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Just laughing outloud at this high-end nonsense


rgdawsonco

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This made me laugh and I thought I would share with the crowd here.  I was browsing around on Stereophile's web site and came across a review of cables, in particular, an AC power cord and read this:

...
That my next step should be to replace the AC cord of the Shindo Haut-Brion power amplifier—the amp in use at the time—was obvious, but utterly lacking in the excitement of anticipation: Since upgrading the preamp's power cord produced so modest a change, I assumed that performing the same swap on the next component downstream would produce an even subtler change, if any. Yet when we made the swap and began listening, I heard a difference so startlingly apparent that I laughed aloud—as did Danny Labrecque, whom I then chided for committing the unpardonable sin of messing with my head (though the verb I used was not messing). With the Luna Orange cord feeding my Haut-Brion, it was as if I'd found, somewhere in my system, a theretofore undiscovered knob labeled Vividness, and had goosed it up a couple clicks.

 

Where to begin? RCA's uncharacteristically dry and very direct-sounding recording of violinist Vittorio Emanuele and the Società Corelli performing Vivaldi's The Four Seasons (LP, RCA Living Stereo LSC-2424) became even more direct, more corporeal, and altogether more realistic, with increases in instrumental color saturation and texture, and seeming expansions of dynamic shadings and tactile expressiveness. In the "Frost Scene" of Purcell's King Arthur, in the recording with Anthony Lewis conducting the St. Anthony Singers and the Philomusica of London (2 LPs, L'Oiseau-Lyre SOL-60008/9), the Cold Genius's shivering, and that of the accompanying strings, in the aria "What power art thou?" was more forceful and effective—if not for the word's negative connotation, which has no place here, I would say it was exaggerated—and the soloist's voice (footnote 3) seemed uncannily louder, and more distinct from its surroundings.
...

http://www.stereophile.com/content/listening-164-page-2#0HBsZ0UgP7SukGdO.97

 

So.  This is hilarious to me.  I especially love the line "...became even more direct, more corporeal, and altogether more realistic, with increases in instrumental color saturation and texture, and seeming expansions of dynamic shadings and tactile expressiveness."  I'm an electrical engineer, so I have no clue what this means, other than sounding cool. Who knew a few feet of expensive power cable (plugged into an outlet, inline with god knows what wiring back to the power company) could have such a dramatic effect?  LOL.

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* Face Palm * - Recently someone exposed Stereophile for these types of reviews for having been as much BRIBED by the manufacturer through advertising. Such hyperbole is ridiculous and most of the time fluff and.... FALSE.

 

Pictures of systems with speaker cables thicker than my forearm always give me a chuckle.

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I also find this hard to believe, but I was told by someone who works at best buy in the magnolia section that this is real. These upgraded power cables use solid copper instead of stranded copper. He had a Bowers and Wilkins portable 2 channel setup that he could demonstrate on. Supposedly, when you switch to the upgraded cable, the output volume increases (like when you a-b with more efficient speakers). He tried to demonstrate this for me, but the unit screwed up every time he unplugged power. I have no idea if it's real (doubt it), but that's what I've been told. I googled the cable company, it was something like $150 per 3ft power cable. I don't have bottomless pockets, so I wasn't trying it for myself.

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13 minutes ago, rgdawsonco said:

This made me laugh and I thought I would share with the crowd here.  I was browsing around on Stereophile's web site and came across a review of cables, in particular, an AC power cord and read this:

...
That my next step should be to replace the AC cord of the Shindo Haut-Brion power amplifier—the amp in use at the time—was obvious, but utterly lacking in the excitement of anticipation: Since upgrading the preamp's power cord produced so modest a change, I assumed that performing the same swap on the next component downstream would produce an even subtler change, if any. Yet when we made the swap and began listening, I heard a difference so startlingly apparent that I laughed aloud—as did Danny Labrecque, whom I then chided for committing the unpardonable sin of messing with my head (though the verb I used was not messing). With the Luna Orange cord feeding my Haut-Brion, it was as if I'd found, somewhere in my system, a theretofore undiscovered knob labeled Vividness, and had goosed it up a couple clicks.

 

Where to begin? RCA's uncharacteristically dry and very direct-sounding recording of violinist Vittorio Emanuele and the Società Corelli performing Vivaldi's The Four Seasons (LP, RCA Living Stereo LSC-2424) became even more direct, more corporeal, and altogether more realistic, with increases in instrumental color saturation and texture, and seeming expansions of dynamic shadings and tactile expressiveness. In the "Frost Scene" of Purcell's King Arthur, in the recording with Anthony Lewis conducting the St. Anthony Singers and the Philomusica of London (2 LPs, L'Oiseau-Lyre SOL-60008/9), the Cold Genius's shivering, and that of the accompanying strings, in the aria "What power art thou?" was more forceful and effective—if not for the word's negative connotation, which has no place here, I would say it was exaggerated—and the soloist's voice (footnote 3) seemed uncannily louder, and more distinct from its surroundings.
...

http://www.stereophile.com/content/listening-164-page-2#0HBsZ0UgP7SukGdO.97

 

So.  This is hilarious to me.  I especially love the line "...became even more direct, more corporeal, and altogether more realistic, with increases in instrumental color saturation and texture, and seeming expansions of dynamic shadings and tactile expressiveness."  I'm an electrical engineer, so I have no clue what this means, other than sounding cool. Who knew a few feet of expensive power cable (plugged into an outlet, inline with god knows what wiring back to the power company) could have such a dramatic effect?  LOL.

Found this on another forum and found it fitting....

I switched from using electrons to positrons in my audio system, and the improvement was not subtle. I know it is kind of inconvenient (a badge of honor for a true audiophile), but switching over to antimatter-based electricity really does make a tremendous difference. I urge you to contact your local quantum mechanic and set up a demo soon!

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Just now, Steve_S said:

Found this on another forum and found it fitting....

I switched from using electrons to positrons in my audio system, and the improvement was not subtle. I know it is kind of inconvenient (a badge of honor for a true audiophile), but switching over to antimatter-based electricity really does make a tremendous difference. I urge you to contact your local quantum mechanic and set up a demo soon!

 

Wow, I think you need to special order the flux capacitors just for that conversion.

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A lot of people know. I expect that many may keep it to themselves for the most part so they don't have to put up with ridicule. You won't find any answers in a text book on electrical engineering or electronics engineering. I have been designing and building audio cables since 1988. At that time I was part of a planar loudspeaker business and I was exposed to a number of audio cable design ideas by friend David Salz. It was David who got me started. I have been doing so ever since. You don't have to spend a lot to make a good sounding cable but I will say that there are very many more bad and mediocre ones than there are good ones. Designing and building superb sounding cables has been a challenge as well as being very rewarding. You would be doing yourself a favor to do some serious listening. If you have the time and some ideas you may well be able to build yourself some interconnects which can help your gear sound its best. Regards moray james.

 

Note: Back in 1988 David Salz was co owner of Straightwire. David later moved on to start Wireworld.

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15 minutes ago, moray james said:

A lot of people know. I expect that many may keep it to themselves for the most part so they don't have to put up with ridicule. You won't find any answers in a text book on electrical engineering or electronics engineering. I have been designing and building audio cables since 1988. At that time I was part of a planar loudspeaker business and I was exposed to a number of audio cable design ideas by friend David Salz. It was David who got me started. I have been doing so ever since. You don't have to spend a lot to make a good sounding cable but I will say that there are very many more bad and mediocre ones than there are good ones. Designing and building superb sounding cables has been a challenge as well as being very rewarding. You would be doing yourself a favor to do some serious listening. If you have the time and some ideas you may well be able to build yourself some interconnects which can help your gear sound its best. Regards moray james.

 I may have the time, but not the ideas. How does one build better cables? I know you are very knowledgeable, so I trust your input.

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It's interesting to me how BS reviews are ALWAYS accompanied by exotic and sophisticated sounding song titles, no matter what.  Has anybody ever been like "yo, BB King sounds crazy good on this".  No, it's always something like "violinist Vittorio Emanuele and the Società Corelli performing Vivaldi's The Four Seasons".  I realize Paul liked to go to orchestras and the reasons behind doing so, but, we're talking about a power cord here.  

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20 minutes ago, dtr20 said:

 I may have the time, but not the ideas. How does one build better cables? I know you are very knowledgeable, so I trust your input.

I will tell you exactly what David told me to do. Get some four wire parallel 24 gage solid core wire, this can be simply cut off some ribbon cable. Not a bad idea for you to get some stranded in the same gage and compare the sound. Sit down with a pencil and paper and figure out how many different ways that you can contrive to build a cable with it and build them all and listen to them all. Don't forget about cable direction which will be easier to tell with the solid core. You can buy a small spool of 24 gage solid core and establish the correct direction for signal flow by building a simple twisted pair keeping note of the direction. Once you have that figured out make a note on the spool.This is going to be the in the opposite direction that the wire was drawn, that direction will be the smoothest for electron flow. Polishing and plating and polishing can eliminate that as an issue but this is expensive to do. As you can see you will be building and listening to a lot of cables and that process will be very beneficial to training your ears.

   I like to look at cables and imagine what is going on with the electromagnetic fields and I like to keep them as symmetrical as I can. That is a good place to start. So far as I am concerned what you do with what you have is far more important than the materials that you have to work with. If this all sounds like a lot of work it is. I am decades into this now and it has taken much effort to get to where I am now and I see no end in sight. Best regards moray james.

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I like good cables, the right gauge for the job.  If they look nice that's a plus.  If the cable is good, not talking about esoteric stuff, then 99% of the SQ is from the speakers, associated gear and source.  As for analog, to each his own.  Double blind test have around a 50/50 chance of picking out analog over digital.  This has been tested many times so, I would think there is a significant trends that for most people and audiophiles, that they can't reliably tell the difference.  I'm 100% digital and have not brought a cd in over 5 years.

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7 minutes ago, dwilawyer said:

Directional solid wire?  Where does one purchase that?  Does it need to be oxygen free?

if you are going to purchase expensive oxygen free wire I would recommend you buy wire that has been polished and or polished and plated multiple times. Then direction will no longer be an issue the wire will be just as smooth in both directions. I you buy a small spool of wire or you can remove some from a cat five cable some. Take one long strand and keep track of one end all the time you can build up a set of cables and you can alternate the direction and figure out by listening which way is which. It's just a little easier with a spool but you don't have to purchase a spool if you don't want or need to. Multi strand wire is more difficult to judge as you have no idea what direction the strands are going. Very high performance military grade coax is polished and plated multiple times there are standards for this if you care to get into it you can search them out. I hope this is of some help. Regards moray james.

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17 minutes ago, moray james said:

A lot of people know. I expect that many may keep it to themselves for the most part so they don't have to put up with ridicule. You won't find any answers in a text book on electrical engineering or electronics engineering. I have been designing and building audio cables since 1988. At that time I was part of a planar loudspeaker business and I was exposed to a number of audio cable design ideas by friend David Salz. It was David who got me started. I have been doing so ever since. You don't have to spend a lot to make a good sounding cable but I will say that there are very many more bad and mediocre ones than there are good ones. Designing and building superb sounding cables has been a challenge as well as being very rewarding. You would be doing yourself a favor to do some serious listening. If you have the time and some ideas you may well be able to build yourself some interconnects which can help your gear sound its best. Regards moray james.

 

Signal cables are one thing, but an AC cable?

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20 minutes ago, CECAA850 said:

 

The discussion is power cables.  Have you built those as well?

yes. best to learn about wire by building an analog interconnect and leave the power lines alone til you have some experience under your belt. (digital cables as well, in case it comes up)

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