Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil

i'd be depressed if i made those cables knowing they would predominantly be carrying the music of phil collins. then i would remember that idiots made me rich and feel good again

can't believe this thread is a year old holy fuck

Mannheim Steamroller.

"reference" just means "an extra $10k" right?

Audiophiles love the word 'reference' because it makes them feel like archivists of the true essence of sound. Eejits.

http://machinadynamica.com/water.gif

After the $500 ethernet cable upthread, this:

A £395 kettle lead

From the blurb:

The Power-Line brings gains in all areas of system performance with its influence increasing as it is used on each component in a system.

Audio snake oil on Amazon.. The reviews are hilarious!

http://www.amazon.com/Wattgate-Audio-Grade-Duplex-Socket/dp/B000930W4M/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Creative's XFI technology sounds BETTER THAN THE ACTUAL INSTRUMENTS DID IN THE STUDIO

http://images.asia.creative.com/images/inline/products/xtreme_audio/xfi_graph.jpg

I have never, in my life heard audio like this. I finally understood Mozart, Beethoven and Nirvana. I understand music on a whole new level. I have become...a music God. I only drink Tuscan Whole Milk. I am one.

While electrified, I swear I heard the sweet, sweet voices of a multitude of angels all singing in perfect harmony.

I was headed straight to an early grave via suicide when I though "What the heck? I'll order one of these sockets."

These are amazing.

"Picked this one up at the Tosche station." ftw

lol @ not one but two refs to Tuscan whole milk in the reviews

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09milk.html

Thanks for that link, J0hn!

I love the Times:

Whatever the explanation for that, once the gremlins are in the grocery, it may be hard to keep them from spreading.

“Grapes, when combined with 2 parts nitric acid, 1 part dihydrogen oxide, a pine cone, and glue sticks,” wrote a reviewer of California green seedless grapes on Sunday, “actually make a great ammunition for everything from shooting down enemy airplanes to blowing apart spaceships from the fifth dimension.”

"Albini has something very like this and it's available for use when you record at Electrical, or was the one time I recorded there. It sustained like crazy"

The band Tar also used these aluminum guitars which were custom made in Chicago.

http://www.specimenproducts.com/instru/originals.html

those aluminum guitars look really cool though

Albini plays Travis Bean guitars http://www.travisbeanguitars.com/

Sunn 0))) also use them, I noticed at their last gig.

Not really made of beans :-(

why stop at the outlet, why not get all of the wiring in your house replaced, get a gold-plated fuse box, have the wiring from the substation to your house replaced with monster cables...

Dear Amazon.com Customer,
As someone who has shown an interest in the music of Miles Davis, you might be interested in Miles Davis Tribute Jazz Headphones from Monster. These headphones have been engineered specifically to reproduce music the way Miles heard it onstage.

This limited-edition product is the perfect portable in-ear speaker for jazz lovers and audiophiles alike. Learn more about the cutting-edge technologies behind these headphones--including certified Monster cable and speaker technologies--on the product detail page.

That might be the most ridiculous niche product I have ever heard of.

if it could recreate the experience of hearing the electric stuff through the fug of cocaine abuse, it could be amazing you know!

yeah somehow I don't think the cutting edge technologies can reproduce an eightball.

if it could recreate the experience of hearing the electric stuff through the fug of cocaine abuse, it could be amazing you know!

Cocaine's cheaper.

I figured anyone willing to run an unsecured wi-sock network, especially with a 381 in-line, was OK with others sharing the experience. I found one nearby with the humorous network name "Download Viruses to your Shakti Stones." I laughed, but just to be sure, I unhooked the silver bi-wired cables from my Shaktis and stored the stones and cables in my lead-lined closet. When I logged on to my neighbor's network, some strange shiat began to happen. Among other strange things, my Matrix 801s began to phase in and out of an optical and sonic illusion of being Wilson MAXX 3s, the electrical cords on my room lamps took on the appearance of Siltech Emperor Crown cables, and the entire room, me included, was engulfed in a spiritual and non-annoying 60 cycle hum. I terminated the connection when my wife interrupted me and said I was scaring the dog.

^^ awesome

hahaha

I had an invite to the "unveiling" of those Monster headphones, and even the promise of an open bar (and its NYC and I am broke and I like to drink and I could have brought a plus one) still was not enough to conquer the embarrassment I would have felt being there.

this is the greatest thread ever. thanks for the LOLs, i needed them.

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/hallograph.htm

but they don't even say how they work and what little explanation they give seems impossible...

http://i48.tinypic.com/244nuyu.jpg

oh, okay. sold!!!

btw, the "hot stampers" guy sells these!!!

I'm all for reducing EMI.

yeah i consider the fact that the hot stampers guy sells them a large chink in his armor. Yes the prices he charges for vinyl are high but I think his reasoning (regular press in good condition usually better to remasters on 180g) is fairly sound.

http://wallywashis.name/mp3/%5Bno%20artist%5D/CD%20Laser%20Lens%20Cleaner%20With%20Voice%20and%20Music%20Instructions/

http://www.combak.net/otherproducts/OTHERPRODUCTS.htm

Having never heard of record clamps at all before today boy am I excited about Tuned Record Stabilizer Clamps!!!

Tuning Record Matte TU-800EXi Improved Version

Tunes your record platter assembly at a frequency outside the audio band and eliminates the resonance which affects your sound. Improves balance and clarity, adds depth, and boosts information concentration across the entire sound range. Each instrument is clearly delineated and the naturalness of the tone is enhanced. The mat is lighter than ever before, and is now compatible with almost any turntable.

・ Width: 29.3cm (11.53')
・ Thickness: 3.0mm (0.117')
・ Weight: 210g (0.462 lbs)
・ Color: Black, gold, or silver

Sells for $1,350!

my record clamp cost $20 and was a worthwhile purchase

Mine came with the Gyro as it's sort of an essential part of the system (there's no mat). I think they're about £15 to replace.

record clamps are awesome. though for a really high-end setup, i could see spending around 100-200 for a big chunk of inert, non resonant metal, for 1350 it better also do the dishes too.

Since I know nothing about them - do they attach to something under the record or just work by being heavy?

it's amazing how much verbiage these sites can produce that is just this side of making sense. it's like it lends the illusion of making sense without actually being the slightest bit coherent

"the whole musical presentation seems to be naturally set in its recording venue to a greater degree."

"The Hallograph Soundfield Optimizer is a mouth-full to say, looks strange in pictures, is hard to comprehend at first sight how or why is should even work, and does everything as advertised."

indeed.

this shit is like 9/11 conspiracy theories, it mostly makes me kind of sad that anyone is invested in it.

Since I know nothing about them - do they attach to something under the record or just work by being heavy?

Trichord/Michell's own website is reassuringly/disappointingly un-snake oil about it:
[Modern vinyl records are thin, flexible and often warped or bowed. As most records do not lie flat on the turntable platter, sound reproduction suffers due to undamped vinyl resonances caused by the stylus riding on an unsupported record. Records which are bowed downwards contact the platter at the outer edge but not in middle. Conversely, records that are warped or bowed upwards tend to rock on the platter. In these instances anti-skating compensation is less effective and record wear is increased substantially by the lateral or vertical see-saw motion of the tonearm/cartridge combination.

The Michell Record Clamp solves the above problems by bringing the record into more intimate contact with the platter.

Whoops - hadn't finished formatting that. Oh well.

I've wanted to get a record clamp but to deal with warped records, I don't know if this is just buying into audiophile conspiracy-theories or not, places don't seem to sell them, ones like these:

http://www.residentadvisor.net/images/features/2009/james-murphy-richard-branson.jpg

Warped records also seem to play less consistently pitch-wise, which matters for things like solo piano especially.

"the whole musical presentation seems to be naturally set in its recording venue to a greater degree."

a lot of this stuff is badly written - it really rivals DJ writeups on flyers for trying to use a limited and vague and boringly repetitive vocabulary to describe something that is much more trivial in words that in reality ("DJ [x] consistently rocks parties from [x] to [x].")

that being said, the above as a desireable goal and audible benefit makes sense. whether the product in question actually provides it is impossible to tell without hearing it.

do you people who think this is all bullshit think so for recording as well? you can find versions of all of the typical audiophile debates happening in serious recording forums amongst trained professionals (ie not just dudes with $50,000 to spend on a stereo system)

Oh, it's much less prevalent though, isn't it? One of things I noticed when I got into sound engineering and started to venture into the world of mastering studios, pro-audio and the like, is how much less attention is paid to absurdly expensive cabling, fancy isolation systems for solid state electronics and various bits of audiophile lore. It's all about room prep, speaker tuning, etc.

studios definitely spend good money on cabling, but buy in bulk and do the soldering themselves. you can probably save 75% or more doing this but you might have to buy 500 feet of cable ;-)

absolutely some of the outlying tweaks of the audiophile world havent made it to the pro side, but the attention to very small details and how they effect sound certainly is shared. Lost of pro studios = dedicated AC circuits for certain components, all sorts of AC line noise filtration systems, careful choice of construction materials, sound treatment materials, careful placement of speakers in the room, concern over the sonic effect of speaker being placed on the bridge of large consoles and the attendant reflections, etc. not to mention the long arguments certain mastering engineers might get into over EQs and compressors, etc., or that mix engineers might have over how well one lexicon reverb "attaches itself" to a snare drum versus another...

to some people all of the above stuff would be a stupid tweak.

Surely no one would characterise careful speaker placement as a stupid tweak. As I say, it's all sensible stuff on the pro side, and with a fairly sound scientific basis. I can totally understand a dedicated mains spur for a $100k mixing console, where any AC breakthrough is going to be in the recording forever, but not so much for someone's home system (assuming the amps' power supplies are doing their jobs properly). As for cables, are studios buying decent shielded OFC (in whatever configuration they need) in bulk or are they buying the Nordost/van den Hul exotica?

As for EQ/compression, you're talking about subjective impressions of sound manipulation by various flavours of modelling algorithm and people are gonna have their favourites. It's not really in the same realm as domestic hi-fi reproduction.

I don't read either thesedays but the difference I noticed as I drifted from audiophile discussion groups to pro-audio discussion groups about 8-10 years ago (as my interests changed) was how all manner of wackiness was indulged on the former (or at least provoked heated exchanges) but mention of a $200 SPDIF interconnect or a $400 mains cable on the latter was pretty much laughed out of the room. I thought that was kinda revealing.