...when a traditional high end audio cable maker thinks they can cynically make a quick buck in the aftermarket headphone cable market.
This is MIT's new Vero headphone cable, terminated for "balanced," using a single 4 pin XLR. Bruce obviously had no clue as to how "balanced" headphone amps work and why you CANNOT tie pins 2 and 4 together.
I hope the people who have received the cables have amps with some robust output protection. It's going on three days now and in spite of a promised "complete technical explanation," no one has heard a peep out of Bruce. He's probably busy running to the store buying more Depends, because he has got to be absolutely crapping his pants over this little revelation of his own stupidity and incompetence.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/vero-revolutionary-headphone-cable#/comments
Here's a photo collage with annotations by a friend of mine who had just received his cable from the Indiegogo campaign, which managed to raise over $80,000.
As you can see from the circuit board layout, the left and right grounds are commoned at the input end. Indeed, the cable is just a mediocre shielded twisted pair.
Enjoy.
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This is MIT's new Vero headphone cable, terminated for "balanced," using a single 4 pin XLR. Bruce obviously had no clue as to how "balanced" headphone amps work and why you CANNOT tie pins 2 and 4 together.
I hope the people who have received the cables have amps with some robust output protection. It's going on three days now and in spite of a promised "complete technical explanation," no one has heard a peep out of Bruce. He's probably busy running to the store buying more Depends, because he has got to be absolutely crapping his pants over this little revelation of his own stupidity and incompetence.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/vero-revolutionary-headphone-cable#/comments
Here's a photo collage with annotations by a friend of mine who had just received his cable from the Indiegogo campaign, which managed to raise over $80,000.
As you can see from the circuit board layout, the left and right grounds are commoned at the input end. Indeed, the cable is just a mediocre shielded twisted pair.
Enjoy.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
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Is heatshrink considered last century?
Ok I will admit that I have used the hotmelt glue fun to fix phone chargers where the cable frayed as it entered the (sealed) wall wart, but not convinced I want to see liberal application of glorp on something I paid $600 for. At least pot it in beeswax!
Is heatshrink considered last century?
Ok I will admit that I have used the hotmelt glue fun to fix phone chargers where the cable frayed as it entered the (sealed) wall wart, but not convinced I want to see liberal application of glorp on something I paid $600 for. At least pot it in beeswax!
Hehehe.
Yeah, I don't know what's with all the spooge. Neutrik XLRs have an excellent collet/chuck strain relief system.
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This is ridiculous. Do they really think they weren't going to get outed?
On the same token though, visit a "hi-fi" shop in your area (not Best Buy) if you have one, and count how many lies and general smoke up your bum the salesman tells. Keep a pokerface and play rich and stupid. Hi-fi marketing has unfortunately always been the domain of snake oil and bovine feces. Nobody's going to double check their outrageous claims, right?
On the same token though, visit a "hi-fi" shop in your area (not Best Buy) if you have one, and count how many lies and general smoke up your bum the salesman tells. Keep a pokerface and play rich and stupid. Hi-fi marketing has unfortunately always been the domain of snake oil and bovine feces. Nobody's going to double check their outrageous claims, right?
This is ridiculous. Do they really think they weren't going to get outed?
On the same token though, visit a "hi-fi" shop in your area (not Best Buy) if you have one, and count how many lies and general smoke up your bum the salesman tells. Keep a pokerface and play rich and stupid. Hi-fi marketing has unfortunately always been the domain of snake oil and bovine feces. Nobody's going to double check their outrageous claims, right?
Bruce has been getting away with that for decades.
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Bruce has been getting away with that for decades.
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I actually measure the performance of the equipment that I repair/ design and build/ swap/ pull out of dumpsters. Do you want to hear the real story?
Trust me, this wasn't deliberate. It was total ignorance and incompetence. They simply had no clue that the amps the headphone crowd calls "balanced" are what the entire rest of the audio electronics industry calls "bridged." There's no common on bridged outputs. And commoning them as was done with this cable ends up with one half of one bridge driving the output of one half of the other bridge. It's basically shorting the outputs of the two amplifiers that make up half of each bridged channel.
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Here's one example of blatant lies.
Surround receivers are what's hot now in the consumer market. I've had two in my lab; one a Sony and one a JVC. The Sony was junk no matter how you look at it- no setting of the tone controls would provide even marginally acceptable sound. The JVC was a lot better, but...
Both are rated 80 watts "RMS" times 5. The Sony couldn't come even close to 80 watts times 2; the power supply just collapsed. It did provide 80 watts times 2 with a pulse signal, but not a steady state signal; it's closer to 26 watts times 2.
The JVC did provide 80 watts times 2 steady state - pretty good. But forget about 3, 4, or 5 channels - it'll never happen.
These are two examples of blatant deception. I think that anybody could read a Wikipedia article and figure out how to verify these marketing claims. They count on ignorance, in my opinion.
There's more, but it tells the same story. Power output claims = blatant BS.
Surround receivers are what's hot now in the consumer market. I've had two in my lab; one a Sony and one a JVC. The Sony was junk no matter how you look at it- no setting of the tone controls would provide even marginally acceptable sound. The JVC was a lot better, but...
Both are rated 80 watts "RMS"
times 5. The Sony couldn't come even close to 80 watts times 2; the power supply just collapsed. It did provide 80 watts times 2 with a pulse signal, but not a steady state signal; it's closer to 26 watts times 2. The JVC did provide 80 watts times 2 steady state - pretty good. But forget about 3, 4, or 5 channels - it'll never happen.
These are two examples of blatant deception. I think that anybody could read a Wikipedia article and figure out how to verify these marketing claims. They count on ignorance, in my opinion.
There's more, but it tells the same story. Power output claims = blatant BS.
Kim is the one I feel most sorry for. Her company was hired to do the marketing for Vero. She's not the one who created this mess. So don't be too hard on her. I certainly wouldn't want to be in her shoes right now.
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Here's one example of blatant lies.
Surround receivers are what's hot now in the consumer market. I've had two in my lab; one a Sony and one a JVC. The Sony was junk no matter how you look at it- no setting of the tone controls would provide even marginally acceptable sound. The JVC was a lot better, but...
Both are rated 80 watts "RMS"
The JVC did provide 80 watts times 2 steady state - pretty good. But forget about 3, 4, or 5 channels - it'll never happen.
These are two examples of blatant deception. I think that anybody could read a Wikipedia article and figure out how to verify these marketing claims. They count on ignorance, in my opinion.
There's more, but it tells the same story. Power output claims = blatant BS.
I think things like surround receivers are exempt from the FTC rules, aren't they?
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