Funniest snake oil theories

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CopperTop

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Joined 2009
M Gregg said:
So none of this makes any difference...Ok except the speakers..perhaps the transport..the rest can be disregarded if its engineered to achieve reasonable performance..
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(The transport? Not if it's digital surely, and especially if it's an 'on-demand' system..? i.e. jitter defined only by the DAC clock, drawing on the data in asynchronous fashion..? Surely a $10 CD ROM drive is sufficient... But let's not go there!!!)

This article takes the view that there are no audible differences between reasonable amplifiers when not stressed, but that it is the differences in overload characteristics that people are hearing, when driving them hard.

So far, however, no person has demonstrated publicly in a scientific fashion that he can reliably distinguish between the sound of two good amplifiers with identical frequency response and low noise driven below clipping. And yet the perception remains that there are real differences in amp sound. As a consultant in acoustics and sound/video system design, I regularly encounter people who assume I must have a vacuum-tube stereo system “because everyone knows they’re better.”...
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...there are conditions under which distortion, even if not desired, occurs in an audio chain. It can happen when a person is listening to music at high levels, especially if low-efficiency speakers and/or underpowered amplifiers are being used. I believe this occurrence is the rule rather than the exception for many serious music listeners. Not only rock music, but also symphonic music, pipe organ music, and big-band jazz require a lot of amplifier power in order to play through typical home-stereo speakers at realistic levels without clipping. Aside from amplifiers for music listening, another place where “tube sound” is much hyped is in microphone preamps for audio recording. In this application, it is not uncommon for the microphone to put out surprisingly high voltages. Capacitor microphone cartridges, especially, are almost immune to clipping, so when exposed to high sound pressures, they can produce output voltages close to 1,000 times their normal output levels. Under these conditions, preamp clipping is pretty much inevitable. Again, the distortion spectrum is very important, and most recording engineers prefer the spectrum provided by tube pre-amps.

So in this columnist’s codgerly opinion, there is indeed a “tube sound” under some conditions, and many excellent technicians, engineers, and audiophiles find it preferable for specific applications. It is not, however, scientifically accurate to claim that hollow-state amplifiers are better or worse than—or even perceptibly different from—solid-state ones for all applications.
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Differences in Amp Sound: What’s the Truth? | AudioAmateur
 
M Gregg

M Gregg

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Joined 2010
Ref post #121..

Not much point in SY putting LEDs under tubes then ..if your not going to tell any difference...:D..its only the OP stage that matters..
You can't hear an amp anyway...

It will sound exactly the same...just like SE and PP...what a relief I can put a pioneer behind a curtain and it will sound like a krell..possibly with RS twin screened..:confused:

Regards
M. Gregg
 
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mr_push_pull

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Joined 2004
CopperTop said:
(The transport? Not if it's digital surely, and especially if it's an 'on-demand' system..? i.e. jitter defined only by the DAC clock, drawing on the data in asynchronous fashion..? Surely a $10 CD ROM drive is sufficient... But let's not go there!!!)
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what bugs me is... while it's obvious that the "transport as master, D/A as slave" clocking scheme is backwards, even renowned designer seem to disregard this fundamental point and I would really, really like to get an idea on why they do it.
maybe because it's a very good reason to feed the endless (pointless?) PLL vs ASRC vs God-knows-what-other-jitter-reduction-schemes debate?
or maybe because there's still a big cash cow in making "high end" transports like the $40k pi-tracer?
or maybe because there's an undefeatable belief that S/PDIF is the end-all-be-all?
or... ?

sure, more hand-waving disguised as answers is to be expected :)
 
M Gregg

M Gregg

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SY said:
Perhaps actually reading my articles and going through the engineering justifications might be worthwhile for you.
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SY,

I have tried your ideas and yes I can hear the difference,,but some would have me believe that I'm imagining it..because all amps sound the same..

When some say all amps sound the same<<in theory if they are reproducing the signal exactly the same then yes you would think so wouldn't you..so you should not be able to "hear" a component change or circuit change..here is another one if they are producing exactly the same signal then speakers should sound the same as well...we know they don't...

Regards
M. Gregg
 
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M Gregg

M Gregg

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M

mr_push_pull

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Joined 2004
nannoo said:
I also LOVE that my local 'High-End' Hi-Fi shop refused to let me bring in my computer as a digital interface many years ago [...] Now they're selling USB DACs everywhere and screaming about how good they are.
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am I surprised or what...

another recent discussion involved a dealer who at one point said, no more, no less "I'm not an expert but as I understand it, extracting accurate data from CDs is almost if not totally impossible".

no more, no less! totally impossible! except for, of course, "classic" ($$$, just a coincidence) transports which seem to be able to do something which is above science, logic and human comprehension.

weirdest thing is that I've seen some explanations from rather techy guys which are still wrong. no, seriously. I've seen apparently logical and scientific explanations that for an unenquiring mind would seem perfect. somehow failing to explain how come people buying different pressings of a CD, ripping it with different PCs, operating systems, CD drives in different places of the world etc get the same CRC.

well, here it goes again. in an ideal world, the only logical answer to such a statement would be "just shut your money-grabbing trap". but no, we have political correctness and tolerance. and we have to say "if you would pardon me sir, that's not absolutely accurate" to these guys who have absolutely no intentiot of considering that a different view might be true. yeah, be tolerant with the most intolerant person. and risk being called intolerant yourself. it will surely get you a long way :)
it's an endless game, and I'd be happy to say that it happens in audio only, but it doesn't :)


SY said:
There's all sorts of total nonsense that won't die as long as there are people willing to suspend critical thinking and embrace it.
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yes, it's what I called "audio Zen". just give up logic and common sense and believe everything you're being served. it won't sound better but at least you're Zen. sorry, pretend to be.


Ron E said:
Audio is not the only area where snake oil abounds, it is just one of the areas where they can make the most money with the least possible liability.
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here's my theory.
it's about the fact that by the nature of hearing, differences are harder to indentify, compared to video, photography etc. and audio stuff is easier to design and manufacture. so you can get away with it more easily.
just go to an electronics store and look at the TVs. the differences between entry level and better ones are astonishing for the most untrained eye.
imagine that it would that easy to tell the differences in audio and that making a DAC or an amp would take at least hundreds of thousands of dollars to design :)
 
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DF96

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Joined 2007
myweb.tiscali.co.uk/g8hqp/
Perhaps we need to be clearer in what we say, and carefully distinguish between:
1. "No, you are wrong" - all serious science/mathematics (etc.) says the opposite of what you have just claimed
2. "I disagree" - the factual opinion you have expressed has little evidence to support it whereas my contrary view is well-supported by evidence
3. "I prefer . . . " - the personal preference you have expressed (maybe dressed up to look like a factual opinion) is one which I do not share

A lot of our arguments on here (and elsewhere) result from people getting these three mixed up (on both sides). Some, of course, like to think that category 1 does not exist but they are wrong (a category 1 statement!) to believe this. As I have said before (or something like it), you wouldn't want to consult a post-modern lawyer or fly with a post-modern pilot. You might, on the other hand, be happy to eat with a post-modern cook or listen to a post-modern guitarist.

One can sometimes have an opinion as to whether a claimed fact is true, as different people may weigh conflicting evidence in different ways, but the alleged fact itself is either true or false - it is not a matter of opinion.

"I'm not an expert but as I understand it, extracting accurate data from CDs is almost if not totally impossible".
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That is a tentative category 1 statement, which is actually quite false. Provided the CD and player are in reasonable condition (with functioning error correction) then extracting perfect data from a CD is routinely achieved.

Let's not allow PC considerations to prevent us saying (politely!) that certain statements are wrong. Some statements are so clearly wrong, or obviously self-serving, that perhaps we can sometimes be excused from being totally polite!
 
M Gregg

M Gregg

Disabled Account
Joined 2010
You know,

I would like to try making a couple of Caps just for a laugh..must have silver lead out...perhaps silver foil/copper...:D.

How do you calaculate the foil size though....Better than using a green pen on the CD's...LOL

Wax..oil....paper woooh...:D<<<<NO PCB...only organic..The inductive bit...join each end of the foil across so its not a spiral...
Its going to be to big<<<its audio grade..:D

Regards
M. Gregg
 
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M

mr_push_pull

Member
Joined 2004
DF96 said:
Let's not allow PC considerations to prevent us saying (politely!) that certain statements are wrong. Some statements are so clearly wrong, or obviously self-serving, that perhaps we can sometimes be excused from being totally polite!
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I wish it could go like that.
IME these guys (with self-serving interests) are always followed by a herd of adepts which view them as gurus. hence power by numbers comes into play. it's the herd that makes the relevant discussion impossible. sometimes with the help of some engineering types which oversimplify things.

diyaudio is maybe free from it because its commercial side is not that exacerbated (who knows about the future?). in smaller audio communities (forums) where exposure is lower because of non-English languages it's much worse.
 
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