Snake Oil Department, Top This

[gfinlays]

So thats one extra join/junction (which might be prone to vibrations)

Nah, they're Neutrik chassis mounting couplers. Probably one of the best engineered parts of the whole unit!

Anyone who buys $$$$ USB or ethernet cables generally has no clue that most of them don't even meet the basic minimum spec that even Amazon basics brand cables easily achieve.

 

[fatoldgit]

I've invented my own snake-oil box: it's just a constant-current DC PSU. Explanation: electronics have mass, and are therefore subject to gravity. If you haven't playe"d music for a while, electrons will "settle" towards the bottom of your cables, reaching "low-energy states". The result is sluggish bass, no "impact" in the midrange, lack of treble "sparkle". The fix is simple: the new Electron Awakener 3000 will push a new set of electrons through your cables, so your system can sounds its best once again.


It'd almost sell itself.

Chris

You need to extend the model.

Cables go stale through lack of use so for every cable used they need to be routed through a magic box at each end of the cable that continuously conditions the cables when music isnt playing by sending some super secret signal between your two $$$$ endpoints.

And of course you need $$$$ power supply for your end point conditioners.

Each magic box will have an input (for your cable of choice) and a short captive output cable of the highest standard to plug into the component. Need to come in at various levels (galactic, mega galactic and interstella galactic) all at increasing price points.

Peter

 

[fatoldgit]

Nah, they're Neutrik chassis mounting couplers. Probably one of the best engineered parts of the whole unit!
.

Sure I know BUT for my $24k I want to know that every effort has been taken to maximize my musical experience... not take the easy route and just use off the shelf stuff.

Compared to some other mega buck servers which at least make the effort, this implementation cuts corners and if I was stupid enough to want to spend that amount of money on a PC I would spend it with a company that at least did stuff that might help (bespoke wiring, in chassis walled of compartments for each sub-component etc).

Peter

 

[MattHooper]

Audiophile reviewers need to be experts at doublethink and other contortions of the mind. E.g. that systems have been "stunningly realistic" for decades and that there still is an infinite number of clearly identifiable gradations in sound improvement beyond that.

I am amused by the inherent assumption among many subjectivist audiophiles that our hearing has something like infinite resolution.

I mean, 30 years ago you had AC cable manufacturers claiming they had “ lowered the noise floor to a background black” and yet year after year, they keep coming up with something “ better” that lowers your background noise floor even more!

As I’ve said before, at some point audiophiles are going to have to contend with hearing the background radiation leftover from the Big Bang adding a slight glare to Miles’s trumpet.

But I’m sure cable manufacturer will come up with a solution!

 

[fatoldgit]

I mean, 30 years ago you had AC cable manufacturers claiming they had “ lowered the noise floor to a background black” and yet year after year, they keep coming up with something “ better” that lowers your background noise floor even more!

This is what pisses me off (not really... more amusement) with many high end manufacturers.

So you fork out say $30k for some component and of course the component is the result of years of R&D and is the greatest component extant and yet, one or two years later the MK 2 model comes out thus consigning your two year old component to the scrap heap.

Changes to the MK 2 model might include better routing of board traces for even lower noise, different transformer windings for lower noise and more instantaneous power delivery etc etc.

So if you, Mr. Manufacturer, spent years and years doing R&D for the MK 1 which I now regret owning , why the hell didnt the changes you made to the MK 2 thus rendering my MK 1 a boat anchor occur to you while developing the MK 1?

The simple answer is planned obsolescence by virtue of preying on the feeble minds of True Believers who will gladly fork out more $$$ to get the MK 2 version...only losers use the MK 1.

It even happens at the lower end... take the Eversolo DMP 6 and 8... time difference between the two releases wasnt much, cost difference (relatively speaking) isnt that great yet I am sure people that got the 6 might have upgraded to the 8.. because.


Peter

 

[Galliardist]

This is what pisses me off (not really... more amusement) with many high end manufacturers.

So you fork out say $30k for some component and of course the component is the result of years of R&D and is the greatest component extant and yet, one or two years later the MK 2 model comes out thus consigning your two year old component to the scrap heap.

Changes to the MK 2 model might include better routing of board traces for even lower noise, different transformer windings for lower noise and more instantaneous power delivery etc etc.

So if you, Mr. Manufacturer, spent years and years doing R&D for the MK 1 which I now regret owning , why the hell didnt the changes you made to the MK 2 thus rendering my MK 1 a boat anchor occur to you while developing the MK 1?

The simple answer is planned obsolescence by virtue of preying on the feeble minds of True Believers who will gladly fork out more $$$ to get the MK 2 version...only losers use the MK 1.

It even happens at the lower end... take the Eversolo DMP 6 and 8... time difference between the two releases wasnt much, cost difference (relatively speaking) isnt that great yet I am sure people that got the 6 might have upgraded to the 8.. because.


Peter

Just tell yourself that the Mk1 still sounds exactly the same the day after Mk2 is released, as the day before. It does the same thing.
It's not impossible for the Mk1 to be better than the Mk2, or for both to be the same. Sometimes a Mk2 simply means a component of the Mk1 became unavailable, and that a marketing department is involved.

The two Eversolo products are different, not one replacing or as an upgrade to the other.

 

[Galliardist]

I've invented my own snake-oil box: it's just a constant-current DC PSU. Explanation: electronics have mass, and are therefore subject to gravity. If you haven't playe"d music for a while, electrons will "settle" towards the bottom of your cables, reaching "low-energy states". The result is sluggish bass, no "impact" in the midrange, lack of treble "sparkle". The fix is simple: the new Electron Awakener 3000 will push a new set of electrons through your cables, so your system can sounds its best once again.


It'd almost sell itself.

Chris

I'll wait for the quantum version, where each sub atomic particle is carefully checked to make sure it is not entangled with another outside of the cable.
These things matter.

 

[gfinlays]

Sure I know BUT for my $24k I want to know that every effort has been taken to maximize my musical experience... not take the easy route and just use off the shelf stuff.

Compared to some other mega buck servers which at least make the effort, this implementation cuts corners and if I was stupid enough to want to spend that amount of money on a PC I would spend it with a company that at least did stuff that might help (bespoke wiring, in chassis walled of compartments for each sub-component etc).

Peter

True, but it still begs the question about what a mega-buck streamer does that you can't do with a NUC running Roon.

I think we all agree that it's all ones and zeros until it comes out of the DAC.

 

[Galliardist]

To laugh or cry... maybe both.

Ideon Absolute Stream meta edition is $24,000 and its optional add-on, the Ideon Alpha Wave LAN Optimizer is $6900

For your $24k you get an off the shelf motherboard, some fancy power supplies and a Linux OS. And of course the power supplies provide enough capacity to drive an amp cause big numbers are impressive to the gullible even though the power draw of a MB, SSD drive and some USB ports is tiny.

What is "cheap" (and comical) is rather then hardwire the Ethernet and USB ports at the chassis end, they use standard cabling with plugs. So that's one extra join/junction (which might be prone to vibrations) but I am sure whomever buys this will use $$$$ external USB and Ethernet cables potentially not knowning that within the chassis the cabling is of a "lessor" quality.

You would think, for the money, they would be using something more "high end" for the internal wiring.

And while maybe not important, why house the SSD drive directly under the USB/ethernet cables... surely you would, for the money, isolate the SSD drive away from other components. And indeed isolate the power supplies with internal walls... to at least give an impression of having given some thought to the internal placement of parts for your $24k.

Anyways, the review highlights all the usual stuff about why you need to spend $24k on a box with one ethernet port, five usb ports, a standard mother board, an SSD drive and a Linux OS (and I am sure a whole host of FOSS [as in free] software joining it all together). For example, its easy to create a computer that works as a Roon server or endpoint as Roon provide the sofware needed for free.

Peter

View attachment 399794

When did Roon become free?

 

[antcollinet]

When did Roon become free?

I think he means the software is free - no cost to integrate it into a product. The user then gets charged a subscription to use it.

 

[Roland68]

This is what pisses me off (not really... more amusement) with many high end manufacturers.

So you fork out say $30k for some component and of course the component is the result of years of R&D and is the greatest component extant and yet, one or two years later the MK 2 model comes out thus consigning your two year old component to the scrap heap.

Changes to the MK 2 model might include better routing of board traces for even lower noise, different transformer windings for lower noise and more instantaneous power delivery etc etc.

So if you, Mr. Manufacturer, spent years and years doing R&D for the MK 1 which I now regret owning , why the hell didnt the changes you made to the MK 2 thus rendering my MK 1 a boat anchor occur to you while developing the MK 1?

The simple answer is planned obsolescence by virtue of preying on the feeble minds of True Believers who will gladly fork out more $$$ to get the MK 2 version...only losers use the MK 1.

It even happens at the lower end... take the Eversolo DMP 6 and 8... time difference between the two releases wasnt much, cost difference (relatively speaking) isnt that great yet I am sure people that got the 6 might have upgraded to the 8.. because.


Peter

You can tell that you have no experience or knowledge of product development or of manufacturing companies.

First of all, there is no such thing as a truly finished and fully developed product. At some point you have to stop development and close the deal, because if development becomes so expensive that it can no longer be paid for with the income, then the manufacturer has done something wrong.
The first 80-90% of a development are usually affordable, the next 5% costs at least twice as much and the last 2% are often 10-100 times more expensive.

Secondly, you as a customer are largely to blame for mk II versions. If devices have been on the market for more than 2-3 years, a potential buyer will look for more recent devices. If the manufacturer wants to continue to finance its company, i.e. developments, employees, etc., it has to bring out an updated device.

A lot of knowledge from development, production, feedback from customers, evaluations of test reports and reviews, etc., are incorporated into an MK II version.
If the manufacturer waited with the MK i version and then released the MK II version 3 years later, would all, really all customers wait for this device and not buy something else and then pay twice the price? Or who pays the costs incurred?

To what extent is the Eversolo DMP 8 an upgrade of the DMP 6?
It is a much larger device with completely different components and more functionality, more than twice as expensive and it does not replace the DMP 6.
In the same way, you could complain about a car manufacturer first releasing a mid-range car and then a pickup truck.

 

[mhardy6647]

I'll wait for the quantum version, where each sub atomic particle is carefully checked to make sure it is not entangled with another outside of the cable.
These things matter.

Ahh, the Maxwell's Daemon package. Yes, a pricey upgrade, but well worth it. Jaw-dropping, actually.

 

[fatoldgit]

You can tell that you have no experience or knowledge of product development or of manufacturing companies.

Won't bother with a point by point analysis of your post...but I do have said experience (in developing mission critical software running on million dollar plus servers, noting software feature changes are way faster moving than hardware) but you kinda missed my point.. read my post again.

But to one of your points, tell me in what way an end user will be telling a manufacturer that they need to re-route board traces to reduce noise or wind a transformer differently?

Of course companies need product churn to push existing customers to upgrade or bring in new customers due to new features.

My point was, again, that many high end manufacturers of expensive boxes make extraordinary claims about a new product and always claim it got to be extraordinary due to years of R&D.

Then a year or two later they "discover" some tweaks (examples given) and bring out the MK 2.

IMHO this is disingenuous to their customer base... these MK2 changes should have been provided in the MK1.

Look at the Apple iphone lineage...on the hardware side mainly incremental upgrades to the camera's but you cant tell me that since the last yearly update that camera tech has made massive gains... whatever the camera specs of the latest iphone are could have easily been made available years earlier...they are just milking their rabid fan base with a drip feed feature roll out

Peter

 

[egellings]

Nooooooo! I will keep gasoline forever! LOL I do love gasoline just not enough to drink it......

C'mon, let's do some shots! You first.

 

[egellings]

I've invented my own snake-oil box: it's just a constant-current DC PSU. Explanation: electronics have mass, and are therefore subject to gravity. If you haven't playe"d music for a while, electrons will "settle" towards the bottom of your cables, reaching "low-energy states". The result is sluggish bass, no "impact" in the midrange, lack of treble "sparkle". The fix is simple: the new Electron Awakener 3000 will push a new set of electrons through your cables, so your system can sounds its best once again.


It'd almost sell itself.

Chris

I want one! I want one!

 

[Sal1950]

C'mon, let's do some shots! You first.

I've drank plenty of gas in my days of siphoning a few gallons here and there on nights when I
couldn't afford a trip to the gas station.

 

[Mart68]

It puts hairs on your chest.

 

[antcollinet]

It puts hairs on your chest.

Then, a little later, they all fall out again - together with those on your head

 

[Sal1950]

Then, a little later, they all fall out again - together with those on your head

Oh, so that's what did it.

 

[Audiofire]