Funniest snake oil theories

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#8,342
Max Headroom said:
Most consumer gear is unbalanced.
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Which says a lot about how well such gear can perform in a real world setting.

It's a "good thing" that almost nobody does in-situ measurements of consumer gear in real world systems. ;-)

If your test gear is balanced, you can use it to:

(1) More fully exploit the internal performance of the unbalanced gear.

(2) Do the same for gear that has the sound quality advantages of balanced /O.
 
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#8,343
I emailed Frank but he didn't divulge beyond the 0.1dB steps. But all signs say either 'PGA' or stepped relay attenuator although there aren't enough relays visible for that and all the other switching, and the PGA's I know do 0.25dB/step tops.

But that's my natural tech curiosity - I have no problem with it either way as I know from experience that either method can be pretty transparent.

Jan
 
#8,344
jan.didden said:
I emailed Frank but he didn't divulge beyond the 0.1dB steps. But all signs say either 'PGA' or stepped relay attenuator although there aren't enough relays visible for that and all the other switching, and the PGA's I know do 0.25dB/step tops.

But that's my natural tech curiosity - I have no problem with it either way as I know from experience that either method can be pretty transparent.

Jan
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I found one possible way to obtain an electronic attenuator with 0.1 steps, but at best it seems pretty messy:

TLV320AIC3204

http://www.ti.com/lit/ml/slaa557/slaa557.pdf

Seems to be an Codec (ADC and DAC) with a programmable attenuator that has 0.1 dB steps, but those steps are limited to a +/- 5 dB range.

There seems to be a signal path that follows the attenuator to an analog output that bypasses the ADC.
 
#8,346
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#8,348
jan.didden said:
I was trying to decipher those relay types - your collective eyes are better than mine!
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Admittedly, the relays that we used in the ABX box whose schematic I posted were far more elegant.

The speaker relays were rated at 30A, for example. We also wired them with 12 gauge wire with fat board traces to match.

There was less than 50 milliohm DCR from input banana jack to output banana jack. The wires were twisted.

But, it was overkill and some people still pi$$$ed all over it.
 
#8,357
SY said:
That patent got allowed? smh
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I share your amazement, but for far longer. I've known for a while (but years after the 1998 publication date) that they had patented this.

Of course I was amazed, partially because we thought about it and didn't patent ABX and the innovations that went with it. Of course this was the 70's and patents were harder to get...

Anyways, thanks for bringing it up, and making it easy for me to refresh my memories...
 
#8,359
soongsc said:
It is hard to imagine the kind of warranty they gave back in the old days.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
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Planned obsolence today.....accu vaccum cl., where motor, accus are still working; but pcb with atmel chip /rpm reg, charge/ is refusing to work.... 2days after warranty 😀

For creating unecessary waste somebody should go to jail 😡
 
#8,360
"Bear in mind in blind tests violinists can't tell a strad from a cheapo!"
NONE of these tests were conducted with any "cheapo" violins---in each case the violins were hand-picked and supplied by noted instrument makers and set up professionally. It does not mention the retail price of any of the instruments; but someone mentioned that a five-figure price would not be unreasonable. Nowhere near a multi-million dollar Strad, but not a "cheapo" by any means!
 
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