Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil

can't argue

Record player are the best DAC of all

but then you get into the argument of what the best phono preamp is :)

a record player does a very poor job of converting digital signals into analog signals imo

*puts tim hecker cd on record player*
*drops needle*

no, seems to be working fine

LOL

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AudioQuest_-_Columbia_Interconnects_(Pr)"
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AudioQuest - Columbia Interconnects (Pr)
Price: $420.00
Now: $249.00
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Brand: AUDIOQUEST
Category: Audio Equipment, Cables, Audio Interconnects, Soundbytes Specials, Audiophile Gifts Under $500, Best-Selling Cables, Winter Clearance.
SKU: AAQCLM05MRCA
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AudioQuest Columbia Interconnects
Unsurpassed Performance for the Price: AudioQuest Columbia Interconnects Include the Award-Winning DBS System, Finest PSC+ Copper, and Upgraded Connectors
Get 40% Off AudioQuest Columbia Interconnects and Hear Music With Smooth Frequency Response, Blacker Backgrounds, and Wonderful Transparency

Fantastically neutral, highly resolving, wonderfully transparent: AudioQuest Columbia interconnects remain a go-to favorite for audiophiles, and for very good reason, not the least of which is the real-world price. To start, Columbia uses AudioQuests’s top-grade solid copper conductors – Perfect-Surface Copper+ – and adds an additional layer to the Noise-Dissipation System found in the company’s renowned Diamondback and King Cobra models. In addition, Columbia employs AQ’s patented Dielectric-Bias System to dramatically lower the noise floor and smooth frequency response. Plus, upgraded connectors (see picture) offering a much more sophisticated and sonically taut design than the competition further enhance musicality. The end result is a spectacular cable that grants music blacker backgrounds, improved nuance and texture, and greater dynamic contrasts. High-end design and performance at a cost that, discounted by 40%, translates to one of the best values Music Direct has ever offered.

State-of-the-Art Build-Quality Nets Sonic Results
AudioQuest Columbia is built around AudioQuest’s wonderful PSC+ copper conductors, an ultra-pure copper that has delivers unmatched even-balanced frequency response with speed, detail, and dynamics. Polyethylene tube insulation on all three of the conductors (positive, negative and ground) minimize the interaction between the the conductor and the insulation for greater air and transparency. AudioQuest's proprietary Dialectic-Bias-System keeps noise at bay and dramatically lowers the noise floor of the cable.

Patented Noise-Dissipation System Leads to Incredible Value
The AudioQuest 72V DBS system smooths frequency response and the Cold-Weld connectors eliminate harshness. The three-layer Noise-Dissipation System protects the entire cable from the deleterious effects of airborne noise. Standing on its own, Columbia is a wonderful-sounding cable capable of bringing out the best in any system, but perhaps the most astonishing thing about Columbia is how close it sounds to its big brothers at a fraction of their prices. Maybe it's not so surprising after all. Columbia uses the same conductors as Colorado, the same Noise-Dissipating shielding as Niagara and the same connectors as Sky, and costs a fraction of their prices.

Patented Value-Dissipation System

hey actually can anyone instruct me into how to rip regular old decent-sounding 320 MP3s from hi-res 24-96 FLACs? Do I have to downsample the flacs first or can I just throw them in xAct and make MP3s from them?

use this:

Columbia employs AQ’s patented Dielectric-Bias System to dramatically lower the noise floor and smooth frequency response.

(also asfaik you can just throw them in itunes or w/e and they will make Mp3s out of them)

I've used Switch to convert FLACs

Maybe it's not so surprising after all. Columbia uses the same snake oil as Colorado, the same snake oil as Niagara and the same snake oil as Sky, and costs a fraction of their prices.

i was just concerned specifically about the hi-res aspect, like I know you can't just convert a 24-96 flac into a wav without some sort of downsampling process, wasn't sure if the same applies to MP3s.

What? Of course you can have a 24/96 wav. That's what they made the flac from

hey actually can anyone instruct me into how to rip regular old decent-sounding 320 MP3s from hi-res 24-96 FLACs?

I use All2MP3.

xld imo
My standard for audio conversion is to look at the guidelines for whatever the snootiest private torrent sites use

http://bgr.com/2015/02/19/sony-premium-sound-memory-card/

i also use all2mp3

Perfect for the potential Audiophile Snake Oil aspect, Mediamonkey allows you to set both the bitrate and the "Encoding Quality". I have found no documentation, but i presume the highest encoding quality regards the extent that the tracks are read, written and compared.

------------------------------------------------

On other things Snakeoil; Sony claims this SD card makes your audio sound better by minimizing excess electrical noise......... sheesh

the problem I found with Mediamonkey (MM in itself was really great) is it seems to play badly with itunes. Like unfortunately I have to have itunes on my machine bc of owning an iphone, this is literally the only reason itunes is still tolerated by me bc I play my music on a Rockboxed Sansa Clip with SD cards, I tag my files with xAct and do my lossless to lossy conversions with xAct... anyway just the fact that MM and iTunes were both active on the same machine led to some serious snafus for me and I probably won't fuck with MM again until I have done away with itunes altogether...

Good luck.

More props to Rockboxed Sansa Clip!

so fucking great! only pitfall is battery life of course.

might try the 200 dollar walkman that takes micro SD cards this year. Basically I don't foresee ever using a player that doesn't have expandable memory ever again, it's just too fucking satisfactory for me.

Ha, I thought the revive was about this bit of preciousness today:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2015/02/audiophiles_neil_young_s_pono_has_brought_unfair_scorn_for_lovers_of_high.html

#notallaudiophiles

question : how can a 40W amp blow speakers that are rated at 120W ?

i need to replace my floorstanders as the tweeters have blown.

arse.

(that said i got my bonus today, so, good timing as it means i can move to the next level of floorstanders .. )

Like unfortunately I have to have itunes on my machine bc of owning an iphone, this is literally the only reason itunes is still tolerated by me

this is exactly what my situation is

question : how can a 40W amp blow speakers that are rated at 120W ?

i need to replace my floorstanders as the tweeters have blown.

arse.

(that said i got my bonus today, so, good timing as it means i can move to the next level of floorstanders .. )

― mark e, Friday, February 20, 2015 1:18 PM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

did you turn it up really loud? because i think the thing w/higher rated amps is they deliver clean power, not distorted signal which can be damaging

yes i did.
no neighbours .. so i went full on.
cannot deny, it was truly awesome
i was prepping myself for the j&mc/psychocandy gig this week basically
i can compensate via adding more treble via the amp etc, but hey.
time to upgrade.
any excuse.

40W into what impedance?

also Matt could be right and maybe the 120 W rating doesn't cover full spectrum

audio gear specs are the worst

40W into what impedance?

no idea.
ok . checked .. "4-8"
is this something i need to consider when i get replacements ?
sorry if this is a noob question ..

Well it probably doesn't matter for the 40W continuous average power spec, but maybe the amp is capable of delivering much larger powers for a short duration and that's what damaged your speakers. I know my NAD amp has a spec 'dynamic power' that is much larger than the continuous average power spec, and this dynamic power has a strong dependence on speaker impedance.

but perhaps speaker ratings are for continuous average power, and it doesn't matter

bottom line : "you pushed your system too far by playing psychocandy at levels that were beyond pleasurable."
luckily, its not serious ..
and means i get to have fun tomorrow as i figure out the replacements !
beginning to think i need to get a decent dedicated amp as well as i have one of those all in one systems that is no longer necessary as i can play DAB via my sonos setup ..

might try the 200 dollar walkman that takes micro SD cards this year. Basically I don't foresee ever using a player that doesn't have expandable memory ever again, it's just too fucking satisfactory for me.

I'd seriously recommend the Fiio X1, I've had it for a while and it's pretty great. It costs almost half of that Walkman does, it plays FLACs and WAVs, and it works with SD cards up to 128GB. And the sound quality and battery life are way better than with Sansa Clip (that was my previous player). The only downsides are that it's kinda bulky, and the "list all tracks" function is kinda worthless, as it lists them by filename and not by the trackname in the metadata. But other than that I've really enjoyed it, it has several small but neat functional improvements over cheaper players like Sansa, definitely worth the 100 euros I invested.

I can't wait to get my upstairs room remodeled. I have my dad's Pioneer speakers from like... 1972 in there that are fun to sit around and listen to.

xpost to tuomas

I've looked with interest at the X1. Its issues with metadata-based views are not a big deal to me as I pretty much use "folder view" all the time on my Sansas and I don't really make custom playlists much. Besides its size, which might be fine for me, my concerns with the X1 are:

--it seems like I might not be able to just take the various micro SD cards I've spent so much time compiling over the last year and stick 'em in the X1 and go. I'm seeing that people often have to reformat their SD cards mounted in the X1 itself to get em to work properly. The idea of having to redo my SD cards is a bummer. Were you able to use the same cards from your Sansa right away or did you have to reformat and refill them?

--hmm that might've been the only major misgiving.

xp I love old speakers. I have these old dudes:

http://i17.servimg.com/u/f17/14/81/45/19/2012-111.jpg

they are so heavy

The Fiio manual says they recommend using cards formatted to FAT32, but other formats should work just as well. I was able to use the card I had in my Sansa as such, but that was already in FAT32, so I'm not sure if it would the same if it was in NTFS, even though Fiio claims NTFS should work.

However, the X1 has no automatic firmware updater, so you have to download the firmware and put it on your card, and that firmware only works from a FAT32 card, so you should have at least one of those. (The card doesn't have to be empty though, you can just put the firmware file there even if has other files already.) If you organize music by folders and get the X1, I'd recommend getting the latest firmware, because it includes a "continuous folder play" update, which is pretty neat: it'll then play all the folders within a larger folder in a row, so if you've, say, organized all your jazz albums in one genre folder, you can just listen to them in succession.

Oh yeah. That was the other misgiving. I've never had to flash firmware to a device from a card or thumb drive before and it seems intimidating. Though if I was able to install rockbox on my iPod classic I could probably figure out this too.

My micro sd are all formatted to fat32 to work with rockboxed sansa clips so if it worked for you transitioning to the x1 it'd probably work for me...

this thing is so fuckin sexy i can't stand it (and seems like a reasonable price for what it does) - phono stage, headphone amp, DAC, SD card slots, Bluetooth, etc etc

http://ifi-audio.com/products/retro/

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0195/8522/products/Retro_Pic.jpg

weird, I would think exFAT would be the preferred format

never mind, I didn't realize that's a patent-encumbered filesystem :(

question : how can a 40W amp blow speakers that are rated at 120W ?

This has already mostly been answered by Sufjan but i'll add another couple cents-worth.

Blasting 40W into 120W speakers is precisely how one would blow their speakers. So, you need more power in that amp if you're trying to rock out. Generally, match the amp's wattage with that of the speakers for the given impedance. Also remember that most consumer-level amps grossly exaggerate their output wattage. The aforementioned NAD has honest numbers, so does Marantz -- i wouldn't trust any wattage claims from anything from a bigbox (their claims of 600-800 watts may in reality equal an honest rating of 80-100 watts).

I've cooked more than a couple speakers for the same reason, but i'm still unsure if having the above knowledge could have saved me in those dark spirals into decibeland.

this thing is so fuckin sexy i can't stand it (and seems like a reasonable price for what it does) - phono stage, headphone amp, DAC, SD card slots, Bluetooth, etc etc

http://ifi-audio.com/products/retro/

couldn't find a price; how much is it?

it doesn't seem to be available at dealers yet, though i didn't look at all of them

Ha, I thought the revive was about this bit of preciousness today:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2015/02/audiophiles_neil_young_s_pono_has_brought_unfair_scorn_for_lovers_of_high.html

― Ned Raggett, Friday, February 20, 2015 1:08 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Maybe, but I don’t read articles jeering at people who spend $400 on a meal (which disappears once they’ve eaten it), or $80,000 on a car, or $10 million on a painting.

hmmm....

all of that seems pretty obscene to me.