The AM Forum

Interesting page (appears to be translated into English) from some Spanish audio enthusiasts who conducted blind testing of hifi equipment. They found that - at least subjectively - a basic system, using the cheapest signal cables found, couldn't be distinguished from an insanely expensive one.

http://www.matrixhifi.com/contenedor_ppec_eng.htm (http://www.matrixhifi.com/contenedor_ppec_eng.htm)

Well, duh!  Does the bear shit in the woods?

I like the red drapes.  Looks like something pictured on ePay.

I can't wait to see what kind of spin the audiophools put on this.

The testers show common sense, except maybe for using flat ribbon cable to wire their speakers with. http://www.maysphotography.com/adm/photo/93_64_ribbon_cable.jpg (http://www.maysphotography.com/adm/photo/93_64_ribbon_cable.jpg) The only magical properties I can think of for using flat ribbon is convenience in routing it under rugs, etc. But these guys divide the conductors in the ribbon into two bunches and then tie 'em together at the ends. Talk about capacitance...yikes.

At 8 ohms,  the capacitance in 10' or so of speaker cable has no discernible effect throughout the range of human hearing, or at least one octave above.

The Spanish test, if it is as you wrote, is bass-ackwards.
The analogy: there was no subjective difference between high-performance race tires and cheap-o brand X tires on a Buick sedan at 45 mph... yeah, so?

As far as the effect of capacitance or lack thereof being audible, that is incorrect.
There have been numerous published tests (serious ones) that measured the effect(s) of various commercial speaker cables - "zip cord" being the nominal point of comparison - and depending on the amp and the load, the effect of capacitance or inductance in even a 10ft length of speaker cable can make >1dB variation in freq response. For some amps, additional capacitance in the load creates rather nasty artifacts from overshoot.

The idea behind the usual use of "ribbon cable" revolves mostly around the control of self inductance and capacitance. There is at least one manufacturer, Dunlavy (now out of biz) whose products were extensively employed in mastering suites, and who made a big point of "objective engineering" who had several patents on speaker cables that addressed the nominal impedance of the cable - his goal to make it look like an 8 ohm line... fwiw. (ended up being rather capacitive...)

Personally, I stay away from capacative speaker cables... ymmv.

              _-_-WBear2GCR

PS. spending very much money on AC power cables doesn't make much sense, imho.
Otoh, changing the feed, AC main "stiffness", filtering and the like can and will be audible in many situations.

Still not enuf !! The best ear can't discern 1db.

It applies to us too.   A local ham with everything does A/B  tests with things like a Collins KW-1,  modified Ranger into a big linear, Ten-Tec Orion into a big linear, Flex Radio, same thing.   He's had broadcast transmitters and other fine stuff in the mix too.   In the tests I've heard he's used nice audio chains, lately a PR-40 and other fancy stuff on the front end but at one time or other he's had all the goodies, RCA 77's, 44's RE-20's, Shure SM7's, D-104's, you name it.   

Our experienced and boat anchor loving crowd gets it wrong as much they get it right. The floor model plate modulated rigs do not get the nod any more often than the fixed up Ranger into the big linear. 

Of course it isn't double blind and in other ways is not controlled.   He just likes surprising people and poking holes in preconceptions.

Jon

LOL, good plug, Jon.  ;D

I think the problem is that they did not properly "break in" the cheap RCa cables for at least 100 hours before listening to them.

If you believe that you have the ability to hear angels dancing on the head of a pin, you will hear them.  If you believe that there is something magic about C37 lacquer on transformer laminations, you'll hear it, too.  And certainly one HAS to believe that $10000 power cables can be "heard", otherwise why would one throw $10000 at it.

;D ;D ;D

sorry... incorrect.

the JND for a [i/]level change[/i] of a discrete frequency is 1.5dB.
we're not talking about a simple level change.

the ear can hear 1dB just fine when it represents a wide band level change or difference - usually over an octave or more.

Would be pleased to demonstrate it any time with pink noise. It's absolutely trivial to demonstrate.

            _-_-bear

That sums it up best Bear. Hear on !!!

A transmission unit was defined in the 19th century as the loss in a standard telephone pair over a distance of 1 mile, later renamed a Bel, after Alexander Graham Bell. A decibel is 1/10 of a bel.  In acoustics, the decibel scale was adopted for measuring sound intensity, because it approximates the perception of loudness, and a 1 dB variation in sound intensity was found to be the just noticeable difference (jnd) for the human ear. 

That having been established, it can be noted that there are some variations. The jnd is about 1 dB for soft sounds around 30-40 dB at low and midrange freqencies. It may drop to 1/3 to 1/2 a decibel for loud sounds.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/sound/db.html#c4

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/sound/db.html

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

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/dB.html

Joe.  It actually wasn't my award winning Ranger or yours but another one similarly fancied up.     I just now figured out why I haven't been hearing you on 75 lately.   Your SX-28 is tuned to the wrong band.   I can see it right there in the picture.  You'll never hear us on 75 unless you turn the band switch.

Jon

Hmmm, my father was into hifi way before stereo in the early 50's..   Fisher, warfedale, Garrard changer, GE VR II mag. cartridges, etc.   Later on he and I built Citation (4 - KT88's)amps, every Dynaco Pas invented, the lastest Pickering cartridges, you name it.   Well, we coudn't laugh hard enough when monstor cable came out for speakers.  I think any numerically literate person can manage the fact that #14 Zip cord with many strands of copper is sufficient for most beaucoup watt lashups  I suppose any capacitance freaks or reactance zoners could twist it for 'best effect.'  If you want more current transfer, double up the zip..    Whew.

Funny, now that we have the time and money for high end stuff our ears are shot.

I hate to say it but most of we older listeners have not only frequency impared hearing, but what we do hear is distorted, sort of sensory overload to our poor ol' broken down and laid over cilia in our "vorticies and labyrnths" : )   This goes for the younger crowd too, especially after listening to loud music too long.  Even when I was a kid and the first Koss earphones came out, ear fatigue set in very fast.  As the ear dulled we kept cranking up the vol. to compensate.  Even back then I noticed that passages seemed distorted after an hour's listening or so.  And funny thing, the more critical the listening, the worse the distortion seemed, regardless of the system.  After awhile, we'd just turn the damn thing off and come back another day to enjoy the music once our ears were rested.  OSHA and industry have volumes of literature about ears needing rest.

Double blind testing has never been the favorite of the golden ears and certainly not the favorite of "Stereo Review," et.al.
Money factor of course.

The ribbon cable to the hi end speakers in the Spanish test I think was simply because that's the part of the system that's outside the shroud and visible to the onlookers. It Sets up the listeners psychologically to be really 'critical.'... um, hmm. and to think they're comparing two fabulous systems.  Well as Don ,kyv says, "guess what."
Yeah, how will the golden ears and manufacturers deal with it? Ignore it probably.

I use Monster Cable with my stereo system.  It even has the M.C. logo stamped on the wire.  Otherwise it looks just like #8 stranded zip cord with see-through plastic insulation, except that it is very flexible, almost like a fibre rope.  Picked up about 25' at Home Cheapo for less than ten bucks a couple of years ago, when  I spotted it coiled up in their scrap wire bin, where they sell the remnants left over from spools of electrical house wire at near give-away prices.

With the inflated price of copper these days, I don't know if they still sell discounted wire remnants at all.

I grabbed it because I knew it was a bargain, and then I decided to replace my old speaker wire because it was spliced in several places, and  always managed to become intermittent no matter how carefully I twisted together and taped the splices.  Otherwise, I can't tell any difference in the sound. 

The old stuff definitely wasn't "oxygen-free" ;D ;D though.  It had the same transparent plastic insulation, just like my new monster cable, except it was smaller gauge.  I could see that the copper strands in the wire had turned green with oxidation throughout the entire length.

  These audio guys like selling snake oil.I have a set of DB streachers. You simply attach the device on your old speaker cord and it squeezes an extra DB out. If you belive that I have some swamp land in Florida I will sell you!

Well ya know, what I find funny and ironic is that there are more than a few AMers who spend beaucoup $$bux$$ on things like exotic mics and compressors... not to mention the really big and often expensive transmitters, and the occasional exotic mil-spec receiver or two... is that not "overkill" with little or no real world benefit compared to a basic Valiant or DX-100 with a <$100 Behringer compressor box??

... otoh, some seem to want to paint the entire field of high-end audio with a single brush, that of "wacko tweakers" who have nil technical standing.

Seems to me that is just as bad as people who would paint AMers with a single brush, or SSBers with a single brush, or just the entire hobby of Ham Radio with a single brush.

Yeah there is snake oil in Ham Radio, and just about any other field of endevour that you can pick. There is snake oil in audio.

There are good eggs and bad eggs in the basket. It's not all of one and none of the other.



              _-_-WBear2GCR

I think the "the high-end audio field" is pretty well doing the job on its own.

http://stereophile.com/tubepoweramps/704wavac/

http://www.alumrocktech.com/amplifier.shtml

Where did you last see an ad or website for amateur radio equipment, even one frequented by slopbucketeers or CB'ers, that outrageous?  This makes even the 50KW CB leenyars used in "shoot-outs" pale by comparison.

Yes, there is a huge difference between a DX-100 and a kilowatt broadcast TX, 10 dB of signal and 2-3x the audio bandwidth, far less distortion, etc. Similar differences can be found in the receiver world. But like anything else, the law of diminishing returns applies and some hams seems to miss this fact or their return on investment equation is drastically different than yours or mine.

I tend to agree with you on the high end mics and processors, especially when they are used on something like a DX-100. But even on a much better transmitter, they are largely overkill. That said, there is a big difference between this activity and those selling audiophile snake oil. One is spending money. The other is ripping people off. Comparisons between the two are illegitimate.

Don, I fail to understand your objections to the two amps you referenced.

Steve, the issue is how to differentiate between those products that are "snake oil" and those that are not. Painting the entire field of "high-end audio" as "audiophools" is illegitmate as well.

*          *            *

Perhaps someone would like to look at the Halcro amplifier and make some comments on that?? http://www.halcro.com/
Legitimate or "snake oil/audiophoolery"??


As far as ripping people off, there are rip-offs who prey upon people in all walks of life - that includes things like religion and medicine, as well as ham radio and audio. So, let's bash on an equal opportunity basis if that's what people here want to do? Or better still, let's not bash or paint with too broad of a brush at all??

I think it is better to say something like: "I saw this product (http://xxxx.com for example) and I don't understand/see/comprehend/think that it is (pick one:) worth the money/overpriced, technically legitimate, or deliver any benefit. Anyone see why it might not be so??" 

Or if you really want to get into a debate/discussion about this stuff[/u] just go to either rec.audio.opinion; rec.audio.high-end or to land in the midst of "tweakdom" a forum like http://audioasylum.com and see what people who are involved as users of this stuff have to say about it??

Quite frankly, I find the overall negative/derogatory approach that seems to be present in these reoccuring posts to be objectionable on several levels (as stated above).

              _-_-bear

Please document where I painted thusly.

Thusly, OM?

Sorry, Steve on this I disagree.

I think the comparisons are ok.
And, quite legitimate.

And I think the difference between the cost of low volume, hand-made high performance audio gear and schlock junk from the "big box store" is legitimate and reasonable, and governed by the much vaunted "free market economy." In other words, if it is crap, it's hard to believe that enough people would be taken in for a long enough period of time for a company to survive very long. MOST of the audio companies are small businesses, some on the scale of something like what QIX or others do, and make very little profit if any.

How many of us have bought some ham gear or tubes online or on ebay and cried and moaned because they were "ripped off"? Does THAT make hams, slimy cheaters and rip-off artists? Should we run around posting that hams are so, or write posts that leave that general impression??

What sort of price do people pay for hand built cars, boats, automobiles, houses, statues, paintings, etc.,etc, etc...?? Somehow if it is made for audio it is a rip off??

Kohler and others make gold plated sink faucets - are they sleezeballs because they charge a premium price for a perfectly useless but expensive finish, when chrome is good enough??

A grand or so for some guy to cherry out a beater old boatanchor transmitter or receiver panel and chassis is ok, but the price of audio gear is "outrageous"??

Somehow the people who have the discretionary income to blow $$20 grand$$ (or more) on a set of speakers or an amplifier are fools?? How did they earn that money? By being stupid and gullible? No doubt some may be, but that's hardly the majority of those who have the discretionary money and enjoy ANY hobby, including audio.

Look, that's the general tone of these posts - as I said. I object to such, and think it is inappropriatein the way, in the tone, and of the nature that it is being presented here so far.

Personally, I have no problem questioning audio or ham gear prices, design or sales pitches - but not this way.

            _-_-WBear2GCR

PS. So tell me your judgement on the Halcro amplifier... (this is not a trick question)

I'd say a $5500 class D amplifier, if it full fills those claims about distortion, is one thing.  More than I would pay for sure; I believe I could build something just as good for a fraction of the cost, and learn something new in the process.  But I wouldn't I pay $10,000 or more for one of those Yaesu or Icom "top-of-the-line" ricebox transceivers, either.

Listen to some of the audio from the homebrew class E AM ham rigs on the air to-day.  Excellent sound, far beyond the capabilities of heavy metal and tubes.  I doubt if any of those guys put 1% of that money in their transmitters.

However, $350,000 for a couple of single-ended power amplifiers using 833A's, or $85,000 for a set of basic, elementary two-stage triode amplifiers using 1/2 of a 6SN7 to drive a single 304-TL?  Get real.  This is in entirely a different league.  More like in the category of the $500/ea. wooden volume control knobs and $100/ea. ceramic power pole insulators sold to elevate speaker cable off the floor to improve "tessitura" - or even our military's infamous $600 toilet seats.

Somebody is getting ripped off big time.  Someone with the kind of discretionary income to throw away their money like that is highly unlikely to have earned it by working for a living in the first place.  Probably acquired it as the fruit of someone else's labour or by ripping someone else off.  Like the notorious SPAM artists who achieved 6-figure incomes a few years ago.  Or the crooks who destroyed Enron.  No need to list all the recent scandals involving big bucks - you have already heard all about them all if you have paid any attention to the news for  the last 5 years or so.  I betcha Bill Gates wouldn't throw away his money in that fashion.  More likely these people are in the same category as the power ball winners who end up bankrupt and heavily in debt within a couple of years.  Or entertainers like M.C. Hammer who earned millions with his early hip-hop and ended up essentially broke and homeless.  A phool and his money are soon parted.

So, someone with a little entrepreneurial spirit and and more than a slight amount of dishonesty sees these phools coming. They cobble together a fancy looking collection of the same kind of junk that many of us have stored away in our ham shacks or that you see at the Dayton fleamarket - and call it "high end" because they put a little work into the aesthetic design - they were probably art students when in school, not engineers, - and ask a fool's ransom for their product.  Evidently someone must be out there who buys that stuff or they wouldn't produce and market it.

I asked you to document where I painted ALL the high end audio types as snake oil salesmen. Your example does not. I'm waiting. Until you can do this, all other arguments are null and void. Stay on topic please.

Steve,

As far as I can see, when someone comes into a thread in such as way as to not disagree with the key premise, they are in agreement with it, or else playing a word game.

Don, I completely agree that the prices you mentioned for the articles you mentioned are absurd and hard to fathom. It seems likely that the 304TH amp "company" is either a) a money laundering scheme, or b) some sort of vanity thing with a web site as a front of some sort or c) some sort of inside joke. Real high-end businesses actually sell product(s) and more than one or two nut-job clients. Wavac is real, and their products are good and interesting on several levels.

As far as what it costs a hobbyist to build something? That has little to do with what it costs a business to build the same thing, and cover overheads and turn a profit. Answer me this: how many Class E rigs like Brent's or KBW's (pick one) would you have to build and sell and at what price if you were running a business?

Having said that, there are nut-jobs around everywhere, with and without money.
So what?

If there is a central point to be made it is that the term "audiophool" is a derogatory term that clearly gives the impression that it is ones opinion of people who a) spend money on high-end equipment and/or b) engage in the hobby of "high-end audio" (or of the hobby/field itself). This impression is pretty clearly left since the series of posts here on the general subject have all been negative, and if there are positive comments about people or products in high-end they have been few and far between. The title of the thread is clearly sarcastic in a negative way, right?

I think I'll let this rest where it is now.

              _-_-WBear2GCR

The terms audiophile and audiophool are like apples and oranges because they refer to two different groups of people.  The audiophile is a serious audio enthusiast who may or may not use the most expensive top-of-the-line equipment, but attempts to get the best performance out of his equipment using sound principles of  engineering and physics.

The audiophool is the person who plunks down $350,000 for a triode transmitting tube amplifier, $500 each for wooden volume control knobs that are somehow supposed to improve the "sound", or $600 for the a.c. power cord for the amplifier, ad nauseum.  Or those who fall for crap like elevating speaker cables off the floor with ordinary power line insulators because that is somehow supposed to improve the sound.  It is these people who have largely driven the prices of transmitting tubes and audio transformers beyond the means of legitimate users of these products, such as hams and other users of tube type radio transmitters.  It is these "phools" who have given true audiophiles a bad reputation.

Out of self-interest, the serious audiophile community should make a concerted effort to debunk this bogus crap and expose this stuff for what it is - fraud on par with the "Nigerian Scam" and phishing expeditions over the internet. 

Perhaps a lively debate amongst audio enthusiasts over what exactly constitutes "audiophoolery" would help clear this up. If the audiophile community is not willing to do this, then I am not too sympathetic with them for the fact that they may be unfairly lumped into the same category as the phoolish victims of this scam.

This entire thread is Off Topic[/b] for this forum.
Nothing to do with ham radio, or AM.

Don, if you'd like to talk some more about the topic, please feel free to email me.
Or anyone else...

           _-_-WBear2GCR

Not necessarily:

Well that's where you would be wrong. You are making some gross assumptions. First off, is what you consider as the key premise of the thread. That's how YOU see it. That does not mean I see it the same way. Do not project your inference onto me. It's really quite unfair, and does nothing to further the discussion.

As I said, show some specific evidence where I painted ALL high audio types (whatever that means exactly, since it was never really defined) and related purveyors as snake oil salesman. You can't, so now you want to paint me with a broad brush because I didn't explicitly disagree. And you want to talk about word games? Ironic.

Let me be clear here. I have used real high end audio gear for over 20 years. I'm talking about stuff you likely will have never seen or touched - commercial quality test and measurement gear, NIST traceable calibration, anechoic chambers, mics that are flat to 200 kHz and such. None of it is/was consumer grade. If I thought all of it was crap, why would I be using it?

There are good items in the expensive equipment category and there are some crappy or less desirable ones. Same as most any other equipment category or price range. This fact should be surprising to no one. The good ones can actually back up their claims with measurements and science. The snake oil salesmen can't. How is this painting ALL?

Finally, you made a big jump when you assumed that snake oil salesmen equates to high end audio companies. Why? Can't there be snake oil salesmen in the lower end areas too? Similarly you infer that audiophool means ALL. Why? Where does this come from?

I think you've read far too much into things here. You most certainly have regarding my comments. I've agreed with you more than I've disagreed. To follow your logic, since you didn't comment on my agreement, you must be playing word games. Come on! Let's have a real discussion.

I agree with you in that if someone wants to spend a ton of money on audio gear (good, bad or otherwise), it's their choice. The value of something is determined by the market. If someone will pay tens of thousands for a single-ended 2A3 amp, then that's what the market will bear. Whether I like it or not (or anyone else) is irrelevant.

So, to sum it up, I don’t think ALL expensive audio gear is snake oil, neither do I think ALL people who buy or experiment with expensive audio gear are audiophools. I don’t know how to make it any more clear than this. I apologize if there were any misunderstandings.

Granted, there is a presumption about the tone and thrust of the thread.
It seems obvious and self-evident that it is negative and derisive in tone - at least about the issue in question, and via the term "audiophool." But we've said that already.


Well, look Steve, this is an argument not worth having.
I'll withdraw my presumption and assumptions of your position for the benefit of not dragging a non-productive vector out ad-infinitum. Ok?


I don't know what you use, own, or have used, or why.
Unless you've said something about it here or on the air and I heard it, how could I?
If you'd like to share some of that, "I'm all ears."
I am skeptical about mics that are flat to 200kHz.
What type?
The best I know of that cover down into the audio range do ~100Khz.
 


While explicitly, and obviously, the statements you made in this thread do not (again explicitly) paint ALL high-end audio as "audiophools", there have been a fair number of threads that have the same general theme, that use the term "audiophool". This give the appearance, given the vacuum of any positive words about the audio/high-end world of being the "politically correct" position around here, as well as the intent of the posts being the bashing of it in general. In simple terms, close association with the ideas and sentiments expressed. That is how.

IF that is not what you think, and apparently it is not, you've only just expressed that, as far as I have seen - unless I missed something. Which is possible too.


Great!
I don't take this sort of discussion personally, so no worries, mate!  :D
Having participated in far more heated "discussions" on matters audio, starting back when USENET was new to the world, I'm used to seeing all sorts of positions and attitudes bandied about.

The interesting thing is that when I find myself in the midst of a group of "objectivists" and/or "tweakers" they accuse me of being a "subjectivist" or "engineering/scientist" type. Then when I find myself in the midst of the "subjectivists" the opposite happens.

To sum up my experiences in audio - going back as many of us do - to the 60's, many things that were once considered set in stone have come loose of their moorings, and things that seemed like they could not possibly matter somehow do now. So, I keep an open mind as well as an eye to the science/engineering side of it - since often the "tweakers" are actually on to something, but have it wrong and don't really know what they are doing at all, but there is sometimes a real phenomena lurking, which is worth discovering and learning to apply properly.

I'm very anti-snake-oil myself, as it sends the wrong message, makes audiophiles look wacky, and generally hurts the field. I get very concerned when people focus on that unfortunate aspect and then co-mingle things that are seemingly snake-oil with those that actually are! Oddly enough, there are some very strange things that seem wierd but actually are legit.

One of the problems in audio and perception is that now we can measure "differences" all over the place - the problem is that the measurements absolutely do not correlate directly or often not even indirectly to replicable repeatable perceptions. This last point is exactly where the entire debate often hangs, and it gets parsed down to some very fine minutia at times. Like down to specifics of protocols for testing, and their effects on the results... it's a boggy mess actually.

Just try to keep an open mind... because all sorts of stuff that seems like it is impossible to make any difference can, does and will. Not in the average system, but as I have said "I can demonstrate it." You can probably hear it. Really.

Ah well... let's see who's on 75 AM tonight...

               _-_-WBear2GCR