Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil

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

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.

i mean, it's pretty clear, "purifies and rebalances the USB signal"...."restores the signal waveform"....also puts the analog back into the digital signal which is definitely a thing that's possible to do

it looks slightly more convincing than a magic crystal that you clip on to the cable

you could amplify that digital signal and send it directly to your speakers

do the DAC in your head. what could be better than your head DAC?

i want these guys' capacity for joy

you could amplify that digital signal and send it directly to your speakers

― Sufjan Grafton, Thursday, May 5, 2016 11:55 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a un-purified and unbalanced digital signal? that could seriously damaged your speakers, don't get me started about the soundstage repercussions

xpost

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

this is amazing

buy an f-to-m USB plug for $99, get andrea bocelli partially materializing in your room.

sir i think you should be in a monastery or something

xp see what i mean???

God in two vocals. Blessed Unity.

if you buy the $200 version you will be visited by three andre bocellis before this night is through

wait we are now mixing up catholic doctrine and a christmas carol

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Sant_Basil_The_Prayer.jpg/300px-Sant_Basil_The_Prayer.jpg

"There is one place in this cut where the singer checks in with angel voices. On a good system I always get the full set of goosebumps. On a great system the result can be better: those goosebumps can move from head to heels several time over! And those goosebumps can be like those of a horse! Ya feel?"

"purifies and rebalances the USB signal"

AAAGGHHHHHHH THAT'S NOT HOW DIGITAL WORKS YOU FUUUUUUUUUUU

^^ my internal monologue exactly

i imagine these people also think they can "purify" their body by drinking a lot mineral water

From a balanced, tuned wooden flask with a magnetic-neutral carbon fiber lining and gold-plated mouth-liquid interface.

xp oddly enough, you can do so if you drink mineral oil

common mistake

off topic but everytime i see tony levin now all i think about is how he was revealed to be philly boy roy's archenemy in the last episode of best show on wfmu

Does it electrically reprocess the signal for 5.1 or something?

No I think the argument being made is that the electrical power that flows through the cable to power a USB powered device somehow corrupts the digital sound being run through that same cable and that this device somehow shields or decorrupts that interference

It straightens the electricity

removes toxins from the USB cable iirc

orgones

morgellons

Joek fail. :/

On my part, that is.

I was never big on "vinyl sounds better", but inspired by the Back to the Future thread, I just put on "Pump Up the Volume" by M/A/R/R/S on my stereo - streaming 320 kbps Spotify Premium through USB cable to a Lyngdorf TDAI 2170 digital amplifier. I was surprised to find it didn't really rock, so I found my 12" 45rpm single and put that on instead (on a Technics SL-1200 and a cheap NAD RIAA, and into my digital amp, which has a v expensive AD-module but all the same should handle digital sources better than analogur) and there were a few pops and crackles but then the beat kicked in and OMG it fucking ROCKED!!!!

Quite surprised by this, maybe the mp3 Spotify has is just poor quality - this is certainly not something I regularly experience. Maybe the CD reissue it's sourced from is a cheap remaster.

Anyway, pretty cool! Vinyl rulz ok!

come to think of it, made me
PUMP UP THE VOLUME

If I were djing though this would really mean a world of difference

The vinyl ritual prepared you spiritually to PUMP UP THE VOLUME

Haha totally

but then I went back and pumpep up the Spotify volume bit it just wasn't any fun

My new audiophile product is a literal pump you use to manually pump up the volume.

a rube goldberg machine for pumping that volume up

there was a decent article in the last tape op (not the current issue) about cutting vinyl. there's a lot happening in that process.

marty would probably say it's 'heavy'

Looks like "Pump up the Volume" was first released on CD in 1987, I'm not sure if it's ever been remastered since then? If that's the case, and that CD master is the source for all subsequent digital releases, including the Spotify one, I wouldn't be surprised if it sounds inferior to the vinyl version. Back in the '80s many mastering engineers hadn't yet learned how to make CDs sound as good as possible, since obviously most of their experience was with vinyl mastering, which is way different from its CD counterpart. It was only in the '90s (when CD mastering was perfected but before the loudness wars) that CDs really became the medium with the best sound. That's why Prince fans have been asking for remastered versions of his '80s albums for so long, because the CD and digital versions currently available are still based on the '80s masters.

that sounds like a reasonable explanation - I'm glad I have the good version of PUMP UP THE VOLUME on vinyl but they should do a proper digitla remix/remaster so new generations will know the greatness of this track

http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-gift-for-music-lovers-who-have-it-all-a-personal-utility-pole-1471189463

He met a utility-company engineer who disputed the notion that a pole would make any difference. “He was so adamant,” he says, “and that actually made me want to install it more.”