Extreme Snake Oil

[Mnyb]

Perhaps - but I've never ever heard one. Just like jitter is real, and I've never heard that either.


Most of these things are real, in that you can measure them - see them on a scope etc.


None of them are real though as an audible issue that detracts from listening enjoyment.

..yeh but fixing them are low hanging fruit easily accomplished in some cases by just following the chip mfg application notes .
and cost nothing .

Not a life long quest like hiking by foot to Himalaya to meet some spiritual guru , thats how the audiophile story telling goes

I see it as engineering due diligence .

Sometimes it's actually overdone to get nice numbers in the specs the tolerances for "bad sources" are lower on a modern high performance DAC . In another tread we discus a product .
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...s/audiophonics-digirescue-snake-oil-or.45138/ that can help with that .

I remember my old Meridian 518DAC it had two levels of signal locking .
With "bad sources" like an aging computer mobo or TV spdiff out it entered a more relaxed "wide mode" jitter probably vent up , but you got sound without dropouts.

 

[AdrianusG]

Sooooo.....Cadenza C41.....

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Well, it looks like a high-end component, gold shiny bits, minimal controls.

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Out back we have some connections

But what have we got inside?
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Hmmmmmm. Well we have a base/mother board which I would assert is proprietary to the manufacturer but we also have a bunch of sub/daughter boards. If we consider where the sub boards are located, they seem to be mainly associated with the rear panel connections. The upper-center board is what looks like a generic balanced/unbalanced audio output board. The next one along is a USB sound card then a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 mounted on an interface board which probably owes a lot to the open source board offered by RPi.
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On the base/mother board we have the usual suspects. An FPGA chip in the form of an XLINIX Spartan and our old mate, an ESS Sabre DAC.
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The rest is either a mount for some interconnecting ribbon cables and the inevitable linear power supply.

MBL claims a few unique features and technologies associated with this DAC and it's possible they have managed to massage some of the features built into the ESS chip but that would be locked away in the FPGA. While the construction of this unit is reasonably neat, I'm not seeing $US11,000. All things considered, it's a custom motherboard with what amounts to a bunch of dev boards mounted on it.

So, $11,000 worth?

I don't know how it sounds or performs, but at this price i don't want to see a "stamped metal" case.

 

[Somafunk]

Here is the formula they used for pricing:
a×10^n

Called scientific notation by actual engineers.

My formula for deciding if I needed another new mtb was rather simple, n+1

 

[egellings]

If $11K is pocket change to you, then yes, it could be worth it if you believe that it is worth it and it fulfills your belief. Not so much for this chicken, though, bedawk!

 

[cEbNVDyfMy]

"The Voodoo Streamer Server began with the intention of overcoming the last significant barrier separating digital audio from the best turntables and reel-to-reel tape decks. Namely, a sense of compression where digital streaming sounds flatter and with high-frequency limitations when directly compared to the best LPs and tapes."
Ôµh ÿéàh !

From their website: "Grounding yourself to your system delivers improvements that start with more natural sound. Soundstaging is more realistic, with individual instruments and vocals taking on precise placement with improved high-frequency decay and smoothness."

 

[cEbNVDyfMy]

Ted Denney Interview

Placing cables off the floor with cable lifters lifts the soundstage.

 

[Gregm]

Ted Denney Interview

Placing cables off the floor with cable lifters lifts the soundstage.

As you doubtless know, cable lifters come in many shapes and materials. Certain materials impact high frequencies (bone china) while others tend to affect bass extension (concrete).
There are studies suggesting that even the vintage of materials used affects the sound...
You need to work out what balances your system...
(Gee, I'm getting good at this!)

 

[voodooless]

From their website: "Grounding yourself to your system delivers improvements that start with more natural sound. Soundstaging is more realistic, with individual instruments and vocals taking on precise placement with improved high-frequency decay and smoothness."

If you think this is true, you actually did the opposite of grounding yourself

 

[antcollinet]

Ted Denney Interview

Placing cables off the floor with cable lifters lifts the soundstage.

If you are trying to be humourous, you need appropriate emojis. You've just been Poed.


On the other hand if you are serious, I think you are lost. TragicallyMisinformedSubjectiveAudioSite.com is over that way -->

 

[rdenney]

Ted Denney Interview

Placing cables off the floor with cable lifters lifts the soundstage.

No relation.

After being confused with T.D. on Audiokarma, I feel the need to state this at every appearance of T.D.'s name. After all, it is an unusual spelling.

Here's how the thread at AK worked: I praised an Adcom GFP565. Considerable time passed. A comment was made that that crazy Denney fellow that sells stupid magic stuff thinks a GFP565 is the greatest preamp ever made. If Victor Campos were still alive, he'd probably sue for defamation, but who would he have sued?

It's one reason my participation in that forum dropped off. It reminded me too much of ham radio forums where every single participant felt compelled to demonstrate being the smartest person in the room, and in so doing make very basic mistakes of not actually reading what they were responding to. Radio amateurs should know better: Their term for it is alligator: all mouth and no ears.

Rick "not Ted" Denney

 

[Nutul]

If I'd read this in my 15's, the first thing coming to mind would have been: what kind of s*** are they high on?!?!

 

[cEbNVDyfMy]

If you are trying to be humourous, you need appropriate emojis. You've just been Poed.


On the other hand if you are serious, I think you are lost. TragicallyMisinformedSubjectiveAudioSite.com is over that way -->

This is what Ted Denney said in his recent OCD hifi guy video:

Ted Denney on voodoo

BTW I like Mikey from OCD hifi guy, I'd have a beer with him. He has very good taste in music. Unfortunately, he espouses this audiofool nonsense. He'd do his audience a service by arguing with Denney on this insanity vs. endorsing it.

 

[Todd k]

What a crock of shit!!!!

 

[Bruce Morgen]

Grandpa Paul, coming to you directly from the hell of stink-dumb analogies.

 

[w277]

Finally a bargain!

 

[TheKoC]

"Customer Trade In"... wonder what they traded it in for.

And I'm all for rich people wasting there money on useless products, but the idea someone would actually need to use "12 month financing" to buy cables like these makes me sad.

 

[rdenney]

"Customer Trade In"... wonder what they traded it in for.

And I'm all for rich people wasting there money on useless products, but the idea someone would actually need to use "12 month financing" to buy cables like these makes me sad.

I have no problem with the wealthy buying stuff. Keeps people working. I do wish they would buy stuff that has a higher cost-to-price ratio—keeps more people working, and less money in the hands of charlatans.

Rick “honey, I’m short this month—gotta make the interconnect payment” Denney

 

[AdrianusG]

Grandpa Paul, coming to you directly from the hell of stink-dumb analogies.

He's not wrong though,

Unless you can transfer electricity wireless from the mains to whatever audio component, (which i know is possible!), however i have not seen or heard that
to be available in consumer products.
So, for now a power cable does matter

 

[rdenney]

He's not wrong though,

Unless you can transfer electricity wireless from the mains to whatever audio component, (which i know is possible!), however i have not seen or heard that
to be available in consumer products.
So, for now a power cable does matter

Any electronics designer who can't clean up incoming power sufficiently for the task at hand needs to go back to school. And if they can't, depending on some boutique power cord to do it is a forlorn fantasy.

And getting power wirelessly via induction (which is how many smart devices are charged these days) does not in any way prevent power-line noise and distortion from passing right through, unless it is filtered using devices designed by qualified electronics designers.

Rick "transformers already wirelessly connect incoming AC to outgoing AC using only EM fields" Denney

 

[HammersRocco]

Finally a bargain!



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