Well, so many are making so much money from customers (suckers) that it is hard to fault those wanting to get in on the action. Has always been true since forever that there are those willing to separate people from their money who are gullible. Not likely to change.
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Belden ICONOCLAST XLR Cable Review
- Thread starter amirm
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DSJR
Major Contributor
I think the audiophool argument is that as many commercial recordings are over-produced and compressed to boot, an 'audiophile grade high end HiFi system' should delve deep into these compressed mixes and maybe put a spotlight on otherwise 'hidden' details most of us can hear once we know they're there (Amir explained it in many other threads). Other High End systems possibly add subtle ringing or 'enhancements' to reverb tails giving false levels of 'air and space' (I had a valve pre-power that did this - 'sounded' wonderful while the power amp worked - cough...).
Nobody who can afford expensive luxury audio gear is going to be seen dead with a WBC or similar interconnect or speaker lead - no cachet or status enhancement with his mates I'm afraid.
Of my top 50 audio playback issues needing attention, cables (including signal, power, and speaker) are 787, 788, and 789 on the list for funding. I may not be the most pointy fanged in the 'streak' of HiFi tigers, but I'm a musician (piano) and an engineer (Purdue). I am more inclined to spend my sock drawer savings on better recordings and a 2.2 DSP enhancement (a rat hole I'm hopeful of avoiding).
And, after those, a better chair for long-sessions of listening.
And, after those, a better chair for long-sessions of listening.
Matt, thank you for giving me an entry into the subject. I will change it just a bit for my own purposes. We have a problem on ASR that is seen daily in many posts, people claiming that inaudible measurements are in fact audible. DACS, wires (rarely though), different amps and of course the audiophile tweaks of which there are many. One of the really big inaccurate items is people hearing different power ratings in amps when operating in their linear normal range. This then means we have to buy 400 watt per channel (or more) rigs instead of 100 watt per channel. Unless someone has a system that is more or less on the fringe, they can't hear what they think they can hear.
Applying this to our man Galen, he claims that the artifacts that he can measure in the MHz range is audible. I say it is not. I could put $10,000 on it and I know Amir and others here would also put big money on it. This silliness (stupidity?) by these scam artists is over the top and we need to call them out at every chance. Speaking electrical nonsense and gobblygook trying to baffle people with BS even from someone who knows better still should not be tolerated. Well, that is my morning rant for today!
Universal Cereal Bus
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Hard to know for sure unless they advertise it as patent pending. If the patent application was filed within the past 18 months, there's no public way to find out because it's being held in confidence by the patent office until publication.
Here are his published applications https://patents.google.com/?inventor=galen+gareis&num=100&sort=new
Nope. It was strictly cost and the decision on buying Russian or not. Congress mandated that NASA replace the Russian engines with American made. To start from scratch and design our own replacements is mega expensive. It is happening though. The Russians have in essence lost all of their customers. So, they will have very little need to make more. Currently we have around 70 in stock as the US pre-ordered and stocked up heavy for the upcoming (at that time) new policy to stop buying them. We are in good shape. Now about the crazy, wasteful, nutty idea of going to Mars and hanging out? That is wasting Billion and billions. We can't live on Mars unless about 40 different breakthroughs are made in areas where breakthroughs are very, very rare. Some problems are impossible to solve until we have robotic humans. But that is a different topic!
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A friend of mine with very expensive system (think for starters D'Agastino amplification) best summarized what he "hears" as follows:
Bits != bits.
Of course, his computer would not work if bits in didn't equal bits out, but that "small" fact cannot be discussed because bits != bits in his very expensive world of hifi.
Exact copies of CD's, played via the same transport, sound different to him.
His system does sound glorious, but he could have saved a hundred thousand dollars here and there and still had the same glorious sound.
Bottom line is that he's free to spend his money as he sees fit, but his beneficiaries thank him over and over.
I've simply learned not to disuss any of this bits stuff with him. It's a waste of time.
People hear what they want to hear.
Bits != bits.
Of course, his computer would not work if bits in didn't equal bits out, but that "small" fact cannot be discussed because bits != bits in his very expensive world of hifi.
Exact copies of CD's, played via the same transport, sound different to him.
His system does sound glorious, but he could have saved a hundred thousand dollars here and there and still had the same glorious sound.
Bottom line is that he's free to spend his money as he sees fit, but his beneficiaries thank him over and over.
I've simply learned not to disuss any of this bits stuff with him. It's a waste of time.
People hear what they want to hear.
Well you nailed it with this sentence. No amount of evidence is going to dissuade those who employ ritzy audio gear to shore up their classist tastes.
But it’s not the ostentatious set who troubles me so much—it’s the uninformed enthusiasts who spend outside of their means, in pursuit of promises of veils lifted perpetuated by sly, “principled” manufacturers like Mr. Gareis here. I have no issue with these ignorant folks shelling out whatever they want if they’re happy with their music. But when they get officious about parroting the lies they were told and start encouraging others to overspend on the basis of this nonsense, then I think they’re no better than the slimy manufacturers who sell it.
There is no excuse for willful ignorance. And these obstinate snake oil patrons earn membership in a special wall of infamy for disdaining the evidence offered on this forum. They like to talk about how toxic and confrontational their experiences were on here, yet if anyone dares to question their basis for encouraging others to try out the $1,500 “audiophile” Ethernet switch that transformed their own setups, there’s no limit to the amount of viciousness and bile they’ll employ to silence objections and control the narrative. I think it’s a bizarre form of Audiophile Stockholm Syndrome, and players like Gareis are the captors.
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I started to come around to the principles of this forum when I realized that some days my whole system sounds better than it did the day before, and I would waste an entire afternoon trying to troubleshoot the culprit—sometimes getting frustrated enough to pursue an arbitrary impulse purchase. I never did this with video, although I enjoy it almost as much—I buy a TV I like and forget about it for years. Ears are weird.
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The Saturn V’s F-1 engines are widely understood and documented. Their assembly lines and production machinery no longer exist and that’s one of the reasons why the F-1’s are no longer produced. Another reason is that there are better engines out there.
The Artemis/Orion/SLS program uses the SSME (Space Shuttle Main Engine, also known as the RS-25) as its main engine because from a thrust to weight ratio it remains one of the best rocket engines ever built, even though it is a 40+ year old design. 14 already-flown engines are being reused and 2 engines built in the 2000’s that have never flown are also being used. After the first 4 Artemis flights, new SSME’s will be built and flown.
As far as Russian engines, the RD-180 is used to power the latest generation of Atlas rockets because it is a damn good engine.
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I reject the allegations of the member you’re responding to here, but I’m not sure what position you’re taking with this reply. First, this is a review of a relatively short patch cable, not a speaker cable. But are you honestly alleging that for the 2-3 feet of wire involved in connecting a DAC to an amp that the gauge of the wire is going to measure differently in meaningful terms? Amir’s null test demonstrated silence.
In fact, to my knowledge the only factor Amir has ever proven to influence the end result in his wire reviews has been length, which makes logical sense. Beyond what length of speaker wire do you consider gauge to become relevant (or measurable, if you like), assuming that we’re not choosing a few strands of wound copper as a baseline?
theblackangus
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Am I understanding correctly this:
What Galen is saying is that - While you can measure a cable in isolation, there are additive effects once it is hooked up with a speaker and amplifier thus the "Network" (or pre-amp/cable/amp)
Implying that while the signal passed is transparent there may be additional effects on the signal based on electrical handling characteristics of the whole network? - This I could maybe understand/believe.
However that also should be measurable with additional testing gear.
What Galen is saying is that - While you can measure a cable in isolation, there are additive effects once it is hooked up with a speaker and amplifier thus the "Network" (or pre-amp/cable/amp)
Implying that while the signal passed is transparent there may be additional effects on the signal based on electrical handling characteristics of the whole network? - This I could maybe understand/believe.
However that also should be measurable with additional testing gear.
I wonder if someone is pretending to be Galen. It was a very goofy response from one engineer to another.
When challenged, Galen says things like this:
"You live in a world that sees no future except the past. I can't help you there. You have been given a chance to go forward, use the cables...get back to me. The proof of capability compared to the standards is there. Certainly things can't improve with no change. I made those changes. You seem intent to take away beauty from the world, to leave people and places worse off than you found them, for the sport of it."
"You live in a world that sees no future except the past. I can't help you there. You have been given a chance to go forward, use the cables...get back to me. The proof of capability compared to the standards is there. Certainly things can't improve with no change. I made those changes. You seem intent to take away beauty from the world, to leave people and places worse off than you found them, for the sport of it."
DSJR
Major Contributor
I wonder if his fancy whizz-bang CD drive is as good as it's undoubtedly high price indicates? CD-R's were different in readability I once thought - no idea now, but this bod isn't alone where copying to CD-R's is concerned.
The WeWork of Wire.
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