I'm curious.. are anybody here believers in some of the magical audio-related products? I'm not referring to interconnects and speaker cables; these can make a difference in certain cases.
What I am referring to are things like (my personal top 10 in no particular order):
1) acoustical advantage of "special" filler material for speaker stands that has the same mass and density of sand or lead shot.
2) power cables or anything power-related that doesn't have lower resistance or some form of filtering. So-called "quantum purifiers" and whether they offer any improvement with their very hefty $480/pr pricetag over plain EMI filters.
3) "demagnetizing" CD's
4) adding blue or green LED's to a CD transport
5) Special silver-rhodium or similar RCA connectors that offers the same electrical contact as proper uncorroded brass or even nickel (that has superior conductivity over gold BTW)
6) Silver solder on proper joints where the two areas made contact before soldering i.e. crimped
7) Non-magnetic resistors, provided they have the same RLC parameters and tolerance wrt temperature frequency etc compared to standard metal film.
8) Visual improvements by different HDMI cables provided all are well-screened with correct characteristic impedance and similar RLC parameters
9) Shops supplying a R1000 Tag McLaren digital interconnect with a full home theater system of less than R10,000 (and not willing to change that policy as the package deal as it will ruin the quality) - I'm sure that R1000 would offer much more objective improvement if used by going up one model on one of the components.
10) Small little metal thingies weighing a fraction of a subwoofer's weight placed on the sub for [insert generic audiophile positive adverbs here].. of course with "logo facing forward" for best performance (even though being symmetrical). Right, best performance for everybody to see the brand. Seriously, look at the Eichman accessories at Parts Connexion.
A lot of the other fancy accessories may indeed offer improved performance such as special clamps over power and audio cables, vibration isolators, EMI/RFI shielding wrappers, discrete output stages instead of opamps etc, but those are highly debatable.
It's easy to say "yes I can hear the difference, and if others cannot it's because I have superior hearing" (even though many of these people already have grey hair and well past their hearing prime). If they say they can hear it because they have trained ears and know what to listen for it was shooting themself in the foot - if you're not so overly critical on tuning yourself to look out for flaws instead of enjoying the music you're much more likely to be happy with your system! I've asked many a prudish snob if they'd be willing to do a double-blind test, and they always find some reason why they will not or cannot do it; yet stick to their claims. Some actually agree verbally, but if I ask them to sit down to do it right away they're suddenly "not prepared" or some similar excuse. One guy actually did it, and couldn't even identify the cheapy patch interconnect over a rather expensive van den Hul one. I have to admit that he identified that there were two cables correctly, but he was wrong in identifying which was which ?:077:
Another guy asked me to help him tune his subwoofer's phase control. He sat down and listened while I had to change the phase. After over 10minutes I've had enough of changing back and forward and just did nothing.. while he still barked "more... less" until he was happy.
So I pose a challenge: will anyone be willing to prove their beliefs in some of those more esoteric gimmicks in a double-blind test (and actually doing it)?
What I am referring to are things like (my personal top 10 in no particular order):
1) acoustical advantage of "special" filler material for speaker stands that has the same mass and density of sand or lead shot.
2) power cables or anything power-related that doesn't have lower resistance or some form of filtering. So-called "quantum purifiers" and whether they offer any improvement with their very hefty $480/pr pricetag over plain EMI filters.
3) "demagnetizing" CD's
4) adding blue or green LED's to a CD transport
5) Special silver-rhodium or similar RCA connectors that offers the same electrical contact as proper uncorroded brass or even nickel (that has superior conductivity over gold BTW)
6) Silver solder on proper joints where the two areas made contact before soldering i.e. crimped
7) Non-magnetic resistors, provided they have the same RLC parameters and tolerance wrt temperature frequency etc compared to standard metal film.
8) Visual improvements by different HDMI cables provided all are well-screened with correct characteristic impedance and similar RLC parameters
9) Shops supplying a R1000 Tag McLaren digital interconnect with a full home theater system of less than R10,000 (and not willing to change that policy as the package deal as it will ruin the quality) - I'm sure that R1000 would offer much more objective improvement if used by going up one model on one of the components.
10) Small little metal thingies weighing a fraction of a subwoofer's weight placed on the sub for [insert generic audiophile positive adverbs here].. of course with "logo facing forward" for best performance (even though being symmetrical). Right, best performance for everybody to see the brand. Seriously, look at the Eichman accessories at Parts Connexion.
A lot of the other fancy accessories may indeed offer improved performance such as special clamps over power and audio cables, vibration isolators, EMI/RFI shielding wrappers, discrete output stages instead of opamps etc, but those are highly debatable.
It's easy to say "yes I can hear the difference, and if others cannot it's because I have superior hearing" (even though many of these people already have grey hair and well past their hearing prime). If they say they can hear it because they have trained ears and know what to listen for it was shooting themself in the foot - if you're not so overly critical on tuning yourself to look out for flaws instead of enjoying the music you're much more likely to be happy with your system! I've asked many a prudish snob if they'd be willing to do a double-blind test, and they always find some reason why they will not or cannot do it; yet stick to their claims. Some actually agree verbally, but if I ask them to sit down to do it right away they're suddenly "not prepared" or some similar excuse. One guy actually did it, and couldn't even identify the cheapy patch interconnect over a rather expensive van den Hul one. I have to admit that he identified that there were two cables correctly, but he was wrong in identifying which was which ?:077:
Another guy asked me to help him tune his subwoofer's phase control. He sat down and listened while I had to change the phase. After over 10minutes I've had enough of changing back and forward and just did nothing.. while he still barked "more... less" until he was happy.
So I pose a challenge: will anyone be willing to prove their beliefs in some of those more esoteric gimmicks in a double-blind test (and actually doing it)?
