It is wise: More easy to discriminate the one that think a smartphone is a hype cloth from the one exasperated by a real flaw than , in the five stars, satisfied basic users from professional fanboys.
BTW: I always do the same.
Well, good to hear from you, PMA. So you are consulting for someone close to me? Good! Perhaps, if they send you here, sometime, we can go to lunch together.
Personally, I am consulting for a firm based in Great Britain, ABR, working with Thorsten, remember him? Of course, I am still making preamps and power amps. I only wish that I knew enough to further improve my designs even more. That is what I am looking for on this thread and elsewhere. I would do digital, if I knew what to improve, that is why I am depending on Markw4 to give me more. I am glad that you don't have to depend on audio design for a living. It is not an easy one.
Personally, I am consulting for a firm based in Great Britain, ABR, working with Thorsten, remember him? Of course, I am still making preamps and power amps. I only wish that I knew enough to further improve my designs even more. That is what I am looking for on this thread and elsewhere. I would do digital, if I knew what to improve, that is why I am depending on Markw4 to give me more. I am glad that you don't have to depend on audio design for a living. It is not an easy one.
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"almost irrelevant - assuming a competent source".......so just what is a competent driving source ?. I looked and Mr Yamaha and Mr Sony and Mr Samsung and Mr Tascam etc etc are doing the same when it comes to line output stages. And 'almost irrelevant' means somewhat relevant does it not ?. DF96 yours is just another text book generalisation making blanket statements that are not true in the real world of real world audio as it is practiced. Are the Banana etc files still available ?.....I am interested to take a closer listen.
Dan.
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True, like majority preference for extra unnecessary H2. People will buy the cable as long as it is subjectively LOUDER than the competitors. But I doubt there is significant 'market'. At best it will be like the Bybee. Yes, it is surprising how people can sell very expensive cables, but it is i believe technically irrelevant. You have to sell the amp first, then the power supply, then cables. Like Naim did. You have to have access to rich customers who do not know how to further improve their 'perfect' system such that they will pay whatever price for anything that SEEMS to improve their system, however marginal.
I guess you don't design your own amplifiers or speakers. Amplifier design is not like what people think it is. It is not a matured 'technology'. There are lots of things you can do that will have a lot more significant impact than what you can do with cables. Electronics experts are not audio experts. Self and Bob teach people how to design amp from electronics perspective. Do people like their amps? With your experience, you can learn electronics from them and understand more about the audio side.
About your cable research, i have a feeling that i personally wont like the result. The cause? I predict that when you make change, you don't realize that there is something more important that accidentally changed (because you are not aware of its existence or effect).
You may have an over-simplified model of what happens. Sometimes before people even start shopping they think they know what they want, such as tubes, high end cables, etc. If you tell them zip cord is fine, they may think you don't know what you're talking about and go elsewhere.
Did you survey x number of people to find that out?
Not if it's told with the properly conducted objective listening evaluation. Plus, if the customer has more intelligence than his money, he will understand what's going on and not waste his money on imaginary improvement.
If zip cord is what you are selling, yes, they have to go elsewhere.
Rich customers have the luxury of asking seller to deliver the stuff into their homes, listen to it for several days and call the seller to take it back if they don't like it, at no cost. Point is, people buy expensive stuff usually after some kind of audition. But I don't understand why you think there is over simplification.
Someone I knew once asked my opinion about a speaker cable that costs like a car. We compared with ordinary cable. Yes, the expensive cable sounded LOUDER, as if having lower resistance. But even if I have money I wont buy such cable. But that's because I have assumption that I can improve my system with other better ways. If not, it might look a nice bargain, the expensive cable.
I think so because I hear other stories than the ones you tell. Some people will throw away perfectly good cables that come with a piece of equipment without listening to them. They think listening would be a waste of time because they already know in advance the cables must be junk. There is nothing new about people thinking in that type of way. When people have read stuff in other forums and talked to their friends with similar interests, they may firmly believe they already know that high price means better sound. I could recount some stories that I hear, but they are not mine to tell. I guess I can could ask permission, but they are just anecdotes, not really necessary to repeat in order to make a point. The point being that people are all different. Some are more scientifically oriented and others already firmly believe they know what they want. It may to some extent be the difference between people that need certainty and those that can exist comfortably with uncertainty. Not everyone is the victim of an evil seller. Some people are their own worst enemies. What can you do if they don't want listen to your version of the truth?
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I can be proud of being kicked out of a high end store for telling a young lady that the salesman's cable BS was BS. I've also been ignored in high end stores because I don't look/act like I have money no surprise there.
Not all intelligent people understand electronics. When a less intelligent doctor gives you a medicine, you might drink it without any question and she might laugh at you for the placebo
Yes, there is a lot of BS too in that industry (but this is an industry where many intelligent people lack some knowledge).
It's been a while, but there seem to be a few left. We have Goodwin's a continuous presence forever. Goodwin's High End - High End Audio - Home Theater - Room Acoustics - Systems Integration
Maybe I should visit and make an a** of myself.
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That is a perfect way of thinking. We all do it that way. Why should you waste your time if experience told you that such cable is usually inferior (and it obviously doesn't look nice cosmetically)? If you don't have money you may take the chance to waste your time and you might have different experience for your next purchase.
That's also true that high price usually means better sound ('firmly believe' is a supposition as you used 'may'). It is also fine if some people (these are those who do not know what they want) even need no more than just a recommendation from friends they know are more knowledgeable than themselves in the subject.
And sometimes it is surprising how (poor) people don't understand the psychology of rich people. Once in college my friend complained about very expensive food rich people consumed. He told me how good it would be if the money was given for the poor. I told him that the price of the food was only a small fraction of their income, a lot less than the ratio of the food he ate and his income. People with less income than him might think exactly the same way about what my friend eat (junk food; fried chicken).
I won't be too worry. If I knew the truth, whatever the mechanism, people will come to me. I will also assume that if they don't, I must have a false believe/view about the truth.
Hi JC, when PMA comes out with the much wanted Grand Unification Theory and with proofs I will take notice, until then it is certain that he is as clueless as the rest of us, if not more so despite his engineering training and experience.
For example when I found out through personal experience that wire/cable can be directional I rudely discovered that 'theory' and 'assertion' do not always match the real world......I do not forget that lesson.
So yes, I feel that it is completely worthwhile to continue with my investigations and evolve a wide ranging family of economical products and solutions that are for the universal good. In the meantime I get to enjoy uniquely better sound, better lighting and better tasting wine '-).
Dan.
When you start to ask technical questions the salesman don't understand, an intelligent salesman should know right away that he would waste his time if he didn't kick you out. It's not his fault, he is just being professional.
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