SY said:
Well, at least that one's easy. You're still confusing hardware with software.
The wine is the software and the glass is the hardware. To claim the opposite completely wrecks any attempt to draw analogies between wine and audio.
Does anyone who enjoys wine expect peer-reviewed studies as to whether (and how [sure to be a contentious issue]) Brand-X glasses cause the taster to perceive different things in a given wine than their usual glass? No! And there's no sign that they will begin doing so in the near future, either. Why? Because they can taste the differences for themselves, without having to wait for some confounded lab report to give Brand-X glasses their seal of approval!
The glass is the hardware. It is the conveyor of the software. It is expected to do its job without altering or changing the software. Only by serving as a faithful conduit of the sensory experience will it be judged a success. With the arguable exception that it should be visually attractive, it should not call attention to itself.
The wine is the software. It is the thing being consumed. The actual stimulant (on any number of levels). Reviews of wine are analogous to reviews of music. Does this Cabernet Sauvignon meet expectations for the grape varietal? Does this performance of Beethoven's Third meet expectations regarding other renditions of the same piece? People buy the bottle/performance based on whether they happen to like Cabernet Sauvignon/Beethoven and what the reviewer says about this particular vintage/performance.
Wine drinkers are a hell of a lot smarter than audio people. They drink out of the glass and if the wine tastes better, they buy the glass. They trust their senses. They're not (yet) being harassed by people telling them they're not tasting what they're tasting--that they're only imagining it.
I hereby predict that if people begin soi disant scientific testing of wine glasses you'll see the same sort of ignorant arguments about whether glasses make a difference that you see in audio.
Please...if you're going to compare wine and audio, at least do it properly. Making the wrong comparison only confuses matters.
Grey
Yes, they have been. The most recent report was from the test labs at Gallo, but the products have been tested by every major wine institute, including Geisenheim. As with audio gear, the sensory tests are done with wine (analogous to audio sensory testing with music). I can't think of a single major client who hasn't tested the product against the competition using controlled sensory tests.
SY,
Then I'm sure I'm not the only one waiting breathlessly for the published reports showing that your hardware, whatever it is, actually causes wine to taste better. I'm all for things to make wine tastier.
And, no, synthetic corks, screw tops, or similar closure methods that don't spoil wine do not count as 'tasting better.' That's 'not tasting worse.' That's spoilage prevention. The wine container problem is more closely analogous to CD vs. LP vs. SACD vs. reel-to-reel, for instance. It is the method of distribution to the customer, not the "reproducer."
Grey
Then I'm sure I'm not the only one waiting breathlessly for the published reports showing that your hardware, whatever it is, actually causes wine to taste better. I'm all for things to make wine tastier.
And, no, synthetic corks, screw tops, or similar closure methods that don't spoil wine do not count as 'tasting better.' That's 'not tasting worse.' That's spoilage prevention. The wine container problem is more closely analogous to CD vs. LP vs. SACD vs. reel-to-reel, for instance. It is the method of distribution to the customer, not the "reproducer."
Grey
Steve Eddy said:
Ap ought to do it. In the past I've been able to see distortion at line level voltages and ma currents for signal lines in proximity to ferrous
parts. I can recall testing a popular famous product (discretion keeps
me from mentioning the name) that showed this distortion, but the
manufacturer declined to change it.
I believe they are out of that business now.
So a ferrous end cap on a resistor might be too small to see much
distortion, but we don't know until we try it.
You can't measure until you guess where and what. Although I'm sure you know that.
I'm still curious if anyone is ever going to attempt to create a measurement algorithm or test protocol that is weighted the way the ear hears. I've been harping on that one for the about the last year or so. To hell with linear full signal weighting - At least when it comes to trying to follow the hearing mechanism.
I'm still curious if anyone is ever going to attempt to create a measurement algorithm or test protocol that is weighted the way the ear hears. I've been harping on that one for the about the last year or so. To hell with linear full signal weighting - At least when it comes to trying to follow the hearing mechanism.
SY said:
Wow, they must have some pretty good mushrooms down there in the desert ....
At least two problems with your sorting method:
a) First of all, the naysayers (especially Fizzard) were adamant that there were no possible changes in physical structure due to cryogenic treatment. So how in the world could you identify physical structural changes when all the naysayers are adamant that they don't exist? (If you know of some measurable changes, why don't you share them with the Fizzards of this world so we don't have to continue reading their useless posts?)
b) Do you really think that an audio company has "x-ray and SEM/Auger/EDAX" equipment lying around? Don't you think they would have just put the DAC chips into a socketed PCB and simply *listened* to them to tell which ones had been cryo'ed? I mean, give me a flippin' break.....
Nelson Pass said:
I've never bothered to measure that phenomenon (almost always a waste of time to go down that road), but I've sure heard it. We were doing some listening tests to ferrite filters on AC power cords. After a while they apparently became magnetized, which screwed up the sound. While I have no idea how they could become magnetized, this was obviously what was happening because demagnetizing them with a bulk tape eraser would restore the sound quality.
Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. When I heard what the (magnetized) ferrites were doing sonically, it seemed awfully familiar. It reminded me of the time we listened to some old IMB caps (they used to make the old Sidereal caps and, for a while, Moncrieff's Wonder caps) that had steel leads.
Not wanting to swap out capacitors, I went and grabbed a 4' length of cast iron cold water pipe. When I laid it right next to the speaker cable, I could hear the same type of sonic problem that the (magnetized) ferrites were causing.
Nelson Pass said:
Again, I've never bothered to waste my time trying to measure that kind of effect. But you can sure hear it. The funny thing is that for many, many years the best sounding resistors were the Roedersteins (Resistas) with steel end caps. I didn't want to like them, but they were overall better sounding and more musical than any other axial leaded resistor I had ever tried.
Jeff Rowland recommended the PRP's, made in Iowa with brass end caps. I tried them and could hear the improvement made by the lack of steel (it has a definite signature as noted above), but they had other problems that made them not quite as good overall. The factory wanted to address the problem so they sent me 10 different variations on their recipe. I picked the best one and sent them my listening notes. They then developed this into their "audio grade" resistor, which is slightly better sounding than the Roedersteins. (You can find a post with more details if you do a search.) Finally, we can get the steel out of our products...
Charles,
....................very good points, but I wonder how many of the members that have read this have bothered removing the ferrite filters from their systems as an experiment. I did and won't go back to using them.........Guy's most of you are missing something really important here.
Jam
....................very good points, but I wonder how many of the members that have read this have bothered removing the ferrite filters from their systems as an experiment. I did and won't go back to using them.........Guy's most of you are missing something really important here.
Jam
Cable and source impedance matching;
The traditional error caused by an impedance mismatch is a reflection or echo.
In an RF, video or digital signal environment, frequencies are such that an impedance mismatch causes echoes in a spectrum that is sort of relevant to the signal.
In a cable with a velocity of propagation of 65% the speed of light, that is one meter long, the first echo is at about 5 nanoseconds or about 200 MHz say 10nS/100Mhz for the round trip. It wouldn't seem relevant in an audio environment.
Do you suppose the echo causes problems with any feedback loop in the source equipment? Is there another mechanism at work here?
The traditional error caused by an impedance mismatch is a reflection or echo.
In an RF, video or digital signal environment, frequencies are such that an impedance mismatch causes echoes in a spectrum that is sort of relevant to the signal.
In a cable with a velocity of propagation of 65% the speed of light, that is one meter long, the first echo is at about 5 nanoseconds or about 200 MHz say 10nS/100Mhz for the round trip. It wouldn't seem relevant in an audio environment.
Do you suppose the echo causes problems with any feedback loop in the source equipment? Is there another mechanism at work here?
Charles Hansen said:
I think the psychotropic drug of choice here is peyote, but that's not my choice of poison. Tonight's was a delightful bottle of '95 La Belle Helene.
a) I have no idea of what Fizzard thinks or doesn't think. Best ask him. For me, I would have difficulty believing that, if you thermally shock a complex system like that with multiple materials and layers, that there wouldn't be some observable effects. Not necessarily good ones... I also don't know if the DACs were encapsulated- if so, the thermal shock can also cause some other easily observable effects.
b) If memory serves, the company that did the test was a large one, like Sony. I suspect that if they wanted SEM/EDAX, it wouldn't be hard to do. Not that I think that's how they did it- given Scott's description of the cryo process, I'll bet the linearity of the cryoed DACs was out the window. You're assuming that they did a listening test and maybe so. But you have no idea, nor do I. Nor does Scott. It does strike me as the hard way to do it.
As a somewhat irrelevant side note, over the years, SEMs were available for the cost of hauling them away as Silicon Valley companies upgraded or failed. Mine was free. Not SOTA, but good enough for this purpose.
I have tried to measure. I have measurements, but nobody believes me, or will get off their tail to try MY examples of problem cable. SE's cables were not perfect, but better than most. Good luck? Good solder joints? I don't know, BUT I have significantly worse examples in my lab. I have shown SY, but he doesn't believe much, in the first place, so it was pretty much a waste of time. If Dimitri visits me at the AES this fall, perhaps I can show him my cable distortion measurements. Others in the bay area are invited to check it out sometime, in future, but I have to rebuild my ST analyzer first, as it is marginally stable at the moment. Bad caps, I think.
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