Re: Cable Porn

> The price has to be a typo, doesn't it?
>
> http://www.usa.denon.com/ProductDetails/3429.asp
>
> Doesn't it?

It's "appropriately priced" according to hifix.co.uk.

Seeing something like this can affect me in so many different ways.
Sometimes it makes me angry. Or sad. Or amused. Or bewildered.

--
One way ticket from Mornington Crescent to Tannhauser Gate please.

Certainly goes to confirm the saying that a fool and his money are soon
parted.

I did a bit of digging to find out more about this magic cable, and someone
pointed out that if you *do* have loads of overpriced audiophile stuff, it's
likely to show up deficiencies that were introduced at the recording end.
Not much you can do about that. Someone else did a bit of testing and found
it's difficult to tell the difference between expensive stuff and using coat
hangers as audio cables: http://tinyurl.com/2yywfk

And a 2m Cat 6 cable costs a massive £1.90 + VAT from Canford Audio:
http://www.canford.co.uk/commerce/item_46-9418_22192.aspx. I'd be amused to
see an audiophile explain why their stuff is better than what's used by
professional recording studios. I know I managed to make someone at Richer
Sounds look pretty disappointed when I told him I was going to get a £5
SCART lead from Argos rather than the £20 one they were selling.

mh.
--
http://www.nukesoft.co.uk
http://personal.nukesoft.co.uk

From address is a blackhole. Reply-to address is valid.

Single-core ring main cable makes an excllent speaker cable too.

Those plastic coat hangers just don't seem to work here.

Phil

Not as good as garden hose filled with mercury though!

Chris
--
Chris Eilbeck

> The price has to be a typo, doesn't it?

Also on cables, Monster Cable decided to try suing a smaller company called
Blue Jeans Cable. Just a shame Blue Jeans is owned by an ex-lawyer:
http://www.audioholics.com/news/industry-news/blue-jeans-strikes-back
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/15/1612238

I once did my own side-by-sied comparison between two CD players - the
Aiwa XC-700 and its successor the XC-750, and there was an audible
difference between the two, the latter giving the better sound (to my
jaundiced ears).

It's not digital all the way through to the amp.

My old Mission 700 speakers gained a lot of midrange clarity when I
replaced the electrolytic capacitor in the crossover with the
polypropylene equivalent. Even my girlfriend at the time noticed the
difference (without being told that I'd done anything to the speakers).

But, that said, there's still a lot of snake oil out there.

Phil

>And then there's the 65 quid IEC plugs[0], or the 350 quid mains power
>blocks[1]. And of course, the (in)famous green pen[2]...

Some years ago I decided to give people Christmas presents -- items that
they were unlikely to have and therefore not likely to throw away. Not
being one to agonise over who should have what, I purchased from
Stuff-UK about a dozen scotch tape dispensers. They were appreciated but
two years ago I excelled myself with Power Towers -- a column of ten 13A
sockets mounted on a pillar that had a lever-operated diaphragm suction
base. Those quirky towers could clink like lymphs to virtually any
surface. I bought about twenty, dished them out, and suffered repeat
prescription requests in the new year because many considered them dead
nifty.

For a recent Christmas I bought about dozen keyless chuck cableless
drills/screwdrivers from Homebase, convinced at the time that their
price of GBP9.99 each was a mistake. Then I had my CVA and ended up in a
high dependency hospital unit, leaving my poor wife to cope with the
Christmas prezzies.
With other problems on her mind (such as my grossly exaggerated reported
death in Wikipedia) She dished out the drills regardless of the sex of
the recipients. To the surprise of both of us, our lady friends
appreciated the drills because, being mostly divorcees, hubbies had
departed with all the tools.

--
James Follett

But, er, leave the cyan, yellow, and black behind? Somehow?
--
SAm.

> In article <87bq22r...@news2.kororaa.com>, aug...@kororaa.com

It would certainly make it challenging listening to Rainbow or Deep Purple.

If not, he should have.

He's twitching in anticipation, I can feel it from here. Hurry up Marc

A wry chuckle. JF

"signal directional markings are provided for optimum signal transfer"

hmm, the arrow points in both directions.

I think this must surely take the biscuit as the nuttiest piece of hi-fi
lunacy, assuming that is that "Denon Link" isn't an analogue interface.

It certainly beats green felt pens and gold plated mains plugs.

<ITSOL>
What's the nuttiest hi-fi lunacy product you recall hearing about?
<ITSOL>

--
bof at bof dot me dot uk

> On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 03:31:05 +0100, August West wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> cable supports
>
> First laugh of the day.

Seems quite plausible. If your speaker cable gets wobbled about in the
earth's magnetic field, a small distorting current *will* be generated.

Whether it's detectable by ear or instrument is another matter.

> The other products are vaguely scary.

I can believe that the "magic brick" might improve the performance of
a power transformer - even the hardest-hard-core audio sceptic will
admit that the quality of the power transformer affects the performance
of an amplifier.

Same disclaimer as above.

More on the subject.
http://www.stereophile.com/artdudleylistening/604listening/

Or maybe that's moron on the subject.

--
One way ticket from Mornington Crescent to Tannhauser Gate please.

> Can't say I've noticed my cbles dancing about very much. Anyway, a 50p
> pack of cable clips could achieve much the same effect. Or ferrite
> cores.

As may be. The point is there is a plausible mechanism for the widget
to do its job.

> I submit to the honourable gentlemen that one would be rather better
> served by obtaining a well-designed and well-built transformer thast
> buyiong a several hundred dollar geegaw.

Prolly.

> Hacking the electronics is one thing, placing things in, on, or around,
> is tweakery, on the path to audio insanity, and thus well worthy of
> ridicule.

I am inclined to agree - but I don't think lumping the things that
*might* work in with the things that are out and out hatstand is
the right approach.

Does anybody ever do any properly-controlled double-blind tests on
this stuff, or does that expose it all as faith-based ritual?

> Anything from Peter Belt.
>
> http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2005/sep05/Snark.htm

It has that classic green pen look, either the sort applied to the edges
of CDs or the sort used to write letters to the Prime Minister.

Following the link to The Belt's website leads to a classic bit of
tinfoil hattery. If I read the message correctly, and it's very
difficult to be sure because of the nature of the site, he proposes that
the listener should coat every surface in the room with rainbow tinfoil.

Or they can simply use this:

http://www.belt.demon.co.uk/product/odl/One_Drop_Liquid.html

Which coats everything, including CDs with "salt and sugar".

"If a small bag containing sugar is attached to the upper surface of a
leaf within your listening territory, including the garden, a noticeable
beneficial effect will take place with your sense of hearing. A small
bag containing salt can be attached to the underside of the leaf with
the same beneficial effect."

Jings, I can't find a price for the "One Drop Liquid" but he's asking
£250 for 5ml of his "Special Black Cream".

> It's all woo-woo.
> http://www.randi.org/jr/2007-09/092807reply.html#i4 is just one item among
> many on the JREF web pages.

My own existence is all woo-woo, according to Randi.

> I can't quite decide whether Belt is mad or bad.

There's nothing conclusive from his website, but it does look more like
scam than anything else. And if the cops come calling he can point to
all the articles, and publications that back him up/prove he's barking
and not responsible for his own actions.

> Single-core ring main cable makes an excllent speaker cable too.

An article in Wireless World recommended spot welding mains cable to the
speaker terminals on a Quad 405 for the best possible sound. I had the
feeling that if one could do that and not completely balls up the
current-dumping output transistors one would be achieving something
miraculous.

> Defintion of an Audiophool: someone whose HiFi cost more than his (it's
> always his) music collection.

That reminds me of someone I once knew. I can recall him pouring scorn
on my choice of HiFi and suggesting that after an evening in the pub I
could listen to "Some Real Audiophile HiFi".

As far as I can tell he had assembled this by simply looking through a
catalogue and picking the most expensive of everything. Including two
custom hand assembled monobloc Power Amps from a place in Stockport that
had cost the equivalent at the time of two Jags. They were however black
and shiny and featured the red LEDs that were the latest whizzy thing at
the time.

There was the comulsory Linn Sondek LP12 of course, and some
preamplifier that I have blotted from my memory.

Then he got out an LP and put it on the turntable.

ELO "Out of the Blue".

We'd bought a take out on the way back, but no talking was allowed. So I
drank a beer, ate a fish suppper and listened without conversation to an
LP I don't particularly like, both sides.

Then he asked if I would like to hear it again. And I said no, what else
did he have to listen to.

That was it.

One poxy bloody record.

Apparently that had scored the maximum points for recording quality in a
magazine and he didn't want to bother buying inferior music, just the
best of everything. Perhaps unsurprisingly I have lost touch with the
bloke in question. I did he was married then divorced and the only thing
that surprised me was the marriage.

>
> I apologisze for my worse-than-usual tryping - ATM I can barely see the
> screen, as I'm suffering from viral labrynthitis, and have nystagmus and
> double vision, as well as vertigo.

Do you want to go for nausea so you have the full package?

> Oh, I've got that, too, but it doen't affectthe tryping.

Well let's open the box and see what you would have won.

>Are you suggesting that such things should not be discussed? Take Crop
>Circles. They exist. What causes them is not known.

My wife and I once spent a fascinating few minutes on Blackdown's Temple
of the Winds watching a mischievous dust devil and its two offspring
wreak havoc on a field of barley. Dust devils on still evenings in late
summer over the Weald can cause considerable trouble. Even a rabbit
running across a field can set them off.

--
James Follett

> ELO "Out of the Blue".
>
> We'd bought a take out on the way back, but no talking was allowed. So I
> drank a beer, ate a fish suppper and listened without conversation to an
> LP I don't particularly like, both sides.

"Both sides of both discs", surely?

--
One way ticket from Mornington Crescent to Tannhauser Gate please.

Was it? Jings I can't remember, I think I was trying to blank out the
horror.

> Only tenuously - the possible induced currents are so small, in
> comparison to the carried signal currents, as to be inaudible (you're a
> physiscys, ain't you? o the calculations!). Lok at it this way: wobbling

It's worse than that, Jim. After Tractor Science (specialising in Physics)
at MTS, a couple of years later I went to the Molvanian Tractor School Oop
North and did the one year post-grad in Music Technology (with special
reference to agricultural implements).

> a speker cabe about will produce microphonic (piezo effect) currents,
> and you can't hear _them_ (well, I just tied it, and I can't, and my
> speakers are verfairly sensitive (~93dB)).

Well yes, I really wouldn't expect you to hear it. But it's a big mistake
IMO to assume that the brain can only perceive what it can actually hear.
IYSWIM. Particularly when you are talking about a *component* of a signal
rather than the signal itself. There's some evidence to suggest that
quite a lot of people can hear signal components north of 25K, or was last
time I read about this stuff, for example.

It's also a mistake IMO to treat the ear-brain system as working entirely
in the frequency domain, even, or perhaps I should say especially, at
high frequencies. Most people know that at low frequencies phase
differences are used for directional analysis; but my belief is that even
at high frequencies a great deal of phase information is preserved by
the ear and passed on to the brain, which does its usual incredible job
of wringing out every possible last dang bit of information from the
available sensory input, and quite possibly making up a load of stuff too
while it's at it.

So to me it's quite possible that some people are able to perceive
the "provably" inaudible; and what they perceive might not be the
signal component in question, but a (psycho-acoustic) artefact of it.

NB in *this* case I would expect that the effects of speaker cable
movement are *still* going to be undetectable by even the finest of
human ears.

In any case speaker cables are a bloody stupid idea. Wherever people
actually depend on accurate reproduction to make a living, you'll
find that they tend to use powered monitors.

I'm out in Poonah and, thick as I am I don't know what a Dust Devil is.
Google seems to tell me it is some sort of motor vehicle but I can't see
how rabbits would 'set them off' unless they're running on rabbit blood
or something. Could you explain.

> And I have my collection insured at about 6 quid per item.

Poser!

I did, I could read it for once (hic).

Yep, once you get past 1000 it's immediate sainthood. Ain't hi-fi great?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_devil

Thankee.

Buggrit.

> And I only have it insured that way as the
> insurers insisted, as its value was above the limit for individual
> items or collections. Fortunately, the didn't insist on a list - I
> just sent them a photograph of the stack. The 6 quid per item was
> their rule of thumb to value it; it seems a reasonable average
> replacement valuation.

What? I never paid more than 6/8d (SIX SHILLINGS AND EIGHT PENCE) fpr
45s and I tended to hang around the Golden Guinea and Music For Pleasure
rack when I was a lad. The latter was tripe, the former good with old,
classic and often moni recordings such as the ineffable Kathellen
Ferrier singing Mahler's 'Das Lied von der Erde' with Bruno Walter et
tout et tout. That one is worth about a million quid to me, the rest are
probably still only worth 6/8d. But what with inflation etc...

> Can they afford music in Molvania? Anyway, I don't have none of your
> fancy book learning, I got my audio education at the University Of
> Life. Nothing like humping (down Pidge) a 5 foot tall Ampeg cab
> around to teach you all about low frequency resonance... And nothing
> lie inhaling solder fumes to teach you electronics. Don't know much
> about tractors, mind you.

That's you fucked for a PhD in Molvania then.

> Get with the program, Badger.

IAWTP.

Teaches you not to drop the thing on your foot, I reckon.