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Message to golden-eared audiophiles posting at ASR for the first time...

HiFidFan

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oursmagenta

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According to Stereophile and Monza, yes.
Ah OK, I was referring to the ones who are willing to buy it. Fidelity can be a factor to them, but status also. And status at these price ranges can definitely be the main motivator.
 

HiFidFan

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Ah OK, I was referring to the one who are willing to buy it. Fidelity can be a factor to them, but status also. And status at these price ranges can definitely be the main motivator.

No doubt about that.
 

DonH56

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According to Stereophile and Monza, yes. According to Stereophile, the difference is profound.

The difference to my bank balance would be profound. In a, literally, negative way.
 

Robh3606

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At another place a poster uses this particular grounding box, states that it is ‘accessory of the year’ and that ( I really detest this phrase) ‘the effect was not subtle’, if Stereophile had a shred of integrity they wouldn’t give this kind of crap the oxygen of publicity.
Keith


You guys assume to much. How do you know he didn't have a ground issue in his system and this box fixed it?? Ever have a ground issue and try to troubleshoot it?? I did and I had to go outside to discover the cable ground wire got broken from the grounding stake from a guy doing landscaping clean up. That didn't take 5 minutes to figure out. If I didn't have a technical background I may never have solved it.

I agree there is lots of shenanigans going on and some of it, like the rack, are pretty outrageous. Just because some of these guys have megabuck systems doesn't mean in many ways they are new to this and react accordingly where a subtle change seems like a major innovation.

Having a hum issue suddenly disappear by plugging in a box really is black magic to the non technical person.

Just looked at the prices WOW!

Rob :)
 

SIY

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You guys assume to much. How do you know he didn't have a ground issue in his system and this box fixed it??

"Grounding boxes" have nothing to do with grounding.
 

don'ttrustauthority

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To be honest, you may definitely be right. But that is simply because we have science in our side. And by science I don't mean set in stone truth. But set in stone methodology.
No you. You test. How you evaluate the results of those tests is remarkably unscientific and farily inconsistent. If you don't believe me take a look at these reviews in a scientific way. I haven't done so but I've considered it.
 

Robh3606

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"Grounding boxes" have nothing to do with grounding.

Depends on how you look at it They claim to be reducing noise on the signal ground like a good ground would do as well. The problem is grounding is a mess in audio. If they want to spin it that they filter all of the radiated noise pick up that is clearly audible, without the box, which I think is non sense so be it. If this is what people claim to be hear?? It's a "passive" box with multiple inputs who knows what's going on but they could be simply star grounding through their cables. They could be isolated. They could be shorting inputs on the unused analog interconnects.

Rob :)
 

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richard12511

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So even mass market gear made after that date has very good chips that maybe difficult to discern from more expensive chips. I think it has been said that the differences in dacs is not so much the chips used, but the power supply and analog circuitry.
.

The main differences in DACs are not in the chips, power supply, or analog circuitry, but rather in the human's brain that's listening ;).
 

SIY

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Depends on how you look at it They claim to be reducing noise on the signal ground like a good ground would do as well. The problem is grounding is a mess in audio. If they want to spin it that they filter all of the radiated noise pick up that is clearly audible, without the box, which I think is non sense so be it. If this is what people claim to be hear?? It's a "passive" box with multiple inputs who knows what's going on but they could be simply star grounding through their cables. They could be isolated. They could be shorting inputs on the unused analog interconnects.

I'm trying to make sense of this and failing.

Grounding is a straightforward thing that is either engineered or "designed." The former actually affects performance.
 

HiFidFan

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Clearly someone should to TOFTT, buy one of those ground boxes, and drop ship it to Amir for T&TD
 

righthookmike

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For me personally I want to learn. Before I give my opinion on anything else on this site on a piece of hardware I am willing to adhere to the standards commonly agreed on. I just don’t understand why some take personal offense to the point of resorting to insults and are unwilling to even consider there may be something they’re missing. I think that we can only measure sound as we understand it at this time and that there are aspects we have yet to learn. But I respect others opinions and try to take them into consideration and want to learn what they know to increase my own knowledge.. I would think it gives us are best chance for discovery
Hello friend. Hey, listen...we know how it is. Believe me, most of us have been there too. You've spent years toiling in the muck of audiophilia. You read ALL the reviews. You watched ALL the youtube videos. You visited ALL the other forums where everything always makes a difference. You bought the cables and the little bridge thingies for them to sit upon and the benefits were magical. You bought the $1000 IEMs that only truly sang after 250 hours of burn-in. Not 200 hours...or 225 hours, but 250 hours! It must be that for the magic to appear! You converted your entire music library to super high res and enjoyed the blissful new details that never were revealed by the awful, cludgy mess that was 16/44 cd. Never have your ears been assaulted by the likes of bluetooth audio or lossy mp3! You searched endlessly for the perfect dac...the dac that truly brought the magic! You bought one after another, each more expensive than the last, searching for the one, true dac that sounded better than all the rest...

And then you arrived here...and posted about your dac discovery, and were told that a dac shouldn't sound like anything at all! Suddenly your audio reality came crashing down around you. How can this be? Why shouldn't a dac sound great?? Why would expensive dacs even exist if they all sound the same??? Wounded, you lash out angrily! It's idiocy! It's retarded! These people have dead ears! It hurts. We understand. It's been a long time and you've spent a lot of money, all for naught. But once the pain diminishes and you've had time to deal with your emotions just give it some thought. Do some reading here and once your ban is lifted, maybe ask a few questions. Instead of locking your eyes shut against the bright light of objectivity...just open them up a little. Just a squint! Let a bit of that light in and bask in a warm, tubey glow that actually means something! Perhaps, as with many of us, a weight will begin to lift off your shoulders. Perhaps there is freedom in this new reality! You might discover that there is a different way...a way that wields real magic. A way that actually answers questions and reveals truth while at the same time leaving your wallet fat and happy! Welcome my friend. Welcome to ASR where the truth shall set you free!
Hello friend. Hey, listen...we know how it is. Believe me, most of us have been there too. You've spent years toiling in the muck of audiophilia. You read ALL the reviews. You watched ALL the youtube videos. You visited ALL the other forums where everything always makes a difference. You bought the cables and the little bridge thingies for them to sit upon and the benefits were magical. You bought the $1000 IEMs that only truly sang after 250 hours of burn-in. Not 200 hours...or 225 hours, but 250 hours! It must be that for the magic to appear! You converted your entire music library to super high res and enjoyed the blissful new details that never were revealed by the awful, cludgy mess that was 16/44 cd. Never have your ears been assaulted by the likes of bluetooth audio or lossy mp3! You searched endlessly for the perfect dac...the dac that truly brought the magic! You bought one after another, each more expensive than the last, searching for the one, true dac that sounded better than all the rest...

And then you arrived here...and posted about your dac discovery, and were told that a dac shouldn't sound like anything at all! Suddenly your audio reality came crashing down around you. How can this be? Why shouldn't a dac sound great?? Why would expensive dacs even exist if they all sound the same??? Wounded, you lash out angrily! It's idiocy! It's retarded! These people have dead ears! It hurts. We understand. It's been a long time and you've spent a lot of money, all for naught. But once the pain diminishes and you've had time to deal with your emotions just give it some thought. Do some reading here and once your ban is lifted, maybe ask a few questions. Instead of locking your eyes shut against the bright light of objectivity...just open them up a little. Just a squint! Let a bit of that light in and bask in a warm, tubey glow that actually means something! Perhaps, as with many of us, a weight will begin to lift off your shoulders. Perhaps there is freedom in this new reality! You might discover that there is a different way...a way that wields real magic. A way that actually answers questions and reveals truth while at the same time leaving your wallet fat and happy! Welcome my friend. Welcome to ASR where the truth shall set you free!

I was going to just leave this alone because while I care it's not that big of a deal really. However, in my particular case I mistakenly presented the wrong modi model. turns out it;s the modi 2 uber. So for that I'l gladly be called an idiot. If you look at my comparison it actually falls right in line with Amir;'s measurements .No, I didn't need a double blind test and yes,I trust my ears. I made a mistake but at least I didn't start making completely out of line character judgements and assumptions about people I know nothing about. It must be hard for you to deal with so many stupid people. they should probably give you a medal. And I will still make sure my future observations have a more site acceptable comparison method before posting
 

righthookmike

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Hello friend. Hey, listen...we know how it is. Believe me, most of us have been there too. You've spent years toiling in the muck of audiophilia. You read ALL the reviews. You watched ALL the youtube videos. You visited ALL the other forums where everything always makes a difference. You bought the cables and the little bridge thingies for them to sit upon and the benefits were magical. You bought the $1000 IEMs that only truly sang after 250 hours of burn-in. Not 200 hours...or 225 hours, but 250 hours! It must be that for the magic to appear! You converted your entire music library to super high res and enjoyed the blissful new details that never were revealed by the awful, cludgy mess that was 16/44 cd. Never have your ears been assaulted by the likes of bluetooth audio or lossy mp3! You searched endlessly for the perfect dac...the dac that truly brought the magic! You bought one after another, each more expensive than the last, searching for the one, true dac that sounded better than all the rest...

And then you arrived here...and posted about your dac discovery, and were told that a dac shouldn't sound like anything at all! Suddenly your audio reality came crashing down around you. How can this be? Why shouldn't a dac sound great?? Why would expensive dacs even exist if they all sound the same??? Wounded, you lash out angrily! It's idiocy! It's retarded! These people have dead ears! It hurts. We understand. It's been a long time and you've spent a lot of money, all for naught. But once the pain diminishes and you've had time to deal with your emotions just give it some thought. Do some reading here and once your ban is lifted, maybe ask a few questions. Instead of locking your eyes shut against the bright light of objectivity...just open them up a little. Just a squint! Let a bit of that light in and bask in a warm, tubey glow that actually means something! Perhaps, as with many of us, a weight will begin to lift off your shoulders. Perhaps there is freedom in this new reality! You might discover that there is a different way...a way that wields real magic. A way that actually answers questions and reveals truth while at the same time leaving your wallet fat and happy! Welcome my friend. Welcome to ASR where the truth shall set you free!
I actually don't know what the hell you're talking about. You guys are starting to creep me out a little like some weird cult. Do I read reviews sure. I don't take them all that seriously before being able to see the background of the person reviewing. The very few youtube videos i watch are about guitar theory or fishing techniques . I believe cable matters but only cheap lamp cord vs a belden or mogami. almost all of my equipment is bought second hand and the research I do is about the designer, theory on the design, where built, Is it built in a parent company factory of cheap shit and renamed? The first stereo I remember hearing was when I was four years old. My father spent hours in the early seventies setting up a system I clearly remember was a marantz power amp some kind of pre, an eq ,and a reel to reel. being dragged around to garage sales when i was younger compelled me to always stop when older and I bought so many speakers amps, you name it for next to nothing and learned to distinguish between clean sound and crap. not that I knew what I was doing but I have heard a wide range of components, I still hope to find those gems to this day. anyway. you guys all parrot the same line. Is someone handing out talking points?
 

Blumlein 88

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When I tried to sell the GPA ‘Monaco” which is quite a smart TT, you had to take some stands to get the gig, they are nothing special, carbon, and the only isolation was a slim circle of sorbathane, which to be fair does if loaded correctly isolate reasonably effectively across a certain range of frequencies.
I suppose we should be grateful that they do contain at least a semblance of isolation, most ( cup and ball) dont, at least not in the vertical plane.
Keith
Cup and ball by design are only for the horizontal plane. Like damping buildings in earthquakes.
 

raistlin65

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I think that we can only measure sound as we understand it at this time and that there are aspects we have yet to learn.

Just know that at least every other week someone new here says that. Physics disagrees with you. We know how sound works. It can be measured.

Meanwhile, why what someone perceives is different than measurements would indicate can often be explained by perceptual biases. If you accept that human beings are very flawed measuring apparatuses of sound, then the science and the measurements will all make more sense to you.
 
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Just know that at least every other week someone new here says that. Physics disagrees with you. We know how sound works. It can be measured.

Meanwhile, why what someone perceives is different than measurements would indicate can often be explained by perceptual biases. If you accept that human beings are very flawed measuring apparatuses of sound, then the science and the measurements will all make more sense to you.

And almost to the minute, someone posts something asinine on a ”science” forum implying:
(1) we know and can measure all there is about sound and human hearing
(2) if experiential data doesn’t exactly mirror a handful of measurements (many generalized and all limited) then the experiential data is incorrect 100% of the time
(3) “measurements” are more important than human perception when it comes to music/sound preference

Many on this forum have jumped the shark to the point where you are willing to tell people that their experience is somehow ”wrong” because you looked at a couple graphs. Graphs the vast majority of posters on here apparently don’t understand. Graphs that even the people who create them tell you to take in context as a general guide.

It‘s admirable people like our host take the time to create and post these measurements. But somewhere along the line people have COMPLETELY misunderstood the benefit and use things like SINAD as a single source of truth.

You‘re no better than the “golden ears”, supplanting one dogmatic approach for another.
 

Inner Space

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You‘re no better than the “golden ears”, supplanting one dogmatic approach for another.

Well, not really. First we listen, to make absolutely sure we can distinguish between options - and the only way to do that is not know what we're listening to. Then if we hear a difference, we measure to figure out how and why.

You guys are actually "golden crutches" - you can't venture an opinion without first knowing who made it, how much it cost, how thick its faceplate is, and what Mikey thought of it.
 
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Well, not really. First we listen, to make absolutely sure we can distinguish between options - and the only way to do that is not know what we're listening to. Then if we hear a difference, we measure to figure out how and why.

You guys are actually "golden crutches" - you can't venture an opinion without first knowing who made it, how much it cost, how thick its faceplate is, and what Mikey thought of it.

No, 99.99% of posters on this site do not “listen first and then measure.” That’s yet another asinine claim if you give it just a tiny shred of thought.
 
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