Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil

looking at this and reviews of diff components online, they all read exactly the same -- "better definition in bass, greater depth and openness in the soundstage, increased separation in treble." i just read a review of a damn turntable mat that had that language

Definition, schmefition, here's the REAL test: Listening to Caetano Veloso Foreign Sound is a hallucinogenic experience with the Theta. My brain is immediately fooled that I am inside a vibrating cloud of sound, and Mr. Veloso is too real and too close for my heterosexual comfort.

I currently only listen to streamed music on my iphone earbuds and I gotta say the bass soundstage is spread wide open

This isn't snake oil, but pretty cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CE_zmpHcWQ

Excellent. I watched it all waiting for him to mention Nakamichi, and he did right at the end!

Wow!

That is totally nuts.

I saw one of those Nakamichis in a stereo store in the '80s; it was ridiculously expensive for its time, and for the fact that cassettes were never going to be anywhere close to a serious audiophile format (iirc, it was around $500, while decent consumer-grade decks went for $80 and up).

Also, I thought the main appeal of auto-reverse was for recording; if a piece is longer than the length of a side of tape, in theory, if the auto-reverse was quick enough, you could continue recording onto the next side missing far less music than if you had to flip the tape yourself (particularly if you're taping a concert or something off the radio). The quickness of the reverse was a spec often touted by manufacturers (I seem to remember one deck changed direction in .02 seconds).

I thought I was seeing something exotic when one of these came in to the store recently:

http://i66.tinypic.com/20uubue.jpg

that is so cool! a tape duplicator, yeah?

'theta' is a very apt name for snake-oil high-end audio b/c it reminds me of scientology, and the guys who write about this stuff make about as much sense as l. ron hubbard.

xp It's actually just a dubbing deck but you can load seven cassettes into the playback deck; maybe if you just want to make a comp of cassingles? Heh.

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/03/15/high-definition-vinyl-will-soon-become-a-reality/

Interesting idea. Not totally into the idea of new HD turntables, would be interested to see how these sounded on older ones.

lol HD vinyl you have to be kidding me.

All in, Rebeat and Joanneum estimate that stamper-related costs will be reduced by 50 percent, while the time required to produce a new piece of vinyl slashed by 60 percent.

on the minus side a new copy of "Thriller" will cost the end consumer $100+

that's actually really interesting and makes a lot of sense, why bother with lacquer or electroplating when you can just burn the grooves with a laser?

Rebeat and Joanneum estimate that stamper-related costs will be reduced by 50 percent, while the time required to produce a new piece of vinyl slashed by 60 percent.

i don't think the "gigantic production bottleneck" nowadays is necessarily from the stampers taking too long to produce, but from the flood of repressings, which a new HD VINYL product would just add to.

the wording is kind of ambiguous and probably tweaked in their favor. i don't see how shortening the time to make a master plate will slash total production time by 60 percent. it seems in this case they consider production time to be from making the master to printing the first vinyl record ("a new piece of vinyl").

like you're still going to have to wait in line until they finish printing RSD gimmick records and another million copies of "Abbey Road" (now in HD!).

anyone else have this:

http://www.audioquest.com/usb_digital_analog_converter/dragonfly-dac

"Buy your music again, again!"

xp yes and I love it

if u search by post, there is a bunch of talk abt those on some thread

new version coming soon, let's you hook it up to mobile devices too

mobile devices already have awesome DACs

(but perhaps you were referring to hooking up to the amplifier section)

lol HD vinyl you have to be kidding me.

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, March 16, 2016 10:37 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I know right? Might as well wait for blu-ray

what DAC is in an iPhone? maybe as good as the Dragonfly, if so I did not realize

will come in handy if the iPhone 7 has no headphone jack though

Apple uses cirrus logic components for audio, iirc. They used to do more direct to market stuff years ago but are pretty much exclusively a supplier of chip designs now.

Everything I've read speaks highly to the DAC of the iPhone.

But I think the DAC on my late 2009 iMac is noticeably worse than what the Dragonfly offers. I'm really happy with the Dragonfly's performance BUT I MIGHT BE HEARING THINGS, etc.

One of my audiophile colleagues doesn't think much of the iPhone 5 DAC compared to new d-fly but I'll try it out when we get one in the shop

allegedly the DAC in the iPhone 6 was a major upgrade

The DAC is fine, but the noise floor in a phone isn't great. Plus, they don't output 24/96 audio, so they can't get that much dynamic range out of it.

I read 24/96 audio is resampled to 24/48 in the iPhone 6, which is no great loss. Doesn't affect dynamic range, affects frequency response (I've never been able to hear over 24kHz, and these days I'd be lucky if I could hear anything over 14kHz ;) ). But, yeah, it's the noise floor of the headphone amp that's key. I understand that it's pretty good in the 6.

16-bit dynamic range is absolutely huge.

Yep. And these are pretty great figures for a headphone amp in a phone:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8554/the-iphone-6-review/11

(So, yes, if you're playing back 24-bit audio, you need to go Lightning>DAC for the full 120dB whack; the headphone amp is "limited" to 92dB-ish. But, honestly, COME ON. This is FINE. ;) )

"come on, this is fine" seems like the very thing actual audiophile kooks could never accept about anything

always more mysterious depth to pull out of these waveforms

fine for me too, I don't even own a mobile that plays mp3s

silby otm, audiophiles LOVE not just audio but... ~audiophility

A friend from my Masters student days went on to be the biggest audiophile I know, kit expanding as he got better-paying jobs. Digital source went from perfectly serviceable Pioneer, to Audio Alchemy DAC, to TEAC transport with Chord DAC, then Chord transport; speakers went from Chario to Sonus Faber to Wilson Benesch, amplification got scary expensive and bulky. The mind-blowing thing to me was that this guy was a physics PhD working in the defence sector and designed equipment infinitely more sensitive than any domestic audio gear, so he must have *known* how many of the tweaks and upgrades he made had no real grounding in science (speakers apart - those WBs were astonishing). But it just becomes a gear chase and I'm sure Meat Is Murder sounded incrementally better every time he changed a cable.

Altho I am very distracted by faults in sound (esp slight distortion), my personal chase of the audio dragon ended up with a mid-fi Rotel CD player and a 1979 Marantz 2285B receiver which I restored myself. Haven't felt the need to tweak or upgrade in 10 years, probably because my ears are ageing. The only spanner in the works was transferring my CD collection to lossless files, ended up having to buy a DAC equal to the CD player so as not to feel shortchanged, but I found a used one for reasonable money (less than the CD player anyway). DACs seem to be a particularly extreme swamp for audiophiles to fall into, they used to only have to think about signal fidelity, phase and noise floor, but now there are a million circuit topologies, TOSlink vs USB vs coax, jitter, reclocking, DAC designs, bitrates, bit depths, downsampling, upsampling ... I'm glad I stepped off the roundabout.
Of course there's the old saw that musicophiles use their systems to listen to music, whereas audiophiles use music to listen to their systems.

It blows my mind that people spend all this money on circuitry, and then play the output into a room with electrostatically untreated air. It's like cooking a gourmet meal but then chewing gum while eating it.

i only listen to music in a vacuum tbh, anything else would be an unforgivable compromise

Word. Breathtaking.

Synergistic Research RED Fuses feature proprietary alloy burn wires and end caps encased in anti-resonant ceramic bodies. RED fuses are then treated with 2,000,000 volts of electricity in a process SR calls Quantum Tunneling that alters the conductor at a molecular level for optimum performance.

This is my new favorite. A ninety dollar fuse. one review estimates 150-200 hours of "burn-in" before you really see results.

https://www.audiogon.com/listings/tweaks-synergistic-research-red-quantum-fuse-you-will-be-amazed-or-your-money-back-2016-03-14-accessories-92307-apple-valley-ca

"...inserted the SR Red fuse several days ago, and thought to myself how great it sounded. Put my stock fuse back in, and was shocked at the collapse of music..."

Shocked at the Collapse of Music

"Panasonic sells out new Technics turntables in 30 minutes. The 50th anniversary edition went on sale in Japan this morning for $3,300 each."

https://www.residentadvisor.net/news.aspx?id=34321

One man's descent into madness with the iPurifier, a product that:

Clean up your computer audio and hear more of your music with the iFi USB iPurifier. The only product of its kind in the world, this inexpensive accessory puts the "analog" back in USB audio. Simply place it between your USB cable and DAC, and you'll experience lifelike audiophile sound. The iPurifier makes such a radical difference that there's simply no comparison to be made to a computer-audio setup without one. If you're serious about great sonics, the budget-priced iPurifier is a must.

Purifies and Rebalances Your USB Signal
In simple terms, iPurifier purifies and rebalances the USB signal. The iPurifier's specially designed circuit restores the signal waveform - in effect, putting the analog back into the signal. When run through the iPurifier, the signal is clean, balanced, and zero offset. By contrast, if you're listening without an iPurifier, you're hearing noisy, unbalanced, and DC-offset signals due to the close proximity of data, power, and ground in USB cables. iFi's trademarked PurePurification Technology removes such unwanted EMI as well as the DC offset, allowing music to come through with astonishing purity and transparency.

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2015/11/from-earth-to-jupiter-ifi-ipurifier-takes-usb-audio-further/

"Here I played one track without iPurifier, then installed it to the Babyface before listening again. Notes were taken regarding any changes in sound. Then – next track. A time-consuming process? Definitely, yes! Tiresome? Well, it goes with the territory for any serious audio observer."

"Track 2 – Mozart Tuba Mirum (Mozart – Requiem KV 626 – Philippe Herreweghe – La Chapelle Royale – Collegium Vocale – 1996 – Harmonia Mundi) – resolution increased, lusher timbres. Effect of a switched-on holographic 3D improver."

"Track 3 – Andrea Bocelli Con Te Partiro (Andrea Bocelli – Romanza (XRCD)) – partial materialisation of singer in my room. Do you want full? Not possible when spending only a single Benjamin Franklin."

"Track 6 – Peter Gabriel Mercy Street (Peter Gabriel – So – Geffen Records) – I’ve been simply discouraged trying to describe effect from using iPurifier on this track. Indeed, every good system will show two voices – Peter Gabriel and Tony Levine. They sing in unison by intervals. On a less revealing system you will hear only one voice!). But I guess I could understand Gabriel’s plan only now – Levine’s voice is there to act as the substrate for Gabriel’s crisper vocal turns. These two vocals should sound together but not merged. Unity of 2 voices. That’s what vocals get with the iPurifier."

"Track 12 – Metallica Wherever I May Roam (Metallica – 1991 – Elektra) – bell on 00:19, ahh, super-tink. Dark atmosphere on this track. You can feel through your skin because this singer is gonna roam hell eventually."

"Track 14 – Marylin Manson Killing Strangers (Marylin Manson – The Pale Emperor – Cooking Vinyl, Loma Vista Recordings) – hi-hats are smoother, texture of bass line richer. And that flying demon above Manson’s head finally got its freedom."

wait it goes.. between the laptop and the dac? so it... wait what

so it's either modifying a digital signal which would... or... wait what