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Snake Oil Department, Top This

BlueMeanie said:
The more processes occur on the digital side the more impedance it presents to the signal propagation
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Congratulations! They have discovered a brand-new concept: digital impedance. They deserve the Nobel Prize in audiophilia.
 
AVphile said:
A few months ago, a series of posts ridiculed Shunyata's highest-end Ethernet cables. I just read those posts, and I want to offer my perspective about them. Roughly three months ago, I purchased my "end game" streamer/DAC. As a consequence, I also decided to look at the possibility of a "better" alternative to my $39 Audioquest Pearl Ethernet cable to connect this new streamer/DAC to my 24-port Ethernet switch. Over the course of a week, I tried Audioquest Cinnamon ($130), DH Labs SilverSonic Reunion ($220), Shunyata Theta ($500), and Shunyata Sigma ($1,200) Ethernet cables. Now, I live on a fixed income budget, with splurges for audio gear funded by a rather depleted special savings account. Accordingly, my optimal goal was to prove to myself that there wasn't any performance difference among these cables and that, therefore, my Audioquest Pearl Ethernet cable was just fine. What I discovered only partially realized that hope. I could not tell any difference among the Cinnamon, Reunion, and Theta cables, nor could my wife. However, this was not at all the case with the Shunyata Sigma Ethernet cable. Streamed music simply sounded better -- more musical, slightly clearer, more detailed, etc. Let me point out that this Sigma cable is unusual in that it incorporates two "common-mode noise" filters within the cable; all the other Ethernet cables I tried lacked such filters, and, in fact, that is true for nearly all Ethernet cables. Shunyata's filters really do work. Moreover, I have to say that this was a complete -- and very welcome -- after-the-fact surprise for me, which is why I am making this posting.

It bothers me the way so many postings on about expensive cables are so dismissively negative without first explaining how they reached their conclusions. In doing my evaluation, I selected seven different tracks. For each track, I had previously identified certain elements (and their times) I wanted to hear critically and, after playing each one to three times (as needed), I jotted down pertinent notes on my spreadsheet. I also had three tracks I played throughout (rather than "snippets") in order to react to them as music. This process, when completed, made it easy for me to determine the effective of each cable. Moreover, as a confirmation of my original conclusion, the following day I was subjected to a blind test of the Shunyata Theta Ethernet cable vs the Shunyata Sigma Ethernet cable. Differentiating between the two of them was no challenge.

For the record, I am not affiliated in any way with Shunyata. I have lots of other cables which are not Shunyatas (Blue Jeans, Audioquest, etc.) and, in particular, the analog cables from my DAC to my preamp are made by DH Labs. I also want to say that the performance benefit I got from the Sigma cable could be peculiar to my system. Indeed, perhaps my network switch has a noise issue that the filters in this Sigma cable addressed. I don't know. All I can conclude is that the Shunyata Sigma Ethernet cable sure worked for me a lot better than any of the others I tried. And now, three months later, I continue to be delighted with how good digital-sourced music sounds.
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Some late response but maybe you can answer my question. It concerned ferrite filters. They have been proven effective when applied to digital cables. For very little money to make yourself by the way. https://ethernet-sound.com/das-dros...r-gleichtaktstoerungen-auf-dem-letzten-meter/
 
Egbert said:
It concerned ferrite filters. They have been proven effective when applied to digital cables.
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It is the same "Reduced noise causes major sound improvements" as we have seen countless times. It is merely a wild claim in most cases.

Mixed in are some scientific concepts like common-mode noise, EMC, RF or jitter, but they are spinning out of control with these subjective articles.
 
Egbert said:
Some late response but maybe you can answer my question. It concerned ferrite filters. They have been proven effective when applied to digital cables. For very little money to make yourself by the way. https://ethernet-sound.com/das-dros...r-gleichtaktstoerungen-auf-dem-letzten-meter/
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Maybe you are seeing something that I am not, but those eye pattern results tell the story…they are all clean enough that there would be no bit errors were introduced in any of those tests. That means the file would be the same regardless of whether the cores were installed on the ethernet cable or not. Also if there were bit errors, they would sound like a click or a pop if they are heard at all. There can be no improvement in sound (other than the absence of clicks/pops) as that would require co-ordinated changes to the file…something an ethernet cable, with or without ferrite cores, cannot do.
 
BlueMeanie said:
Found another DAC maker who doesn't seem to get the basics of digital audio:

https://sw1xad.co.uk/technology_post/remote-streaming-vs-local-playback-and-why-it-matters/

"The more processes occur on the digital side the more impedance it presents to the signal propagation. Any impedance to signal propagation due to bit-perfect corrective manipulation (caching, buffering and filtering) results in (tiny shifts pico, nano seconds delays) change of signal to time domain relationship. This the cost to pay for the data integrity."

"The larger the distance, the more the buffering & error-correction takes place, the more time domain distortion we get. Remote streaming has the highest potential of those time-domain distortions to take place. Time domain distortions are the mildest form of jitter. However they are equally or even more so devastating to musicality as their effect is beyond repair and no re-clocking (another time domain manipulation) can ever undo that."

"Our DAC products are designed to minimize the distortion between the relationship of signal & time by intentionally omitting the digital filtering (re-clocking or any other explicit manipulation) of a signal in the digital domain. Digital filtering, re-clocking, up sampling & noise shaping are essentially all error-correction processes. And our DACs are free of that, essentially mimicking the analogue playback."

Okay, the other posts in the technology section aren't much better when they talk about the audible effects of silver vs silver coated copper cables or different resistor brands. :facepalm:

Of cause it's all prose without any calculations, values or (gods beware) measurements! :p

But I'm happy sites like that exists, it's good therapy when I feel a bit tempted by audiophile storytelling. ;)
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This is some really wild s***, I was like, maybe there's a risk of tiny amounts of jitter being introduced... until they mentioned that reclocking can't fix it. Like, buddy. They talk as if the audio signal is a ghost that follows the bits around and it might get upset and leave if you touch the bits too many times.
 
Egbert said:
For very little money to make yourself
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Still money wasted. All this ethernet cable nonsense is just that - nonsense.
 
Audiofire said:
It is the same "Reduced noise causes major sound improvements" as we have seen countless times. It is merely a wild claim in most cases.

Mixed in are some scientific concepts like common-mode noise, EMC, RF or jitter, but they are spinning out of control with these subjective articles.
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Many listeners may not have electrical engineering knowledge, so tossing in some technical sounding words can make the cable vendor's schtick seem more plausible to them.
 
PristineSound said:
After watching Danny's latest videos, I officially nominate GR Research as the holy snake oil emperor.
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He's up there, but I believe the folks from Synergistic Research still leads the pack. ;)
Cables and so on are one thing, but no one beats their Magic Dots for pure BS. LOL
You've go to visit their site to truly appreciate the total insanity. :facepalm:

ECT_Instructions_040714A.jpg
 
kemmler3D said:
They talk as if the audio signal is a ghost that follows the bits around and it might get upset and leave if you touch the bits too many times.
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Shouldn't the community (and the dude @GSResearch) be demanding for an Audio Signal Revolution, rather than its oppression and/or compression? :rolleyes:
Psychologists like Agneta Fischer and studies in journals like Emotion Review distinguish hate from anger:
Anger is about what someone did — it can be resolved.
Hate is about who someone is — it sees the target as inherently evil, fueling a desire for avoidance, harm, or elimination.
This mindset becomes self-reinforcing: the brain adapts to hostility, making empathy harder and aggression easier. Over time, hatred erodes identity, replacing personal values with fixation and rage.
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I don't think Danny would make a good member, as he appears to be full of hate and inflicted with ADS (like an apolitical form of TDS but against @amirm).
 
egellings said:
Many listeners may not have electrical engineering knowledge, so tossing in some technical sounding words can make the cable vendor's schtick seem more plausible to them.
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A clue that someone is trying to bamboozle you is use of technical jargon in marketing copy, where they are or should be aware that the audience doesn't know that jargon. Not a coincidence, you also see this in a lot of bogus "wellness" marketing.
 
I play a lot of music from PC, so I have bought a £5000 mouse and mousemat. Turns out the mat absorbs the laser light from the mouse, and stops it destroying treble response on my USB DAC.

Well that's what they told me.
 
kemmler3D said:
This is some really wild s***, I was like, maybe there's a risk of tiny amounts of jitter being introduced... until they mentioned that reclocking can't fix it. Like, buddy. They talk as if the audio signal is a ghost that follows the bits around and it might get upset and leave if you touch the bits too many times.
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I'm now picturing Pac-Man eating little bites of data.
 
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