Before I would buy an audio gizmo I would want to know how it works, what it does, is it really worth any expense and can I build one and hopefully save money and learn something?
In my professional career there actually have been times when something commonly taught and accepted as the right way of doing things turns out to be wrong.
And sometimes it happens because moldy bread really does help heal wounds, milk maids don't get smallpox, the reduction in pain by anesthesia does not retard healing, etc.
Now this RF effect if it is real is small at best. There are other ways to produce slight increases in HF response (Like a tone control!)
If I do real experimentation to determine frequencies. power levels vs loss by band and acoustic source level and maybe even the effect of humidity then if the results are interesting they might be worth publishing. On the other hand if the results are spectacular then I might just want to keep mum for a bit!
Who knows it might even turn out your cell phone creates enough field to get the effect for free!
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Now if it turns out conclusively that low levels of RF decrease HF loss that would explain what is really going on in a lot of the nonsensical audio devices being promoted! Of course it also could be the RF affects say CD players or something else in the signal chain. Or it could be mass hysteria.
Far more likely that a bit of local RF affects the devices rather than the air. If RF affects air to any great extent than that would probably mean a loss mechanism, yet air seems to be transparent to RF below microwave frequencies. Except when calculating voltage breakdown, air and vacuum look like the same stuff to RF.
We are all bathed in a sea of RF, so separating the effects of a local low power transmitter might not be easy.
We are all bathed in a sea of RF, so separating the effects of a local low power transmitter might not be easy.
Yes there is a lot of RF floating about. That is why I took a peek with a spectrum analyzer to see what was up. My local RF source was the loudest!
Now more interesting today the humidity is quite low and I cannot repeat the measurement. (If it is there it is only about the width of the meter pointer.) So I will try it again when the humidity is very high!
Wavey
Two issues, my power amplifier is class A and you had to mention TV horizontal oscillator noise. I just moved an old video monitor and now it has started to whine at a level high enough cheap old me will have to break down and replace it!
ES
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There are a lot of issues here, so I'm not going to attempt to deal with them all in one post.
There is no timing information in a file. If the files are bit-identical then they are unaffected by noise.
The claim has, however, been made and defended with some vigour. It is ridiculous.
Let me make it clear that the claim is that a file copied from a CD to a solid state drive has an intrinsically better sound than one copied to a conventional hard disk, even when the copies are verified bit-identical and when both are copied to a third device and played back from there.
I cite it merely as an example of a ridiculous claim.
I just want to establish that both you and john curl do recognise that some claims are ridiculous. john curl has conveniently provided an example of a claim, albeit from a different discipline, which he regards as ridiculous. Do you in fact recognise that some claims are ridiculous?
Your point about it being unfair to hold up ill-supported claims and claimants to ridicule is ill-taken. It is unfair to make ill-founded claims. If you were protesting as loudly about the ill-founded claims and the tactics used in their defence as you are about the ridicule of the claims and claimants then perhaps you might have a point. It is certainly preferable to ridicule the claim as opposed to the claimant or defender of the claim, but as it is, many ill-founded claims are defended by ridiculing their detractors as 'closed minded' and by the use of many other epithets. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Your stand only serves to give succour to those who propagate ill-founded claims.
Reductio ad absurdum has an excellent provenance. When a claim is ill-founded it is legitimate to expose it by by any tactic, in fact it is a moral imperative. The only criterion by which the tactics can legitimately be judged is their effectiveness, as long as they do not involve any other moral transgressions. Ridiculing individuals is, in my opinion, of dubious propriety but reviewers trade on their reputations and if they are unfounded then they are as open to attack as unfounded claims. If the claims (or reputations) are not ridiculous, no-one will laugh. In terms of effectiveness, however, use of ridicule can generate heat which can be counter-productive.
There is no timing information in a file. If the files are bit-identical then they are unaffected by noise.
The claim has, however, been made and defended with some vigour. It is ridiculous.
Let me make it clear that the claim is that a file copied from a CD to a solid state drive has an intrinsically better sound than one copied to a conventional hard disk, even when the copies are verified bit-identical and when both are copied to a third device and played back from there.
I cite it merely as an example of a ridiculous claim.
I just want to establish that both you and john curl do recognise that some claims are ridiculous. john curl has conveniently provided an example of a claim, albeit from a different discipline, which he regards as ridiculous. Do you in fact recognise that some claims are ridiculous?
Your point about it being unfair to hold up ill-supported claims and claimants to ridicule is ill-taken. It is unfair to make ill-founded claims. If you were protesting as loudly about the ill-founded claims and the tactics used in their defence as you are about the ridicule of the claims and claimants then perhaps you might have a point. It is certainly preferable to ridicule the claim as opposed to the claimant or defender of the claim, but as it is, many ill-founded claims are defended by ridiculing their detractors as 'closed minded' and by the use of many other epithets. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Your stand only serves to give succour to those who propagate ill-founded claims.
Reductio ad absurdum has an excellent provenance. When a claim is ill-founded it is legitimate to expose it by by any tactic, in fact it is a moral imperative. The only criterion by which the tactics can legitimately be judged is their effectiveness, as long as they do not involve any other moral transgressions. Ridiculing individuals is, in my opinion, of dubious propriety but reviewers trade on their reputations and if they are unfounded then they are as open to attack as unfounded claims. If the claims (or reputations) are not ridiculous, no-one will laugh. In terms of effectiveness, however, use of ridicule can generate heat which can be counter-productive.
The supporters of a ridiculous claim can look more silly than the originator of the claim. The latter is likely to have a financial interest in the claim, which can cloud judgement even for honest people. The supporters gain no benefit; they simply reduce their own credibility.
I suspect that postmodernism is partly to blame. It has infected the thinking of people, including those who might not wish to be associated with it. Accusing people of 'closed-mind' thinking is a classic postmodern response to inconvenient facts or proven theories.
I suspect that postmodernism is partly to blame. It has infected the thinking of people, including those who might not wish to be associated with it. Accusing people of 'closed-mind' thinking is a classic postmodern response to inconvenient facts or proven theories.
You now have changed your initial conditions question and are using that to make your argument. It is also clear that you do not wish to properly compare disc file structures, bad sectors and how it actually can store or recall data.
I will have to defer to you on being silly.
If you have read the thread you will find I have given bad reviews to products that do not do what is claimed. My objection is that reviewers do try to be fair, they do not have to review products they don't like and they often have a body of work for you to review.
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Only if "fair" means "uncritically regurgitating marketing nonsense" and doing exactly nothing to test the claims of the product. These reviewers seem more interested in collecting the paycheck for this review and being given further products to review in the future rather than doing a fair, honest, and complete review.
Sorry, a reviewer has a responsibility. If they don't live up to it, they ought to be criticized.
So it's 'do as I say, not do as I do'?
My argument doesn't depend on the example cited.
...and don't call me Sally.
This thread started with a comment about a Sam Tellig review. Now if you want to go to the general case...
Yes you should be critical of any reviewer. That is why little weight is placed on self posted reviews or opinions. More when the writer has a track record. Even more when they actually do tests.
Then there was the well known movie reviewer who panned Star Wars because it wasn't musical!
Isn't that the fellow who told everyone to ruin their CDs by applying Armor All? Or is he the green ink guy? No tech background, expertise in direct mail campaigns?
I'm not critical of any reviewer who actually puts products and claims to the test and gives an honest and informed opinion. I'm sure there's one or two in the high end audio review biz, I just can't think of who they might be.
I'm not critical of any reviewer who actually puts products and claims to the test and gives an honest and informed opinion. I'm sure there's one or two in the high end audio review biz, I just can't think of who they might be.
It was Armor All as I recall and some folks claimed it ruined their CD's. For some reason I never tried it.
Now greening your CD's, there was a good run on that fad. Unfortunately my hearing wasn't up to the task and I couldn't hear any difference.
Did you ever look at how CD's are tested using optical methods? The acceptable number of pinholes and other defects is quite interesting. I had a chat with one of the test equipment manufacturers many years back. It used the same method to identify flaws as was developed for the cruise missile to check on where it was!
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