them also worked on the Voyager 1 project where many parts of the Voyager 1 were cryogenically treated via the full immersion method and they carried that cryo-treatment into their high-end audio business and have been cryo-treating many of their products for the past 30 years.  I’m sure you’ll have some insights to share with them on that subject too.

 

Quote

 

Let me say it again: the only rational reason for you to hold these views is if you are trying to peddle snake oil — what is your agenda? Do you have an industry affiliation? Are you in the business of selling products? What?

 

No product to sell.  Well, not for the past 8 years anyway.  But considering your findings vs my findings on vibrations and perhaps your findings vs Jena Labs’ finding on line conditioners, bi-directional noise, cryo-treating, etc, what exactly is your definition of snake oil?   If I should feel the need to use that term, I just wanna make sure I use it in a context that’s understandable.

 

[shtf]

3 hours ago, STC said:

 

If only this statement is correct....

 

But it is.  Just ask me.

 

Quote

 

A recording is nothing more than an attempt to repeat the sound made by the instruments at another venue. Otherwise, a perfect recording should sound like the original event in an anechoic chamber. Understand this and you will see that a record cannot and will never contain all the information of the original event unless you go multi channel recordings and multi channels playback.

 

...

 

 

I certainly never said a recording can or ever will contain all the info of the live event.  But I will say that every last recording contains far more of the live event than you and many currently think.  In fact, your playback system is already reading and processing perhaps 100% of the music info embedded in the recording (not the live event).  But by the time it reaches your speakers, much of it is completely inaudible.  As a result, you and many others think microphones and recordings are simply unable to capture much of the live performance.  

 

If you understood that there’s far more music info embedded in every last recording than what we currently hear, that it’s possible to keep audible at the speaker, and how much more musical and engaging that additional music info brings to the presentation, I suspect you’d sell off all your Ambiophonics gear, donate your binaural recordings to charity, settle on Redbook and 2-channel, and use that garage sale money toward a nice used sports car, and enjoy a much more simplified lifestyle. 

[shtf]

5 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

What do you mean by vibration? Mechanical or electrical? This is physics. The methods to measure vibration are well known. 

 

I can't interpret your language, let alone your "findings" ... have you presented them? I am not sure we are using the same language? That said the field of electromagnetism has been well studied and deflection in ferromagnetic coils such as in certain transformers is also well known. 

 

Pick one of the well accepted ways to measure vibrations.

 

 

The two are different but both are examples of mechanical vibrations that can be mitigated using different techniques. If you want to look at state of the art techniques, such as non-linear springs, they are published --- I am not trying to promote a single technique nor a single product, rather providing information.

 

 

Speaking of the Voyager project. It is perhaps one of the finest examples of Physics at work, both conceptually and in implementation.

 

NASA essentially subcontracted the Voyager project to Caltech and its JPL, or should I say, that NASA funded and helped manage the Voyager project for the Caltech JPL. Let's just say that iff I am a prophet, then I spread the word of Ed Stone. (I hold him in special regard). Caltech (and MIT) also led to Fairchild semi, and then Intel, so clearly the spinoffs from Physics research have affected our everyday lives.

 

In any case since you invoked the Voyager project, let's step back and learn the larger lesson: It was based on solid physics, using great deal of planning and outstanding engineering, in order to make measurements that have never been made before. The Voyager project is a testament to the use of  mathematical physics to create an instrument providing measurements that in turn enable the validation of yet more mathematical physics. The gift that keeps on giving.

 

 

Fair enough, if you aren't selling anything nor have an industry affiliation then my apologies for accusing you of peddling snake oil.

 

Since I’ve no industry affiliation and I’m not trying to sell my technology, you no longer consider my technology to be snake oil?  How does that work?

 

Quote

At the moment we have different definitions for basic terms such as "information" and "vibration", and you don't seem to agree on an objective way to decide on a % (i.e. a measurement), we are off by one or two orders of magnitude ...

 

At least 2.

 

Quote

... so further debate is pointless.

 

So now we’re parting ways?  I can understand why you wouldn’t want to confront Jena Labs about your claims that the concept of bi-directional noise is bizarre. 

 

As for your great endeavors with vibrations and your subsequent failures there, I would think any scientist worth their weight would want to evaluate and determine how they could have fallen so far short of the mark or just be plain wrong.  After all, you did say in that thread you opened, “Not everyone believes that vibrations have audible effects.”

 

This is your time.  For example. 

 

Have you considered the possibility that some sources of vibration induce far more sonic harm than other sources?

 

Have you considered the possibility that prioritizing and addressing the less impacting sources of vibrations, one might actually worsen the situation with the greater impacting sources of vibrations?

 

Have you considered the possibility that you’ve no clue what you’re measuring nor do you have a clue to sufficiently interpret those measurements?

 

Have you considered the possibility that your mousetrap was actually a fabulous performer but it was your lack of ability to discern / interpret audible differences that led you to believe vibrations have no audible effects?   In other words, is it possible that your great efforts actually led to great results but your lack of listening skills prevented you from realizing it?

 

Have you considered the possibility that you chose the wrong physics books at the student book store?

 

Have you considered the possibility that you don’t know what you’re doing and you’re in the wrong line of work / hobby?  Wasn’t it Tesla who said about 100 years ago, “Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.”  I mean, if that was true 100 years ago, isn’t possible to be even more true today?

 

Have you considered the possibility that all of the above might be true?

 

[shtf]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

shtf, I doubt you will get anywhere here ... these are people who say they believe in integrity as a concept that applies to other ventures - but have little interest in considering it relevant to audio. Unfortunately, the same rules of physics do apply to chains of electronics used for audio playback, as for space missions - and also unfortunately, the ears are sensitive to lackings in that circuitry to a very fine degree. In Voyager, staggering amounts of money go down the gurgler if it's a tiny bit wrong; in audio it merely means that one listens to somewhat subpar sound - the order of magnitude of motivation is slightly different, .

 

Audio is a fantasy hobby for most; few are genuinely interested in evolving the quality of sound heard by being more fastidious in the assembly of the parts, and refining the overall setup of the system - so they will keep chasing gimmicks and impressively technical solutions to try and mask shortcomings in the core functioning of the 'machinery' ... hmmm, for some reason Microsoft Windows just popped up as a thought bubble ...

 

Thanks, Frank.  Yeah, high-end audio certainly has more than its fair share of these types.

 

There’s an abundance of hacks, bush-leaguers, and also-rans in every industry but these types aren’t even that.   Hacks, bush-leaguers, and also-rans are usually genuine and well-intentioned but lack the talent and/or tools to perform a sufficient or better job.  These are more self-delusional parasitical charlatans taking their brains out for a joy ride to demonstrate some form of perverted supreme intelligence that actually works to some extent when conversing amongst themselves and some newbees that come along.

 

In this case it seems at least Jabbr was cognizant enough not continue our meaningful monologue, I mean meaningful dialogue as he probably realized he can’t win because of his own admissions.  I particularly got a chuckle out of Jabbr’s earlier response as the entire thing was nothing more than a diversion while attempting to gracefully bow out pretending to let me off his hook while still trying to flex a brain muscle or two.  Can’t say the same for Ralfy11, who continues to struggle thinking one day he might walk away a winner.

 

But make no mistake.  This is the real snake oil being peddled everywhere throughout high-end audio and a colossal waste of everybody’s time including their own.  As I like to say, the mind is a terrible thing to waste, especially on others.

 

I just like to poke a finger in their eye once in a while but like a plague they are everywhere.

 

I appreciate the note.  You’re a good egg with good ears.