I for one am not casually dismissing it, I have been trying to do something like this for a while.
A wrong, or unreadable scale has been used in advertising to hide the facts for years. In this case the scales are irrelevant if all of the plots being compared are indeed on the same scale. This can not be determined in the article.
This may just be the magic bullet that I am looking for. I will check it out. Why?
Have you ever wondered why two amps that measure quite similar, can sound so different, especially on transients? Have you ever taken a two channel amp, driven both channels from the same audio source, connected one output to a resistive load, but the other to a speaker, then compared the two outputs with a storage scope? Try a different speaker and get a different result.
Measuring amps with a sine wave and a dummy load only tells a small part of the story.
1 Virtually all manufacturers have a legal clause somewhere about the right to "improve" the product without prior notice. So the leads are now copperweld! Not the issue at hand.
2 Looking at the difference in pre and post signals is nothing new. If you can see differences in wire at 16 bits of resolution, I would find that surprising. If you think you are doing it at 24 bits, I wonder if you understand the limits of the measuring system. I find the cable error signals normally less than 10db above the noise floor or 22 bits down from 0dbm. That should be a bit more than 25 bits down from clipping (or full scale output for true dsp spec.s) or so. Depends on your references.
3 Any really accurate measurement should show the Bybee devices do something. That does not answer the questions of can it be heard and is it an improvement?
4 If anyone thinks there is real money to be made from selling snake oil, my observation is no. For the effort required there are usually better options.
4a For a joke I bought an audio product of questionable value. I soon found my name on the list of satisfied customers!
5 SY good thing you did not get a vanity plate, a casual observer might have read it as a taunt!
2 Looking at the difference in pre and post signals is nothing new. If you can see differences in wire at 16 bits of resolution, I would find that surprising. If you think you are doing it at 24 bits, I wonder if you understand the limits of the measuring system. I find the cable error signals normally less than 10db above the noise floor or 22 bits down from 0dbm. That should be a bit more than 25 bits down from clipping (or full scale output for true dsp spec.s) or so. Depends on your references.
3 Any really accurate measurement should show the Bybee devices do something. That does not answer the questions of can it be heard and is it an improvement?
4 If anyone thinks there is real money to be made from selling snake oil, my observation is no. For the effort required there are usually better options.
4a For a joke I bought an audio product of questionable value. I soon found my name on the list of satisfied customers!
5 SY good thing you did not get a vanity plate, a casual observer might have read it as a taunt!
Hi stalker,
Not much armchair speculation going on really. An interesting observation was reported and compared with the accepted high end audio "knowledge". Some other information was introduced that turned out to be the common advertising "white paper". Some merits on that have been discussed. Rather than arm chair critics, comments made refer to each persons actual experience on the bench. I can only guess you haven't read the entire thread.
What exactly is bothering you here?
Hi Jack,
The problems I have with those publications are that they are not complete - as I mentioned. Since you are familiar with test equipment and therefore must also be familiar with the setup of a test, the gaps in the report should be obvious to you. We don't even know what the range of experimental error is. SY was talking about that very thing. I happen to agree with SY on this.
Most of the claims made in these reports are unsupported by the data. The terminology used is not technical or scientific - it's sales speak, or what you'd find in sound equipment reviews. Same as the way the data is delivered, and also the incorrect analogy to cars, etc. They present "facts" as common knowledge ideas, yet these "facts" are really only known in the audio reviewing community. That represented a waste of my time reading these. However, I did read them through hoping they would redeem themselves. They didn't. If I didn't have an open mind, I would not have read past the first paragraph. I do have an open mind, but not one that accepts fundamental errors in logic or baseline facts that conflict with things that are known.
Please consider too, the T&M industry would be all in if these things really worked. You know this to be true from your involvement in that industry. What I stated was that all those "ground breaking tests" are in fact common place. These tests have been performed in almost every situation where small differences are being sought after. Remember, it is the job of the test equipment user to measure the phenomenon at hand. If it can't be found, another test will be set up to attempt this again. To suggest that the audio engineering society hasn't been actively doing tests like these is really insulting actually. As I said, the functions are already built in.
Finally, the people who are currently testing these devices do follow proper experimental procedures. They are well versed in this type of work, and so are they people who are talking about this in technical terms. This entire line of discussion is actually off topic. Let's get back to testing the Bybee devices without any more distractions.
Not much armchair speculation going on really. An interesting observation was reported and compared with the accepted high end audio "knowledge". Some other information was introduced that turned out to be the common advertising "white paper". Some merits on that have been discussed. Rather than arm chair critics, comments made refer to each persons actual experience on the bench. I can only guess you haven't read the entire thread.
What exactly is bothering you here?
Hi Jack,
The problems I have with those publications are that they are not complete - as I mentioned. Since you are familiar with test equipment and therefore must also be familiar with the setup of a test, the gaps in the report should be obvious to you. We don't even know what the range of experimental error is. SY was talking about that very thing. I happen to agree with SY on this.
Most of the claims made in these reports are unsupported by the data. The terminology used is not technical or scientific - it's sales speak, or what you'd find in sound equipment reviews. Same as the way the data is delivered, and also the incorrect analogy to cars, etc. They present "facts" as common knowledge ideas, yet these "facts" are really only known in the audio reviewing community. That represented a waste of my time reading these. However, I did read them through hoping they would redeem themselves. They didn't. If I didn't have an open mind, I would not have read past the first paragraph. I do have an open mind, but not one that accepts fundamental errors in logic or baseline facts that conflict with things that are known.
Please consider too, the T&M industry would be all in if these things really worked. You know this to be true from your involvement in that industry. What I stated was that all those "ground breaking tests" are in fact common place. These tests have been performed in almost every situation where small differences are being sought after. Remember, it is the job of the test equipment user to measure the phenomenon at hand. If it can't be found, another test will be set up to attempt this again. To suggest that the audio engineering society hasn't been actively doing tests like these is really insulting actually. As I said, the functions are already built in.
Finally, the people who are currently testing these devices do follow proper experimental procedures. They are well versed in this type of work, and so are they people who are talking about this in technical terms. This entire line of discussion is actually off topic. Let's get back to testing the Bybee devices without any more distractions.
Hi simon7000,
-Chris
It is if they do not correct their advertising to reflect the changes. That falls under false advertising, making a claim they now is not true. They are implying that these device leads are not magnetic. This John Curl has straightened out already (thank you John).
That is so true in this day and age.
-Chris
Bill Waslo's Audio Diffmaker CAN do such subtraction tests. He's the one who build two audio files that were identical except for a whole sousa band hidden at -60dB in one of the files. Listening tests failed to uncover the sousa band, although Audio Diffmaker did. Test files are on his web site.
Nordost could have saved them a lot of work to use Audio Diffmaker.
Maybe the QP can be subjected to such a test?
Edit: after reading the rest of the thread I see you guys have already latched onto it. Hi Bill!
jd
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The Nordost stuff basically boiled down to the fact that if you looked in the time domain there were broadly repeatable differences when repeating the same tests.
however the test involved addding a mains filtration until, a Nordost cable and supporting a CD player on a specifc hifi stand and spiking the transport to the plinth with a rigid spike.
So no surprises that the cd player measured very, very, slightly different under these circumstances. Who doesn't believe that mains filtration and isolation of mechanical playback devices could make a possible difference.
Of course there was no audibility test run alongside these measurements, no effort was made to record under blind conditions whether these changes were audible.
Very definitely a case of not everything that can be counting- counting.
however the test involved addding a mains filtration until, a Nordost cable and supporting a CD player on a specifc hifi stand and spiking the transport to the plinth with a rigid spike.
So no surprises that the cd player measured very, very, slightly different under these circumstances. Who doesn't believe that mains filtration and isolation of mechanical playback devices could make a possible difference.
Of course there was no audibility test run alongside these measurements, no effort was made to record under blind conditions whether these changes were audible.
Very definitely a case of not everything that can be counting- counting.
And to have someone teach them about bins and apodization.
Got through my first set of simple tests yesterday. I'll have those results written up and posted in the next few days. Looked at effect of noise on series resistances, at amplifier inputs, and at ripple waveforms similar to the ones John showed with the devices on the AC line.
Preview: Nothing unexpected.
Hi Chris,
First off, hope my post doesn't get deleted just because it bothers someone with the priviledge of erasing what he doesn't like to be read.
This thread was opened to test the Bybee not to speculate if it's a scam or not.
So you tell this to SY. Don't get distracted about the leads, don't get lost in the details, stop making negative comments before actually testing the devices. Who cares about the materials they have used to build this thing if it ends up doing what they say it does. Does it improve the sound? Do the measurements show any differences on the output signal? The rest it's just armchair speculation.
Once the tests are done you guys are free to explain all that makes this product a scam, a failure or a success.
First off, hope my post doesn't get deleted just because it bothers someone with the priviledge of erasing what he doesn't like to be read.
This thread was opened to test the Bybee not to speculate if it's a scam or not.
So you tell this to SY. Don't get distracted about the leads, don't get lost in the details, stop making negative comments before actually testing the devices. Who cares about the materials they have used to build this thing if it ends up doing what they say it does. Does it improve the sound? Do the measurements show any differences on the output signal? The rest it's just armchair speculation.
Once the tests are done you guys are free to explain all that makes this product a scam, a failure or a success.
Stalker, determining physical properties is part of testing devices. Especially for this niche market where people obsess over (say) a magnetic endcap in a resistor that is connected to a vacuum tube full of magnetic stuff...
Not speculation, the lead material is something that Bybee specifies, gives options (with ascending pricing), and was actually checked. Everything else I'm looking at is speculative, since Bybee will not present any data showing device efficacy and function.
Not speculation, the lead material is something that Bybee specifies, gives options (with ascending pricing), and was actually checked. Everything else I'm looking at is speculative, since Bybee will not present any data showing device efficacy and function.
This from the Bybee website:
During transit through the Quantum Purifier, quantum noise energy is stripped off the electrons, streamlining their flow through ensuing conductors. Unwanted quantum noise energy dissipates as heat within the Quantum Purifier rather than emerging as a layer of contamination residue over the audio/video information.
How's SY going to verify whether this is going on or not? Its unfalsifiable.
Methinks you do protest too much
There is no scam failure or success, everything is relative.
As I have said somewhere on my web site, it does not matter. To us the quizzical tech minded DIY'er actual test data means something. To some others, the words and praise of revered experts matters. If someone believes that a device (whether it is a cable, Bybee, stone, or whatever) makes his system sound better to him, and he has the means to pay for it, then it works for him....period.
The Bybee device may make the system sound better. It needs to make the system $200 worth of better. The "amount" of "better" is the question we are trying to answer.
My DIY efforts are on a rather strict budget. My engineering background would convince me that the $200 would make the most impact if it was spent on better components like OPT's at build time. To the guy with the $50K system that already has fancy cables and all the tweaks, it would be a deal!
Yes, a 200$ subtle improvement in your audio system is a bargain to some people. My experience tells me that I get dramatic improvements in the perceived audio depending on what I eat, drink or smoke so I don't pay much attention to cables or magic devices.
All the more reason not to copy their ways of explaining things. That mumbo jumbo talk is not that different of what I have been reading here. At the end of the day what really matters is if it improves the sound or not, the rest is irrelevant. Yes, the marketing sounds bad but the product may sound good. Our "marketing" didn't sound very good either. Not without proof.
Actually, I have to disagree here. If I can get the same (or very similar) improvement from a 30p resistor, then that's something that I want to know about as a DIY'r. I'm not speculating as to whether the BQPs work or not, I just want to see hard data.
Also, I do agree that a 'remarkable improvement in sound' should be demonstrable with the right kind of measurement. While I'm not naive enough to think that we know everything about sound and how we perceive it, I'm also not naive enough to think that you can't at least find some data in the measurements to at indicate an audible difference.
Will the ones who tried the Bybee Biggies in the late 90s not be dissapointed ?
http://gecom-technologies.de/pdf/Bybee Quantum Purifier Teil1 (4).pdf
http://gecom-technologies.de/pdf/Bybee Quantum Purifier Teil2 (5).pdf
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