Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil

hard to believe that two play:1s (or ones?) as a stereo pair wouldn't be preferable for the price of one homepod

it acts as a normal airplay speaker
AirPlaying content to HomePod is obviously unrestricted.
the article isn’t clear but they’re talking about what works via siri

you can run spotify or whatever on a phone, or even have it act as an apple tv speaker and play stuff there

I think they’re trying to frame it in terms of the amazon/google devices that can link to multiple music services natively (“alexa, play X artist on spotify”) as opposed to using it as a speaker you just stream things to

I've seen this confusion a lot in the media, which is understandable - the set of what you can tell the speaker to do is smaller than what the speaker can actually do. I guess Siri, being a cloud agent, has no idea what mp3s you have on your machine, but only knows about the files associated with your iCloud account

If I didn't already have a killer speaker that does things the homepod can't do - be wireless, have an input jack - I'd be all over this thing, I don't care how lobotomized the 'home speaker' aspect is, since I hate that stuff and never use it

Er, 'wireless' = 'battery-powered'

the real time and automatic spectral flattening is interesting (and not new, I don't think). But I wonder if there's a more advanced analysis that accounts for the fact that the microphone is located at the speaker and not actually where you are listening. I enjoy thinking about the room correction problem, but I generally don't care about it when listening. It would probably drive me crazy imagining that my speaker might be messing with its spectral response as I'm listening at any given moment. maybe you can turn it off.

xpost OK, maybe I'm not understanding. So I can play anything in my iTunes library on a HomePod, just like I do now through AppleTV (using AirPlay)?

yup

it’s an airplay speaker with siri built in and some other “smart” audio correction

room correction for spectral flatness might be good for removing extreme notches or peaks, but I don't think a mastering engineer assumes you'll be listening on a speaker that is spectrally flat. he/she is already making compromises to accommodate various listening environments. so you are better off using measurements to prove snake oil, i.e. if a thing doesn't change the measurement it doesn't actually do anything. but you should use your own ears, music, and listening environment to decide if speakers actually sound good to you. you have your own filter curve the speaker can't know, anyhow.

I'm sure that you can train an EQ AI in some piece of software to try and account for your internal filter curve, though

yup
it’s an airplay speaker with siri built in and some other “smart” audio correction
Thanks. I need to look into iTunes Match, which may be the way to go for me since most of my digitalized music was burned from CDs.

I joined Apple Music a couple of months ago and had no problem with it doing the matching with my juuuuust-under 100 000 songs (that's the limit for matching). it uploaded a bunch of stuff but lots of that is stuff they have but it didn't recognize my metadata. I'm hoping that I will get over caring about metadata with this thing because I have wasted a lot of time on that over the years.

not gonna get a homepad though

have*

but i also just use my german maestro gmp 8.5d's most of the time

― papa poutine (∞), Tuesday, February 13, 2018 11:50 AM (forty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

how are these??? they are on massdrop now and i'm intruiged...

iTunes Match can be a pretty neat way to clean up your library if you have an assortment of things that were ripped at varying quality and are ok with AAC audio format (which pretty much everything plays). Sync your whole library, make a playlist of only matched songs, and then delete anything matched that's in low quality -- old rips at 160kbps or whatever, one-offs that have metadata good enough to match but are otherwise a little messy. Then you can redownload those songs at iTunes store quality, all tagged up and everything, without DRM. You have to be a little careful to make sure it didn't misidentify but it's generally fine.

Sufjan, the EQ stuff reminds me the most of stuff a lot of home receivers have like Audyssey or similar branded features. Instead of moving a little mic around your room as your receiver plays test tones, it does it automatically. It's not for everyone, but I've had it work pretty well.

do not let itunes match anywhere near your library without making a backup

that, too

xxxp

i mean you gotta test them for yrself obviously but they have a very flat frequency response, i use them for monitoring, it has barely any bass response, and almost every sound sounds very crisp and clear

speaker should be called apple crisp obv

the nuraphones seem to run with the idea of each person being a unique filter. I suppose room correction would still be needed to do this sort of thing in a loudspeaker. not saying it isn't snake oil, though.

you don't need to be an audiophile to see that the main selling point of a standalone speaker is never going to be sound quality

it's kinda like suggesting the big mac is the best burger ever (or even the best in its price range)

it’s that you just want.. one speaker, man

(There are actually many tweeters, a subwoofer, etc)

A bunch of style brands have speakers on that principle but it’s halfway between those and a smart device with passable sound like an echo

I’ve kind of lusted after this thing but I have lots of hoarded things and can’t justify buying more: https://teenageengineering.com/products/od-11

There is also that harman kardon all-in-one speaker that looks like the sub from the old soundsticks, those transparent ones that were always in pictures next to macs in the early 00s. Those sounded nice, for computer speakers

xp yes, I agree. and you are always going to get the somewhat off-feeling directional bass that reminds you of your college computer speakers. can you not do stereo pairing with the homepod? I agree that adding stereo separation or a sub offers more improvement over simply buying a better standalone speaker with the same size and separation issues compensated with arrays of drivers and dsp.

that OD-11 looks cool. I wonder what directional orthogonality gets you when the two orthogonal drivers already appear to be frequency orthogonal, though. I'm sure that swedish sound genius knew.

https://www.bang-olufsen.com/recreate/setup/

that's cool!

anyone got any experience with the dynaudio xeo 2s?

friend of mine has a pair, he's very happy with them

I covet the wireless Dynaudios, gotta say. Anything that gets rid of stupid bloody speaker cables gets a tick in my book (anyone wanna buy some Nordost? Been burning it in for 22 years, should be optimal around now ;) )

how much? 10K?

Not strictly speaking audiophile snake oil but I'm putting this here because among many other things it has speakers

a powerful, blissful, zero-point energy field that
effortlessly raises your vibration and improves
the resonance of your environment.

So basically, Live/Dead.

the Tesla iQube delivers results and replaces your need for shiny objects and new courses that promise to heal you.

Is that a website for some ARG

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: When I unpacked the Miracle I-Cube, when I tipped the cylinder it sounds like something small is rolling around inside.
A: These are two separate issues and we are not sure what you mean exactly by something rolling around inside.

Q: Now that everything is hooked up and running there is only a slight sound of anything moving around inside the cylinder.
A: Are you placing the cylinder on your ears?

Not just snake oil, but snake water!

We have created a 17 step process to imprint the water with our scalar energy technology. The water is sourced from pristine, distilled Mountain Valley Spring Water and imprinted with scalar energy technology in a 72 hour process. As Jacques Benveniste discovered water has incredible memory so once it is imprinted with this coherent frequency information, it remembers. Water is the carrier to deliver this coherent frequency Information directly to the cells so it is Imprinted at the cellular level. (…) The Miracle structured water will now be imprinted with our new sophisticated Miracle frequency sound track and custom amplifiers. As we have increased our scalar energy delivery from 8 ohms to 24 ohms, our Scalarwave Imprinting power has tripled.

lol Tarfumes

pass ag FAQ

this site is filled with riches

“Your Brain Is Amazing And Unutilized.”

soooooo I'm ... in a coma

'Designed to open the DNA so it re patterns itself.'

jesus, fuck no thanks

'proprietary Golden Six frequency wave form'

... you can patent waveforms?

'it triples the power of Binaural Beats by beating six frequencies together'

ok now I kinda need to hear these things

Most of us are seriously magnesium deficient due to the declining minerals in the soil. Magnesium deficiency is a root cause of many physical and emotional imbalances and stress. This soundtrack is designed to give you this much needed element in frequency. Consider it highly nuorishing frequency food. It is also very relaxing. Magnesium deficiency can cause stress and stress can contribute to magnesium deficiency. The sound frequency of magnesium is very relaxing.

i need this thing to heal myself

Dafuq I'm looking at

https://defoss.com

I don’t know if that’s full on snake oil, it just seems sort of tastelessly aesthetic

Dunno about the turntable itself, but Ortofons are always a solid investment.

that's not snake oil, that's kind of interesting. a single-piece tonearm should theoretically make for better signal, right? at the same time...I trust imaginary engineers more than I trust a 3D printer. // planning on trying out Ortofon Bronze next needle change I think

It doesn't look that different in design than most high end turntables

the base looks so flimsy, it looks like it has terrible stability

Is this just a turntable? i'm confused about what makes it special. that it has a 3d printed tone-arm? Looks like a good turntable, but i'm not sure it justifies a kickstarter. Does it have unique technology?

the base looks so flimsy, it looks like it has terrible stability

― F# A# (∞), Monday, May 7, 2018 11:31 AM (fifty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

those type of pointed feet are common in audiophile stuff, esp as speaker feet, they sell them at stores, if there's four of them it will be just fine, rega's even have just 3 feet
i think the idea is to reduce the contact surface with the shelf to avoid transfer of vibrations

Main advantage of 3 feet vs. 4 is much easier leveling; it will never rock back and forth as with four not quite leveled feet.

planning on trying out Ortofon Bronze next needle change I think

― she carries a torch. two torches, actually (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Saturday, May 5, 2018 7:44 PM (two days ago)

I can vouch for the bronze! Much more detailed than my Ortofon Red without sounding too cold (though my preamp influences this to be sure), and due to the narrower stylus, all my records which skipped in some spots no longer skip! Huge win.