Latest in hi-fi silliness

[teemacs]

One of my favourite sites for sheer audiophool bunkum is Thick Loons, er, Six Moons. It never disappoints every time I think it can't possibly get any sillier, it proves me wrong. The latest is a device that improves CDs by shining a light on them. A very bright light admittedly, but a light nevertheless. It's called a Nanotech Nespa. To add insult to injury (and no doubt discovering that, not only is one born every minute, but that they also gravitate into audiophoolery), they have provided a "pro" version, a steal (literally and metaphorically) at $US800-odd (very). Of course, there's no reason why the thing could or should work, but the Thick Loons adopt the usual defiant audiophool stance of "we heard it make a difference!" It would appear that some folk are so open-minded that their brains have fallen out and run off, leaving the remainder to pursue a successful life as an audiophool.

[NeilC]

Links?

[teemacs]

As a new member, I don't think I can insert links, but Google on "Six Moons Audio" and then look at their reviews. It's a positive fount of unintentional chuckles.

P.S. Here's most of the link:

6moons.com/audioreviews/audioreviews.html

[grayman]

Could the site be found here (http://www.sixmoons.com/)?

Teemacs, there are ways around posting links for newbys. Try typing "xxx" in place of the "www", or maybe spelling "dot" where the "." would go. Most of us would get the idea.

Welcome to the forum. Be careful around the goats, wombats, pilloryisms, trolls, and a peculiar Marquis...:)

[Starthinker]

All quartz crystals vibrate. The rate of the vibration is dependent on the size and shape of the crystal. The more pure the crystal, the stronger the vibration. This is why quartz is used to time digital watches. The get a pure, regular shape and it vibrates so perfectly that it can keep time to within seconds every century.

These vibrations are so small, however, that if you are holding a quartz crystal you won't feel it, but rest assured it's vibrating.

I have developed the perfect size and shape of a quartz crystal that, when rested on a CD overnight, will greatly improve the quality of the playback. It works by vibrating the CD itself to a specific rate that can purify the recording to a degree that has to be heard to be believed. Forget those LED white light purifiers or those metal disks that you put on top of your CD player, this is the real deal.

I'm a computer expert that worked with CD's from the very beginning and part of my research was to make sure no data was lost and that every single bit was perfect. I originally developed this system for data CDs but after accidently resting my device on a music CD overnight I discovered that it worked even better with music. I played the CD later that day and couldn't believe the pureness of the tones and it took me a while to discover what had happened. Then I tried it on several other music CDs listening to them first, resting the device on them overnight, then listening to them again and even on my cheap computer speakers the difference was noticeable. On high-end equipment, the difference is amazing! In time I had the perfect combination of math and crystals.

I've made just over 100 with the crystals I had in my lab so be the first to own one of these amazing devices. I plan on keeping a few for investors as I plan on ramping up manufacture in the next year or so, but you can own now if you hurry!

Only $3500.00!! What an amazingly low price to pay to get lower bass, higher highs, and clearer midranges. I'm sure some of you will buy one just to figure out the measurments and formula's I've used to flood the market with cheap knock-offs, but rest assured, without the original math you will never get it right, and if not done right it can actually damage your CD.

So, it you want to amaze your friends just invite them over to listen to an untreated CD then pop the treated one in. You will be envied that you got one first!

So hurry up and order today!!!!

Oh, and something about quantum physics.










So, what do you think? Will audiphiles buy them? I'll put Quantum on the box and everything.

[ponderingturtle]

So, what do you think? Will audiphiles buy them? I'll put Quantum on the box and everything.

you should drop the bit about bits as the traget of your sales are unlikely to understand that feature.

And just talk about the quantum energy waves emited by the crystal. That is sure to sell to people

[casebro]

(snip) In time I had the perfect combination of math and crystals. (snip)

.

Crystal Meth and Quantum should be mixed verrrry cautiously.

[.13.]

Here's the link for convenience. http://www.sixmoons.com/audioreviews/nanotech2/pro.html

And Starthinker, that was pretty nice. Especially this gave the authentic woo feel:
I originally developed this system for data CDs but after accidently resting my device on a music CD overnight I discovered that it worked even better with music. I played the CD later that day and couldn't believe the pureness of the tones and it took me a while to discover what had happened. Then I tried it on several other music CDs listening to them first, resting the device on them overnight, then listening to them again and even on my cheap computer speakers the difference was noticeable. On high-end equipment, the difference is amazing! In time I had the perfect combination of math and crystals.

Extra points for achieving it without invoking quantum mechanics :)

[Starthinker]

Anyone know where I can buy some quartz cut to my specifications? All I need to do is sell one to someone who posts to an audio board and I'm set for life, or at least I can pay my car off.

[MortFurd]

Anyone know where I can buy some quartz cut to my specifications? All I need to do is sell one to someone who posts to an audio board and I'm set for life, or at least I can pay my car off.
Don't bother having them cut to spec - it costs too much money.

Buy surplus crystals used for radios and pop them out of their housings. You can get them for various frequencies (hence various sizes) and sell them as "Home Use" "Prefessional Grade" and "Golden Ears Deluxe Heavy Duty."

Hmmmm. Where's my catalog.

Purchase price ~$0.60, sell for $793.60 (not including tax)=$793.00 profit.

Potential market: 10,000 hifi goobers*$793=$7,930,000.

Income tax leaves me $3.5Million.

Look out, Furd's paying off the home loan, buying a Ferrari, and spending the rest of his days doing as he pleases and living on the interest.

[Ripley Twenty-Nine]

I'm a computer expert that worked with CD's from the very beginning and part of my research was to make sure no data was lost and that every single bit was perfect. I originally developed this system for data CDs but after accidently resting my device on a music CD overnight I discovered that it worked even better with music.
I need this!

I'm having data integrity problems on my CDs! Some of my 1s and 0s have become more like 1.1s and 0.2s!

Send me 20, ASAP!

[tsg]

So, what do you think? Will audiphiles buy them? I'll put Quantum on the box and everything.

I think the new JREF Mantra should be "If I only didn't have a conscience..."

[tsg]

I need this!

I'm having data integrity problems on my CDs! Some of my 1s and 0s have become more like 1.1s and 0.2s!

Send me 20, ASAP!

You might also want to think about getting my Sooper Special Quantum Cable Straighteners (pat.pend.). Everybody knows that data is made of 1's and 0's. But when your cables are kinked, the 0's go through okay because they're round but the 1's get stuck because they're pointy. To the highly trained ear, such as yours, this can lead to a noticable loss in fidelity. Try this: play a CD with the cables as straight as you can get them. Then play the same track with the cable bent. If you can hear the difference, just imagine how good it would sound with Sooper Special Quantum Straightened Cables! And if you can't, well, maybe you would be happier with *shudder* consumer grade equipment.

apologies to Scott Adams

[grayman]

Chrystal vibrations + Quantum energy = Holistic Quantum Chrystal Vibrators!

I think I've found a marketing niche.

[Starthinker]

Chrystal vibrations + Quantum energy = Holistic Quantum Chrystal Vibrators!

I think I've found a marketing niche.

If you sell those I'll sell special condoms that have a "pouch" in which you can insert one. When you're done, take it back out because they're reusable and dishwasher safe.

[Starthinker]

I think the new JREF Mantra should be "If I only didn't have a conscience..."

I don't have a conscience, the only thing holding me back is some start-up funds. I'll bet even if I link to this thread showing I made this up on the spur of the moment people would buy them. Plus I don't want my picture in a Friday commentary.

Well, I have to go squirt out another batch of Bigfoot repellent. At least I know this stuff works because I haven't seen a Bigfoot since I started using it.

[casebro]

I'll go Starthinker one better-

I'm going to sell a similar prioduct, a jewel case made of white plastic. The plastic resin will use silica as a filler- silica is the same chemical as quartz, silicone dioxide. I'll use only enough to make the plastic a little cloudy, I'll claim it is HOMEOPATHIC QUARTZ! and some of the silica is bound to be fractured into small crystals- NANO Quartz! and I'll use epoxy resins, made from epoxidised soy bean oil- ORGANIC!

So if you listen closely to a CD stored in one of my jewel cases, you should be able to clearly hear me laughing all the way to the bank!

[Starthinker]

I'll go Starthinker one better-

I'm going to sell a similar prioduct, a jewel case made of white plastic. The plastic resin will use silica as a filler- silica is the same chemical as quartz, silicone dioxide. I'll use only enough to make the plastic a little cloudy, I'll claim it is HOMEOPATHIC QUARTZ! and some of the silica is bound to be fractured into small crystals- NANO Quartz! and I'll use epoxy resins, made from epoxidised soy bean oil- ORGANIC!

So if you listen closely to a CD stored in one of my jewel cases, you should be able to clearly hear me laughing all the way to the bank!

Sounds more like Quantum Quartz! Is it edible? You can demonstrate your invention by filling an ordinary jewel case with sand (plain old ordinary silica that is unrefined and non-organic), putting a CD in, then after shaking it to simulate a day in storage, put it in a player to show how worse it sounds. Then compare it to yours, which is made with Nano Organic Quartz and wow! What a difference!

[Crazycowbob]

Oooo, not cool, you guys are tempting me here. Low on cash, need money for tuition... and have a website just aching to be abused by selling such drivel...

Did I mention Dogbert is my rolemodel?

[Fnord]

So, what do you think? Will audiphiles buy them? I'll put Quantum on the box and everything.

Go for it.

Back in the early 1980's, when I was working for a 'Spiritualist' church, I had the opportunity to attend a New Age Fair. They have the usual radionics machines, violet ray bulbs, dream catchers, crystals, and other notary sojac. Also present were several mediums in various locations about the hall.

One comely young miss approached me, and with a smile said, "Would you please stop drawing down the energy of my friend?" Then she pointed out a rather corpulent fellow about halfway across the hall.

I reached into my backpack and pulled out a small wireless microphone (a "bug" about the size of a present-day pager -- never mind why I had it), flipped the switch, and asked "There, is that better?"

"Just a minute, I'll see."

She came back and confirmed that, yes indeed, her friend's energy was flowing smoothly. Then she asked what it was.

"A crystal oscillator -- Heironymous configuration."

By the end of that day, I had collected 10 orders for my "Psionic Dampening Field Generator." At $50 for $10 worth of parts each, I made $400 dollars in profit!

I really felt guilty using the money to pay rent ... for about 3 seconds.

-Fnord of Dyscordia-

[fuelair]

Oooo, not cool, you guys are tempting me here. Low on cash, need money for tuition... and have a website just aching to be abused by selling such drivel...

Did I mention Dogbert is my rolemodel?
And you would be hard pressed to find a better one in the wonderful world of business!!!:)

[fuelair]

Go for it.

Back in the early 1980's, when I was working for a 'Spiritualist' church, I had the opportunity to attend a New Age Fair. They have the usual radionics machines, violet ray bulbs, dream catchers, crystals, and other notary sojac. Also present were several mediums in various locations about the hall.

One comely young miss approached me, and with a smile said, "Would you please stop drawing down the energy of my friend?" Then she pointed out a rather corpulent fellow about halfway across the hall.

I reached into my backpack and pulled out a small wireless microphone (a "bug" about the size of a present-day pager -- never mind why I had it), flipped the switch, and asked "There, is that better?"

"Just a minute, I'll see."

She came back and confirmed that, yes indeed, her friend's energy was flowing smoothly. Then she asked what it was.

"A crystal oscillator -- Heironymous configuration."

By the end of that day, I had collected 10 orders for my "Psionic Dampening Field Generator." At $50 for $10 worth of parts each, I made $400 dollars in profit!

I really felt guilty using the money to pay rent ... for about 3 seconds.

-Fnord of Dyscordia-

Well done! If you build it, they will dumb.:eek: If you take them, don't be glum!:D

[joobz]

what about a can of air?
Um, it's a new state of air, penta-air.
We can claim that it's newly processed gas that can compress more readily. allows the soundwaves to sound more natural. Disperses better and improves the soundstage of the stereo.

[teemacs]

The second ultimate in audiophool lunacy is Machina Dynamica, whose devices make some of yours look pale:

httpcolondoubleslashwwwdotmachinadynamicadotcomsla sh

Check out the Brilliant Pebbles and the infamous chip. There's even a rerun of the infamous Tice Clock.

The ultimate? Google on "Peter Belt" and prepare for hilarity...

[teemacs]

For anyone interested, a collection of sceptical songs about hi-fi and music:

httpcolondoubleslashwwwdotzerogaindotcomslashforum slashshowthreaddot
php?tequals12485

[ponderingturtle]

Well done! If you build it, they will dumb.:eek: If you take them, don't be glum!:D

The motto of all makers and distributers of quack medical devices.

[MRC_Hans]

I am currently active on a Danish audiophile BB. Have to say that a fair proportion of the regulars are reasonably skeptic of the wilder tweaks, but someone there made a thread claiming that he got a significant improvement in sound (using the usual fuzzy terms, like soundstage, resolution, etc.) by ...

polishing the metal bits on his mains fuses.

Right! The ones out in the fusebox. The mantra by the real audiophools is then "if you haven't tried it out, you can't have an opinion" (I suspect they pinched that one from the homeoapths). And of course, if you do try it out and report no effect, your equipment is not sensitive to that particular tweak (just like the homeopaths again).

Hans

[rdaneel]

Right! The ones out in the fusebox. The mantra by the real audiophools is then "if you haven't tried it out, you can't have an opinion" (I suspect they pinched that one from the homeoapths). And of course, if you do try it out and report no effect, your equipment is not sensitive to that particular tweak (just like the homeopaths again).

HansMaybe you could sell them blank CD's and tell them the music has been diluted to make it more powerful. :D

[Starthinker]

I was talking about this thread with my son yesterday and he, of course, didn't believe me that people buy this stuff. I explained that when an audiophile claims a tweak works then others will claim the same thing because if they don't, their peers will think their ears aren't as good as the original tweaker. It's all a contest over who can claim to hear the best music. He said it reminded him of the Emperor's New Clothes.

Exactly. There's hope for him yet. And he's only 15.

[ponderingturtle]

Maybe you could sell them blank CD's and tell them the music has been diluted to make it more powerful. :D

That wouldn't work, they would need to be music CD's with now audio content on them. Otherwise the CD player would not read and play them.

[rdaneel]

That wouldn't work, they would need to be music CD's with now audio content on them. Otherwise the CD player would not read and play them.Well of course an "ordinary" CD player wouldn't play them, you need special equipment. ;)

[Fnord]

Just find a CD of New Age music, re-record it in reverse, and resell it as New Age music.

Twice the mileage at half the price!

-Fnord of Dyscordia-

[pipelineaudio]

Be sure to use directional cables, and especially use a cable degaussing CD

Paint some tube warmth laquer on all transistors and IC's

Buy some 1500$ IEC cables

While it bothers me that my fellow audio engineers should know better, what REALLY kills me, is when Im belittled by sucker engineers for NOT using this crap

Ive actually lost jobs because other engineers have convinced the clients I was wrong for not using magic

What do I expect living in the same state as The Conservatory of Recording Arts and Magic Marketing?

[teemacs]

I am currently active on a Danish audiophile BB. Have to say that a fair proportion of the regulars are reasonably skeptic of the wilder tweaks, but someone there made a thread claiming that he got a significant improvement in sound (using the usual fuzzy terms, like soundstage, resolution, etc.) by ...

polishing the metal bits on his mains fuses.

Right! The ones out in the fusebox. The mantra by the real audiophools is then "if you haven't tried it out, you can't have an opinion" (I suspect they pinched that one from the homeoapths). And of course, if you do try it out and report no effect, your equipment is not sensitive to that particular tweak (just like the homeopaths again).

Hans

And don't forget the audiophool-grade fuses! From the "Enjoy the music" website:

Hi-Fi Tuning now offers their new Schukoplug "Ultimate" European electric plug and audiophile Fuses. The plug, and uprated version of their Gold II, is plated 24 carat gold-plated with the main metal being Tellur-silver-copper (TeCuAg). These plugs can handle wire upwards of 6mm² cable diameter (AWG 9), are used by many other manufacturers within their cable (Acoustic Zen, Clearaudio, Kimber Kable, Nordost, Shunyata, etc.), and are available to the DIY enthusiast. Hi-Fi Tuning's new audiophile grade Fuse is made from pure fine silver and handmade in Germany. The Fuse body is made with ceramics and the outer contacts are gold plated to resist corrosion and insure consistent electrical performance over time. Fast and slow blow type 5x20 and 6.3x32 are available in the following specifications: 0.315A (315mA), 0.4A (400mA), 0.5A (500mA), 0.630A (630mA), 0.8A (800mA), 1A, 1.25A, 1.6A, 2A, 2.5A, 3A, 3.15A, 4A, 5A, 6,3A, 8A, and 10A.

For a good selection of weird audiophool ideas, go to the Forum of the UK magazine "Hi-Fi Choice" and look at "The myths of hi-fi" under "Frequently-asked questions". Warning; it's long!

[logical muse]

I was talking about this thread with my son yesterday and he, of course, didn't believe me that people buy this stuff. I explained that when an audiophile claims a tweak works then others will claim the same thing because if they don't, their peers will think their ears aren't as good as the original tweaker. It's all a contest over who can claim to hear the best music. He said it reminded him of the Emperor's New Clothes.

Exactly. There's hope for him yet. And he's only 15.

You got a good'un there.


eta: Not that you need me to tell you that!

[logical muse]

This powerbox (http://www.carltonaudiovisual.com.au/?q=node/view/282) gives you "newfound levels of detail and micro dynamics", and "improves not only your audio system but your visual devices too!"

[bjb]

For a good selection of weird audiophool ideas, go to the Forum of the UK magazine "Hi-Fi Choice" and look at "The myths of hi-fi" under "Frequently-asked questions". Warning; it's long!


Thanks for the pointer. For those too lazy to click around, here's a link (http://forum.hifichoice.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=15486). For what it's worth, I got out of the hi-fi hobby back in the late 80's. I felt there was so much pseudoscience that even the 'real' reviewers might not know what they were talking about. What's interesting to me is that all but one of the myths in the Hi-Fi Choice FAQ came along after I stopped being a hi-fi enthusiast! The only one I remember is the ferrite bead story, which can be shown to work under certain extreme conditions.

[Gravy]

You guys need to raise your prices. One of Peter Belt' (http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/110/)s gadgets, a "polarizer," only to be sold to dealers, consisting of a 9V battery, two plastic cable ties, a metal clip and a length of wire!was priced at $1250. In 1987. (Although the article doesn't say if he sold any.)

Recently I was curious as to how much money I could spend net-shopping for a one-room home audio-only system, and had no trouble reaching $1 million, not including rainbow foils or electret cream. I believe the phono cartridge was $15,000.

[St.Michael]

I once heard on TV that putting Cd’s in your freezer improves the sound quality.:confused:

It was Richard Madeley that made the claim!:rolleyes:

[roger]

When I read this stuff, it makes me so damn angry. :mad:

I'm seething with rage. :mad: :mad:

Mother, why did you have to raise me with morals? Why? I could be a multimillionare if it were not for you.

[Fnord]

Well, it's like my mother once said, "Morals - schmorals! You need money? Go out and sell some blood!"

-Fnord of Dyscordia-

[Matabiri]

It's called a Nanotech Nespa

Pronounced as n'est pas? As in, "it isn't"?

[MortFurd]

I once heard on TV that putting Cd’s in your freezer improves the sound quality.:confused:

It was Richard Madeley that made the claim!:rolleyes:
Complete and utter BS - UNLESS you have a CD-R or CD-RW whose coating is loose and has bubbles (which you will be able to see with your naked eye.) The cold can cause the bubbles to shrink enough (and long enough) for you to make a copy of the CD before it goes all to pieces.

[teemacs]

Pronounced as n'est pas? As in, "it isn't"?

N'est-ce pas? is indeed pronounced roughly "nespa", but it's the question "Isn't it?", rather than "it isn't". The answer to the question is, naturellement, as Charles de Gaulle would have it, non.

[teemacs]

When I read this stuff, it makes me so damn angry. :mad:

I'm seething with rage. :mad: :mad:

Mother, why did you have to raise me with morals? Why? I could be a multimillionare if it were not for you.

Wasn't it W.C. Fields who said, "Never give a sucker an even break"? The audiophool world is chockful of suckers, gullibles and brain-dead, so perhaps they get what they deserve. Just look at some of the comments of believers on these websites - like Fox Mulder, they want to believe.

[teemacs]

Thanks for the pointer. For those too lazy to click around, here's a link For what it's worth, I got out of the hi-fi hobby back in the late 80's. I felt there was so much pseudoscience that even the 'real' reviewers might not know what they were talking about. What's interesting to me is that all but one of the myths in the Hi-Fi Choice FAQ came along after I stopped being a hi-fi enthusiast! The only one I remember is the ferrite bead story, which can be shown to work under certain extreme conditions.

Later on in the thread, more and more odd things turn up, including, in the pages 40 somewhere, a device for demagnetising vinyl records. (I didn't believe it either).

The philosophy of the thread is best expressed by a passage of C. Gordon Holt, founder and first editor of "Stereovile", on the subject of Peter Belt. Alas, "Stereovile" has fallen a long way since then:

Despite heroic efforts to educate our population, the US (and, apparently, the UK) has been graduating scientific illiterates for more than 40 years. And where knowledge ends, superstition begins. Without any concepts of how scientific knowledge is gleaned from intuition, hypothesis, and meticulous investigation, or what it accepts today as truth, anything is possible. Without the anchor of science, we are free to drift from one idea to another, accepting or "keeping an open mind about" as many outrageous tenets as did the "superstitious natives" we used to scorn 50 years ago. (We still do, but it's unfashionable to admit it.) Many of our beliefs are based on nothing more than a very questionable personal conviction that, because something should be true, then it must be. (Traditional religion is the best example of this.) The notion that a belief should have at least some objective support is scorned as being "closed-minded," which has become a new epithet. In order to avoid that dread appellation, we are expected to pretend to be open to the possibility that today's flight of technofantasy may prove to be tomorrow's truth, no matter how unlikely. Well, I don't buy that.

I do not have a degree in physics, or EE, or even in metaphysics. But I will modestly assert that I have a conceptual grasp of the first two which exceeds that of many of the people who design the equipment we review in this magazine. It is this conceptual picture, more than anything else, which is defaced by Mr. Belt's views and the gadgets which they have spawned. In short, it is my firm belief that their beneficial effects, when such are observed, are not on the perceptual faculties of the listener, but on his suggestibility.

[Matabiri]

N'est-ce pas? is indeed pronounced roughly "nespa", but it's the question "Isn't it?", rather than "it isn't". The answer to the question is, naturellement, as Charles de Gaulle would have it, non.

Good lord, my French is even worse than I thought.

[teemacs]

Meanwhile, over on Zerogain, another of the UK hi-fi forums, the locals are waxing enthusiastic about a lathe that shaves the edges of a CD to a very precise angle. The differences heard are being described in glowing (verging on incandescent) terms and folk are rushing out to buy the things. Check out the thread "Hands on experience" under "hi-fi". The device itself may be found by Googling on "CD lathe". And naturally it costs a bomb...

[tsg]

Good lord, my French is even worse than I thought.

Everybody's French is worse than they thought. Especially the French.

[pdw709]

If you think thats daft, you should check out the Sixmoons review of the Avric Illuminator: (http://www.sixmoons.com/audioreviews/audience3/illuminator.html

to quote:
"In a nutshell, this gel and black pen transforms digital-based music playback into a more pleasurable listening experience. After treatment, my discs have exhibited greater ease, enhanced transparency, quieter backgrounds and less of digital's chalky grit and hash. More significantly, these effects stretched right across the entire frequency spectrum."

I ca'nt believe that these guys don't comprehend the facts of "DIGITAL" music. i.e. perfect reproduction - you read back exactly whats on the disk bit for bit.

I think that the reviewers opening paragraph pretty much sums himself up:

"I must either be an audiophile of the highest order or an obsessive-compulsive loon in need of serious counseling. I have experimented with various CD mats, de-magnetizers, painting CDs green, freezing CDs and placing loose change on my speakers (try doing that on Maggies). Even Peter Belt's barmy foils have made their way into chez bon-bon. While all have made some difference, most I would not necessarily classify as improvements."

You have really got to laugh................

Phil

[grayman]

Everybody's French is worse than they thought. Especially the French.

"In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language."
- Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

[bjb]

The problem with audiophiles is that they won't admit to themselves that their ears can be fooled. That's another one of the reasons I gave up on the hi-fi hobby. Why should I upgrade my hi-fi system when any audible improvements might be purely imaginary? I decided to imagine my stereo sounded fine the way it was and I've been happy with that decision for almost 20 years.

[TjW]

You guys need to get ahead of the curve. What's the hottest thing in audio right now? iPods. What's gonna be the next big audio woo moneymaker? Something that makes imaginary audio improvements to iPods.
Say, a flash memory stabilizer that improves read amplifier saturation for better step response at audio frequencies...

[jon]

You guys need to get ahead of the curve. What's the hottest thing in audio right now? iPods. What's gonna be the next big audio woo moneymaker? Something that makes imaginary audio improvements to iPods.
Say, a flash memory stabilizer that improves read amplifier saturation for better step response at audio frequencies...

You mean like this (http://www.redwineaudio.com/iMod.html) and this (http://www.russandrews.com/lookup/1/region/UK/currency/GBP/customer_id/PAA0759112406578TIUUXCBYGYWCHBQG/product-GQ-Mini-Ag-2202.htm) (to be fair, some of the changes in the first link may actually make an audible difference...though it is a $200 upgrade to an ipod, which stops the headphone out from working :rolleyes: )

This a competitive business - traders need to keep up-to-date :D

[teemacs]

The problem with audiophiles is that they won't admit to themselves that their ears can be fooled. That's another one of the reasons I gave up on the hi-fi hobby. Why should I upgrade my hi-fi system when any audible improvements might be purely imaginary? I decided to imagine my stereo sounded fine the way it was and I've been happy with that decision for almost 20 years.

Dear boy, the problem with you is that your gear simply isn't sufficiently discriminating, ditto your hearing*. These folk have quite simply golden ears, and the differencers were their. Even their wives heard them. Your standards are just, well, lower than low.


*If I'd a penny for every time I've been told this...

[c4ts]

You guys need to get ahead of the curve. What's the hottest thing in audio right now? iPods. What's gonna be the next big audio woo moneymaker? Something that makes imaginary audio improvements to iPods.
Say, a flash memory stabilizer that improves read amplifier saturation for better step response at audio frequencies...

Earbuds made from woodscrews. Twist 'em into your ears to improve sound quality. Only $10,000 a pair.

[Topspy]

You guys need to get ahead of the curve. What's the hottest thing in audio right now? iPods. What's gonna be the next big audio woo moneymaker? Something that makes imaginary audio improvements to iPods.
Say, a flash memory stabilizer that improves read amplifier saturation for better step response at audio frequencies...


What a great idea! Thanks, I'll start a marketing plan..... AND I'll donate the proceeds to Charity, If I can get someone named Charity to marry me....

[a_unique_person]

Just how many rich idiots are there in the world?

[tsg]

Just how many rich idiots are there in the world?

There are an awful lot of idiots. By sheer chance, some of those will be rich.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Please forgive the idiot question, but just in case I've lost the plot here, can someone confirm that audio CDs just contain 1's and 0's encoded on their surface and they can can counted and checked just like on any other digital medium and although there are hundreds of millions found on any disc they will all be present and correct on a normally functioning disc. So, it is literally impossible to present the audio equipment with anything better than this 100% accurate data from the disc for entry into its D to A converter. Once it all goes analogue then the door has been opened for audiowoo, but while we are dealing with the digital source medium nothing can be done to that to make it more accurate. Is that right?

[Cuddles]

Please forgive the idiot question, but just in case I've lost the plot here, can someone confirm that audio CDs just contain 1's and 0's encoded on their surface and they can can counted and checked just like on any other digital medium and although there are hundreds of millions found on any disc they will all be present and correct on a normally functioning disc. So, it is literally impossible to present the audio equipment with anything better than this 100% accurate data from the disc for entry into its D to A converter. Once it all goes analogue then the door has been opened for audiowoo, but while we are dealing with the digital source medium nothing can be done to that to make it more accurate. Is that right?

The bits are recorded as pits stamped or burned into the disc. It is possible for them to be misread by the laser if, for example, they are not burned fully, or the laser is not focussed properly due to dirt or whatever. The data layer is protected by clear plastic, so it is not possible for anything to affect the actual data, hence why waving a magic chip over cannot ever achieve anything. It could be possible to improve the accuracy by ensuring every bit is read correctly, which is what error correction in every CD reader tries to do. Considering that computer programs seem to work fine without having random bits go missing it seems that this works pretty well.

So you basically are right, it is not possible to read it more accurately than is recorded on the disc, and as long as you have a clean CD and clean lens, it is practically impossible to improve the data read from the disc.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Thanks.

Really, the audiowoos ought to see that the claims to detect audible differences between CDs given these various processes are themselves proof that those making the claims are kidding themselves, which should lead to some reasonable questioning of their ability to sense these alleged subtle differences in the analogue parts of audio systems.

[teemacs]

Y'all simply must read this one!

xxx.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0603/audiodesk.htm

[luchog]

Y'all simply must read this one!

xxx.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0603/audiodesk.htm

Wow, that's just... wow.

I particularly like this part:

Even with my crummy eyesight, improvements resulting from the full treatment were fairly easily discernible. A degree of "video noise" that I had not consciously noticed before the treatment was noticeably absent after treatment. This was especially true in scenes set outdoors at night-blacker blacks and more discernible shadow details. There also seemed to be more contrast, especially in Kane. If I could detect those improvements, I imagine normally sighted viewers will be able to see even more benefits.

And particularly:

During the first tests, of all four versions of a given CD, I was gratified to find that I made only a few mis-identifications during the first round of comparison. And in almost every case, I got it right on a second round (with the CDs shuffled to change the sequence of play).

So he admits at first that even he was unable to hear a difference; but eventually with some fudging was able to tell which CDs has been treated. Right.

Wonder how much they paid him for that review.

[ExtremeSkeptic]

When I read this stuff, it makes me so damn angry. :mad:

I'm seething with rage. :mad: :mad:

Mother, why did you have to raise me with morals? Why? I could be a multimillionare if it were not for you.
The rage comes from not knowing why people think they hear a difference. I hate ignorance, I can't stand not knowing anything. There are 3 ways to cure this.

1) Believing it's all placebo.
2) Finding out the reason.
3) Become an audiophile just like them.


Audiophiles look stupid compared to us because they don't know why something makes a difference and make up anything in trying to explain it. The manufacturers copy and paste stuff from physics books because it's better than nothing and audiophiles aren't going to understand those fancy words anyway. Engineers who look at that will just laugh and think they are all crazy, but the engineers are merely scraping the surface of what's inside that audiophile world. Experience of both sides of the fence is the best way to really understand something.

[MortFurd]

Snip...
It could be possible to improve the accuracy by ensuring every bit is read correctly, which is what error correction in every CD reader tries to do. Considering that computer programs seem to work fine without having random bits go missing it seems that this works pretty well.

So you basically are right, it is not possible to read it more accurately than is recorded on the disc, and as long as you have a clean CD and clean lens, it is practically impossible to improve the data read from the disc.
Not quite.

The error correction scheme used on data CDs is quite different from that used on audio CDs. Audio is not concerned with being bit perfect, so it does't include enough forward error correction encoding to recover from all conceivable errors.

Data is a different proposition. That includes forward error correction in order to recover errors when possible, and to give definitive "this is bad data" message when no recovery is possible.

Audio CD decoders at some point just give up on correcting the errors and interpolate an appropriate value by looking at the bytes before and after the unreadable one. The SPDIF data signal includes an error bit to tell you when this happens (at least, I think it does. DAT players did, and they use the same interface.)

What you need is a little box that costs $7247.63 that "stabilizes" the data stream and blinks a red LED when there's a set error bit in the digital stream. Actual cost would be about $20 for a small power supply, a PIC, and an LED. :D

[Yahzi]

There are 3 ways to cure this.
Um. Options 1 and 2 are the same: the reason is the placebo effect.

Audiophiles look stupid compared to us because they don't know why something makes a difference
No, they look stupid because they don't realize they can fool themselves. This is an insight you are supposed to achieve before leaving high school, at the very latest.

They also look stupid because they don't understand even the basics of how their equipment works, yet yammer on about physics and frequencies and whatnot.

Finally, they look stupid because they are stupid.

[ExtremeSkeptic]

Um. Options 1 and 2 are the same: the reason is the placebo effect.
If you really want to believe something, it's most likely placebo.

No, they look stupid because they don't realize they can fool themselves. This is an insight you are supposed to achieve before leaving high school, at the very latest.
Some of them do blind tests to confirm to themselves there is a difference. The problem is many don't do that because they are afraid they don't hear a difference. They want to enjoy the hobby.

They also look stupid because they don't understand even the basics of how their equipment works, yet yammer on about physics and frequencies and whatnot.

Nobody knows how it works other than the ones who are narrow-minded. Being an open-minded believer is still better than a narrow-minded skeptic.


Finally, they look stupid because they are stupid.
I know some audiophiles who are one of the most intelligent people in the world.

[MortFurd]

Nobody knows how it works other than the ones who are narrow-minded. Being an open-minded believer is still better than a narrow-minded skeptic.

No, I know how electronics and audio work because I spent ten years working in that field. That's ten years of finding, fixing, and documenting real problems as reported by non-technical people. A typical complaint was "that sounds like sh%%." I then had the pleasant job of determining what "sh%%" sounds like and quantifiying it, then finding the source, fixing it, and documenting the whole thing.

This was working with two way radio communciations, where a problem could mean the difference between life and death - and problems that I had to solve had already (in at least two cases) caused deaths. This as opposed to the quite imaginary "improved sound stage" and "clarity" and other non-sense words that hi-fi nuts like to use.

The next time you are tempted to claim that "nobody knows how it works," please consider that there are engineers who designed and tested the equipment, and that they know full damn good and well how it work. They didn't pull the designs and schematics out of their a$$e$ like hi-fi freaks.

[teemacs]

November 12, 2016

Looking back over 10 years, it is hard to imagine the world as it was, a world which was solidly ranged against the Audiophools, a small, mocked minority, and in which the Audiophool industry serving them was a minor, irrelevant and shrinking cul-de-sac of the electronics entertainment industry, a far cry from the world-striding, multi-billion business it has subsequently become. At that time, this dominance was completely inconceivable. Yet they were right all along. And ironically the thing that started the ball rolling was that favourite source for mocking and jeering, Thix Loons. On this cable link

xxx.6moons.com/showcase/lotusgroup/lotusgroup.html

was a table containing an element whose chemical symbol nobody recognised – Ai. In the Periodic Table of the time, there were Ac, Ag, Al, Am, Ar, As, At and Au, but no Ai. But then, what could one expect of the old fuddy-duddies of the IUPAC, who were happy to derive four element names from Ytterby, some hole in the backwoods of Sweden (even the Russian mine inspector, Samarsky, got his name on one (samarium)), but who had stubbornly refused to recognise two major elements of our troubled times and our entertainment , respectively Ak and Av (subsequently recognised and named guerillium and televisium), not to mention two elements that were even then clearly available in abundance in the second Bush US Administration, delirium and pandemonium?

At the time, sceptics insisted that this Ai was meant to be Al (alumin(i)um), which, conveniently for them, happens to be the third most common element on the planet. However, in reality, it was one of the greatest discoveries in the history of the earth, the discovery of a unique new element

AUDIOPHOOLIUM (Ai)

Ai is an abbreviation from its Latin name aurum ineptia (fool’s gold – not of course to be confused with that other one, iron pyrites (FeS2)).

This element is so rare that its existence is generally detected indirectly by its effect on other elements rather than by direct analysis and measurement. As befits its nature, it is readily detected if one discounts these outmoded scientific notions and uses one’s ears. This table in Thix Loons was the first direct indication of its existence.

Why were the cables in that link so good? Conventional audiophool wisdom, ever ready to compromise with sceptical science, would have had you believe that it was a consequence of the vaunted purity of their copper. But no, in reality it was the presence of audiophoolium, and the more there is, the better the properties. So sensational are the properties of audiophoolium that even the minutest trace gives the equipment in which it occurs properties that, to the layman, appear almost miraculous. Sceptics initially and naturally sneered, but, as Arthur C. Clarke once observed, to the Elizabethan English, 20th century technology would appear to be miraculous. However, science and even James Randi and his naysaysers came to see that at last it was possible to have a scientific explanation of audiophool phenomena.

Audiophoolium accounted for all the phenomena of hi-fi that apparently defied normal physical laws. As Newton’s laws of motion were just special cases of more general laws discovered by Einstein, so the physical laws are merely special cases of the real thing, and the honour goes to audiophools for recognising the phenomena long before anyone else. The presence of audiophoolium accounted for

- better performance of cables, be they power, ICs or speaker;
- the phenomenon of “burn-in”, observed by so many, but scoffed at by the sceptics;
- the fact that stands have an effect on the sound, even under electronic components;
- the widely-observed phenomenon of “timing”, in which some equipment actually refuses merely to play what’s on the boring old recording but alters it in a musically-satisfying way;
- the fact that some amps really rock, even when all four feet are clearly flat on the supporting surface;
- the clearly superior sound of vinyl;

and so on, and so on. This was the reason why Lord Belt, F.R.S. (then plain Peter Belt) was elevated from a figure of fun to the pantheon with Newton, Einstein and Hawking when it was revealed that he had been using audiophoolium – for reasons still incompletely understood, his devices caused it to concentrate and produce the wonderful effects observed, and his Electret cream and foils were fool, er, full of it. In 2010, he become the first man to make a clean sweep of the Nobel Prizes in a single year, such was the prosperity, health and harmony brought about by audiophoolium (soldiers’ feet were tapping so hard that they couldn’t aim their weapons properly).

In 2011, US President Hillary Clinton authorised the secret development of WMD (weapons of musical diversion) utilising enhanced Ai levels. In 2014, in a series of surprise attacks, the US military blasted North Korea and Iran with enhanced Ai-bombs, and those countries became harmless, unable to defend themselves against takeover because of their traitorously tapping feet, courtesy of their cheap, nasty trannies suddenly sounding irresistibly high-end. The rest of the world took note and behaved itself, with the Saudis taking the lead in lowering the price of oil to $US0.50/bbl.The age of Aiquarius had truly arrived.

Recently, however, cracks have been appearing in the façade. The US/British dominance of Audiophoolia is being challenged by the Russians, who see such dominance as a strategic threat to their interests and who have sent whole armies of balalaika players to closed music cities beyond the Urals for purposes unexplained. Then there’s the French, who see that their traditional non-foot-tapping chansons and accordion playing do not provide as much fissile material, and who are seeking to nationalise their entire Audiophool industry under the wing of the Ministry of Music, newly independent from the Ministry of Defence. At the same time, they wish to have the EU raise punitive tariffs against US Audiophool products. In addition, angry French audio dealers have set fire to truckloads of British Audiophool imports at Calais while, it is alleged, the CRS riot police merely looked on. The Chinese have said little, but are currently in negotiations with the Republic of Bougainville, recently independent from Papua New Guinea, ostensibly seeking to help a small, developing country, but it hasn’t passed anyone’s attention that Bougainville is one of the world’s richest sources of copper. The UMO has proposed that a Non-Ai Moratorium (NAiM) be observed and that a Non-Proliferation Treaty be negotiated, but it has gone no farther than this. The threat of a tonearms race is very real, with ruinous consequences for whole economies.

[jimlintott]

Let me rant a little about sound reproduction and audiophiles.

Not all audiophiles are woos. I sort of consider myself an audiophile because I place a high value on sound reproduction. There are lots of us who do, yet we don't bother with $1000/ft speaker wire because we know that 14/2 loomex would sound exactly the same. We buy material rather than tweaks because we know the tweaks don't work.

The audio woos are screwing things up for the regular Joe. The regular Joe now thinks that silly tweaks work and will spend $400 for speaker wire for his $800 HTIB. This Joe has been screwed by the audio woos. On the other hand some regular Joes think all audiophile equipment is woo and won't buy good sound equipment. I have heard so many regular Joes say they don't need really good eqipment because "I'm not an audiophile". This bugs me because, guess what Joe, you are an audiophile. You have a whole life of listening experience with true high fidelity sound. The real world. But because some audio woos think only they have golden ears this regular Joe will pass on good equipment because he believes he doesn't have golden ears. We all have golden ears (some are just more golden than others). A Paradigm speaker rep told me that during their blind testing people always chose the best speakers regardless of background or listening experience. The golden ears thing is the biggest lie in the audiowoo world.

So the audio woos have hurt regular Joe by either convincing him that he doesn't hear well enough to deserve really good audio or that he can transform his average audio system with woo tweaks and he wastes his money. I have seen a couple of regular guys sucked in by this and have actually had them suggest that I should hear their wires. :eye-poppi

Great thing about the audio world is that I can't remember a time when such good audio equipment was so plentiful and inexpensive.

[pipelineaudio]

The error correction scheme used on data CDs is quite different from that used on audio CDs. Audio is not concerned with being bit perfect, so it does't include enough forward error correction encoding to recover from all conceivable errors.

This leads to the ultimate silliness: the 20 dollar cd drive sitting on your PC outperforming audiophile transport units

We hear of jitter and all other junk that should NOT be an issue with a non realtime signal setup.

If I zip a file, burn it to cd and unzip it onto another PC is one byte is wrong in the code, it wont work...yet it works everytime

Silly that after all these years, red book audio data couldnt pull the same trick

[ExtremeSkeptic]

No, I know how electronics and audio work because I spent ten years working in that field.If someone does work in electronics doesn't mean he knows everything about physics. Believing that audio isn't affected by physics is narrow-minded. It's pretty obvious for someone on the other side of the fence that audio is all 1's and 0's and doesn't have an analog waveform at all. The final waveform that comes out from the speakers is infinite and it changes everything. People in electronics focus on the beginning of the signal but then stop when it comes out from the speakers. They think that just because audible sound comes out it works perfectly and their job is complete. But you need to look at the big picture on how the ears perceive the sound, it is physics and not electronics.

[MortFurd]

Snip...

Silly that after all these years, red book audio data couldnt pull the same trick

Not that they couldn't. It was just deemed unneccesary at the time the standard was developed - it would have cost too much (hardware and thus higher price) back in the late 70's, early 80's when the standard was developed.

Strictly speaking, the distortion that interpolation produces is below the distortion that your amp produces. When it really gets bad (nothing left to interpolate) the players just mute and keep looking for a spot with good data then start up again.

[MortFurd]

If someone does work in electronics doesn't mean he knows everything about physics. Believing that audio isn't affected by physics is narrow-minded. It's pretty obvious for someone on the other side of the fence that audio is all 1's and 0's and doesn't have an analog waveform at all. The final waveform that comes out from the speakers is infinite and it changes everything. People in electronics focus on the beginning of the signal but then stop when it comes out from the speakers. They think that just because audible sound comes out it works perfectly and their job is complete. But you need to look at the big picture on how the ears perceive the sound, it is physics and not electronics.
Electronics is a branch of physics.

Also, you've just hit the biggest problem that the hi-fi nuts have:
The biggest problems in reproducing audio lie in the physics of the SPEAKERS. The minuscule phase, frequency response, and distortion problems that a good, modern piece of audio equipment has are dwarfed by the horridness of the final and most important link in the reproduction chain: the SPEAKERS.

What does 0.001% distortion in the amp mean compared to the buzz of a bad resonance in a cheap speaker? NADA.

What does a frequency response deviation of 1dB in the preamplifier mean compared to the 10dB (and more) peaks and valleys of the frequency response of the speaker? NADA.

What does 1miscrosecond of jitter mean compared the frequency dependent phase variation of speaker? NADA.

There is no magic bullet for making a system sound better. Anyone who claims to hear a monstrous difference in the sound if his system based on some CD demagnetizer or other junk, but who doesn't know the end to end frequency response (including the speakers and the room acoustics) of his system would be well advised to shut the f up in my presence.

[TjW]

If someone does work in electronics doesn't mean he knows everything about physics.
True, and so is the reverse.Believing that audio isn't affected by physics is narrow-minded.
Worse, it's factually wrong. Of course, I haven't seen anyone taking that position, so it's sort of a strawman.It's pretty obvious for someone on the other side of the fence that audio is all 1's and 0's and doesn't have an analog waveform at all.
This would be wrong. The data is all ones and zeros. The audio doesn't exist in this domain.
The final waveform that comes out from the speakers is infinite and it changes everything.
This is incorrect. The final waveform may be continuous, but it is not infinite. People in electronics focus on the beginning of the signal but then stop when it comes out from the speakers.They think that just because audible sound comes out it works perfectly and their job is complete. But you need to look at the big picture on how the ears perceive the sound, it is physics and not electronics.
I think this is largely a strawman. Most engineers are certainly willing to acknowledge that speaker limitations and room acoustics will affect the perceived sound. There are, no doubt "pre-distortions" to the signal that can be applied to compensate for some of these things.
However, there is a hard limit on the fidelity in "high fidelity".
Any physicist worth his salt will also acknowledge that there is only a certain amount of information in the data stored (by whatever means), and that once that has been accurately reproduced, that is all that can be done to reproduce the source.
Anything else is just distorting the signal in pleasing ways. And that's fine, but it's not fidelity.

[MortFurd]

Snip...

Believing that audio isn't affected by physics is narrow-minded. It's pretty obvious for someone on the other side of the fence that audio is all 1's and 0's and doesn't have an analog waveform at all. The final waveform that comes out from the speakers is infinite and it changes everything. People in electronics focus on the beginning of the signal but then stop when it comes out from the speakers. They think that just because audible sound comes out it works perfectly and their job is complete. But you need to look at the big picture on how the ears perceive the sound, it is physics and not electronics.
Believing that your "golden ears" can detect a difference that no one else can hear and that no instrument can measure is hubris, and smacks mightily of the emperor's new clothes.

Get a clue.

Audio is not digital, though it can be represented digitally with an such accuracy that your ears cannot tell that is not analog. The signal going in to any audio system is analog and allows for nearly infinite minute variations in amplitude. Any recording and reproduction system is going to put restrictions on that.

An analog recording hasn't got the dynamic range of the original - you get noise instead. It also has a narrower bandwidth, so you will lose some high and low frequencies.

A digital recording has more dynamic range than an analog recording. Instead of noise (you do get some from the analog parts, but verydamned little) you get distortion - at extremely low levels that would be below the noise floor of an analog recording. You also get a narrower bandwidth compared to live - but still a wider bandwidth as compared to analog.

Audiophiles are at their most funny when they try to argue that a vinyl LP objectively provides better playback than a CD, especially when they start carrying on about the jitter in the digital signal. They don't realize that the phase variations and wow and flutter on an LP are orders of magnitude larger than the oh so horrid digital jitter.

[ExtremeSkeptic]

Electronics is a branch of physics.

Also, you've just hit the biggest problem that the hi-fi nuts have:
The biggest problems in reproducing audio lie in the physics of the SPEAKERS. The minuscule phase, frequency response, and distortion problems that a good, modern piece of audio equipment has are dwarfed by the horridness of the final and most important link in the reproduction chain: the SPEAKERS.
The ones with good systems already have good speakers and a good frequency response. But that's not all that matters. Music isn't a single test tone that always stays the same, it starts, stops and constantly switches frequencies.
Every audio system sounds the same if you output a test tone through it. But the more complex the music is the bigger the differences will be between different systems.

[ExtremeSkeptic]

This is incorrect. The final waveform may be continuous, but it is not infinite.
Timing is infinite to the limit of the Universe. Correct data at the wrong timing is an error. Timing in real life is perfect, but in an audio system it is not which is why it doesn't sound like real life. If you reduce the jitter it sounds closer to real life.
I listened to a system and hearing a difference between real life and audio wasn't possible for me. But when something was changed in the system it didn't sound like real life anymore. Speakers, amp, and sources remained the same.

[Yahzi]

People in electronics focus on the beginning of the signal but then stop when it comes out from the speakers. They think that just because audible sound comes out it works perfectly and their job is complete. But you need to look at the big picture on how the ears perceive the sound, it is physics and not electronics.
Does anybody else recognize this?

It's Dualism.

Any minute now, ES will start telling us about the difference between the "accidentals" and the "essentials" of sound. No dout his woo devices can transform mere music into the actual blood and body of Ch... wait, I mean into better music.

Timing is infinite to the limit of the Universe.
You are wrong. Timing is controlled by the Planck length, like everything else. Our ability to distinguish timing is controlled by a noisy soup of electrolytes soaking on a cauliflower. Which puts it way, way above the Planck length.

Being an open-minded believer is still better than a narrow-minded skeptic.
What else needs to be said?

This is a discussion about theology.

[TjW]

Timing is infinite to the limit of the Universe. Correct data at the wrong timing is an error. Timing in real life is perfect, but in an audio system it is not which is why it doesn't sound like real life. If you reduce the jitter it sounds closer to real life.

You ought to look at the branch of physics that involves math. Compare the phase error generated by jitter of a crystal-controlled source to the phase error generated by, say, turning your head.

I listened to a system and hearing a difference between real life and audio wasn't possible for me. But when something was changed in the system it didn't sound like real life anymore. Speakers, amp, and sources remained the same.
Yes, I imagine your expectations changed.

[ExtremeSkeptic]

Does anybody else recognize this?

It's Dualism.

Any minute now, ES will start telling us about the difference between the "accidentals" and the "essentials" of sound. No dout his woo devices can transform mere music into the actual blood and body of Ch... wait, I mean into better music.


You are wrong. Timing is controlled by the Planck length, like everything else. Our ability to distinguish timing is controlled by a noisy soup of electrolytes soaking on a cauliflower. Which puts it way, way above the Planck length.


What else needs to be said?

This is a discussion about theology.
Repeating someone elses words does not make you intelligent. You need to think for yourself. Big pond little fish with little book... You need to experience it yourself to truly understand it instead of scraping the surface of limited knowledge and being afraid to scrape deeper for fear of that incomplete knowledge being wrong.

[ExtremeSkeptic]

Yes, I imagine your expectations changed.
I didn't know anything was changed until I could hear it.

[kittykatkarma]

Troll alert.

Don't waste too much time debating with ExtremeSkeptic, logic is not one of his stronger traits.

Another unbelievable rant is that he just chose to stop being autistic (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=67317). Like autism is a switch one can turn on or off.

[ExtremeSkeptic]

Personally the source matters the least to me. A $500 computer as transport with a $20 Toslink cable sounds as good as a $4000 transport and $2000 AES/EBU digital cable.
The only difference is that the smoothness is different. Low jitter makes it sound heavy, warm and "musical". High jitter makes it sound thin, bright, edgy and sibilant which sounds annoying if the rest of the system has problems.
But since the jittery source sounds thin there is less bass and the subtle edgy detail is more apparent, it makes high frequency transients sound "hairy" because they are thinner and faster. It makes both transports sound good in their own way.

What happens later in the system matters more to me. I wouldn't waste my time with CD tweaks.

[jon]

The ones with good systems already have good speakers and a good frequency response. But that's not all that matters. Music isn't a single test tone that always stays the same, it starts, stops and constantly switches frequencies.
Every audio system sounds the same if you output a test tone through it. But the more complex the music is the bigger the differences will be between different systems.

Good speakers, sure - but in almost all cases there'll be nothing like a flat frequency response. 'Good' hifi speakers often have an uneven frequency response (which can sometimes sound nice - e.g. attenuating the treble to make the speakers sound 'warmer'). Very few speakers are flat down to anywhere near 20hz (a sub might be able to correct this, but audiophiles often disapprove of these). If you want to get as close as possible to how music 'naturally' sounds (no particular need to do so for home listening, as some distortion can sound quite nice) a relatively flat fullrange response would appear to be desirable.

Even if you could get speakers that had a relatively flat frequency response from 20hz-20khz, interactions with the room would change this substantially (I've got a sub that'll go down to 20hz at +/-3db, when measured in an open space, but using them in my room adds peaks/troughs of well over 10db). This can be dealt with using EQ (which audiophiles often disapprove of) and/or room treatment (which often isn't feasible, as it can get in the way and look ugly).

It seems a bit strange that, for example, with all these tweaks sold promising 'better' bass, most prospective customers won't have anything like fullrange speakers (or a speaker and sub combo). Many or most also won't have put much effort into things like EQ which are relatively cheap, and actually work at flattening out the bass response...

Anyway, rant over. Sorry ;)

[MortFurd]

Personally the source matters the least to me. A $500 computer as transport with a $20 Toslink cable sounds as good as a $4000 transport and $2000 AES/EBU digital cable.
The only difference is that the smoothness is different. Low jitter makes it sound heavy, warm and "musical". High jitter makes it sound thin, bright, edgy and sibilant which sounds annoying if the rest of the system has problems.
But since the jittery source sounds thin there is less bass and the subtle edgy detail is more apparent, it makes high frequency transients sound "hairy" because they are thinner and faster. It makes both transports sound good in their own way.

What happens later in the system matters more to me. I wouldn't waste my time with CD tweaks.
You realize of course that you are spouting complete and utter non-sense? IF jitter were bad enough to make a difference to the synchronization, you would hear distortion. If jitter is with in the specified limits (I don't have a copy of the specs,) you will hear NO difference. Jitter below the design limits will have NO effect on the audio. Jitter above the limit will cause distortion and most likely cause your player to throw a fit.

How much jitter are you talking about? How did you measure it? What device and methods?

[ExtremeSkeptic]

You realize of course that you are spouting complete and utter non-sense? IF jitter were bad enough to make a difference to the synchronization, you would hear distortion. If jitter is with in the specified limits (I don't have a copy of the specs,) you will hear NO difference. Jitter below the design limits will have NO effect on the audio. Jitter above the limit will cause distortion and most likely cause your player to throw a fit.
Do you listen to music at home?

For 2 years I have listened 6+ hours a day. The difference in jitter between my two transports is very obvious to hear but I doubt I would have heard it as a newbie because back then I couldn't even hear a difference when buying a new soundcard and an amplifier. I heard NO difference, it had NO effect on the audio at all. ;)

How much jitter are you talking about?

My Benchmark DAC1 should be immune to jitter but the difference is so big that I don't want sell my expensive transport and digital cable anymore. I put it on auction and changed my mind, it's that good. Others (http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue27/benchmark.htm) with this cheap DAC also use an expensive transport for it.

How did you measure it? What device and methods?I haven't listened to music with measurement devices. I assumed that ears are required to know if it sounds good or bad.

[ExtremeSkeptic]

This can be dealt with using EQ (which audiophiles often disapprove of) and/or room treatment (which often isn't feasible, as it can get in the way and look ugly).
I don't use any room treatments at all and I don't care about frequency response.

I removed the PCB from my headphones and it boosted it up 3 dB at 3000 Hz, it still sounded good. Even if it goes up and down 5-10 dB it's not important to me because I only listen to trance music.


http://poollogics.is-a-geek.net/pictures/forum4/System/K1000-Valkyrja.JPG (http://poollogics.is-a-geek.net/pictures/forum4/System/full.K1000%20Valkyrja.JPG)

[jon]

I don't use any room treatments at all and I don't care about frequency response.

I removed the PCB from my headphones and it boosted it up 3 dB at 3000 Hz, it still sounded good. Even if it goes up and down 5-10 dB it's not important to me because I only listen to trance music.


http://poollogics.is-a-geek.net/pictures/forum4/System/K1000-Valkyrja.JPG (http://poollogics.is-a-geek.net/pictures/forum4/System/full.K1000%20Valkyrja.JPG)

Sure - like I said, adding emphasis to a particular part of the frequency range can sound nice. However, it was you who said that "Every audio system sounds the same if you output a test tone through it" - if they don't have an even fullrange frequency response, they don't (for example, lots of systems will make no sound at all if you run a 25hz test tone through them).

btw, trance nowadays generally uses digital technology in the production and recording, doesn't it? If this is a concern, wouldn't 'jitter' therefore have a big effect on the sound before you ever heard the recording?

[LawnOven]

It looks like a new hope for the ape eared.

[jimlintott]

I personally don't consider headphones to be adequate for serious listening. Headphones can sound great and reproduce sound quite accurately but they don't reproduce volume. Stand next to a kettle drum while being played and listen to a recording of a kettle drum on headphones. Something is missing, right. No thump in the chest like the real thing gives you.

The hallmark of a true high fidelity system is when it is hard to tell the difference between an actual musical instrument and a recording. Headphones can't do that.

[MortFurd]

I don't use any room treatments at all and I don't care about frequency response.

I removed the PCB from my headphones and it boosted it up 3 dB at 3000 Hz, it still sounded good. Even if it goes up and down 5-10 dB it's not important to me because I only listen to trance music.


http://poollogics.is-a-geek.net/pictures/forum4/System/K1000-Valkyrja.JPG (http://poollogics.is-a-geek.net/pictures/forum4/System/full.K1000%20Valkyrja.JPG)
Then you don't care about how your music sounds. You don't want accurate reproduction, you want something that you subjectively "like more."

The difference that you hear between two transports (you mention a DAC1, which provides an analog signal from the digital stream) comes from differences in the frequency responses of the different devices. The output impedance of one device and the input impedance of the following device combine so as to cause the frequency response to have variations. That can be heard (though with properly designed equipment it shouldn't be noticeable,) and likely accounts for the difference you hear that you ascribe to jitter.

So, how did you determine that removing the PCB from you headphones caused a 3 dB boost at 3000Hz? If you can hear that difference and deem it necessary, why would the larger 5-10dB variations you mention not be a problem?

[bjb]

Actually, there really should be any frequency response changes caused by the input and output impedances of hi-fi equipment. The outputs should be low impedance and the inputs high impedance. This is done to prevent cable impedance from changing the frequency response. The rule-of-thumb for proper impedance bridging (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impedance_bridging) is that the input impedance of a device should be 10x that of the driving impedance. As long as the 10:1 ratio is maintained throughout the audio spectrum, there will be no audio effect. This is only one of many instances where test equipment does a better job than human ears.

One complication is that the interconnection cable is part of the load impedance. If you use cables that are long enough and have enough capacitance, you'll eventually cause problems with the frequency response. A few years ago, I ran some PSpice simulations and it looks like cable capacitance will cause problems with the frequency response before cable inductance will. The cables needed to be very, very long but the effect can happen. Also, some consumer electronics are designed with a higher than desirable output impedance, which will protect the circuit against the output being shorted to ground. This is bad for hi-fi purposes and the equipment needs to be used with short, low-capacitance cables. What I do is compare the sound of a normal cable with a very short one and if they sound the same, I go with the long one. I've also found a cheap brand of cable that I measured and it had abnormally low capacitance, so expensive cable is not always the way to go.

Elsewhere in the music electronics industry, input and output impedances sometimes interact to produce interesting EQ shifts. Back in the early 50's, certain German tube mics had an impedance mismatch with American mixing boards, which created a high-frequency resonance that made vocals have more 'presence'. These microphones were used by most of the famous singers in the 50's and they were often pictured singing into them. At the time, a few people thought those recordings sounded harsh and artificial, not hi-fi, but the old tube mic sound is still popular today. In the guitar world, guitar pickups have a lot of inductance and guitar cables have a lot of capacitance. They work together to create a resonant peak (http://www.buildyourguitar.com/resources/lemme/) around 2-4Khz, which is a very important part of the audio spectrum. Unfortunately, the resonant peak of guitar pickups is very poorly understood by guitar players and is the subject of many woo beliefs among many pickup makers.

[jimlintott]

Back in the early 50's, certain German tube mics had an impedance mismatch with American mixing boards, which created a high-frequency resonance that made vocals have more 'presence'. These microphones were used by most of the famous singers in the 50's and they were often pictured singing into them.

Does it look just like a Telefunken U47?

With leather?

[bjb]

I'm pretty sure the U47 is one of these mics, but I think any German-spec mic will have the same problem, I mean, 'wonderful sound'. I found the complaint about "harsh" sound from one of my hi-fi magazines printed in 1954, where the author was complaining that true hi-fi was often impossible because of problems in the recording process. Obviously, hi-fi magazines do not worry about such things any more even though far more studio trickery is being used today.

[tsg]

Does it look just like a Telefunken U47?

With leather?

You'll love it.

[ExtremeSkeptic]

Then you don't care about how your music sounds. You don't want accurate reproduction, you want something that you subjectively "like more."
I don't care about it sounding like real life, I want to hear the recording properly.

To get it to sound like real life you need to find a certain combination of RFI/EMI, jitter, vibration control and power conditioning. Letting RFI enter the system makes it sound "open" but it sacrifices detail. Having jitter emphasizes detail but the highs become fatiguing. When using vibration control you can emphasize the midrange and unfocus some of the harsh high frequencies. With power conditioning you can use modified sine waves that changes how the power supply functions, you can emphasize the lower frequencies.
In the end you have synergy and fake transparency which makes it sound like real life.

But when audiophiles improve the system they say it sounds worse. When RFI/EMI and jitter is removed from the system they complain it sounds too dark and lifeless. The same happens when vibration is removed with multi step isolation, they complain it sounds too dark and there is too much bass.

That's where Nordost's silver plated copper cables come in, they are far from neutral but they compensate for the improved dark system. They make a neutral system sound exciting again by adding fake dynamics, transparency, and layering while making it smoother at the same time. In most crappy systems these cables makes it sound like real life.


All audiophile gear give a certain coloration. You don't need to spend thousands to get better sound, all you need is experimentation to find what sound you like.
The best way to build a system is to fix all the problems without using band-aids and without adding any bells and whistles into the signal path. It gives the most transparent sound that lets you hear the source. It's also best to hardwire everything instead of spending a couple grand on connectors.

In my case I wanted the fastest macro-dynamics and detail possible so I have tweaked my system to get that. Fixing all the problems to get a neutral black background was required for that, and of course, $30k worth of modified Nordost Valhalla cabling to add some coloration to make it even faster. People who listen to my system get sick within minutes, they can't handle the speed.


So, how did you determine that removing the PCB from you headphones caused a 3 dB boost at 3000Hz?
Manufacturer says it. The PCB hurts the sound more than improves it, many have removed it. The ones who didn't like it complain there was too much detail.

If you can hear that difference and deem it necessary, why would the larger 5-10dB variations you mention not be a problem?
There are people who sacrifice everything above 50 Hz to get a couple Hz lower deep bass, I'm not one of them.

[ExtremeSkeptic]

Repeating someone elses words does not make you intelligent. You need to think for yourself. Big pond little fish with little book... You need to experience it yourself to truly understand it instead of scraping the surface of limited knowledge and being afraid to scrape deeper for fear of that incomplete knowledge being wrong.
Here are pictures.


http://poollogics.is-a-geek.net/pictures/other2/truth.digging.JPG




http://poollogics.is-a-geek.net/pictures/other2/heaven.hell.neutral.gif

[Starthinker]

Here are pictures.


http://poollogics.is-a-geek.net/pictures/other2/truth.digging.JPG




http://poollogics.is-a-geek.net/pictures/other2/heaven.hell.neutral.gif


Wow.

[marting]

I don't care about it sounding like real life, I want to hear the recording properly.

To get it to sound like real life you need to find a certain combination of RFI/EMI, jitter, vibration control and power conditioning. Letting RFI enter the system makes it sound "open" but it sacrifices detail. Having jitter emphasizes detail but the highs become fatiguing. When using vibration control you can emphasize the midrange and unfocus some of the harsh high frequencies. With power conditioning you can use modified sine waves that changes how the power supply functions, you can emphasize the lower frequencies.
In the end you have synergy and fake transparency which makes it sound like real life.


RFI? What freqs and magnitues are of interest here? Most modern stuff has virtually no suceptability to RFI as compared to equip from the 60s or 70s. Even back then RFI rarely impacted sound repro.

By "jitter" I assume what is meant is the rapid change in phase and hence sample points due to the PLL freq synthesis design. Especially interactions with PS ripple. These can cause subtle but real problems in certain areas.

Still, I don't see a relationship between these potential problems and the described effects. Do you have any links to where these things are defined and quantified in the audiophile world?

[TjW]

Well, here are some of the descriptions ES has used:
warm, "musical", thin, bright, edgy, sibilant, open, "hairy"

I can only speculate as to the units.

warmth -- well, we specify noise in degrees Kelvin, so I suppose this could be an audiophile term for noise.
"musical" -- RodgersandHammersteins per root Hertz.
thin -- millisupermodels.
bright -- candela in the wind per square meter
edgy -- microMandelbrots
sibilance -- kiloesses
"hairy" -- picoBigfeet

[MortFurd]

RFI? What freqs and magnitues are of interest here? Most modern stuff has virtually no suceptability to RFI as compared to equip from the 60s or 70s. Even back then RFI rarely impacted sound repro.

By "jitter" I assume what is meant is the rapid change in phase and hence sample points due to the PLL freq synthesis design. Especially interactions with PS ripple. These can cause subtle but real problems in certain areas.

Still, I don't see a relationship between these potential problems and the described effects. Do you have any links to where these things are defined and quantified in the audiophile world?
ExtremeSkeptic is judging jitter by what the advertisement tells him. He's using a DAC1, which the manufaturer say eliminates jitter and comparing it to a different DAC unit that the manufacturer doesn't promise will eliminate jitter. He hears a difference, and ascribes it to jitter.

That the two units may have very different audio characteristics and interactions with his (pre)amplifier doesn't bother him in the least - and neither does the fact that he has no idea how much (or how little) jitter he actually gets from the transport.

Also note that he he's not interested in true reproduction of the original sound - he's said as much himself by admitting that he doesn't care that there may be peaks and valley of 5 to 10dB in the frequency response of his speakers. All he wants is what he wants to hear, and an excuse to tell the world how good his ears are.

[marting]

It doesn't take a lot of clock jitter to screw up A2D or D2As. A 3ns jitter seriously degraded some communication circuits I designed 10 years ago and it took a while to find the problem. Consequently, I created some dsp code to simulate clock jitter using fractional resampling. This code could be used to simulat audio equip jitter so I'm curious what people see as the characteristics of jitter that is perceptable in AB testing.

[ExtremeSkeptic]

ExtremeSkeptic is judging jitter by what the advertisement tells him. He's using a DAC1, which the manufaturer say eliminates jitter and comparing it to a different DAC unit that the manufacturer doesn't promise will eliminate jitter.
I use only the DAC1 and nothing else. I use two transports which have different jitter, I can clearly hear it in blind tests. I can also hear the difference between cables from the same transport.


All he wants is what he wants to hear, and an excuse to tell the world how good his ears are.
I have the worst ears of all audiophiles. The only time I can hear a difference is if there are problems in the system.

[teemacs]

The Audiophile Club of Athens is justly famous for the equipment of its members. See, and be amazed:

http: //homepage.mac.com/savagebean/iMovieTheater11.html

I like the guy who has spent something like 140,000 Euro on equipment and believes that 50% of the sound is the responsibility of the electricity supply!

[Cuddles]

I like the guy who has spent something like 140,000 Euro on equipment and believes that 50% of the sound is the responsibility of the electricity supply!

Surely that should be 100%? How much sound does he get if he takes it away?

[teemacs]

Surely that should be 100%? How much sound does he get if he takes it away?
You, sir, are clearly an ignoramus, being unable to distinguish between ordinary electrons and the special audiophool ones, lovingly individually cleaned, trained and cared for (like those Japanese cows from which comes that hyper-expensive beef). They march into your high-grade components in precise sine waves, thus delivering maximum performance. A steal at a mere $US10,000 per jar (contents approx. one Avogadro number)

[teemacs]

Brought to you by a respected manufacturer of hi-fi equipment too:

http://www.ayre.com/accessories.cfm?accessID=7

[tsg]

Brought to you by a respected manufacturer of hi-fi equipment too:

http://www.ayre.com/accessories.cfm?accessID=7

I am in the wrong business....

[MortFurd]

I am in the wrong business....
You and me both.

Too honest, I guess.

But then again, I can look at myself in the mirror and think "Ugly SOB, but at least he ain't ripping folks off."

[tsg]

You and me both.

Seriously. I have a couple of 4x4's in my garage just waiting to be turned into some of those things.

Too honest, I guess.

But then again, I can look at myself in the mirror and think "Ugly SOB, but at least he ain't ripping folks off."

Repeat the JREF Mantra: "If I only didn't have a conscience...."

[teemacs]

If you want to give your hifi a Christmas treat, you could use some of these:

http://www.arena-audio.com/siltech%20g5%20spk%20cable.htm

They come in gold too, and they come from Magi (or those who see themselves as such). Gold is the only Christmas option as they display the usual audiophool tendence of being somewhat less that frank in sense, and they myrrhor the stupidity and outright thievery of the whole business.

P.S. No, I've no idea how much these CTWs cost, but anything bearing the name "Siltech" generally requires substantial sums of money.

[pipelineaudio]

I don't care about it sounding like real life, I want to hear the recording properly.

Amen

[Schneibster]

If you want to give your hifi a Christmas treat, you could use some of these:

http://www.arena-audio.com/siltech%20g5%20spk%20cable.htmAt least these are plausible. Those myrtle wood blocks are the acme, I think.

[a_unique_person]

The Audiophile Club of Athens is justly famous for the equipment of its members. See, and be amazed:

http: //homepage.mac.com/savagebean/iMovieTheater11.html

I like the guy who has spent something like 140,000 Euro on equipment and believes that 50% of the sound is the responsibility of the electricity supply!

Don't tempt me, I am not going to start selling Hi Fi rated power supplies.

[teemacs]

Want to improve the sounds of your CDs? Shave them!

http://www.audiodesksysteme.de/index.php?kat=10

[ChrisC]

Re: CD Shaver
Well, it was tested exaustively by a biochemist and an undefined 'engineer'! Who better to understand optics and sound reproduction? I suspect they'd list the engineering degree if it would sound at all relevant. And it was invented by someone who did a 'precision mechanics apprentiship' with Carl Zeiss (a job as a shutter assembler? lens assembler?). Hell, I've been working at my new job for one day and I'm already doing what I could describe as precision electromagnetic assembly (I learned how to use the inductor winder.)

hehe... http://www.zerogain.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-14033.html
"...the improvement is as I suspected it might be... Gobsmacking."

Still trying to find out more about their engineer. There's a few Wolfgang Schneider's out there with engineering degrees.

I love all these wacky audiophile devices. They remind me of all quack medical apparatus (http://www.mtn.org/quack/welcome.htm) that you could (and still can) purchase. Here's one I just discovered through the link above. http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/nanotech/nespa.html. Ha ha ha!

As others have said, I'm in the wrong business.

[ChrisC]

I was just thinking... far from audiophile equipment being so top-of-the-line and "high-resolution" that all of these tweaks are audible (this is often the argument when someone calls BS on audiophile crap - "you need a better xxx"), to a sane person it actually appears that this gear is extremely poorly designed. No piece of decent audio equipment should respond in the ways described so often in audiophile reviews. On top of that, if these problems really did exist, are the engineers so incompetent that they're unable to identify and remedy them before the equipment goes to market? If you've spent $5000 on a power amp, wouldn't you expect it to be performing at as close to perfection as possible, all kinks worked out before you bought it? Cables in reasonable lengths and construction shouldn't make any difference. RFI should be inaudible. Minor power fluctuations shouldn't affect anything. What the hell kind of garbage equipment are you guys listening through?!

[Schneibster]

Well, actually... unless you have a multi-pickup CD reader, you can miss bits if there are scratches on the CD surface- from handling, generally. And even a multi-pickup reader can't read past all different scratches- some are too big, or too deep, or placed just wrong. It's not as annoying as the pops and crackles from dust and scratches on an album, but it can cause single-data-point errors, and if you're interpolating, that can get magnified.

You can obviously remove scratches by polishing the CD surface below the depth of the scratch- but of course, this only works a limited number of times, since a metal film is trapped inside the plastic and when you get to it, it's over. Still, depending on how badly you treat your CDs, it MIGHT be worth having. For me, it's not- I don't have any CDs I care about that much, to make it worth spending hundreds of bucks on one. YMMV.

[marting]

Well, actually... unless you have a multi-pickup CD reader, you can miss bits if there are scratches on the CD surface- from handling, generally. And even a multi-pickup reader can't read past all different scratches- some are too big, or too deep, or placed just wrong. It's not as annoying as the pops and crackles from dust and scratches on an album, but it can cause single-data-point errors, and if you're interpolating, that can get magnified.

You can obviously remove scratches by polishing the CD surface below the depth of the scratch- but of course, this only works a limited number of times, since a metal film is trapped inside the plastic and when you get to it, it's over. Still, depending on how badly you treat your CDs, it MIGHT be worth having. For me, it's not- I don't have any CDs I care about that much, to make it worth spending hundreds of bucks on one. YMMV.

CD's use very powerful error correction, interleaved Reed Solomon ECC. You have to have a fairly heavily scratched CD or be unlucky enough to have a scratch in parallel with the track to produced any errors after ECC at all. Interpolation is only used when ECC fails and flags the area of error. CDs tend to be essentially perfect until they fail then, often, thousands of bits are wrong.

Multiple readers (or passes with head offset) can provide soft error info and significantly increase ECC capability. A really good CD reader would be able to transfer digitized raw signal prior to the 14->8 conv and have a PC crank on it a while to find the best Hamming distance of the analog signals before conversion to 0 or 1. Every now and then I look for a reader that can send this trully "RAW" data but haven't seen anything yet.

The PC software would be non-trivial but not that hard either. I'd give it a shot if I could find a reader.

[ChrisC]

Surface-scratched cd's can cause problems, but this device only cuts away the very edge of the disc. I don't think any data is present at the point being cut. If the data actually did extend to that point on a cd, the lathe would cut it off, fixing nothing.

[marting]

Surface-scratched cd's can cause problems, but this device only cuts away the very edge of the disc. I don't think any data is present at the point being cut. If the data actually did extend to that point on a cd, the lathe would cut it off, fixing nothing.

The "theory" is that internal reflections from the laser bounce around inside, propagate to the edge, and reflect back, eventually getting picked up as noise added to the real signal. I'm unaware of any studies on this. If it was actually significant, the CD manufacturers would have addressed it in Red Book updates.

[ChrisC]

Aaahhhhhh! now it's starting to make, uh...sense...
Thanks!

[MortFurd]

Well, actually... unless you have a multi-pickup CD reader, you can miss bits if there are scratches on the CD surface- from handling, generally. And even a multi-pickup reader can't read past all different scratches- some are too big, or too deep, or placed just wrong. It's not as annoying as the pops and crackles from dust and scratches on an album, but it can cause single-data-point errors, and if you're interpolating, that can get magnified.

You can obviously remove scratches by polishing the CD surface below the depth of the scratch- but of course, this only works a limited number of times, since a metal film is trapped inside the plastic and when you get to it, it's over. Still, depending on how badly you treat your CDs, it MIGHT be worth having. For me, it's not- I don't have any CDs I care about that much, to make it worth spending hundreds of bucks on one. YMMV.
The "CD Shaver" isn't about scratches. It's about a non-existent problem involving reflections from the edge of the CD. The "CD-Shaver" bevels the outer edge of the CD to cut down on internal reflections and reduce the effects of incidental light.

1. There's no problem with internal reflection. The laser is focused to read from the correct spot. Note: LASER. Divergence and scattering are not things normally associated with lasers, at least not over the short distances involved in a CD player.

2. There shouldn't be any incident light capable of interfereing with the detector. The CD ought to be pretty well closed away from any external light sources.

If you have problems with either of the above, then I must repeat the question asked by a previous poster:
What kind of crappy equipment are these people using?

[Cuddles]

You can obviously remove scratches by polishing the CD surface below the depth of the scratch- but of course, this only works a limited number of times, since a metal film is trapped inside the plastic and when you get to it, it's over. Still, depending on how badly you treat your CDs, it MIGHT be worth having. For me, it's not- I don't have any CDs I care about that much, to make it worth spending hundreds of bucks on one. YMMV.

Especially when you can achieve exactly the same with some fine sandpaper and a polishing cloth.

[tsg]

Especially when you can achieve exactly the same with some fine sandpaper and a polishing cloth.

You have to label it as "quantum impregnated CD smoothing film" and then you can sell it for $20 a sheet....

ETA: if it's also "magnetically stablilized" you might be able to get $30.

[TjW]

Hey, the version I sell uses crystalline materials -- of course it's more expensive.

[Cuddles]

Hey, the version I sell uses crystalline materials -- of course it's more expensive.

But are they quantum crystal? It doesn't count otherwise.

[tsg]

But are they quantum crystal? It doesn't count otherwise.

Because the non-quantum crystals won't remove the tachion particles that can contaminate the plasma inverter and then you'll get an induced chronoton field in the resonance phase alignment buffers. You don't want to know what that sounds like.

[stebbo]

The proponents of any of these CD treatments fail to understand a couple of very important points

Firstly, the only thing that treating a disc can do is reduce the uncorrected errors that are produced through the reading process. A disc in good condition will yield about 6-18 uncorrected bit errors per disc.
This is a trivially easy thing to measure and has been trivial for 20 years plus. Now 6-18 errors might sound bad, but a CD can hold approx 6.3 billion bits of data. You start to realise the magnitude of this none problem.

Secondly, the laser pickup system is immune from the stray light concept as it the entire system is based on interferometric techniques.
The pits are 1/4 wavelength deep. The wavelength is approx 790nm.
What is detected is the difference in intensity between the lands and the pits NOT due to differences in reflectivity, but by differences due to the constructive interference of the beam reflected of the lands,which the focusing system maintains as multiples of a full wavelength and destructive interference caused by the extra 1/2 wave delay added by the extra 1/4 wave distance to the pit.

Another thing these people ramble on about is how Bass is improved or soundstage this or that.
Why is it always bass and soundstage (what ever the hell that is)? What is so special about the 0 & 1's that represent the bass notes??? :boggled:

[D_Warwick]

there are two ways a crystal can vibrate, other than by frequency or intensity, one way as used in Radio equipment is because of the physical size, the other method in terms of vibration is because of the type of crystal - what it is made from. Placing any type of crystal on a CD isnt going to do anything, except maybe look pretty.

There is nothing here to get mad about however, everyone has their own beleifs. Lets have some live and let live.