Yeaah, it is unfortunate that we have too many myths and snake oil in audio, buries the real issues.
And some of them are called the enlightened. It is true, everything is nothing, the same thing.
One other personal attack, without any argument ?
it is funny. because, on the subject of silver wires:
1- I don't believe more than you in this "magic".
2- I made no "allegation", I only asked questions.
2- As I tend to be as objective as possible, (the opposite of your way of being?), I do not consider my subjective opinions as laws of the univers.
It is surprising to see, here, how so many people, who pretend to be in the camp of "objectivists" behave in a totally non scientific approach.
Believers of a religion they call "science".
Last edited:
No, you made an assumption, I was talking generally about what often happens in the industry......stuff like what was said happens. Even there by saying "one other personal attack" you are assuming I'm attacking JC
Hi everybody! Yes, I am back. I might remind you that this is the BLOWTORCH THREAD and my name is included in the title. So, when it comes to Blowtorch topics (by the way, a world famous, but now almost forgotten preamp, and only about 48 made for sale or so.)
It just so happens that my colleague Ed Simon, wants to bring up the subject in trying to build something like it, but it is not that easy.
Ed knows and has actually listened to and measured wire! What a concept! He even wrote a detailed article about it in 'Audio Express' (something all of us serious audio people read) and he found it was sometimes 'directional'. I am only warning him about silver wire and what it takes to get it to work better than a quality, clean, pure copper connecting wire with quality insulation. I have available both versions of Blowtorch amps, one with pure silver, and one with pure copper, and if someone would be willing to pay for the the test.
It just so happens that my colleague Ed Simon, wants to bring up the subject in trying to build something like it, but it is not that easy.
Ed knows and has actually listened to and measured wire! What a concept! He even wrote a detailed article about it in 'Audio Express' (something all of us serious audio people read) and he found it was sometimes 'directional'. I am only warning him about silver wire and what it takes to get it to work better than a quality, clean, pure copper connecting wire with quality insulation. I have available both versions of Blowtorch amps, one with pure silver, and one with pure copper, and if someone would be willing to pay for the the test.
That assumes existing research was pretty reliable. Also, since people tend to hear logarithmally, we use dB as a convenient scale. A few orders of magnitude expressed linearly and a few orders expressed in dB are of course very different. It can be shown that some people can hear a failure to dither 16-bit audio. What is a few more small tens of dB, expressed in the way humans hear rather than linearly?
The process is threadbare and as old as the world. I sometimes lower myself to use it ;-)
But, if , by miracle, you where not thinking to J.C. (your comment was about my answer to him), please, accept my sincerest apologies.
T. It's ok entirely. I'm to blame too. I was just thinking, I think the problem many of us have here, is that in many ways we don't have conversations that flow and go off at tangents as they normally would do face to face. Most are used to technical discussions that remain within the context, I think I'm often misunderstood, or misinterpreted because I don't make it clear enough that I'm just answering or responding to a specific post and where that thought has taken me, I hope that's clear?
Mark, we have hashed through this before: undithered 16-bit audio can easily reach into -50 dB/-60 dB of a quieter passage, so doesn't require new understanding. Even though I find the original research papers a little thin, there's a decent amount of corroborating evidence to say it's in the ballpark. That's *my* (a human) Bayesian analysis, without the attendant rigor or methodology to be validated or refuted, so take that as you wish.
Similarly, human performance is, by and large, heavily conserved in a tight band which does *not* follow logarithmic trends, even in cognitive tasks (provided a modicum of training/familiarization). I don't think it's unfair to extrapolate this listening ability, which is both physical and cognitive in nature.
That is a good point, thank you. Could be one of the reasons amplifiers and dacs with measured distortion around -100dB still aren't good enough. I think we could probably count up reasons for dacs why even -120dB measured distortion is not good enough to satisfy some listeners. That being said, I don't want to get into debating re all the possible factors, magnitude of likely effects of each, quality and or replicability of old research, etc. Debate never resolves strongly held beliefs, anyway. As always, you would be very welcome to come by for a visit. Have a nice day.
Seems like a very reasonable offer. Although studying the preamps might turn out to be very informative, unlikely there will be any takers to pay for what would probably be a costly and time consuming undertaking (in order to account for wire differences vs effects due to other component variations).
In any case, Happy Birthday!
That is a good point, thank you. Could be one of the reasons amplifiers and dacs with measured distortion around -100dB still aren't good enough. I think we could probably count up reasons for dacs why even -120dB measured distortion is not good enough to satisfy some listeners. That being said, I don't want to get into debating re all the possible factors, magnitude of likely effects of each, quality and or replicability of old research, etc. Debate never resolves strongly held beliefs, anyway. As always, you would be very welcome to come by for a visit. Have a nice day.
And I sincerely appreciate the offer.
Yes, we can go back and forth and progress nowhere, so I'll leave it be.
You can be assured JC's designs don't aim at anywhere near those numbers, and Nelson's an order of magnitude or more less.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.