Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil

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.

would have been so much better as a "better sound on a budget" piece by someone not apparently independently wealthy, say upper mississippi sh@kedown

tbf he might scoff at them

It does bum me out how much articles like that actually hurt his supposed cause*

*though his actual cause might just be being a dick

Xxxxpost that Retro thing is 2k which isn't too bad imo

Also I will fully cop to just being in love w how it looks, hubba hubba

It does look great but the missing killer feature is DLNA streaming capability.

Xxxxpost that Retro thing is 2k which isn't too bad imo

― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, February 20, 2015 5:46 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and....i'm out. yeah, it's not egregious, but still way beyond my price range ATM.

http://www.lessloss.com/tunnelbridge-distortionless-interconnect-system-p-204.html

'I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to top this one'

To illustrate, consider the trust with which you reluctantly lend out your most prized LP. You know from experience that it’ll be returned irreversibly damaged, regardless of how careful the guy said he’d be with it. Once scratched, no matter how scrupulously you’d clean it, it could never again be the same. So it is with traditional cable models: distortion occurs as sure as that prized record will have been damaged, and the technology employed to remedy the situation is only good enough to produce an imitation, to try to distract our attention from the various imperfections of the audio signal.

What makes the Tunnelbridge brilliantly effective is that rather than allow the original signal to wind up in the hands of our "untrustworthy borrower," (sure to be returned damaged), instead it has a surrogate clone take the place of the original signal. In this way, the original signal remains perfectly preserved under watch, while only the cloned copy is "lent to the borrower."

so this is like the prestige of audio cables??

send in the clones

To illustrate, consider the trust with which you reluctantly lend out your most favored child. You know from experience that it’ll be returned irreversibly damaged, regardless of how careful the guy said he’d be with it. Once scratched, no matter how scrupulously you’d clean it, it could never again be the same. So it is with traditional cable models: distortion occurs as sure as that favored child will have been damaged, and the technology employed to remedy the situation is only good enough to produce an imitation, to try to distract our attention from the various imperfections of the audio signal.

I think it creates a branching parallel universe

schrodinger's vinyl collection

I'm less angry at the audio snake oil salesmen these days because they are clearly just trying to calm the nerves of a group that's terrified of imaginary distortion goblins. If they made their ersatz product any cheaper, this group probably would not believe the product actually kept these mighty imaginary goblins away. It is a service.

If you are buying an 'interconnect system' for your stereo, you are actually buying a treatment. And the supporting literature is the most important part.

they should just charge $20 for each word in the literature and not bother to actually sell you any electronic components.

That is a ridiculous company.

xp well they are basically doing that. but it is important to have an object to serve as a powerful symbol that no distortion goblins can harm the integrity of your signal.

you could even start a youth movement centered around upholding the integrity one's signal through devotion to the object.

you could commit seppuku at the foot of an altar devoted to the object.

it's sort of like some contemporary conceptual art, where you have a toothpick sitting on a pedestal in an empty room and a catalogue with 2,000 words of exegesis accompanying it.

Who's to blame - the snake oils sellers, or the dopes that write reviews like this?

the mere fact that there are so many different-sounding cables

these dudes will always ignore the faults inherent in the final stage of the receiver of these tests, i.e. their own stupid heads

Perhaps I’m old school for thinking that the job of an audio cable is to pass a signal from A to B without manipulating it or losing some part of it along the way.

I ask again: do audiophiles actually enjoy music?

yeah man, I own at least eight copies of Dark Side of the Moon

they probably listen to shit like jazz 78s like Buscemi's character in Ghost World and go "hmm yes the timbre of the original wax is coming through my $9,000 wires loud and clear"

naw I think the 78 people are a different stripe, but I defer to the old wax ilx contingent

ime those are not the same guys

maybe they are all enjoying something makes you think

jk audiophile types are obviously deluded bores

Audiophile dudes generally obsess over an odd lot of albums in my experience. Dark Side of the Moon (WALLY mastered versions only! Preferably UK!), Diana Krall, Mobile Fidelity shit, Miles Davis/other Van Gelder produced jazz albums... shit that's already well produced and would sound good on a 1985 Sears all-in-one, but they think it shows off their system.

these are the dudes buying UHQR pressings for $1000+

They own multiple Super Audio CDs, and can explain the difference between them and DVD audio

Only listening to music that shows off your audio system is like only eating food that shows off your forks.

or his pottery

I first listened to the Anchorwave speaker cables in my otherwise Shunyata-cabled system. The impressive low-frequency weight that I heard during break-in held true across all contexts. With the hybrid Lamm amps connected, the Wilson Sashas lapped up current like cream through those 9-gauge Litz bundles as their woofers purred with weight and tonal depth. Bass through the Lamm M1.2s was the best I’d heard from their pairing with the Sashas: deep, hefty, tonally informed and well controlled. I’ve always heard tonally rich, well-articulated lows from the Atma-Sphere MA-1 Mk 3.1, yet the Anchorwave speaker cables bumped that up a notch to help them deliver a touch bit more grunt and heft than I’d previously experienced from these OTL amps on the Wilson speakers. While the Atma-Sphere amps did not turn into solid-state behemoths, the improvement was welcome.

i had a joke there but i don't think it needs it.

5k words.

http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/atmasphere_mp1iii.htm

On the other end of the spectrum, the MP-1 Mk III is equally adept. Throughout the Mahler piece, heavy timpani strikes were very realistic. I heard the resonance of their skins within their kettles and the authority of the instrument within the hall. While my speakers’ cutoff point keeps me from fully appreciating Thus Spake Zarathustra’s sub-20Hz opening organ note [RCA/Classic LSC 1806], the MP-1 Mk III delivered timpani crescendos, cellos, and bass with unencumbered power. The very lowest bass could be a teeny bit wooly, but it was never without weight and timbral definition. Listen to the standup bass on NRBQ’s "Rocket in My Pocket" from All Hopped Up [Red Rooster LP1806]. I heard it as deep and tight, with the air and resonance of the bass’s body and nicely resolved decay. Here was that elusive bass with ambience.

$12k to listen to 2001 and NRBQ