Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil

If someone plays WOW and Metal Machine Music at the same time, the universe ends.

PULSING SHAMWOW

http://www.inc.com/uploaded_files/image/170x170/shamwow-bkt_6547.jpg

Even audiophiles don't have multiple systems in one room.

If you're a Linnie, even having a transistor radio in the same room as your system would be considered deleterious.

(I'd try and verify that piece of Linn folklore but it would mean searching audio forums and I've been clean for 10 years, man).

3. adjust the pan on each mono track however you see fit - one leaning toward the right, one to the left.
4. combine the two tracks into a single stereo track (either by bouncing down or just saving the whole project as a wav or mp3)

Hmm, is this going to add any stereo width to the track? Or is it just going to offset a monoaural sound laterally (i.e. pan L-channel more than you pan the (identical) R-channel and the sound is over to the left). You need some delay or reverb or phase reversal to give the illusion of stereo, I think, not merely copying the monoaural track twice and panning.

That sounds right. Reverb with certain frequencies emphasized to left channel, and reverb with other frequencies emphasized to right channel? Something like that?

Never mind that record, just get one of these...
http://www.buchla.com/series200e.html
...and be sure it includes the Polyphonic (FM) Tuner
http://www.buchla.com/model_272e.html

the other side of the 12" that came with vinyl copies of Chapterhouse's "Whirlpool" ("Die Die Die") just had a single tone on it iirc. and there was that Spiritualized "Tones For DJs" that was similar, was meant to be played at both 33 and 45.

((kinda tempted to make a 1" version of Wow for lulu))

hahahahhahaha

http://app.audiogon.com/listings/media-servers-core-audio-technology-kryptos-ultimate-media-server-a-cost-no-object-marvel-2012-12-10-computer-audio-91403

hahahahahhaahahahaha

They have to be asking for at least 6x the cost of components for that box.

I'm going to go back and read this whole thread soon because I love this bullshit.

Hahaha, that's brilliant.

4 TaraFlops
http://markandrewholmes.com/plantation-tara.jpg

There's basically so much bullshit on that page that I'd be quoting at least every other line.

oh cool, I needed a new media server

I have spent all of a few minutes on Newegg picking out parts and I'm only up to $12,000. Including $4000 for the PCIe SSD and $3500 for the Nvidia Tesla. I think that they took the advertised clock speed of their processor and multiplied it by two because Intel doesn't make a 6 core Xeon clocked at 4.25GHz.

96Gb of memory essential for decoding flac

90 gb for running iTunes iirc

http://catacombosoundsystem.com/

To those of you know about these things: does bi-amping actually make the sound better in some significant way, or is it just a case of audiophile snake oil? I just bought a new pair of speakers that supports bi-amping, and I think my amp has that function too, but is worth it to buy the extra cables and set this up? The speaker manual claims bi-amping should make a clear difference in sound, but an article quoted on Wikipedia says the difference is subtle, if at all noticeable.

I think it probably depends on the speakers and how much separation your receiver does. When I got a new receiver capable of doing so I went ahead and bi-amped my speakers, but I am not sure how much of the change in sound is attributable to the receiver versus the bi-amping.

It's been a few years since I researched it so I can't give a lot of specifics, but yeah, snake-oil. It's a nice way for companies to allow for audiophiles to indulge in their crazy and buy extra amps. As long as you are providing enough power to the speakers, I've seen no scientific evidence that bi-amping makes any difference.

(I'd try and verify that piece of Linn folklore but it would mean searching audio forums and I've been clean for 10 years, man)

this gave me such a smile this morning

Aw.

on the other hand, this is awesomely ridiculous: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-wiring

However, there are many people in the hi-fi community[who?] who fully accept that bi-wiring brings an audible improvement over standard single cabling[citation needed].

feel like this belongs here

http://www.knobfeel.co.uk/

great url

This is the best thing ever. I watched every video

Although it has a plastic feel, the lights and change of tone in the material between face and flange is a plus!

replicantpleasuremodelreviews.com

Great weight (not too heavy, not too light), and lovely stiffness.

I have a feeling they've spent a lot of time feeling their knobs. Seriously though, I kind of do like the knob on my Marantz pre-pro, though I usually just use the remote!

That is brilliant.

http://i.imgur.com/1t3BLa0.png

I have another audiophile question: I bought a new Bluray player that I'm also gonna use as a CD player. The player and my amp support both HDMI and regular analog RCA cables. Now, obviously it'd be easier to use just the HDMI, as I need to plug it in for movies anyway. But when I'm playing music, is there any real difference between HDMI and analog?

If there is any audible difference, it will rest on the relative quality of the digital-to-analog converters (DAC) in your blu-ray player and amp. If you connect the player to the amp via RCA, the player's internal DAC will do the work, if you connect over HDMI then you can choose to let the amp's DAC do this instead (there will be an option on the player's settings to output a bitstream or similar which should enable this). Best thing is probably to try it each way and see which your ears prefer.

Thanks for the info! Now, if I understood correctly, analog cables would be better only if the player's DAC quality is higher than the amp's?

Seems to me they both have the same DAC. The specs page for the player, Philips BDP7700, says this:

D/A converter: 24 bit, 192 KHz

And the specs page for the amp, Yamaha RX-V673, says this:

Burr-Brown 192 kHz/24-bit DACs for all channels

So, since the player's DAC can't convert the digital signal any better than the amp's DAC, using analog cables between the player and amp would make no difference? Or did I misunderstand your post?

No, that's all technically correct, but, although the numerical stats might be the same, one might still sound different to the other - it's like comparing cars purely by engine size; other factors play a part. The Blue-Ray player might have a DAC made by an inferior company, for instance (although I doubt it).

tuomas the best thing to do is to listen to both configurations and decide which you like better

The Blue-Ray player might have a DAC made by an inferior company, for instance (although I doubt it).

I don't quite get this part: if the DAC processes digital data and has the exact the same numerical rates, how can one be better than the other? Sound-wise, that is.

tuomas do you listen to music or do you listen to numbers?

Well yeah, but if the point of the DACs is simply to convert the numbers to an analog signal, and they have the same stats, where does the difference between them lie? The numbers remain the same, so the difference must be in the output... Do different DACs somehow produce qualitatively different signals?

yes

Construction might be inferior; components might be inferior; there might be interference; one might overheat more than another and impair (or improve!) performance; any number of factors other than numbers derived from pre-assembly testing or whatever can be at play.

I mean, I'm totally not an expert on this at a technical level, AT ALL, and I know nothing about how electronics work, but I know I've looked at a Panasonic TV and a Samsung TV or whatever with the same 'stats' and preferred the picture on one of them.

That's a fair analogy, and it really does come down to whichever you prefer = best.

On a purely practical note, having a single HDMI cable from the player to the amp and letting the amp do all the work to decode and output HD and CD audio is a much tidier option than having 5 chunky RCA cables between the two, so I'd really only go for that if there's a noticeable improvement via RCA as opposed to HDMI.

regardless of what the numbers mean, it really depends on your ears - some people have 'golden ears' and can hear minute differences between equipment even when double blind tested, others have tin ears. I have shitty ears because I stood next to too many speaker stacks at punk shows growing up, but...

and as for what those numbers mean, they just refer to what level of digital signal they'll accept - to take sick mouthy's car analogy, it's like saying these two cars both are able to take 93 octane gas. what the cars do with the gas is another story.

The fact that both DACs are 24/192k devices doesn't say anything about their analog-side performance. However, I notice that Philips advertise their 9000-series BD players as having "Burr-Brown DACs", which suggests the 7000-series have something (considered) inferior. "Burr-Brown" used to be a name to drop in audio circles (my old Copland CD player had Burr-Brown HDCD devices, I think), though they're owned by Texas Instruments now and I have no idea whether they're considered class leaders or whatever.

http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/pcm1791a.pdf if you want to get geeky.

HDMI does seem like the easier option but it should be pretty easy to do an A/B comparison, switching between HDMI input and a stereo analog input, playing back the same CD. Of course, the levels may differ.

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2013/10/this-hypnotic-turntables-glowing-platter-floats-on-magnets/

i'm surprised it took them this long (or have there been other maglev turntables?)

Aren't magnets a really bad idea near cartridges? I guess that's been the barrier to other maglev designs.

Quite a few vacuum-based turntables over the years, like this one - but, come to think of it, that's just for fixing the record to the platter rather than suspension of the platter:
http://www.sotaturntables.com/newtables/millennia.htm

A turntable of that quality would be using a moving coil cartridge (which with some exceptions are what most high quality carts are) not moving magnet (which are generally what lower quality carts are (with some exceptions like my ortofon 2m blue)

An MC cart still has a magnet in it.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/audiophiles-luring-youngsters-into-boring-conversations-2013110180809