I was responsible for Monster's technology for most of the last 20 years. Unfortunately marketing and technology don't blend real well. I really focused on quality connections and reliability since the technology doesn't go far on things like HDMI cables. However we had to be sure we never made a claim that could not be supported.
Back in the early 2000's Monster could contribute as much as 50% of the total net profit of a regional chain, since the margin on TV's was less than 10% and usually 5%. However the rise of the big box stores essentially reduced mass market electronics to a commodity business on a par with screws. It has gotten even worse with little room for individual branding or product differentiation. When did you last see an ad for Sony, once the most valuable consumer electronics brand? People buy a "Best Buy" TV and don't even know who made it when lot looking at the logo. Walmart now claims to be the largest retailer of TV's and HDMI cables. Local specialty stores almost don't exist anymore.
Back in the early 2000's Monster could contribute as much as 50% of the total net profit of a regional chain, since the margin on TV's was less than 10% and usually 5%. However the rise of the big box stores essentially reduced mass market electronics to a commodity business on a par with screws. It has gotten even worse with little room for individual branding or product differentiation. When did you last see an ad for Sony, once the most valuable consumer electronics brand? People buy a "Best Buy" TV and don't even know who made it when lot looking at the logo. Walmart now claims to be the largest retailer of TV's and HDMI cables. Local specialty stores almost don't exist anymore.
Hmmmm. Interconnects... try for lowest capacitance.... for speaker cable try for the lowest series inductance.
The best power filtering I did for MOnster with ground isolation (-7000) do improve the sound of many systems. And, they were fairly priced.
When I bought that wonderful W12 TT Bentley, I decided to ask how much would an oil change, including oil, air, fuel filter change would cost. I was told $3000 US Dollars. I asked why? Didnt get a real answer.
I ordered the OEM parts direct from Crewe in UK and found the oil locally. My local garage did the labor for $20. I changed the twin air cleaners DIY. The parts cost the same as a Ford or Chevy part from any car parts store.
There is a lesson in this, some where....
-Richard
The best power filtering I did for MOnster with ground isolation (-7000) do improve the sound of many systems. And, they were fairly priced.
When I bought that wonderful W12 TT Bentley, I decided to ask how much would an oil change, including oil, air, fuel filter change would cost. I was told $3000 US Dollars. I asked why? Didnt get a real answer.
I ordered the OEM parts direct from Crewe in UK and found the oil locally. My local garage did the labor for $20. I changed the twin air cleaners DIY. The parts cost the same as a Ford or Chevy part from any car parts store.
There is a lesson in this, some where....
-Richard
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The drivetrain of the Continental GT W12 was originally designed by VW for the Phaeton. You could probably find the OE VW parts even cheaper than from Crewe.
I think the lesson is that for luxury goods, there is going to be a markup because the manufacturers think their customers will pay it without complaint.
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Oh, they’re crazy. The question might be is DSD the shittiest format ever since everything you put along the path that carries it can corrupt it with almost no effort - resulting in a different “sound”. They are suckers for thinking different = good in the digital realm.
Were those shrouds in place to great turns? Probably... it will sound different.
What’s really sad is that high end digital companies like to claim that “oh it reduces jitter” when they got nothing else. But the major truth is they’re compiling bad factors to prevent them from making better choices on other equipment. If you want to muddle your sound, I would find all the componets you like the most first, then goof up the digital. Want to switch speakers? Go back to good digital first or you’ll loose your mind trying decipher what is what.
Anyway, don’t be fooled... despite the absurdness, people love “different”. Digital sounds bad all the time because they have gear with stupid mistakes. (I kinda call any choices I don’t like to be stupid mistakes. The list is long for regretable results I’ve heard)
Dealers are world renowned experts on making complaints. Your term "Nuts" is perfect.
Local audio retailers are pretty much a thing of the past now, much like local radio programming. In a big city or college town, yeah, but mostly gone. Local music stores? Same. Ever coming back? Nope. Are we better off? Probably not.
All good fortune,
Chris
ps: I hope to be proven wrong by all the young folks buying vinyl records. Silly maybe, but somehow hopeful.
All good fortune,
Chris
ps: I hope to be proven wrong by all the young folks buying vinyl records. Silly maybe, but somehow hopeful.
“Back in the early 2000's Monster could contribute as much as 50% of the total net profit of a regional chain, ”
Exactly. Low entry barriers, wild claims, marketing psy-ops on ignorant consumers and you can see why every man and his dog are in on the game. It’s a money making racket for the most part.
Exactly. Low entry barriers, wild claims, marketing psy-ops on ignorant consumers and you can see why every man and his dog are in on the game. It’s a money making racket for the most part.
The Benjamin/Gannon jitter publication represents an exception as they found that at least one (?some?) of their participants could detect jitter induced IMD components around 65-68 dB down on in a music sample.
Due to the special conditions care should be taken if trying to draw broad conclusions though.
Imo it´s not easy to ensure that only the independent variable (in this case the distortion -by number or spectrum?) is altered, when using real amplifiers and real systems.
To add the different distortion to the source signal seems to be the more practical way when examing the (maybe) different perception due to different distortion below the known hearing thresholds.
I am sure most of us have been offered the £50 HDMI cable when we bought a TV? Same issue, that was where all the profit was in the sale.
I could just about stomach when a good system started at £1000 and the recommendation was 10% of budget on cables (for those who can't make their own). But now that it is silly and the whole sales cycle requires it, is there any way to recover to sanity?
I could just about stomach when a good system started at £1000 and the recommendation was 10% of budget on cables (for those who can't make their own). But now that it is silly and the whole sales cycle requires it, is there any way to recover to sanity?
There are a lot of people to blame for the insane situation existing today. Imo, if the "non golden ears" wouldn´t have forgotten about basic EM stuff (that helps understanding why in a typical audio systems cable can make a difference) and wouldn´t have used seriously flawed "double blind" listening tests, there could have been a chance to sort things out in a reasonable way.
Wrt regulatory commissions, i remember that a commision in the UK (a couple of years ago) asked for corrobating evidence for a distributor´s advertisement claim that a special constructed mains cable (not including discrete filter elements) could provide some RF attenuation in comparison to a "normal" mains cable.
The distributor provided at first only the technical construction details and white papers, but the commission doubted their relevance, asked an external consultant who strongly objected to any possible attenuation mechanism.
So, in that case you had a commission that obviously doesn´t know the basic relevant EM theory stuff and an external consultant that also didn´t know about it.
Some time later the distributor came up with a lab report from a third party lab that measured indeed some attenuation when compared to a normal mains cord. Case settled......
How much attenuation?
The cleverest snake oil claims are those which are true, but only trivially so. Two ways to do this:
1. make a claim which is likely to be true for all products of that type anyway - so no different from any reasonable competitors
2. make a claim which is true, but only to a very limited extent (e.g. our mains cable attenuates RF more than the others (ours -0.3dB, others average -0.1dB - but omit the figures from the advert))
The cleverest snake oil claims are those which are true, but only trivially so. Two ways to do this:
1. make a claim which is likely to be true for all products of that type anyway - so no different from any reasonable competitors
2. make a claim which is true, but only to a very limited extent (e.g. our mains cable attenuates RF more than the others (ours -0.3dB, others average -0.1dB - but omit the figures from the advert))
http://www.audiophilleo.com/zh_hk/docs/Dunn-AP-tn23.pdf
10nS rms for a high level single tone @17KHz. For music signal, nobody was able to identify a jitter under 20nS rms.
Other authors https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ast/26/1/26_1_50/_pdf/-char/en were unable to discriminate, in a controlled test, even 250nS of jitter.
Even so, a total of 10nS and 20nS RMS jitter are huge by any means or metric. A system with such a total jitter definitely qualifies as a "pathological implementation".
P.S. A decent modern implementation has usually under 1nS rms jitter, while a double lock/double PLL implementation (which only costs a few dollars extra) can get as low as 50pS rms jitter (normalized to a common 8fs clock jitter, on an 8x-oversampling clock).
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