Snake Oil Department, Top This

[Suffolkhifinut]

Its indeed very strange that they dont make technical details available.. on the other hand.. neither does a car manufacturer..

That’s a good point.. maybe there’s the need to make a distinction between the signal and the sound.. I suppose different DAC’s and/or amps threat the signal differently so this in turn creates a different sound.. but whether different is better.. that’s another question and whether more expensive gear - in general - equate to more musical, more transparant.. That’s something I honestly don’t know..

From albeit limited experience I can say that in some cases at least there is a hughe difference between a 2-3k speaker and an 8k speaker.

A few months ago I listened to someone’s system costing around 150k.. He had the system set up in an apartment and always had to play it really low volume..

It didn’t sound bad but in that case ( apartment ) it’s just a waste of money.. maybe also in other instances but big speakers in general cost much more than small speakers.

He was rambling about only playing from CD because streaming wasn’t up to his standards.. when I asked why… He said : “well those data centres they pollute the signal” to which. I replied : “ how can you pollute bits and bytes ??? “ let’s say he didn’t know what to say anymore.. he also had his speaker cables up from the ground..‍

I don’t believe in all that crap and some people really seem nuts BUT it’s a bit too cynical to call a whole industry basically snake oil.. no ?

PS Just as speakers are mechanical so are DAC’s and AMP’s ( just to a lesser degree )

Had a similar experience a while back, went to pick up a Chord Amp I’d bought, nice Guy, nice Amp. Travelled quite a way to get it and was offered refreshments, he said why didn’t I listen to his set up in a listening room. Went in the room was about 8’ x 10’ with a large settee + a really expensive set up. Two huge mono block power amps and an expensive pair of Sonus Faber speakers, his vinyl kit was mind blowing in cost terms. Sat on the settee about 5’ from the speakers, how did it sound? How could you possibly judge it in a room that small? In a case like this objective and subjective judgements don’t even come into it!

 

[Somafunk]

Yes, was talking about music.. sorry..

Suppose I have a budget of 10k..

Is the general consensus on ASR to spend 9k on speakers, 500 on an amp, 300 on a DAC/streamer and get cables from a general
Store for 50 ?

I didn’t really have a fixed budget in mind for my room, I started off with £2.5k of room treatment and over the course of a year I’ve upgraded my monitors and sub, from krk g4 Rokit 7 & krk 10s sub @ £600 to Dynaudio lyd 48 & Dynaudio 18s sub @ £3k fed by a Cambridge audio CXN v2 streamer @ £800, approx £120 on xlr & other cables, £200ish on isoacoustic iso stands and I guess I should include the cost of the iMac 27” @ £2k where all my 2000+ cds are ripped to with ALAC which also acts as my roon core and for all movie/screen viewing purposes.

I could have forgone the room treatment and thrown all my budget at the speakers I wanted and bought the Hedd Type 20 mk2 and matching sub @ £5k but without budget for room treatment I’d be buying a system that couldn’t perform in my room so negating the point of having the Hedd system in the first place.

Room treatment then speakers then streamer worked for myself, if I had a larger room then I’d be able to give less consideration and £ to room treatment but with a room size 4.3m x 3.3 x 2.4m I had no choice, what/how you spend is dictated by your own circumstances.

 

[Ralph_Cramden]

Um.... WTF?

Patreon

Patreon is empowering a new generation of creators. Support and engage with artists and creators as they live out their passions!

www.patreon.com

 

[Killingbeans]

WTF indeed

 

[antcollinet]

WTF indeed

4 minutes into the video and 63.8% of my brain has already dribbled out of my ears.

Oh, and he has golden ears.

 

[voodooless]

Um.... WTF?

Patreon

Patreon is empowering a new generation of creators. Support and engage with artists and creators as they live out their passions!

www.patreon.com

Thanks for making me waste another 35 minutes of my life I kept hoping he would actually explain what his software does. I should have known better..

 

[Killingbeans]

I only lasted ~10 minutes. Then I started skipping 5 minutes at a time to see if I would hit anything that made sense by chance. Never happened.

 

[voodooless]

Remind me to never hire the guy as a UX expert as well and composite video… really?

 

[Killingbeans]

and composite video… really?

He seems to be caught in some weird retro computer nostalgia mindset. I love old consoles and computers myself, but I don't have this strange Stockholm Syndrome that some people in the scene appears to have. They insist on using the most ****** video connection available, just because that's what they remember from their childhood. I switched to RGB as soon as if found out it was an option.

 

[Ralph_Cramden]

What is it about HiFi that attracts so many crackpots? For some it's obviously the $$$ to be made from fools, but for others, like this guy, it's a mission - he's spent 10 years on this craziness so far...

 

[Spkrdctr]

Hey, I'm putting in a shameless plug for my own product. I am making custom made aluminum foil hats in either regular or heavy duty foil. All I need is your head measurements and $100 per hat. Shipping is extra but since foil hats are very light it is not much at all. For a list of all of the nice features and protections these custom hats give you, please talk to Moderator Adam. I have announced him as my new International Distributor. I know he will be surprised. But, I'm sure this will be a mega money making product! I might even cut Amir in with stock options. I smell money in these threads!

 

[Killingbeans]

What is it about HiFi that attracts so many crackpots?

Well, hobbies are usually used as safe havens that lets us escape stress and anxiety. I have a lot of nerdy hobbies, and all of them seem to attract their fair share of people with mental health issues who use them as something they can focus on rather than facing the humiliation of struggling with everyday life. I think the HiFi hobby is an extraordinairely inclusive one with nearly no requisites in the form of skills or knowledge, meaning that its "gravitational pull" becomes so much greater.

 

[Somafunk]

$1000 for an isolation platform, must be utterly amazingly effective (cough…bullshit…cough) if the flowery description of the platform is anything to go by, warning….its a positive feedback review so you should know what to expect.

Positive Feedback review of some glued laminated sheets of waste plastic

 

[Spkrdctr]

Some people live lives that are so empty that they will try to fill them with anything ..... anything at all. J

Well, hobbies are usually used as safe havens that lets us escape stress and anxiety. I have a lot of nerdy hobbies, and all of them seem to attract their fair share of people with mental health issues who use them as something they can focus on rather than facing the humiliation of struggling with everyday life. I think the HiFi hobby is an extraordinairely inclusive one with nearly no requisites in the form of skills or knowledge, meaning that its "gravitational pull" becomes so much greater.

I have to say that is very true. The sheer number of mentally ill people in the USA is staggering compared to when I was a kid. Seems like it is about 25% or more of the population. Then in our wisdom we made keyboards available and put them all on the internet. So, I'm starting a new hat company.........

 

[audio2design]

Hey, I'm putting in a shameless plug for my own product. I am making custom made aluminum foil hats in either regular or heavy duty foil. All I need is your head measurements and $100 per hat. Shipping is extra but since foil hats are very light it is not much at all. For a list of all of the nice features and protections these custom hats give you, please talk to Moderator Adam. I have announced him as my new International Distributor. I know he will be surprised. But, I'm sure this will be a mega money making product! I might even cut Amir in with stock options. I smell money in these threads!

I offer mine in 3003, 6061 and 7075. How about you?

 

[Doodski]

I offer mine in 3003, 6061 and 7075. How about you?

It seems to me that some form of rare earth is required to create exclusivity, rarity in composition and that will involve some abstract fringe order physics explanations.

 

[audio2design]

It seems to me that some form of rare earth is required to create exclusivity, rarity in composition and that will involve some abstract fringe order physics explanations.

I also offer a graphene coating.

 

[Robin L]

What is it about HiFi that attracts so many crackpots? For some it's obviously the $$$ to be made from fools, but for others, like this guy, it's a mission - he's spent 10 years on this craziness so far...

I would postulate that post-hypnotic suggestion is the primary culprit.

You read refulgent prose extoling the sonic virtues of (fill in blank) and start to obsess. Mantras like "extended dynamic range" or "greater frequency range extension" rattle around you head for the better part of a year. Enough in the way of a financial windfall develops, and the next thing you know, you've got cryogenically treated A/C power cords. Of course you will hear a difference, you spent enough, didn't you?

Multiply by the millions, you've got a real juggernaut cooking

 

[ahofer]

Although I have my doubts.. any company selling well above market price will go out of business asap. And you can fool some people but you can’t fool em all.

I have a ready-made response to this:

How can bogus claims and inferior audio thrive in a competitive market?

I keep running into the same addlepated thought, here and in other forums. It goes something like this: Market success is the clearest indication of value. Expensive cables must sound better, or people wouldn't pay for them; exotic amplifiers must be better or they wouldn't survive. Even...

audiosciencereview.com

 

[Russell484]

Well it seems like he has invented a new way to um, well maybe to um, a new way to change how you hear what you might hear depending on what switches are thrown in various ways so that um the music which is coming out of the two dacs is um well different than the music going in and this is a revolutionary developement of mind boogalooing proportions. Various electronic technologies and two dacs with two camcorder batteries, together with software to find new ways for efff up perfectly good music. Hopefully he will let us know when one is ready for testing by Amir, and then maybe someone can explain what it actually does if anything at all other than screw up any music fed into it.