Surely she understands the harsh reflections, diffraction and emotional distress on that poor tiny array of light sensors, struggling to stay in focus, feeding the buffer. Quantum personality disorder is common with digital circuitry, as technology approaches sentience. Dealing with fingerprints, scratches and the occasional dandruff flake or accidental booger transcends the common difficulties of organic beings. At least, we have someone to talk to, up to the point that other forum users give us up as hopelessly insane. 😀
Yeah well she's gonna have to leave me be, because nothing's more therapeutic than lots of cash - and I'm about to be rolling in it!
Are you plagued by the sound of your digital discs? Do you lie awake at night with the words "Perfect Sound Forever" dancing in your ears, taunting you, just like the kids at school used to do? Are the harsh-sounding, sharp edges on all those 1's & 0's just getting you down??
Well cheer up Bunky, because I am here to change all that. Behold: Jim the Oldbie's Pit Smoothing System*:
This brand-new, patent-applied-for miracle will set right your quantum quandary. Useful for edge treatment, center-hole "tuning," or best of all - taming those nasty little pits directly! Eliminate that "digital sound" right at the source! You won't believe the silent clarity you'll hear - oh wait, of course you'll believe it, wheee!
Available with additional nylon, aluminum or brass brush attachments for different media - CD, SACD, or Blu-Ray, I've got you covered. Which brush for which disc? That's easy - just trust your ears!!
All this for the low low audiophile-special price of only $3840.00!!! (Accepting pre-orders now)
*Attachments available for $441.00 each
*Eye protection not included
* Not recommended for underarm use
Aannnd, now I'm late for work.
Are you plagued by the sound of your digital discs? Do you lie awake at night with the words "Perfect Sound Forever" dancing in your ears, taunting you, just like the kids at school used to do? Are the harsh-sounding, sharp edges on all those 1's & 0's just getting you down??
Well cheer up Bunky, because I am here to change all that. Behold: Jim the Oldbie's Pit Smoothing System*:
This brand-new, patent-applied-for miracle will set right your quantum quandary. Useful for edge treatment, center-hole "tuning," or best of all - taming those nasty little pits directly! Eliminate that "digital sound" right at the source! You won't believe the silent clarity you'll hear - oh wait, of course you'll believe it, wheee!
Available with additional nylon, aluminum or brass brush attachments for different media - CD, SACD, or Blu-Ray, I've got you covered. Which brush for which disc? That's easy - just trust your ears!!
All this for the low low audiophile-special price of only $3840.00!!! (Accepting pre-orders now)
*Attachments available for $441.00 each
*Eye protection not included
* Not recommended for underarm use
Aannnd, now I'm late for work.
Attachments
With regard to the complaints of listeners about source quality, I've been reading solidly over the last few days on the quality of the material we listen to.
The opinions vary from; those that the people doing the recordings know what they're doing, they use professional monitors and they are dedicated professionals, to,
We audiophiles are way ahead of the rest, we are dedicated and knowledgeable, we must be because we spend so much time and money on this stuff.
Well I blew a lot of money on what I regard as exorbitantly expensive speakers, and now a great deal of sound is unlistenable from a pleasure perspective. I am still, after three years in disbelief at what I hear, and the variation between sources and tracks.
The conclusion is that at the highest level listening becomes forensic; it takes us away from any familiarity comfort zone, because there is a lot wrong with many if not most sources.
The opinions vary from; those that the people doing the recordings know what they're doing, they use professional monitors and they are dedicated professionals, to,
We audiophiles are way ahead of the rest, we are dedicated and knowledgeable, we must be because we spend so much time and money on this stuff.
Well I blew a lot of money on what I regard as exorbitantly expensive speakers, and now a great deal of sound is unlistenable from a pleasure perspective. I am still, after three years in disbelief at what I hear, and the variation between sources and tracks.
The conclusion is that at the highest level listening becomes forensic; it takes us away from any familiarity comfort zone, because there is a lot wrong with many if not most sources.
you forgot to add the directional quantum stabilised power cable accessory....
Can't just plug an instrument like the pit smoother in with any old cable...
Jim,
If your day job is not in marketing, you missed your calling.
I laughed for a solid minute, still giggling hours later. Brilliant illustration.
I have a Dremel just like that one, the speed control died soon after I got it. Replaced the circuit with a piece of brass shim stock, plug it into a variac if speed control is needed. And now I know what to use it for! Hydrochloric acid gets the reflective layer off, but once polished, I can't seem to get aluminum paint to stick to it, and I'm all out of silver nitrate. 🙁
If your day job is not in marketing, you missed your calling.
I laughed for a solid minute, still giggling hours later. Brilliant illustration.
I have a Dremel just like that one, the speed control died soon after I got it. Replaced the circuit with a piece of brass shim stock, plug it into a variac if speed control is needed. And now I know what to use it for! Hydrochloric acid gets the reflective layer off, but once polished, I can't seem to get aluminum paint to stick to it, and I'm all out of silver nitrate. 🙁
The better the rig, the more you notice the crap. I remember that the Beatles sounded better than other records on my sisters record player. (The fold up kind with one fixed and one one detachable speaker, ceramic cartridge) When I built my PAT 4, got a decent amp and speakers I chased my tail for hours trying to find out why Penny Lane sounded so bad. Until the White album, all their stuff had this exaggerated high end, which punched through her crummy player, while it masked some of the trash. Sounded good on the cheap radio too.
More recently, it's loudness wars. Who can crank the most high end so it beats the competition on low quality systems. The high end is split into several frequency bands, compressed to death and cranked to clipping. Britney Spears is an example. I used to use her stuff to break in electrostatic panels. Turn out the lights, put in ear plugs, and crank her up and watch the sparks fly. Knocked all of that loose graphite right off. I measured one of her CDs. 6 dB louder in the high end than normal.
I had a Paula Abdul CD that would sell any used speaker in the surplus store where I worked. Even Bose 901s sounded great!
There is lots of pop out there that sounds just like clipping, and probably is. They are optimizing for poor systems and ruining it for those of us who have a decent rig. I tend towards well recorded, less produced material. Nickel Creek, Tori Amos (Boys for Pele is a sweet recording. Not much EQ or effects. You can hear subtle details in her voice. I set the level of the midrange amp with Wampum Prayer on Scarlet's Walk. Too much, sounds throaty, too little and it sounds thin. Better than a spectrum analyzer) There are a lot of great recordings out there, and a disturbing amount of crap.
If you can find it, Rhythms by Badi Assad is the best recording I have. You can hear an air handler in the background, but signal to noise wise, it's not objectionable. Stupendous effort. Plays classical guitar with incredible chops, sweet voice too.
Could be room acoustics, but I've also noticed that crappy recordings of good artists are a lot less fun to listen to on better equipment. The flip side is that good recordings are all that much more fun to listen to. Of course, a fantastic recording of horrible music is still horrible music. Garbage in, garbage out.
Thankfully for me, I can hear minor differences between the DACs I have but only impressions, over time. I find I got more enjoyable results from building my own speakers to suit my own tastes, and use Chi-Fi amps and linestages. My hair shirt 6SN7 one is gratifyingly inexpensive, and uses tubes I already have a good library of NOS ones.
Settled on an inexpensive Tenth Anniversary DAC, for the remote volume control for casual listening. Even for serious listening, although a little battery powered Chi-Fi DAC with no remote sounds slightly different, again, over time, but I couldn't ab judge them on the speakers I used to own. The only way I can tell now is because if I change amps, DACs , or linestages, I need to alter the parametric EQ settings I have coming off the active crossover to the sub. The missing blend is the only evidence I've got that a change in sound has happened. Happy to be mostly deaf to DAC differences.
Settled on an inexpensive Tenth Anniversary DAC, for the remote volume control for casual listening. Even for serious listening, although a little battery powered Chi-Fi DAC with no remote sounds slightly different, again, over time, but I couldn't ab judge them on the speakers I used to own. The only way I can tell now is because if I change amps, DACs , or linestages, I need to alter the parametric EQ settings I have coming off the active crossover to the sub. The missing blend is the only evidence I've got that a change in sound has happened. Happy to be mostly deaf to DAC differences.
If you didn't upgrade your cables, maybe that's the missing ingredient.
Here's a testimony from a well known (for his supposed hearing ability) forum member.
"my high end audio designer friend came over one day and pulled out some XLR cables.
...
Wow! Everything sounded better, less distorted, and the difference was easy to hear! I was basically stunned, never expected it."
If you didn't upgrade your cables, maybe that's the missing ingredient.
Here's a testimony from a well known (for his supposed hearing ability) forum member.
"my high end audio designer friend came over one day and pulled out some XLR cables.
...
Wow! Everything sounded better, less distorted, and the difference was easy to hear! I was basically stunned, never expected it."
I read the post and a few replies. It wasn't clear whether he swapped RCAs for XLRs or just used different XLRs. I would expect improvement with a balanced line, over 2 conductor, and I'm ok with gold plating, but spending more money on short signal cables than the equipment itself never made any sense to me.
I used to work for an audio/video company as an installer. the boss was into high quality systems. We did big conference centers, theaters, high dollar corporate conference rooms and some residential for millionaires, even the church at camp David.
For signal wire we used Westpenn 291. 2 22 gauge polyethylene insulated conductors with a bare 24 gauge ground wire shielded by aluminized mylar, PVC jacket, 100 bucks for 1000 feet.
We sent dynamic mic signals through 300 feet of the stuff in some large installations. Worked fine.
Common mode rejection is all about the device the XLR is plugged into. I'd rather put my money into better gear than stupid expensive cables.
Of course you want quality wire, over radio shack stuff. If the wire has a nice tight shield braid, properly terminated, should be fine.
It's not about making sense. It's all about marketing, if you get my drift...
I noticed that too, and it's kind of an important detail. Depending on the design of the input & output stages, going from single-ended to differential will sometimes net you a free +6 dB signal boost. I've observed that more than once, and it's definitely an impressive "improvement," heh.
That's interesting.
I found a 1000 foot spool of that same cable in the garage, left there by a previous owner.
I used it for wiring up my home alarm system back in 2007, the longest run was around 50 feet from the alarm panel to the back door and garage.
It's good stuff!
In 2008, I renovated my main bathroom.
Behind the mirror above the sink, there was an opening from the previous old built-in medicine cabinet.
Down inside the wall, I found a newspaper dated September 21, 1940 - The Daily Worker newspaper, based in NYC, a communist publication.
Interesting stories about the german invasion happening in the UK.
Advertisments for some popular 78RPM records, fashions, etc.
And written inside the wall in pencil, was "Tub in this room scratched" Sept 1940" (was apparently when my home was built)
I added my own "note" and dated it before slapping new drywall over the opening.
Still have that newspaper though, it's brittle but its neat.
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