Cable directionality

[busb]

The vast majority pursue the hobby because they love their music.......or have I missed something.

Errol.

Well, Errol, I wish you were right but I've had friends that every time you visit them, something in their system had changed, they play the same tracks & look worried. Made me realise that their equipment wasn't the means but the end in itself.
One could even argue that love of music is inversely proportional to the amount of money someone is willing to spend on HiFi.
Do professional musicians spend serious money on HiFi? I sure some do but I'd not be surprised if many didn't - they don't need to.

 

[busb]

"The possible principle in the unilateral phase detractor is that instead of the power being generated in the relaxive motion of conductors and fluxes, it is produced by the modal interactions of magneto-reluctance and capicitive directance" ( with thanks to JH Quick).

Class! This has toned up my morning! Not quite up there with "electronical ignition" & "capacitators" but close enough.

 

[DSCOTT]

Well, Errol, I wish you were right but I've had friends that every time you visit them, something in their system had changed, they play the same tracks & look worried. Made me realise that their equipment wasn't the means but the end in itself.
One could even argue that love of music is inversely proportional to the amount of money someone is willing to spend on HiFi.
Do professional musicians spend serious money on HiFi? I sure some do but I'd not be surprised if many didn't - they don't need to.

Well, one could say that love of music is inversely proportional to the amount of postings you make in the audio room of a forum.

Anyway, I think we can safely say that if you spend less than $500 on audio gear, it's all about the music.

If you spend more than $500 on audio gear it's all about the gear.

 

[mudlark]

I am convinced that there is a discrete amount of turboencabulation going on here.

I get a picture of a few folks sat around a computer screen enjoying some of the inflated ego technobabble currently on this thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuhYd9L_d7w

Quite good for an american.

 

[Robert]

No I'd simply apply the inverse square rule for the falloff of sound waves in free space, factor in the distance, and take values for the maximum loudness of shouting and minimum audible sound and work out what the shortfall would be. But that's relatively simple as that solely relies on the laws of physics.

Indeed it does, but that doesn't stop audiophiles, who might well accept your in this case perfectly logical point from then being completely illogical when it comes to audio equipment performance.

You'l still get people claiming that a tiny difference in the noise floor of a dac down below -130dB is influencing their enjoyment of music.

It has to be all or nothing - physics and rational thought have to applied to all aspects of audio.

 

[Errol]

Well, Errol, I wish you were right but I've had friends that every time you visit them, something in their system had changed, they play the same tracks & look worried. Made me realise that their equipment wasn't the means but the end in itself.
.

A very pleasant fellow I know is really into cable changing, I mean really into it, he will change cables 2 or 3 times during a piece of music to demonstrate the different sound each cable will produce, he has that much copper and silver in his room it must be worth a small fortune even as scrap!
However his main focus is still the music he plays, (early jazz) and after that it is the equipment, he just loves it.

Errol.

 

[busb]

Well, one could say that love of music is inversely proportional to the amount of postings you make in the audio room of a forum.

Anyway, I think we can safely say that if you spend less than $500 on audio gear, it's all about the music.

If you spend more than $500 on audio gear it's all about the gear.

No argument from me on first point. I have no problem with spending extra on better build quality build or even looks if SQ isn't compromised & if can afford the premium.

 

[Anex]

I experimented with cable directionality using my USB DAC. I found it made a huge difference.

 

[mudlark]

I experimented with cable directionality using my USB DAC. I found it made a huge difference.

What to?

 

[whatsnext]

I experimented with cable directionality using my USB DAC. I found it made a huge difference.

What did the simplistic huge mean? Like sunshine and rain, day and night? Ive never heard a huge difference before.

 

[Electron]

Are posts 566 to 590 representative of the direction most would like to see this forum take? If so then I feel totally alienated by this as I find it neither meaningful in the context of my personal interests in hifi nor stimulating of any desire to do further research. If that makes me an idiot or some kind of intellectual lightweight then so be it but I can not square it with anything remotely enjoyable.

 

[Mescalito]

Are posts 566 to 590 representative of the direction most would like to see this forum take? If so then I feel totally alienated by this as I find it neither meaningful in the context of my personal interests in hifi nor stimulating of any desire to do further research. If that makes me an idiot or some kind of intellectual lightweight then so be it but I can not square it with anything remotely enjoyable.

Threads become technical when they need to.

To the technically illiterate or technically challenged, they become difficult if not impossible to follow.

But they nearly always settle back to a level where an informed amateur can contribute.

Hi Fi is, after all, a technical hobby.

Chris

 

[Electron]

Threads become technical when they need to.

To the technically illiterate or technically challenged, they become difficult if not impossible to follow.

But they nearly always settle back to a level where an informed amateur can contribute.

Hi Fi is, after all, a technical hobby.

Chris

Fair enough. Will dip in and dip out as and when.

 

[louballoo]

Threads become technical when they need to.

To the technically illiterate or technically challenged, they become difficult if not impossible to follow.

But they nearly always settle back to a level where an informed amateur can contribute.

Hi Fi is, after all, a technical hobby.

Chris

At least a few of us old farts remember when that is exactly what it was, a technical hobby. A lad who started off as a Hi-Fi hobbyist may have found himself led to a career in a technical field. A noble hobby indeed.

It seems that now we are forbidden to speak of the elephant in the room.

Louballoo

 

[Laurie Saunders]

Are posts 566 to 590 representative of the direction most would like to see this forum take? If so then I feel totally alienated by this as I find it neither meaningful in the context of my personal interests in hifi nor stimulating of any desire to do further research. If that makes me an idiot or some kind of intellectual lightweight then so be it but I can not square it with anything remotely enjoyable.

I understand your sentiment...a lot of contributors to this forum are little more than braggers with over - inflated egos--aka "clever - dicks" or "know-alls"...throw in a good measure of snobbery and it all makes sense

Just judge by amount of verbiage they post.....the old proverb "empty vessels make the most noise" is a cap that surely fits well on some contributors here (I shall not name names)...just look at their statistics..I would suggest that those averaging 5 or more posts per day need to "get a life" (to coin a phrase)

As one whose training and life-long work is in Science and Engineering, I meet too may colleagues who fall into the trap of presuming that "all the textbooks have been written" , some phenomenon or other is " perfectly well understood" and what some folk claim to experience, cannot possibly happen, "`cos the textbook says so!!!"

What arrogance!!!!. What nonsense

As one who firmly believes that arroganceand ignorance are two sides of the same coin (so to speak) many postings above are quite breathtaking...talk about others` ignorance in the same sentence as their own brazen arrogance

Too many know-alls.....my advice would be to be suspicious of those who are hidebound by measurements...ie those who claim that if exists it must be measurable

laurie

 

[Electron]

At least a few of us old farts remember when that is exactly what it was, a technical hobby. A lad who started off as a Hi-Fi hobbyist may have found himself led to a career in a technical field. A noble hobby indeed.

It seems that now we are forbidden to speak of the elephant in the room.

Louballoo

It is one aspect of the hobby indeed, and in many countries there is a strong culture of kit building that still thrives - it's a good thing. I don't think there has been any attempt to silence the technically orientated as far as I can see - in fact quite the opposite. There are a group of people here who have been subject to ridicule because their view are 'anecdotal' and 'subjective' and they have no means to express their opinions without being pounced on and trashed.

I would guess that most people on here buy their kit and don't build it or even measure its performance. I have not statistics to back this statement up though.

 

[Dik Dolan]

Are posts 566 to 590 representative of the direction most would like to see this forum take? If so then I feel totally alienated by this as I find it neither meaningful in the context of my personal interests in hifi nor stimulating of any desire to do further research. If that makes me an idiot or some kind of intellectual lightweight then so be it but I can not square it with anything remotely enjoyable.

Electron, my apologies for diverting the thread, but rather than start a new thread (which I should have done) I hijacked this one albeit briefly.I hope it didnt bore you too much, but I must say I did find it helpful.
At least I didn't post ponies or spocks....this time=)

 

[Werner]

As to turntables, I can't find any reason why turntables provided sufficiently well isolated from feedback, should sound different.

Apart from going round at a steady speed with minimal W&F and rumble, what else does a turntable do that can result in a different sound? Please explain this to me in technical terms I can understand?

Apart from the tinyl detail that there is no motor in existance that just goes round, a turntable is a complex of solid state acoustics. The vibration generated at the stylus/groove interface is wild and runs screaming around the whole turntable and arm structure (been there, measured it). So it is rather obvious that changes in the structure translate in changes in actual sound. Try to translate it to gas acoustics, with a complex of rooms and doors figuring for the turntable, and an imp with a megaphone as the cartridge.


It would be illuminating if TTs could be subject to waterfall testing. But there are no waterfall records ...

Short answer is "everything"=)
Long answer is; I was hoping to be able to use my netbook as a decent low distortion sig gen, because the only one I have is built into my 'scope and is barely under 1% distortion,

Pretty much all DACs will have a noise shaping bump. That's how sigma-deltas work. But surely if the spectrum below 22kHz or 48kHz is clean enough there is something you can do with it?

I regularly use audio DACs and ADCs for measurements. Of course, my input side has decent anti-alias filtering. Perhaps your distortion analyser gets upset by the shaped noise?

especially if the netbook is used on batteries during the measurements.

Actually I've had at least one case where the analogue output from a computer was worse when on batteries, presumably because more DC/DC convertors were running, or they were running harder, or from a higher source impedance.

 

[Dik Dolan]

Perhaps your distortion analyser gets upset by the shaped noise?
QUOTE]

I'm sure that is the case- it's an old HP/agilent 334a that measures up to 600khz, with no low pass filtering.


Edit to add: (sorry Electron, look away now) I have been having a quick look around and something like the E-mu 0204 looks a likely candidate to do a better job, and be more versatile, for about £100. http://www.virtins.com/doc/D1007/D1007.shtml

 

[Electron]

Electron, my apologies for diverting the thread, but rather than start a new thread (which I should have done) I hijacked this one albeit briefly.I hope it didnt bore you too much, but I must say I did find it helpful.
At least I didn't post ponies or spocks....this time=)

Aaahhhh! That explains it - I thought I had completely lost the plot and indeed I had. Not my thread so no apologies required by me - I've also taken note of subsequent posts to mine and have found some of these both reassuring helpful. Thanks.