Has there ever been a spoof audio product?

[John Dyson]

Just my two cents:

 

There is the old story about the 'Emperor's new clothes', where he had been convinced that a tailor had produced really nice clothes for him, so he is so proud as to go on parade.  Of course, those clothes were nothing, and he ended up parading in the nude.  His ego had overwhelmed his knowledge and common sense.

 

Point being -- I think that a lot of audio 'gear' is sold to appeal as much to ego as it appeals to technical excellence.  I am not intending to discount the esoteric advantage of a beautifully constructed package, gold colored wiring, etc...   That is all good and well, but some of the associated technical claims might be vacuous or of no real value.

 

I believe that the audiophile community is very vulnerable to hucksterism, while those who really do wonderful design based on technology are just one in the crowd.  Human factors ARE important, and very nicely designed packaging is also very nice, but has very little to do with technical quality.

 

Right now, within about 1-2Hrs, I could (and have) designed a phono preamp that blows away most, and works as well as the best -- there is nothing really difficult about doing that, all it takes is dedication and technical knowledge.  My design will guaranteed be ignored, because prototypes look pretty bad next to esoterically designed so called 'rigs'.  (When I hear 'rig', I envision a dirty, greasy machine with a Diesel engine -- but that is just a generational/cultural thing :-)).   Also, my prototype would be very vulnerable to coffee stains or possibly RFI (until I would put together the packaging, make sure the the grounds are all returned correctly, etc.)

 

Technical excellence is important throughout the audio (audiophile) realm, but on the high end there seems to be a lot of hucksterism associated with extreme packaging, and gross overdesign/curious design emphasis.  (BTW, I used to have a  really advanced Hitachi FET power amp, back when such technology was just barely practical -- sure it had wide bandwidth, but also a lot of distortion when compared with traditional designs.)   My Nakamichi preamp also had its problems -- the phono input(s) were not as good as I would hope -- also a kind of distorted sound and bad loading of some kind.  These were pretty good brands in their day.  Anyone could be fooled.

 

Now, I simply live in the raw technical world, worrying only about moderately practical packaging.  Very importantly though,  I do NOT disparage those who enjoy   turntables that remind me of  Star Trek 3D chess boards.  I do disparage those who make misleading claims so that they might take financial advantage of audio listeners.

 

John

 

[John Dyson]

12 minutes ago, mansr said:

That's just someone having fun with the name. The actual product looks like it could be useful.

I agree about that.  The only thing worrying me about such products -- drivers.  I keep my own version of Linux because of the driver issue.  The volume control mechnaisms don't work correctly on my plug-in headphone amp without an audio/USB subsystem patch.  (I think that it is a D3, oddly I cannot remember anymore -- too much falling off the other end of my memory.)  Default builds only work well in an emergency.

 

If such a product had most of the audio related driver matters all handled, it would be a beautiful product.

 

I only use Windows to build/test a Windows version of the DHNRDS .  All heavy duty work is on Linux.

 

John