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20 year of Ad-Fi this summer. But it's not all milking, it's open to all camps. It's not so black and white as most of the critics would like to portray it.
It's not Ad-Fi's fault folks are not educated in how to actually get real results for their money. That is simply how the industry works. How do I make people give me money? By giving people what they want.
I put Hart Audio cables on all my headphones (less the estats) simply because the convenience of the quick connect system makes it easy to switch between headphones and amplifiers and the leads from the cans are shorter and less in the way when not in use. Not cheap, but also not outrageous for a handmade product.
But because they hear it doesn't mean it's real.
Some people hear Jesus tell them they should kill sinners. You think sweet Jesus is really telling them that?
Depends how you define "real". The sounds produced won't be affected, however the electrical response in their brain might well be as if the sound had changed. So to them it is "real" as they experience it. I think a lot of this debate gets wasted when people are not clear in what they are talking about. It's possible they hear a change even when none has actually occurred. Our senses are not objective measurement instruments. Our ears may produce an "objective" response to sound input, but hearing is all about how the brain processes that information, and it doesn't do it objectively. If it did, our hearing would not be as effective as it is (even though it's not great to begin with.) This processing allows us to focus on particular sounds and filter out others, even though our ears respond to all of it. It's quite possible that when they expect one type of change, they focus their hearing on that frequency range to try and discern the improvement, and yet by focusing on that, they are unintentionally improving it in the process.
20 year of Ad-Fi this summer. But it's not all milking, it's open to all camps. It's not so black and white as most of the critics would like to portray it.
It's not Ad-Fi's fault folks are not educated in how to actually get real results for their money. That is simply how the industry works. How do I make people give me money? By giving people what they want.
Its not open to all camps, you aren't allowed to suggest DBT's in several forums. Basically any place where it affects their ad revenue its not allowed.
But you are right about making money. The people running the site have zero clue about high quality sound reproduction, or they hide the fact they do, but they do know how to make the most money from ads.
I actually like building my own cables. But with the prices on AliExpress I can get the assembled cable at about the same price as the separate components.
I'm dangerous with a soldering iron. There must be some technique for doing it right. It seems like a simple thing, but I've really struggled the few times I've done soldered RCA connectors. Getting that tiny center wire on the center pin with a nice clean connection and not melting the insulation is really hard!
Ah, but when you confine all "science" to a single forum, you deny people the opportunity to become more educated. "Ad-Fi" is a dream for manufacturers because misinformation goes unchallenged, and likely would accusations of paid-reviews. Given how every $800+ cable review sounds like an advert full of marketing word-salad, I'm not convinced any of them are truly objective. How can someone not critically scrutinize such an expense. Instead, it's always, "yes it's expensive but it's totally worth it."
I would be willing to bet, that if someone did a thorough analysis of reviews on "Ad-Fi", review positivity would correlate with expense and manufacturer (sponsor) popularity on the forums, and that the ratio of critical to glowing reviews would be much lower than other, more mainstream review sites, again correlated with manufacturer (sponsor) popularity. The forum is purely a way to sell gear to enthusiasts. There is nothing to be learned from there about this hobby, other than how to spend your money.
Depends how you define "real". The sounds produced won't be affected, however the electrical response in their brain might well be as if the sound had changed. So to them it is "real" as they experience it. I think a lot of this debate gets wasted when people are not clear in what they are talking about. It's possible they hear a change even when none has actually occurred. Our senses are not objective measurement instruments. Our ears may produce an "objective" response to sound input, but hearing is all about how the brain processes that information, and it doesn't do it objectively. If it did, our hearing would not be as effective as it is (even though it's not great to begin with.) This processing allows us to focus on particular sounds and filter out others, even though our ears respond to all of it. It's quite possible that when they expect one type of change, they focus their hearing on that frequency range to try and discern the improvement, and yet by focusing on that, they are unintentionally improving it in the process.
I've waded into the cable debates a number of times on Head-Fi and posted links to research articles on synesthesia and the effects of colors on our senses and what sighted listening does and the duration of acoustic memory, and tried to explain that different people can have different senses affected by all these factors so that the community over there can differentiate between objective performance of a piece of audio gear and subjective experience. I think some people genuinely end up with a different experience listening to something when they change cables for reasons like the color affects their perception of sound, or they're paying more attention to what they're hearing because they've changed cables, the cost of the cable and apparent luxury of it primes their expectations, etc. Also things like time of day and whether you've been drinking alcohol (and how much) impact a person's hearing. Some people just don't have an interest in figuring out what affects their senses and getting to the bottom of why they experience what they experience and would prefer to use different cables and their colors to 'tailor' their sound, and there's not much anyone can do if that's the approach they want to take. I've had some positive impact on the culture there I think because there's a bit less fighting and more people recognize the complexity of the situation, but arguments do still break out, and some people have implied that I'm reducing their ability to enjoy music because I'm bringing too much science into the process (to which I've explained science and understanding and enjoying music are not mutually exclusive).
..... some people have implied that I'm reducing their ability to enjoy music because I'm bringing too much science into the process (to which I've explained science and understanding and enjoying music are not mutually exclusive).
I put Hart Audio cables on all my headphones (less the estats) simply because the convenience of the quick connect system makes it easy to switch between headphones and amplifiers and the leads from the cans are shorter and less in the way when not in use. Not cheap, but also not outrageous for a handmade product.
Depends how you define "real". The sounds produced won't be affected, however the electrical response in their brain might well be as if the sound had changed. So to them it is "real" as they experience it. I think a lot of this debate gets wasted when people are not clear in what they are talking about. It's possible they hear a change even when none has actually occurred. Our senses are not objective measurement instruments. Our ears may produce an "objective" response to sound input, but hearing is all about how the brain processes that information, and it doesn't do it objectively. If it did, our hearing would not be as effective as it is (even though it's not great to begin with.) This processing allows us to focus on particular sounds and filter out others, even though our ears respond to all of it. It's quite possible that when they expect one type of change, they focus their hearing on that frequency range to try and discern the improvement, and yet by focusing on that, they are unintentionally improving it in the process.
I agree that to them it seems real. I'm not convinced their brains actually detect a difference when it physically is not there. I think their brain makes them think they did hear a difference. Those are 2 different things.
Different metals in cables is how some of them "hardware EQ" their chain. My eyes have instinctively started to skip sentences, paragraphs or posts when the user starts talking about the sonic characteristics and how it changed the "syngery" of their setup.
You actually have to have at LEAST 10k in equipment to hear the difference between cables........which of course is me being sarcastic, but not a stretch to what I have read over there.
As an owner of a Hifiman HE6SE (weird bendy, kinky hose) and an AT ADX5000 (thin, shape retaining, impossible to keep from coiling up into a mess), I would and have bought aftermarket cables due to the terrible quality/feel of the stock cables... Never over $100 for sure though.
@amirm would be nice to see a comparison the other way around - super cheap chinese-made cables. Sometimes you want an aftermarket cable for functionality(balanced) or just because the included cable is not practical, too long, stiff, etc.
Focal included cables are garbage so I'm using a single-ended cable I bought for $15 of aliexpress and perfectly happy with it, and balanced woven cables similar to these Norn ones(maybe with less fancy hardware) start around $40-$50 range.
Yeah, some of them are a bit better but I own the Elear, which has probably the worst cable of them all.
only 6.5 mm, can't use it with a 3.5 mm source
4 meters long(over 13 feet)
stiff rubber coated cable
cable before the split is just two fused cables side by side, no sleeve of any kind
cable after the split has visible seams where the cables used to be fused
Connectors seem good quality at least. You get just that single cable. I can't see any situation where using this cable would be practical other than if you're only listening to your headphones on an integrated amplifier in your living room, and the quality is far from acceptable given the Elear debuted at something like $999 MSRP.
