10 audio lies

[jpm]

http://bruce.coppola.name/audio/TenAudioLies.pdf

(slow PDF load, but interesting)

Say what you want, I tend to agree. Nothing wrong with tweaking and spending money though if that's your passion and floats your boat. Is it all necessary?... I doubt it.

[Tom Mobley]

the term "slow" doesn't really do justice to that deal. server must be on a modem.

[Marvel]

It's not on a modem because I get a 29k per sec download speed for the file. It's also an 11.2 Meg file.

Marvel

[jt1stcav]

Even with our bright house (Time-Warner) cable modem at "ludicrous speed" (courtesy of "Space Balls"), it took me several minutes to download that PDF file. Then it locked up on the first page!

The 11th Audio Lie:

Mr. Edmund Lam of BEZ telling me my replacement 300B was being shipped air and would arrive 2 to 3 weeks...instead he shipped it surface from Hong Kong and it'll take 2 months or more!

[D-MAN]

Here's MY top 10 audio lies:

1) wire's don't matter

2) small speakers can sound just as good as big ones

3) tubes are better for horn speakers than SS

4) tubes sound "better" than SS

5) stereo is dead

6) equipment vibration doesn't matter

7) the room doesn't matter

8) analog is better than digital

9) an amp with low distortion means good sound

10) horns don't compare favorably to modern speakers

DM

[neo33]

"The simple truth is that resistance, inductance and capacitance (RLC) are the only cable parameters that affect performance in the range below radio frequencies. The signal has no idea wheter it is being transmitted through cheap or expensive RLC. In basic electrical performance, however, a nice pair of straightened-out wire coat hangers with the ends scraped is not a whit inferior to a $2000 gee-whiz miracle cable. Nor a 16-gauge lamp cord at 18 cents a foot. Ultrahigh-priced cables are the biggest scam in consumer electronics, and the cowardly surrender of nearly all audio publications to the pressures of the cable marketers is truly depressing to behold."

All of my ICs, speaker cables and power cables for my two-channel system are either stock or from the 'Shack. So much for the scammers!

"What ever vacuum tubes can do in a piece of audio equipment, solid-state device can do better, at lower cost, with greater reliability. Even the world's best-designed tube amplifier will have higher distortion than an equally well-designed transistor amplifier. (Idiotic designs such as 8-watt Single Ended Triode amplifiers are of course exempt, by default, from such comparison since they have no solid-state counterpart)."

Bad news for you hornies push-pull people, your PP tube amps are worthless! Better get some SET amps quickly before they become extinct. .

"This widely reiterated piece of BS would have you believe that audio electronics, and even cables, will "sound better" after a burn-in period of days or weeks or months. Pure garbage. Capacitors will "form" in matter of seconds after power-on. Bias will stabilize in a matter of minutes. There is absolutely no difference in performance between a correctly designed amplifier's (or preamp's or CD player's) first hour and 1000th-hour performance. Loudspeakers, however, may require a break-in period of a few hours perhaps even a day or two, before reaching optinum performance. That's because they are mechanical devices with moving parts under stress that need to settle in."

I don't break-in any of my audio gears except speakers. Anyone wants to argue? You can't defy the law of physics!

[chuckears]

Trying to start a fight, are we?

I'm glad I have my ears, and my equipment... because together, they discern a great difference between different cables. Anyone who has been to higher-end audio heaven knows this to be true.

I could not tell such a big difference when I had a (relatively) mid-priced 5-channel Rotel, even being fed by a mid-higher end HT processor (Anthem AVM20).

The Rotel is on its way to a lucky buyer; I am even luckier, because I have been listening to a McCormack DNA setup (still with the Anthem feeding it) for a couple of weeks now, after not having had one on the rack for over year, and I have music back in my house.

With this better power plant, cables make an enormous difference. I don't know how, and I don't care... I have paid someone else to do the research and make names like "Vari-Strand" and "Hyper-pure" for their discoveries. I don't care about all that, just about how it helps to bring these performers into my listening space.

To say that using a coat hanger would yield the same results; all I can say is, "Go ahead" .... it's your gear, and your ears. But if anyone asks, you'd better qualify it with "this is what I hear (or don't hear, in this case) with my set-up... to state categorically that it is physically impossible to yield sonic results with different cables, and that there is no difference, is like my saying that there has never been a Miracle (note the upper-case M) in human history... I can't prove it, I haven't been around for the sum total of human experience, and I might not have all the variables or facts.

(I am not stating that hearing differences with different cables is the same thing as people claiming miracles... I am using it as an analogy about what is appropriate to state definitively... and in this case, the naysayers just don't know what they are talking about, because not everyone has the same system, room acoustics, or even the same capability to hear at higher levels of discrimination).

I think I have argued this issue a few times past the point when I said I was not going to argue it anymore... pile it on, naysayers; my ears know better

[neo33]

So you are saying electrons can discern the different between a $3,000 cable and a $3 cable?

[maxg]

Interesting how different all our audio lies are. For me, most are the exact opposite of many being quoted here. For example mine would include:

1. Digital is better than analogue.

2. SS amps sound better than tube amps.

3. Cables dont make a difference.

4. Vinyl is dead.

5. Surround sound for music is anything more than a gimic.

6. All CD players sound the same.

7. All amps sound the same (of a given topology within their operating limits).

8. Horn loaded speakers distort the sound more than "normal" drivers.

9. Integrating a phono stage into your pre-amp is a good idea (just kidding Mark - honest).

10. My truths are applicable to anyone else....

and without driving us all over the edge of the cable debate the provided list of what does and does not make a difference to the sound in a cable missed a rather important factor in my book - namely shielding from external interferance.

but what do I know?

[TBrennan]

Chuckears states as a fact that everyone is as deluded as he is and will evidently brook no opposition. The idea that he may be deluded does not seem to be entertained by him.

A similar attitude can be observed among religious fanatics, National Socialists and Notre Dame fans.

[letsrodeo]

It's all about the recorded information and how well the audio system accurately reproduces the information. One needs to look at the all the components that comprise a system and how well the input and output impedances match up as well as the bandwidth through the system. This should include the room acoustics.

Room acoustics are probably the most overlooked piece of the equation and least uderstood, yet will yield the greatest reward when designed properly. They are the most difficult to control unless your fortunate enough to have a room you can dedicate solely to two channel recording.

We all are looking for audio nirvana and a road map to where to find it. What works for one system isnt the path for all.

Peace be with you as you trudge the road to happy disteny.

[Cal Blacksmith]

Well, I tend to agree with the "ten list" on the link. I would only dispute the SS are as good or better and sound the same as tubes item. I think there are indeed different sounds to different tubes. That is the nice thing with tubes, you can play with them to get what suits you best. If SS gear had the transistors mounted in sockets and swaping them made a difference, then I might go with SS gear but they don't and I don't either.

[pablum]

You forgot lie #11: Most People in forums know of what they speak

[Ctiger2]

Here's the real truth I've been hiding for several years...

All receivers are the same. All preamps are the same. All amps are the same. All speakers are the same. All turntables are the same. All speaker wire is the same. All interconnects are the same. All source material sounds the same. Digital is the same as analog.

I just had to get it off my chest...

[Klipschguy]

Here's couple more lies to add:

1. Sonic improvements produced by many audio system tweaks are not due to the Beranek Effect.

2. The Beranek effect does not make "self deluded audio experts."

I had to get that off MY chest. LOL.

[Colin]

I enjoyed Peter Aczels thoughtfully penned rant against the Ten Biggest Lies in Audio in the Audio Critic (#26, Fall 2000). In fact, I think I read the issue somewhere (probably Barnes & Noble, without a latte). He concludes that our crazy consumer cultures widespread acceptance of voodoo science is to blame for the expensive fallacies foisted on us by the audio industry. Emotionally I agree with him, but logically I am forced to disagree, since I question so many of his ten biggest lies:

Aczel starts off baldy. Despite what he says, Lincolns witticism is true. The audio industry is trying to fool only some of the people, some of the time. That the industry makes many stylish but widely overpriced sales proves Lincoln and circus-showman PT Barnum right. The police still use psychics to hunt for killers and some say it does somehow work from time to time. The Reagans, NOT just Hitler, consulted astrologers. Then he omits Henry Kloss and Robert Fulton from the list of hi-fis founding fathers.

1. The Cable Lie

It is true that expensive cables are probably an important part of the audio sale. A five-hundred dollar cable sale might add $250, or 25% more profit margin to a $2,500 sale. People want big pipes to go with their big sonic engines. While it maybe true that most super expensive cables are NOT worth the marginal improvements in sound quality, Aczel admits that decent spades, shielding, insulation give you better performing cables. He denies however, that inexpensive audiophile cables could be better than the simple copper wire so expensively sold to us by Monster and company.

2. The Vacuum Tube Lie

No less a personage than John Atkinson (I think) said that the digital audio chain needed the sweetness of tubes somewhere along the line. Greater reliability yes, but can solid-state amplifiers give you the imaging, sweetness and detail of tubes for less than one thousand dollars? Then Aczel goes and exempts single-ended triode tube amplifiers (SETs), the very ones that, in my own humble opinion, make the best case for SETs with big ole horns! Oops, guess that was the exception that proves the rule. If somebody could introduce deliberate tube colorations to a solid-state amplifier, as he says, to appeal to corrupted tastes, then why havent they? Plenty of small manufacturers could use the unique edge hell, I would want to hear it! Wouldnt you?

3. The Antidigital Lie

The hard edge of CDs is ignorant drivel, for which I must give him some leeway. Perhaps he hadnt read Stereophiles exposure of high-end jitter distortion in most CD players at the time Aczel wrote this. Digital audio is NOT bulletproof. CDs DO eventually fade and the discs cant be written on. CDs do NOT resolve all audio frequencies. SACD and DVD-A both have extended audio range for that simple reason. Tree-Worshipping Analog Druids are NOT rapidly dwindling. The softness of analog remains as economically viable and compelling today as the softness of tubes.

4. The Listening-Lie Test

Listening tests should reduce front-end equipment to equal line levels for objective ABX comparisons, but the level playing field is NOT what tubes are about. It is the un-level playing that makes tubes sound so wonderful sweet and natural.

5. The Feedback Lie

I have an old 70s, solid-state, Class A amplifier with plentiful negative feedback, which before I knew of such a thing, I thought it wore out my ears. Was it the solid-state harmonics, or the feedback? I have a lesser quality vintage solid-state harmon/kardon 330B receiver, which sounds better on mid-range with big ole horns. Are the certain basic guidelines for negative feedback strictly observed as Aczel insists? Who enforces that with chintzy $500 solid-state receivers?

6. The Burn-In Lie

If 1000 hours of operation doesnt matter with front-end equipment, then does 10K hours matter? 100K hours? Connections dont flex, the motherboard does expand? If burn-in doesnt matter, then why do PCs and mini-computers run their speed tests after they warm up?

7. The Biwiring Lie

If absolutely nothing changes with double wire runs, then why dont tweaking audiophiles with monster amplifiers buy even larger cables? Why dont the audio charlatans sell a 1 diameter cable to the rube with the 100-watt amplifier, and a 5 diameter cable to the rube with the 500-watt amplifier? Because the thickness does matter: inductance and resistance do change. Just maybe NOT for the better.

8. The Power Conditioner Lie

All good amplifiers may reject RF, line spikes and other power line problems as Aczel says, but he doesnt say within what tolerances that good amplifiers reject them, or what they do about power line sags (which are just as common as spikes).

9. The CD Treatment Lie

Does he include disc mats, which dampen motor vibrations, is tweaky damnation?

10. The Golden Ear Lie

Aczel ignores recent reports like that of Stereophile magazine, who in a recent trade shows of theirs, noted that certain critical Golden Ears in the audio industry could indeed identify particular amplifiers when the general public could NOT. The Aczel goes on to say that Golden Ears hearing is no keener than yours: he just knows what to listen for. !!! Exactly. Tweako subjective reviewers, like me, know what to listen for and if we are any good, we know how to describe that difference to our audience.

Aczel does start off badly, and I am forced to question many of his widest assertions, but when he concludes our widespread acceptance of voodoo science by our crazy consumer culture is to blame for the expensive fallacies foisted on us by the audio industry, I have to agree emotionally if NOT logically. We do get what we pay for.

[artto]

Rehash, rehash, and more rehash. Obviously this will never end.

At this point in my life, Im glad that I really dont care about all this crap anymore. I know this may hard to believe, but for the most part, Im satisfied.

[whell]

See notes below:

----------------

On 6/10/2004 2:18:25 PM Colin wrote:

I enjoyed Peter Aczels thoughtfully penned rant against the Ten Biggest Lies in Audio in the Audio Critic (#26, Fall 2000). In fact, I think I read the issue somewhere (probably Barnes & Noble, without a latte). He concludes that our crazy consumer cultures widespread acceptance of voodoo science is to blame for the expensive fallacies foisted on us by the audio industry. Emotionally I agree with him, but logically I am forced to disagree, since I question so many of his ten biggest lies:

Aczel starts off baldy. Despite what he says, Lincolns witticism is true. The audio industry is trying to fool only some of the people, some of the time. That the industry makes many stylish but widely overpriced sales proves Lincoln and circus-showman PT Barnum right. The police still use psychics to hunt for killers and some say it does somehow work from time to time. The Reagans, NOT just Hitler, consulted astrologers. Then he omits Henry Kloss and Robert Fulton from the list of hi-fis founding fathers.

1. The Cable Lie

It is true that expensive cables are probably an important part of the audio sale. A five-hundred dollar cable sale might add $250, or 25% more profit margin to a $2,500 sale. People want big pipes to go with their big sonic engines. While it maybe true that most super expensive cables are NOT worth the marginal improvements in sound quality, Aczel admits that decent spades, shielding, insulation give you better performing cables. He denies however, that inexpensive audiophile cables could be better than the simple copper wire so expensively sold to us by Monster and company.

The way I read it, his point was simply that well contructed (as in quality of workmanship) is the value that should be used to judge a cable, not the supposed esoterica inside the cable jacket.

2. The Vacuum Tube Lie

No less a personage than John Atkinson (I think) said that the digital audio chain needed the sweetness of tubes somewhere along the line. Greater reliability yes, but can solid-state amplifiers give you the imaging, sweetness and detail of tubes for less than one thousand dollars? Then Aczel goes and exempts single-ended triode tube amplifiers (SETs), the very ones that, in my own humble opinion, make the best case for SETs with big ole horns! Oops, guess that was the exception that proves the rule. If somebody could introduce deliberate tube colorations to a solid-state amplifier, as he says, to appeal to corrupted tastes, then why havent they? Plenty of small manufacturers could use the unique edge hell, I would want to hear it! Wouldnt you?

There are a fair number of SS amps that were designed to sound "tubish", going all the way back to Saul Marantz's first SS products. I admit that I don't know enough about the electronics of this to know precisely how this was acheived, but I that there are a fair number of folks about there who think that Marantz, as well as other brands, have been designed to acheive distrinct sound characteristics. Without making subjective value judgements, I think that there are things that tubes do well, and things that SS does well. The value judgement becomes which an individual prefers. Which is "better" in absolute terms, to some, has as much to do with sound as it does with reliability, cosmetics, ease of use, etc.

3. The Antidigital Lie

The hard edge of CDs is ignorant drivel, for which I must give him some leeway. Perhaps he hadnt read Stereophiles exposure of high-end jitter distortion in most CD players at the time Aczel wrote this. Digital audio is NOT bulletproof. CDs DO eventually fade and the discs cant be written on. CDs do NOT resolve all audio frequencies. SACD and DVD-A both have extended audio range for that simple reason. Tree-Worshipping Analog Druids are NOT rapidly dwindling. The softness of analog remains as economically viable and compelling today as the softness of tubes.

I think the author's point is not necessarily exclusive to "which one sounds better". The early days of the phonograph, and associated recording technology and manufacturing processes, is probably analogous to the early days of digiital. The older the format, the better the technology is understood, applied, and mastered. We arrived at the point of diminishing returns long ago. Digital, even Redbook, is still developing/being perfected.

4. The Listening-Lie Test

Listening tests should reduce front-end equipment to equal line levels for objective ABX comparisons, but the level playing field is NOT what tubes are about. It is the un-level playing that makes tubes sound so wonderful sweet and natural.

???

5. The Feedback Lie

I have an old 70s, solid-state, Class A amplifier with plentiful negative feedback, which before I knew of such a thing, I thought it wore out my ears. Was it the solid-state harmonics, or the feedback? I have a lesser quality vintage solid-state harmon/kardon 330B receiver, which sounds better on mid-range with big ole horns. Are the certain basic guidelines for negative feedback strictly observed as Aczel insists? Who enforces that with chintzy $500 solid-state receivers?

Different strokes and all that. I recently sold a pair of Monarchy SM-70 Pro Zero Negative Feedback amps that, to me, did not best my Adcom 555.

6. The Burn-In Lie

If 1000 hours of operation doesnt matter with front-end equipment, then does 10K hours matter? 100K hours? Connections dont flex, the motherboard does expand? If burn-in doesnt matter, then why do PCs and mini-computers run their speed tests after they warm up?

I think that there is a differnce between the concept of "burn in" and warm up. I don't subscribe to burn in, but I think warm up makes some sense.

7. The Biwiring Lie

If absolutely nothing changes with double wire runs, then why dont tweaking audiophiles with monster amplifiers buy even larger cables? Why dont the audio charlatans sell a 1 diameter cable to the rube with the 100-watt amplifier, and a 5 diameter cable to the rube with the 500-watt amplifier? Because the thickness does matter: inductance and resistance do change. Just maybe NOT for the better.

I would think that for anything there is a point of dimishing returns. I think that for cables, that point is much lower on the "cost spectrum" than many cable manufacturers would ask us to believe.

8. The Power Conditioner Lie

All good amplifiers may reject RF, line spikes and other power line problems as Aczel says, but he doesnt say within what tolerances that good amplifiers reject them, or what they do about power line sags (which are just as common as spikes).

But most power conditioners don't promise any "protection" from voltage "drops", correct?

9. The CD Treatment Lie

Does he include disc mats, which dampen motor vibrations, is tweaky damnation?

?

10. The Golden Ear Lie

Aczel ignores recent reports like that of Stereophile magazine, who in a recent trade shows of theirs, noted that certain critical Golden Ears in the audio industry could indeed identify particular amplifiers when the general public could NOT. The Aczel goes on to say that Golden Ears hearing is no keener than yours: he just knows what to listen for. !!! Exactly. Tweako subjective reviewers, like me, know what to listen for and if we are any good, we know how to describe that difference to our audience.

Audiophiles seem to suffer from buyers remorse sooner than any other group of consumers I've ever seen. Relatively few audio deveotes seem to be able to live with their purchases for very long. How many have the same systems they had even 5 years ago? Is it "upgrade fever", or suseptibility to the idea that today's amp is better than a 5, 10 whatever year old amp? While I don't hardly find this to be the case, as some "Golden Ears" would have us believe, what level of appreciable difference can the average "tweak" make? Even if I know what I'm supposed to be listening for, am I actually hearing the benefits of dampended motor vibrations, or am I convincing myself that I'm hearing a difference? Does the sound radically degrade when the "tweak" is removed?

Not trying to be argumentative here, but I think that many "audiophiles" seem to be easily talked into spending hundreds of dollars on cables, when they wouldn't even think about buying up from a Taurus to a Lexus. The logic would be the same, but the emotional content of the decision is very different FOR THEM.

I once spoke to an audio dealer who was convinced that there was an actual percentage ( I think the number was 20%) should be applied when buying audio equipment to serve as a guide to how much to spend on cables. Thus, if I spend $1000 on an amp, the minimum purchase price for cables should be $200. The logic of that failed me, but I've heard it since from other retailers and 'audiophiles' as well. Is this a symptom of "Golden Ear" syndrome? I think so.

Aczel does start off badly, and I am forced to question many of his widest assertions, but when he concludes our widespread acceptance of voodoo science by our crazy consumer culture is to blame for the expensive fallacies foisted on us by the audio industry, I have to agree emotionally if NOT logically. We do get what we pay for.

----------------

[popbumper]

Hear, hear, Artto! I agree with your "rehash" comment...which brings up the question:

If three guys are standing in the woods, and an approaching storm throws lightning which fells a tree that is 50 yards away, will the crashing sound of the tree sound exactly the same to all three guys?

Long response: Given factors of humidity, ambient temperature, sea level, ear axis, height of tree, time of day, age of individuals, height of individuals, composition of forest floor, density of tree, type of tree, height of tree, amount of air ionization due to lightning strike, presence of wind in the area, etc., it therefore follows that.....

Short response: NO

Popbumper

[whell]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=14966&item=5704424133&rd=1

A tweak that works, or a rip off? I've heard these touted by some on this forum. $20 a pop for 8 pieces of ceramic? Hmmmm....