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Blue Jeans Cable Isolation Transformer Review
- Thread starter amirm
- Start date
JSmith
Master Contributor
They may show "not in stock" on their own website, but the product is still being sold by BJC via Amazon for $50 and other international sites;
www.u-buy.co.uk
www.galleon.ph
Distortion was noted as far back as 2016 with this product, so unsure why it's been sold by BJC for all these years;
JSmith
USA-Made Blue Jeans Cable Ground Loop Hum Eliminator UK | Ubuy
Shop the Blue Jeans Cable Subwoofer Isolation Transformer / Subwoofer Hum Eliminator at Ubuy UK. Resolve ground loop hum and enhance your home theater experience. Made in UK.
www.u-buy.co.uk
Subwoofer Isolation Transformer/Ground Loop Hum Eliminator, Blue Jeans Cable Brand, Made in USA - Galleon Philippines
Blue Jeans Cable Subwoofer Isolation Transformer / Subwoofer Hum EliminatorA good subwoofer can transform the home theater experience by adding a movie-theater feel to your surround sound system. But a powered subwoofer, built to amplify low-frequency sounds and effects, is also susceptible to...
www.galleon.ph
Distortion was noted as far back as 2016 with this product, so unsure why it's been sold by BJC for all these years;
JSmith
ocinn
Senior Member
Yes. A hidden index. Completely impossible to find from their homepage. You cannot buy or read any of the papers related to iconoclast from the BJC site.
BJC does not promote or advertise the iconoclast lines, they are simply an independent contractor that assembles them, and judging a small American business for taking contracting work (and not promoting or selling it) in a world where outsourcing to asian factories is the de-facto is quite a bizarre take that honestly, I take offense to.
Writing off an entire company based on the fact they:
a) took a contracting job and did absolutely nothing to promote or advertise the sale of said product.
b) carried an (unfortunately) flawed isolation product in their online shop with zero promotion, false specs, and misleading advertising
Is, honestly, a bizarre reactionary position with zero logical merit.
Like I said in another comment, this is equivalent to refusing to buy a GE washer/fridge/oven because they happen to also make fighter jet engines, or (in reference to the isolator issue) saying you shouldn't buy a gasoline VW car because of their diesel emissions scandal a few years back (completely unrelated, ex: buying BJC speaker cables has nothing to do with them offering this isolator)
If BJC didn’t take the contracting job for iconoclast, someone else would have, and they likely would have peddled it as a snakeoil upgrade. Be thankful that BJC didn’t do that, and stayed impartial and refused to carry the products on their own site.
BJC selling a flawed isolation transformer on a relatively obscure section of their site with zero performance claims or promotion, is not grounds to boycott or “cancel” the company.
Fact of the matter is their RCA, XLR and Speaker cables are amongst the best, if not the best when looking at objective values that we hold dear here in this forum.
And judging a small American electronics business, something which is a rarity today, for taking an independent contracting job which doesn’t align with your moral compass is ridiculous. No one is forcing you to buy iconoclast or the isolation transformer, and neither of those are falsely promoted by BJC. These two “faults” (no matter how irrational that take is) do not, and should not, tarnish the fact they provide great, objectively driven products from a American supplier for a fair and good price.
Direct your energy towards dismantling companies like synergistic, nordost, PS Audio etc which make blatant false claims of performance, misleads customers, and “scams” them out of their money, not some small American cable manufacturer which does none of the above.
I feel like a lot of my earlier comments in this thread fell on deaf ears and I am really wanting to regurgitate them, but I am not going to. Please read my earlier comments on this topic.
As long as BJC manufacture value driven and objectively minded products like their RCAs, XLRs and speaker cables, I will support them.
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JSmith
Master Contributor
Fair call... however I feel it will assist BJC's position if they acknowledge this issue, apologise to customers, offer refunds to those that wish it and most of all stop selling this defective product that is not fit for purpose via their Amazon store.
JSmith
ocinn
Senior Member
I agree, I think offering refunds for this product is the right move.
I would infer that BJC didn’t know how bad this isolator was, and blindly re-badged it from a manufacturer based on misleading specs.
It would be a very mature move for them to realize their mistake and offer refunds or at least a store credit.
(However I beleive all of their products that they offer have a no-questions-asked return policy already)
Regardless, this blunder does not make their legitimate products any less legitimate, which is a sentiment carried in this thread which has no logical merit outside of emotional reactionary response.
As someone who worked as an engineer for Porsche Motorsports team, I can first-hand guarantee you that the Cayenne and Macan performance models are every bit as Porsche as a 911. Take a Cayenne Turbo GT on track and you’ll see what I mean.
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ocinn
Senior Member
To solidify my point, Topping sells the P50 linear power supply.
Something which offers no objective merit and would be considered “snake oil” by most, if not all members on this forum.
If we are boycotting all of BJC’s catalogue for being a private contractor manufacturer for a high end cable company and selling a flawed isolation transformer (neither of which they promoted/advertises/gave false claims for), shouldn’t we also boycott and refuse to buy topping products on principle for them selling the linear supply?
Apollon and many other highly regarded manufacturers offer “op amp upgrades” which have been proven here to provide no real benefit (could be seen as snake oil). Should we boycott these manufacturers because they offer that (key word: optional) upgrade?
Of course not, but I hope that point helps others to realize the fallacies of this logic. BJC has done nothing wrong and between this review and iconoclast contracting work…. Doesn’t change the fact they offer great objective and value driven products.
Something which offers no objective merit and would be considered “snake oil” by most, if not all members on this forum.
If we are boycotting all of BJC’s catalogue for being a private contractor manufacturer for a high end cable company and selling a flawed isolation transformer (neither of which they promoted/advertises/gave false claims for), shouldn’t we also boycott and refuse to buy topping products on principle for them selling the linear supply?
Apollon and many other highly regarded manufacturers offer “op amp upgrades” which have been proven here to provide no real benefit (could be seen as snake oil). Should we boycott these manufacturers because they offer that (key word: optional) upgrade?
Of course not, but I hope that point helps others to realize the fallacies of this logic. BJC has done nothing wrong and between this review and iconoclast contracting work…. Doesn’t change the fact they offer great objective and value driven products.
JSmith
Master Contributor
Do they claim audible superiority though over SMPS? Another that irks me is the superdooper audiophile fuse that Gustard sell, the op-amp rolling suggestions by some and the over inflated power figures for almost all TPA based amps. I think we need to hold all companies to a high standard and if they fail on certain fronts, it does need to be called out.
JSmith
ocinn
Senior Member
I mean, form your own opinion (link).
This is an order of magnitude more egregious promotion of snake oil products than BJC has ever done, in my eyes.
I 100% agree with you on principle, I just have an issue with the with the bizarre witch-hunt on bluejeans in this thread over things that they never did (promote/mislead snake oil cables and flawed products)
Sokel
Master Contributor
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At least there is a use for such a PSU as we read in the RME thread.
But we must not forget for example,the distortion modes (tube and transistor if I remember well) that topping (and possibly others) sell through the chip (ESS?) that gives them the option,or AKM 's descriptions.
They are companies,they must make a profit,aren't they?
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They do explain what they mean, I believe they connect the shield in the receiving end and float it on the other side. Whether one thinks that makes any difference is up to the customer.
On burn in time, got me there! Love the ATTENTION! Making sure they force the belief.
You like to jump to (incorrect) conclusions. While I've always been disappointed in Blue Jeans involvement in Iconoclast, on the rare occasion I've need for their legitimate offerings I've no problem buying them. I also recommend LC-1 for phono cables due to its low capacitance.
You said Blue Jeans did not launch Iconoclast. They did. That page is the original announcement of the marketing agreement. A marketing agreement goes far beyond contract manufacturing (assembly). They separated the brands some years later, but until that point the BJC brand did push Iconoclast from the same site.
While today they appear to have done their best to separate the brands, it's very obvious BJC runs the entire Iconoclast business for Belden.
Saying BJC is and has only been a contract manufacturer for this line is very obviously not correct. Same business office address, same website tech, same e-commerce system, fulfillment, tech support, and an announced marketing agreement. BJC runs this line for Belden. The only thing we'll likely never know for sure is if they're charlatans, or if they were duped or forced in to doing this.
Guess who the Iconoclast sales person claims to work for....
restorer-john
Grand Contributor
VW will never get a cent from me. I would rather walk, ride a bike, or stay home, than be seen dead in anything from VAG. (Audi, Skoda, Lamborghini, Porsche, Seat, Bentley, VW, Bugatti etc...)
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KSTR
Major Contributor
Not a good example.
A linear supply does offer an objective merit: much lower and much more benign mains leakage current compared to a SMPS. In a complete system setup, notably with unbalanced connections this can make a difference, much less potential degradation from hum/buzz.
Amir does not measure in-system perfomance of complete setups, therefore the issue flies under the RADAR here.
Even RME offers a linear supply now, for just the mentioned reason, and RME is a 100% "no-bullshit" company.
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Who has deaf ears now? You very well know that Porsche offering an suv was something of a sacrilege considering their history of sports cars. The only thing more removed would have been offering a truck or work van. They did that because they needed the money they could get from selling an suv.
Now it's a Porsche with high performance I am sure. Well engineered as their other offerings. I might even buy one if in the market for such. But Porsche built suv and crossovers for different reasons than their sports cars. That's why I compared the Iconoclast cable to the Porsche situation. Something BJC did for money and market conditions which is a different philosophy from their other cable offerings.
Sorry for the digression and the disagreement, but a knowledgeable friend who owns Porsche sports cars and bought a Macan insists otherwise. Dissatisfied with the Macan, he gave it to his 19-year-old daughter to take to university.
squared80
Member
I came to read about the Blue Jeans Cable SWT1 Isolation Transformer but see posts about an overpriced model of car instead?
ocinn
Senior Member
Not my point. My point is that no (sane) person was letting the fact Porsche made the Cayenne/Panamera stop them from picking up a new 911 gt3.
In that case we should refuse to buy essentially any DAC or piece of audio gear, as they have TI chips and TI makes guided bombs and missiles (arguably more morally corrupt than some expensive RCA cables)
The whole thing we are trying to avoid are un-educated people falling for snake oil cables without knowing their lack of benefits.
Was it a base model? I was referring to their performance models, which are seriously deserving of the GT nameplate.
I’ve read your paper on this. Aside from it being -110db, The clear solution is to provide a better SMPS, not go back to the 70s and go linear. There are a plethora of reasons why benchmark (another no BS company) prefers SMPS. Along with many other huge names have gone on record over the clear advantages of SMPS. Oh and I cannot find this RME linear upgrade, would you mind linking it to me?
But aside from that, Topping clearly released the linear supply to market/appeal to the audiogon-forum-type audiophiles who buy into it for snake oil reasons. But no one is boycotting topping for doing this, yet we are all up in arms about BJC manufacturing a cable we don’t agree with and keeping that side of the business completely separated from their own. Funny how that works.
I understand your feelings, but once you read Amir's orignial review, there's really little more to be said.
Blue Jeans Cable Response
A couple days back I sent the below message to BJC on the
SWT-1 transformer and their current marketing practices. I give them a tip
of the hat for the polite if not complete response.
On Mon, Jul 24, 2023, at 1:22 PM, Sal wrote:
"Hi Sal,
I appreciate you taking the time to bring this to our attention. We've taken a look at this review this week, and are in contact with the manufacturer for guidance. Below is a short response from Kurt:
I was very surprised by the review -- I've had one of these units in my own system for years and have had no problems with it at all. After reading the review I did a series of listening tests with mine, taking the regular speakers out of the system and just feeding the subwoofer, quick-swapping from a direct cable connection to a connection through the transformer. I could hear no difference at all. I then tried this with another subwoofer and, likewise, found no difference at all.
I've written to the transformer company that makes these for us to see if they have any insight. I'm unclear on what the testing setup precisely was, what kind of load was placed on the output, et cetera, so I'm not sure whether the testing was representative of actual use conditions or not. I'll follow up by listen-testing a variety of these drawn from our current inventory, in case there is some difference in quality between batches. There's always the possibility, of course, of a bad unit, but when we've had that arise in the past it's generally been something more like an intermittent connection at one of the RCA jacks. If listening tests fail to reveal anything of interest, I'll follow up with some people I know who can do more in the way of analytical testing.
Right now I don't think we're in a position to tell anyone anything definitive, in large part because I'm not sure anything is actually wrong. I know the product has been very well received and that it is mostly used in home theater systems for subwoofers that are primarily relied on for low-frequency effects. Certainly if anyone asked me what he should use for a high-end audio system, my first reaction would be that you want to try to resolve grounding issues first and foremost, because there will always be some degradation with even the best isolation transformer. Failing that, I'd probably recommend going to Jensen, who make a top-quality product. But I have found this unit great for my own home theater and cannot, even with careful listening and rapid switching between transformer-in and transformer-out condition, hear any impact. We'll see what the transformer people say about it, and go from there.
Kurt,
Blue Jeans Cable
--
Blue Jeans Cable
[email protected] "
_______________________________________________________________________________
I've responded with this short message.
Hi Kurt
Thank you very much for the response.
I'm highly encouraged by your concern with the issues.
Feel free to contact Amir at Audio Science Review if
you or the transformer people have any questions on the
review measurements, or wish to send a new sample if you believe
the one tested was in any way defective.
TIA
Sal
A couple days back I sent the below message to BJC on the
SWT-1 transformer and their current marketing practices. I give them a tip
of the hat for the polite if not complete response.
On Mon, Jul 24, 2023, at 1:22 PM, Sal wrote:
"Hi Sal,
I appreciate you taking the time to bring this to our attention. We've taken a look at this review this week, and are in contact with the manufacturer for guidance. Below is a short response from Kurt:
I was very surprised by the review -- I've had one of these units in my own system for years and have had no problems with it at all. After reading the review I did a series of listening tests with mine, taking the regular speakers out of the system and just feeding the subwoofer, quick-swapping from a direct cable connection to a connection through the transformer. I could hear no difference at all. I then tried this with another subwoofer and, likewise, found no difference at all.
I've written to the transformer company that makes these for us to see if they have any insight. I'm unclear on what the testing setup precisely was, what kind of load was placed on the output, et cetera, so I'm not sure whether the testing was representative of actual use conditions or not. I'll follow up by listen-testing a variety of these drawn from our current inventory, in case there is some difference in quality between batches. There's always the possibility, of course, of a bad unit, but when we've had that arise in the past it's generally been something more like an intermittent connection at one of the RCA jacks. If listening tests fail to reveal anything of interest, I'll follow up with some people I know who can do more in the way of analytical testing.
Right now I don't think we're in a position to tell anyone anything definitive, in large part because I'm not sure anything is actually wrong. I know the product has been very well received and that it is mostly used in home theater systems for subwoofers that are primarily relied on for low-frequency effects. Certainly if anyone asked me what he should use for a high-end audio system, my first reaction would be that you want to try to resolve grounding issues first and foremost, because there will always be some degradation with even the best isolation transformer. Failing that, I'd probably recommend going to Jensen, who make a top-quality product. But I have found this unit great for my own home theater and cannot, even with careful listening and rapid switching between transformer-in and transformer-out condition, hear any impact. We'll see what the transformer people say about it, and go from there.
Kurt,
Blue Jeans Cable
--
Blue Jeans Cable
[email protected] "
_______________________________________________________________________________
I've responded with this short message.
Hi Kurt
Thank you very much for the response.
I'm highly encouraged by your concern with the issues.
Feel free to contact Amir at Audio Science Review if
you or the transformer people have any questions on the
review measurements, or wish to send a new sample if you believe
the one tested was in any way defective.
TIA
Sal
BJC likely saw a market need from customer feedback and sold a white-label product without sufficient testing. It’s a black mark on the company reputation, but it should not be fatal. I will still buy and recommend LC-1 cables, which appear to be much more extensively tested.
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