Talk:Audio woo/Archive1

Interesting addition
Interesting addition.162.82.215.199 15:37, 19 June 2007 (CDT)
 * This sort of being should be extinct now. Audiophiles were the "nerds" of their day, (1950's-1980), although some "cool" guys who were "hip", ("Hugh Hefner" e.g.), but most of them were hawking equipment as well as being cool. In the sixties, (the decade, not the age of the parcipitants), saw advances in pickup design, as well as the music industry going with the new method of releasing music on vinyl: "Stereo". One piece units that had the turntable and amplifier in them together were frowned upon. CЯacke ®
 * You know, it's funny, because although there is a lot of woo and crap science in high end audio, these are still the guys that said CDs sounded like crap in the late 80s. And they were right, although they didn't necessarily know why (brick wall filters at 20k, mastering techniques not mastered yet).  The problem is, for every genuine "golden ear" observation that something sound better or worse, there are ten companies selling woo to fix it, and a hundred crackpot theories as to why it is so.  Eventually, if there is something to the observation, the real engineers figure out a way to fix it.  All that said, what "most people" think of as hi fi is execrable.  The 70's were the heyday of hifi, with salesdroids patiently hooking people up with $500 worth of belt drive tables, 35-50 wpc receivers, and New England speakers.  Systems that gave great bang for the buck.  Now, what was I saying... oh, nevermind... human be in 17:37, 24 September 2007 (EDT)

random issues
This article is creating, in places, a false dichotomy between "engineers" and "audiophiles" that I am going to try to write away while maintaining the spirit. I quote: "generally considered overkill by sound engineers" - these are the same "engineers" who gave us crappy IM-loaded ss amps, crappy sounding gen 1 CD players (remember, they weren't called "beta" - they were supposed to sound perfect!), and mastered those awful early CDs. It was the subjectivists who pointed out that the products were fairly awful sounding.

The best tube sound and ss sound started to converge about 10-15 years ago - as both technologies were tweaked to the point where there was no longer a "built in" advantage to one or the other. Which is not to say that there aren/t still "audiophiles" who say stupid things about tubes.

A bit of the straw man thing - this makes me think the article might need a new title, like "audio woo". Then the real dumb stuff can be attacked easily, like the green markers and Tice junk, without labelling any given individual (subjectivist, engineer, audiophile, etc.) as being perpetually wrong or misguided. There is a subtle difference between the "golden ears" abandoning the green markers (gee, just like science abandons dead ends) and some mfr still selling them to the gullible.

I do think the retitling will help the article have a better direction and focus, rather than attacking anyone who "strives to get the best reproduction". It's like the difference between a wine snob and a true oenophile, sorta. human be in 20:58, 24 September 2007 (EDT)
 * Well, the subjective/objective debate is a fairly important one, but make whatever changes you feel are necessary. It's a wiki, after all. EVDebs 22:07, 24 September 2007 (EDT)
 * The subjective/objective debate is one the "engineers" have lost too many times to claim any higher ground. And I would love to address the "science woo" of ineffectual audio measurement, down the road.  And, yes, I know (it's a wiki), but I also value collaboration, which means discussion, not edit wars?  How do "we" feel about renaming this "audio woo"?  Because under that title I think it might work a lot better.  As debunking (and believe me, I've got endless contributions I could make to that article!) would then work better.  Debunking "audiophile" is like just attacking people who like good audio reproduction.  Not a great launch point.


 * So: For anyone who cares. I would like to rename this article "Audio woo".  Comments?
 * Actually, that sounds just fine to me. Just leave the redirect from Audiophile for the time being, as I don't know that there's enough to say on the subject of audiophiles per se so much as audio woo. EVDebs 17:59, 25 September 2007 (EDT)
 * Cool... I've started a sandbox version, mostly structure so far. I'll try to use everything I can from the "latest" version of this one (in case people add to it) before doing the move, etc.  I see no real reason to keep the redirect, other than search engines?  Eh, no, you're right - no one is going to search here for "audio woo" but they might search for "audiophile".  I'll keep the redirect.  Anyway, it'll be a few days unless we're lucky before I have something ready for prime time.  Oh, if you want to see what I'm trying to do, comment, add, etc., it's here.  One thing I really want to do is pull together some refs, both sensible and silly.  Shouldn't be too hard to do. human be in 19:06, 25 September 2007 (EDT)

getting honest about my "takeover"
I'm not trying to pull a CP-style "one sysop" control thing on this article.

It's just that, well, this is my area of expertise. For 20-odd years I have been building speaker parts, and speaker systems, and managing to make a living doing it. Those is my creds. I also, in the meantime, have seen embarrassing "audio woo" of many forms - dumb magazine articles (and smart ones), wannabe "engineers", and frickin woo-infected morons.

I also have experimented with a lot of ideas about reproduction of music in the home, at least, those that I can afford (yes, I'm a tweak). Do I think I can prove my "silver ears" (I don't claim to golden) in a double blind (or ABX) test? No. I hope I will bring that to the discussion, the article, etc.

I welcome anyone else's input, but, as I have commented on a few edits to this article, straw men are not good targets, and neither are unreferenced generalizations.

I hope to bring a rational perspective, and footnote a few, or a lot of, things, in the "next" generation version of this file. Please forgive me any opyts I missed. human be in 01:39, 26 September 2007 (EDT)


 * Well, let's see what we can do with this either way. I would say the main concern here is to make sure points go where they belong, for the right reasons. I'd say a good place to start for references would be James Randi's articles on the subject (I don't remember off hand which columns, but I think they were mostly written in '05). From there, there's plenty of links on the subject. There are of course a few things to remember:
 * Subjectivist audiophiles don't always pay much attention to what's going on in the actual physics of their devices. While someone might find the distortion produced by a tube amp to be more pleasurable, make no mistake about it, there is distortion, in which case the system has moved from reproducing sound to processing it. (I know that probably comes off as a bit condescending, and I apologize, but it's got to be one of the most important points to remember here.)
 * Subjective observations make for bad data, since they're not falsifiable.
 * Most modern amplifiers do sound more or less the same, or at least should if they're properly designed.
 * Yes, many mistakes were made on the production end during the change to digital mastering and distribution. It's not the technology's fault.
 * Tweakers really do have very little control over most of their system internals, and much like ricers sometimes do to their cars, can actually degrade the sound (if not destroy the equipment) with poorly-informed upgrades.
 * So that's my list of things to keep in mind, more for newcomers than anything else. EVDebs 02:08, 26 September 2007 (EDT)
 * One, I do not take JR as my "lord" on the subject. Your tube amp ref. is hopelessly out of date, unless we are setting up straw men.  I have commented on this already, and will cover it int he article.
 * Two, subjectivism is actually important in music. Can you "quantify" or "objectify" musical pleasure?
 * Modern amplifiers... one can argue. Prove your case.
 * The digital transition is just one example, of many, where the "engineers" sucked. Sorry, they did. Engineers have been claiming since the days of Edison cylinders that the reproduction was "perfect".
 * Tweakers made "hifi" what it is, just as "tuners" did in their day. To compare the histories (cars/audio) is also something I intend to cover.
 * I am not writing an article for "audio newcomers", although they will be well-taught, I hope. Did you not read what I wrote above?  You did not address what I wrote, so I wonder.  I built a pair of speakers tonight, for a customer.  I listened to them, and still wondered, "where did I go wrong" "why aren't they perfect" "how can I make them so?"  Bullshit snark does not carry here, actual experience matters, and also caring about the result.
 * Your comments strike me as cheap shots, and also a bit light ont he history of hifi.


 * BUT. I do not want to make short shrift of other editors opinions.  I also, in this field, expect mine to be listened to (read) and addressed.  Sorry if I seemed rough on you or rude, but you also did not add any "facts" other than reffing JR, who is not God, and sometimes is embarrassingly wrong (in other fields, but isn't that enough? to make me wonder?).  See you on the flip side, this article will be good, not just some snarky attack on strawmen. human be in 02:46, 26 September 2007 (EDT)
 * Well, since I've no desire to propagate this into a flamewar, this sounds like a good place to leave it for the time being. I look forward to the expanded article. EVDebs 03:11, 26 September 2007 (EDT)
 * Me neither. But, what I expect as the article is made better, are actual links/refs/info. Not just "anti-tweaker" snark.  Believe me, I will rip the woo-ers a new one.  And I also know what I am talking about.  If you want to know, I would invite you to listen.  Sorry if this was heavy-handed, but I know what I am talking about, I make my living doing this, and I also am totally critical of "audio woo" - to my customers.  I hope the eventual result will make this contentious discussion more acceptable.  Hang in there and let me do some homework in my sandbox.  And - any "audio woo" you want to bring up, seriously, please do.  The more the merrier (and in audio, well, there's a lot)! human be in 03:19, 26 September 2007 (EDT)


 * Reading this talk about hi-fi and audio quality reminded me, for unknown reasons, of this thing I saw in Wired. I mean, my God—$148,000?   04:42, 15 February 2009 (EST)

oops and sorry
I realized late last night that I am currently under a "non compete" clause in a contract I recently signed over something I wrote for pay, and that, quite possible, major contributions to this topic might cross the interpretive line in that clause. So I'd better stick to polishing and small comments, since I am not entirely anonymous here. Sorry about not remembering that earlier, and keep up with the efforts. Oh, and setting up "audio woo"? human be in 15:47, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

Completely unrelated discussion about music, radio and television shows...

 * If you can dig it up somewhere, look for the song "High Fidelity" by Flanders & Swann. It's priceless. --Kels 19:27, 25 September 2007 (EDT)
 * The only song by that title I'm familiar with is Elvis'. Of course, there's also that dreadful REO album... Anyway, I'll check it out, thanks! human be in 21:26, 25 September 2007 (EDT)
 * Ah, my memory is faulty. It was "A Song of Reproduction".  Those are the lyrics, but it's totally worth finding the audio version. --Kels 21:28, 25 September 2007 (EDT)
 * Oh, and, duh, the movie with Cusack. I found a bit of the F & S thing, yup, the S of R.  Sounds hilarious!  And from such an interesting era in audio.  I also turned up "High Fidelity A Musical Comedy [Cast Recording] [Soundtrack]" on Amazon... not sure this is the general direction to go with this article, but maybe there can be a whole sub-file on hifi in culture! <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms">human <font color="#00AA00">be in 21:33, 25 September 2007 (EDT)
 * Well, F&S were awesome, no matter what they did (and pretty much everyone's heard the Gnu Song when they were kids, even the Muppets did it). If you're interested in some of the really nifty stuff of the period, look into the Goon Show, Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan's old radio comedy show.  Grand stuff. --Kels 21:36, 25 September 2007 (EDT)
 * Preachin' to the choir there ;). Except for me not ownin' much of it.  Did you ever see Sellers's last movie? <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms">human <font color="#00AA00">be in 21:44, 25 September 2007 (EDT)
 * Was that the Fu Manchu one, or a different one? The latest I've seen was that one. I did find a torrent recently (gasp!) for the entire run of the Goon Show.  Gotta get proper copies of that stuff someday. --Kels 22:04, 25 September 2007 (EDT)
 * It was a strange one, about a butler sort of man, some scenes shot at the Vanderbilt estate. Not typical Sellers fare at all - what it was was a film he personally wanted to see made. <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms">human <font color="#00AA00">be in 22:28, 25 September 2007 (EDT)
 * Oh, Being There. Most people consider that one of his finest performances.  One of those movies I always mean to see but never get around to it.  I really should track that down. --Kels 22:54, 25 September 2007 (EDT)

Goon show being repeated Mondays on BBC radio 7 Mondays. - you can get it on the www. Susan talk to me  21:42, 25 September 2007 (EDT)
 * 7 PM GMT? I think I'm in +5, so that's 2 PM.  I'm usually not up yet by then.  Do they have delayed webthings?  Or can you, you know, tape it for me? <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms">human <font color="#00AA00">be in 21:45, 25 September 2007 (EDT)
 * Is now just coming up to 3:00 am! Susan  talk to me  21:55, 25 September 2007 (EDT)
 * And I'm just before 10, so I am in +5. Oh, EDST, though.  Do you folks in the old country use "daylight savings" time? <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms">human <font color="#00AA00">be in 22:03, 25 September 2007 (EDT)

Yup! Its 3:08 BST not GMT! Susan talk to me  22:07, 25 September 2007 (EDT)
 * Gotcha. I thought BST was something you caught from undercooked meat... <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms">human <font color="#00AA00">be in 22:09, 25 September 2007 (EDT)
 * BBC seven Radio! - 8 am, 12 noon, 7 pm BST Susan  talk to me  21:48, 25 September 2007 (EDT)


 * Ah... well, I might still be up for the "8am" broadcast. But Monday wuz yesterday!  I already bin there!  Oooh, wait, rumor has it Monday is going to be rerun next week for those who missed this one... <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms">human <font color="#00AA00">be in 21:52, 25 September 2007 (EDT)

Machina Dynamica
http://www.machinadynamica.com/index.html

I'm not convinced that site is not a mildly elaborate parody. All I know is that their webshite gives me migraine. 21:23, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Well this seems to be the rule of where something sufficiently dumb appears to be a parody - however this link provides evidence that people are in fact selling and buying their products, foolish, foolish people.

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?accstwek&1271886536

Check the feedback for the seller, now if audiogon is a hoax too then it's a very very complex one.

The Machina Dynamica Teleportation Tweak works! All I can say is that it increased detail, definition and focus, and increased depth and imaging in the soundstage. If you're a skeptic don't try it (you'll be missing out) but if you think that some tw Positive by  Buyer Xlh1 (708) on 08-15-09  re: Accessory

Espontaneo (talk) 18:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Yup, looks "real" to me. Thanks for the link.  I can't believe how badly put together their web site is, though...  21:05, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Bi-Wiring/Amping
My statement has been edited out questioning the logic of bi-wiring (for bi-amping) ports on modestly priced speakers - I have replaced it on this basis:

http://www.richersounds.com/product/bookshelf-speakers/q-acoustics/1020i/qaco-1020i-blk

http://www.richersounds.com/product/bookshelf-speakers/gale/silver-monitor/gale-silmon

I think it is s reasonable point as I would argue that only very high end speakers would have much benefit from bi-amping. Certainly, it would be wiser to spend the money on better speakers than more amplifiers at this range.

In fact I have got a tannoy centre speaker right here with bi-wiring ports (sensys c) model. It cost £90 - bi-amping surround sound at this price is surely crazy.

http://www.axiomaudio.com/tips_biwiring_and_biamping.html

"Bi-amping, or biamplification, is used mainly in professional sound reinforcement applications, where extremely high levels of loudness are required.....but such systems have no place in domestic home theater systems in normal rooms."

Espontaneo (talk) 22:23, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I know what biamping is thanks. We should add a footnote to the $200 speaker thing linking to, say, the features page in that first link above. I wasn't aware relatively cheap speakers were using the biwire option as a selling aid.  Are they binding posts or spring clips?  Oh, and are you aware of just how cheap such a feature can be these days (as in made in China)?  I still think the admonition is clumsily worded and makes it like the article is arguing with itself.  Let's try moving the "cheap speaker" issue into the section that is actually about biwiring (which is woo) and away from the biamping part (which isn't, sort of).  Biamping "at home" can be perfectly reasonable if two different amplifiers each work best with part of the speaker.  By the way, your quote is just some guy's opinion.  01:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The only evidence for the efficacy of bi-amping at home seems entirely subjective - I'm not ruling it out but it seems no more excessive than monoblock amping. No one argues about the efficacy of bi-amping in a professional and/or very loud audio environment, besides which it seems very difficult to get right - at home more so. The speakers given are examples, they will be binding ports like on the mission, tannoy and gale speakers which are/were British manufacturers making highly regarded entry and mid level speakers. I don't think they go as far as to have bi-wiring on speakers with spring clip ports the illusion might not survive that leap! The point remains, whether for bi-amping or bi-wiring the concept is all pervasive even at the entry level. The "citation needed" that has been added is immediately followed by a quote from a manufacturer which backs up the very point made. They put dual binding ports on their speakers for customers who believe they are necessary.

I'm still digging and intend to continue beefing up the article with more references....

Espontaneo (talk) 09:33, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Evidence of bi-amping I found this link which attempts to demonstrate the benefits of bi-amping. Though there is plenty of science there, the author does little to identify how noticeable any effect is except to say that it is and that even the cheapest nastiest systems will sound better - which is a bit woo sounding to me. Furthermore they actually describe bi-wiring as having some benefits (although acknowledging that people "believe" there are noticeable benefits). Read the article to find lots of the usual subjective audio woo statements presented as fact - including things refuted on this wiki - such as superiority of tube amps.

Of course this is just one article and the fact that they make some seeming errors doesn't rule out their whole argument but still there's enough room for some skepticism.

What do you reckon Human?

Espontaneo (talk) 13:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Continuing to dig I find no objective proof of the effectiveness of bi-amping in a home environment. There is plenty of subjective assessments of course and even reasonable explanations - but no objective proof. There is of course very high end Hi-Fi speakers that do not have passive crossovers - yet that they exists proves little in this game - as bi-wiring speakers with passive crossovers is demonstrably pointless and I have shown that a lot of speakers have the connections for bi-wiring anyway.

What is a clear fact though is that many quality hi-fi speakers have dual contacts and that they must have passive crossovers as any that come with shorts connecting the dual contacts are therefore by definition intended for bi-wiring and not bi-amping. Take these undenaibly high end £6000 speakers for example - clearly described as containing a crossover yet with binding posts for bi-wiring. DALI HELICON 400LE 25

Your edits of my post suggest an assumption about bi-amping and high quality speakers that is not born out by the facts of the industry....

Anyone with an active sub-woofer technically has a form of bi-amping, I suppose, but this just confirms that for adequate power distribution bi-amping can help but does not show greater audio quality as a result unless the power supply was insufficient to begin with.

Espontaneo (talk) 14:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Rod Elliots site is excellent, glad you've found it. Bi-amping, or even tri-amping, can be very effective, if you use crossovers before the amps.  This means that each amp is driving the loadspeaker directly, instead of though a passive crossover network that will change it's characteristics dramatically across the frequency range.  Tri-amping using active crossovers before the amps will give real, measurable results.  (As for bi-wiring, connecting two runs of wire to the same output stage of an amp (but from different terminals on the chassis of course) then to the same crossover input (but on different terminals on the case of course), well, that's a good one!  15:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

"Gimme some decent evidence that audible audio quality is improved! Rod Elliot has a great deal of undeniably solid theory to back him up but no measurements to back up the supposed results. Plenty of the woos described here have sound theory behind them it's just that in the contexts described the theory does not come into play - is it the grain of truth that fuels the lie? Why is bi (or tri)-amplification any different in home audio? Why assume it is true without objective measurements of audible results surely, that is no different from what is being debunked? Especially when the evidence cited seems to support bi-wiring to some degree. Espontaneo (talk) 16:13, 25 February 2010 (UTC)"

Sometimes Right
I deleted new sections on cable interference and poor power supplies in the "sometimes right" section. The fact is that interference is hardly significant at the lengths used on interconnects unless they are of extremely poor quality and shielding is unecessary on speaker cables according all the sources cited. Additionally only very, very badly designed power supplies would be effected by issue 2 (possibly would breach legal regulations to be this bad) again all of the sources cited support this.

Neither of these issues are particularly relevent to the issue of Audio Woo. The question is about audibility and neither point addressed this. Furthermore it seems to directly contradict the closing statement of the section by lending credence to the claims of woo mongers....

Espontaneo (talk) 14:51, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Bits are bits
There are actually people convinced that the Japanese pressings of cds have better audio quality than the same cds pressed in other countries. Maybe this could go into the article? Psyduck (talk) 12:54, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Sure, especially if we can have a link to someone claiming it... 23:32, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I would argue that if there is any truth to it, it might be that the Japanese pressers are using better quality masters or better mixes. But I really doubt there's much difference between what gets sold in different countries. EVDebs (talk) 07:46, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Checksums are checksums. Crappy masters are crappy masters, good ones are good ones.  Unless the Americans are short-sheeting their checksums, bits is bits.  Or, put better, bitstreams are bitstreams.  08:28, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

TV woo.
Are the any signs of TV woo developing? With high definition a point will presumably be reached where the average person will not be able to distinguish between the picture quality on two sets. At that point the only difference will be the marketing. Are we anywhere near that point yet?--BobSpring is sprung! 11:39, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Hell yeah! There's already a big market for ultra-expensive HDMI cables etc.  The one good thing about ultra-expensive digital cables (compared to analogue) is that it's easy to completely, objectively and without any doubt whatsoever prove that there's no change in signal over a standard cable.  Count the bits in and count em out again - no woo can even suggest differently.  They still sell though.  12:27, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Hehe, I remember when HD TVs first came out and the only HDMI cable you could buy in-store cost £80. You can pick them up for a quid nowadays! 12:36, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not even sure that's woo -- that's just blatant price gouging. Monster Cable has been doing it for long enough that people think $50-$100 for an HDMI cable is normal. I spent $15 for one for my camcorder and I know damn well that's overpriced. EVDebs (talk) 01:10, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

14-bit DAC
I'll see if I can track this down. I distinctly remember this from 1983 and going "wtf" at the time ... - David Gerard (talk) 07:47, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm totally on board if you can find it. Until then I am sceptical, as I'm sure you might understand.  I trust you to find what you remember.  If it was so, surely you can find it. Thanks.  07:58, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * A quick Google on "14 bit" "cd player" turns up Oh, and . Phillips had initially specified CD as 14-bit and duly developed a 14-bit DAC, the TDA1540 - then Sony came in and said "no, we want 16-bit." Phillips went "shit" and their initial CD players had to make do with the 14-bit DAC until they developed a 16-bit one - David Gerard (talk) 10:08, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Audio Grade Electrical Outlet
There are 'special audio' electrical outlets that cost $150.00+ They are Wattgate 381 Audio Grade Duplex Socket. Sadly, they are available on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Wattgate-Audio-Grade-Duplex-Socket/dp/B000930W4M  One must wonder how braindead you must be to think that this item is something that you need. There is some good humor in the reviews for this product on the amazon site though. Where should information about this product go?--MJMelcher (talk) 18:04, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Just stick a new section in after the magical cables one. Human will come along and re-order it if he doesn't like it. (He's a speaker manufacturer) 18:22, 3 July 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * Haha, it's just a "hospital grade" (nylon body, 20A, screw-only wire-up) outlet with gold plated hard parts. And gold plating is cheap because it can be done in such a thin layer.  Hospital grade outlets have been promoted for quite some time, they run about $8 i think.  The "no quick disconnect" wiring I suppose makes some sense, if there is any sense to it at all.  No one has ever shown that any mains issues ever get past the transformer... And, yeah, putting it next to magic cables, especially if we mention magic mains cables, would make sense. PS, $150 is dirt-cheap for a piece of high-end woo.  Almost too cheap.  I'm sure there's a market for the $500-700 price point.  22:00, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Professional sound
This is off the top of my head, corrections from people who've been close to professional sound more recently than me much needed. Human, do you sell speakers to pros as well as consumers? - David Gerard (talk) 14:22, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Truth boxes
For my birthday, my darling girlfriend [*] just gave me some shitty laptop speakers from Curry's! They're powered from USB, they do 0.5W RMS total (5V at 500mA) and they're about 2.5" in diameter each. They are just what I wanted, because if I want perfect sound I use the headphones but if I want a mix that survives anything it has to work on these. I am most pleased. Now remixing everything - David Gerard (talk) 15:19, 19 February 2011 (UTC) [*] note bragging about having GIRLFRIEND

Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.
This article focuses on straw men to permit itself licence to make some very lazy arguments. For example superimposition applies, as stated in the citation, only to linear networks. Non-linearity is central to a lot of audiophile arguments, so it's doubtful that superimposition has any bearing on their claims. It's not a challenging thought exercise to see what difference is made by bi-wiring when the wire is modelled as a nonlinear medium, even if doing so is a drastic exaggeration of insignificant technicalities. But irrespective of what claims have been made by whom, it's unscientific to treat a cheap engineering model as the whole story.

Also, FETs naturally have responses similar to valves; it's disingenuous to claim scam artists have sold products claiming to make transistors function like tubes.

Probably the most glaring omission is regarding S/PDIF. That interconnect transmits two types of information; the samples are digital, but the clock is analogue. It's the latter that brings us jitter, which goes completely unmentioned in the article. The effect may be negligible, and there may be techniques to mitigate it, but its a disgraceful oversimplification to say "bits is bits".

And what's that about testing mains leads? What is one meant to derive from unscientific measurements and half-baked reasoning (without even a proper plan for loading!)? --Sh1 (talk) 21:53, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * shorter Sh1: something something nonlinear something something straw man something quantum something Tesla something waaaaaah. EVDebs (talk) 23:09, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Hah! Dude, give back the domain name.  It's a joke.  If you're typical then the userbase is clearly failing to subscribe to the manifesto and the site might as well not exist. --Sh1 (talk) 07:26, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * If you wrote a book that was 100 pages written like that you'd make a ton of cash!! Ancient Greek Pegasus icon.png 11:18, 23 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Clock signals in electronics are digital (because they mark pulses with a phase change). The idea of using an analog clock in a digital transmission protocol is actually so retarded it would never actually occur, because there isn't a single engineer retarded enough to design something that way.
 * Considering that S/PDIF uses Biphase mark code for timing, your arguments for "jitter" in S/PDIF due to a analog clock transmission does not bear true in light of facts, and thus your explanation has no plausible mechanism of action. -- 13:19, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * If you actually read your own citation you'd realise that biphase mark code is used to facilitate wp:clock recovery. Clock recovery is inherently analogue because, while it is agreed in advance that a signal level is supposed to be either zero or one even when it's a little bit too high or low, there is no common frame of reference for the points in time at which transitions are supposed to occur when they're a little bit early or late.  Clock recovery is the process of creating that common reference.
 * In short; transmission of clock information uses digital levels (strictly, analogue approximations of digital levels which can be reasserted to true digital levels) but it does not use digital time. Time is the essential characteristic of a clock, and so it's clearly not digital transmission.
 * And this textbook lesson illustrates my problem with the article. There's a lack of comprehension of how the subject matter really works, and yet it criticises others for precisely the same fault.  What value does the process have in this case? --Sh1 (talk) 16:12, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Your whole argument here for why time is "analog" is Not even wrong. "analogue approximations of digital levels" shows an absolute lack of understanding of how digital electronics work... ok, I shouldn't say an absolute lack, because you get the fact that fundamentally there is no 0/1, it's +5V with an error range of about -2.5V, and 0V with an error range of about +2.5V... but you then argue that this can be "reasserted to true digital levels" there is no such thing as "true digital levels". It's all analogue approximations, so talk about digital electronics as "analogue approximations of digital levels" is neigh tautological... it is a factual statement about the only way that we're capable of producing digital electronics in real life. Theoretically, we can design digital electronics easily, and treat signals as pure +5V for 1, and 0V for 0, but that's not how the real world works.
 * And your assertions about "time is analogue" etc, the same argument would work with CPUs, RAM, and video cards, and trust me, if there is jitter in signal transmission on a CPU to RAM, compiling the Linux core would crash hardcore over it. We even list shit in this article that are valid audiophile claims, but no, that's not good enough for you... we don't acknowledge your pet theory, so we're being irrational (a.k.a. we disagree with you). But no, that's not how rationality works. You present the empirical evidence and mechanism of action by which your claim works, and we'll validate it. You have the burden of proof here, not us to believe your woo shit. -- 17:00, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The second paragraph here is a spot-on Karajou impersonation (not that it's necessarily wrong). --95.154.230.191 (talk) 19:04, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Notionally, levels stated in protocol specifications are driven onto a medium that will not bear them by a driver that cannot drive them, but when they hit an input they're interpreted as discrete values and reasserted to formal values (which, again, never appear) for next stage. That's just semantics, though. You've said nothing with your specious "correction".  The paragraph does little more than demonstrate some serious Dunning-Kruger effect.
 * "Time is analogue" does not meaningfully apply to the digital domain. There is jitter but it does not matter (at least not to you as you obviously do not have an ASIC design background) because every state transition is synchronised to distributed clock.  Jitter is factored in as a timing constraint during synthesis of the RTL, and the margins are enormous.  Jitter has an impact (one worth discussing here, I mean) only in the analogue domain where it affects the hold time and pitch of the samples.
 * I have no burden of proof. I stand by my original assertion that the article focuses on a straw man and fails to address real audiophile arguments head-on.  My claims about jitter are thoroughly documented in many different contexts and schools of engineering.  I needn't do your googling for you.  --Sh1 (talk) 18:34, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * *sigh* You're the one making the positive claim, you have a burden of proof. You can argue that you have no duty to google shit for me, which you don't. But if you want to persuade someone from the default skeptic position, you must bring proof. You don't just say "XY is true, and I don't need to bring any proof to the table." Having said that, I've looked through a google search for "jitter S/PDIF" and looking over the Wikipedia page on S/PDIF. You are correct, if a DAC isn't of reasonable quality, it can produce jitters (which are readily demonstrable, and exactly the sort of proof that you need to meet your burden.) You've met your burden of proof on S/PDIF in my opinion. If you have a shitty DAC, you can produce jitter in the signal through clock drift. -- 22:40, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Isn't someone here an audio engineer? My knowledge of this stuff doesn't extend much beyond what cables go where. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 22:44, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Eira, I'm not too convinced Sh1 did meet the burden of proof -- as was said above, the analog clock argument is meaningless, since an analog clock signal (what, continuously sliding voltage or something?) isn't worth the trouble to make. I'd say we've found a timing signal at zero hertz. In other words, even accounting for the facts of S/PDIF jitter, Sh1 is still Not Even Wrong. EVDebs (talk) 01:27, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Please read through this thread more carefully. The digital signal goes up and down in time, and those ups and downs represent binary states (or at least discrete states), but the clock information comes from the moment in time at which those levels change (specifically, when the receiver notices the change). --Sh1 (talk) 06:48, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The statement of "not even wrong" is still accurate. Timing issues still does not make it an "analog", analog has a specific meaning in terms of amplitude values, not in timing. Variable timing CPUs are not considered to have analog clocks, even though the timing could easily vary through an arbitrary cyclical rate. The issue with S/PDIF jitter is timing drift, and not an "analog clock". And as the article points out, even when audiophiles are right, they're usually right for the wrong reasons. -- 07:03, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm wary of the fact that there are a lot of different uses of the words "digital" and "analogue", and that there's not a lot of point quibbling over it when either party can just hop to a different definition and claim that it doesn't meet that definition. But in any case...
 * The signal, as we have established, is an analogue approximation of a discrete values. Part of that approximation is a non-infinite slew rate.  The clock phase is detected not on an approximation of a discrete level (ie., digital), but by the analogue signal crossing a threshold at the detector.  The first analogue consideration is the continuous variation of the region of the signal that indicates where the clock edge is.  The clock conditioning, if present, is also an analogue stage in the vast majority of cases.  Even in your precious digital CPU you have large sections of the silicon given over to what is called the "analogue domain", and a good portion of this is clock-related.  Of course it doesn't make it an analogue clock or an analogue CPU.  It's not really informative to describe it as either digital or analogue.  The recovery and the conditioning of the clock, however, uses logic which is, conventionally, termed "analogue".  --Sh1 (talk) 08:27, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I mean I have no burden of proof because I don't care about being right. Initially I was making an observation that the whole story is much bigger and more complicated than the article makes it appear, and that trivialisation and glossing-over is bad science in just the same way as are the audiophile claims being made.  Scandalous hypocrisy and all that.  Following on, I was simply trying to lay down a foundation for understanding why something (then something else, then something else...) that had been said in the talk page was actually wrong.  I did so without bothering with direct evidence because all evidence can be dismissed as woo if you don't understand it. --Sh1 (talk) 06:48, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Whether you care about being right or not, you still have a burden of proof. Whether you care about meeting that bar or not you still have a burden of proof. "All evidence can be dismissed as woo if you don't understand it." Claims without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Your argument fails by analogy of "Homeopathy is right, and I have evidence, but since you can't understand it, then you'll just dismiss it as woo." Evidence is not an explanation, it's actual data from double-blind experiments. -- 07:03, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Nope. The burden of proof would be mine only if I were to engage in a formal debate following the rules you've assumed.  That would be fair -- this wiki says quite plainly what it's about in that respect -- but I'm not.  I'm not debating the existence of jitter in clock recovery.  I'm simply trying to help you understand what you're talking about.  And yes, I may have said something that a homeopath could also say, but that's not terribly important.  I explained that I didn't present evidence because I didn't think it would be productive.  It would be a logical fallacy to take that to mean that the evidence or the position was invalid.  It only means that I believed the effort was better spent in other ways. --Sh1 (talk) 08:27, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No, there is a burden of proof in any positive claim. Your assertions otherwise are unavailing. There is no fallacy in dismissing claims not backed by evidence. There is no assertion here that your claims are wrong, but rather that they are not evaluatable because you're providing no evidence. -- 08:48, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Prove to me that there is a burden of proof in any positive claim. --Sh1 (talk) 09:03, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Burden of proof is a convention. You seem to want this article changed, so provide some evidence on which to base changes, or nobody will bother.
 * Given the nature of the article, I doubt many people here even understand it enough to care...but something might get done if you avoid wall-of-text opinions. 10:31, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Philosophic burden of proof. Consider energy states. Things sit at energy states because there is an energy barrier to entering another energy state. In order to alter this energy state one must exceed that energy barrier to transition energy states, and then the thing will fall into the lowest energy state from there. In a metaphorical sense, this article is sitting in an discrete energy state at this time. If you wish any alteration from that state, you need to provide the energy to exceed that energy barrier in order to transition it to another state. No one else here cares about your personal crusade to pick it up themselves... thus the burden lies with you. If you don't want the article changed, then why post to this talk page in the first place? Wasting energy? Provoking responses (a.k.a. trolling)? -- 10:58, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * This doesn't prove that there is a burden of proof in any positive claim. This merely suggests that proof may be necessary in order to effect change.  The latter I counter with evidence.
 * If I wanted the article changed I'd just change it. It's an open wiki, right?  What I actually wanted was the dialogue.  Not this dialogue, though.Call it trolling if you like (and you probably should), but I wanted to see if there was any comprehension of the hypocrisy in the use of lazy reasoning and poor science in refuting the claims of audiophiles.
 * Honestly, I believe that reason, conventional engineering models, and repeatable measurement suggest (but do not prove) that most of the effects in question are too small to be perceptible, and that other factors (recent meals, mood, etc.) play a far greater role in perception. I wouldn't, however, back up that opinion with false or untested assertions that such-and-such proves that so-and-so effects cannot exist.  That would be a misrepresentation of reason and scientific process. --Sh1 (talk) 11:50, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

The vinyl thing
That section is far too long-winded, and whilst the stuff it mentions (DJs and tuntablism etc) is correct, it was nothing to do with audiophoolery. Anyone mind if I chop it down / rewrite it a bit? PS. That "a clock signal is analogue" from above was priceless, I don't know where I was when that was going on. 01:06, 1 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I thought the same thing. I've cut it entirely. The paragraph now deals with sound, not other uses of vinyl. Hey, I could put in turning terrible 7" records into ashtrays over an electric stove! Or not - David Gerard (talk) 07:42, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, but can you decorate your Fancy Dance PowWow outfit with them.  CD's make rainbows.  Rainbows "good magic".  [[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">En attendant Godot  00:25, 26 August 2011 (UTC)--[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">En attendant Godot  00:25, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * There seems an inherent contradiction in this section: "it's substantially more robust than optical or magnetic media," and then later on, "unless you're willing to shell out multiple thousands of dollars for a laser turntable, your records won't last for long".  I have 100-year old records that play just fine; 50 year-old tapes that still play without problems; and 10-year old CDs that are unplayable.  True, my actual old -vinyl- is only about 50-60 years old, but for most of that time there was no such thing as a "laser truntable."

Vinyl records do "last long" without laser turntables, and they demonstrably last longer than most tape or optical media available to the general consumer. Note that I do not address sound quality here, just durability and longevity.
 * I don't think it's necessarily contradictory at all. Although the playback process is inherently destructive over time, the medium itself, left unplayed or played nondestructively, is going to be more robust over time compared to a digital medium, since the only thing that needs to be worried about is the physical integrity of the medium and not things like chemical changes in dye or reflective layers. The tradeoff, of course, is bandwidth; I'm not sure what the exact information content expressed in bytes is of a typical vinyl album (any such estimate is obviously going to be extremely imprecise), although the information density is definitely substantially lower than a CD and nothing close to what later optical media can manage. tl;dr vinyl is more robust over the long run as long as you don't have to play it with a needle. EVDebs (talk) 03:19, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Why is there nothing in this section about the differences between analog vs. digital recording? You learn about this difference between LPs and CDs/mp3s in every elementary recording science class, and it's the most common reason I've heard from audiophiles in terms of why they prefer vinyl (because analog doesn't have the storage limits that digital sound does). 50.133.133.198 (talk) 02:23, 27 November 2012 (UTC)


 * "storage limits"? I'm going to demand some actual science there. What do they mean by "storage limits"? If Nyquist got the maths right (which he did) then digital recording can store data to arbitrary resolution. In practice, well-mastered 16-bit or not-completely-fucked-up 24-bit completely covers everything vinyl can do. Are you sure you're not talking about listeners being pleased by distortion they're used to? - David Gerard (talk) 08:38, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Heat is not an issue because...
Diff. Heat is not an issue when the cables in question run through habitable spaces, external to the audio boxes. High power is obtainable with low-voltage devices running high current. Typically such devices are socked onto big honkin heat sinks, with thermal grease to get an intimate thermal contact. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 23:05, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I think the larger point is that heat isn't an issue with speaker wires unless the wires are very, very thin indeed. V2/R and all that. Doctor Dark (talk) 01:00, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I think we need to have in-depth discussion of skin effect and its influence on high-frequency rolloff. I volunteer anyone other than myself to start the discussion, and to preserve my neutrality, I will abstain from participating. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 12:03, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Skin effect just isn't even a thing at audio frequencies - David Gerard (talk) 08:41, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Audiophile porn
This is just ridiculously over the top (it's the 1961 circuitry with some 2011 trimmings), but alarmingly beautiful - David Gerard (talk) 09:15, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * "Natural warm sound"? Surely it's either natural or warm. 09:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Monty on 24/192 audiophoolery
Monty wrote Ogg Vorbis and FLAC. He knows his shit. Also details how to fuck up a listening test. Needs digesting into this article - David Gerard (talk) 09:28, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

A popular subject
The blog post is going nuts. Part 2 was going to be the second half of this, but I have enough for a part 3 and 4 just on various Facebook comments. If we can polish this article up, it could be a very popular piece. It may need to be even longer, though - David Gerard (talk) 09:40, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

The most important part of the audio system
... is between the ears. 171.33.222.26 (talk) 18:12, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Bunch of stuff

 * "There exists an inverted class of audiophiles who claim that the sound of vinyl"
 * How is this "inverted"? Nostalgia for vinyl despite its flaws is the same thing as nostalgia for tube amps despite their flaws.
 * "an interesting school of thought given the analogue/digital audio debate"
 * Huh? Vinyl vs digital is the analog/digital debate.  What are you talking about?
 * "However, the major stumbling blocks are the recording quality and later compression and manipulation of the original signal itself, the cost of better parts, and just how much any change actually increases quality. "
 * What?
 * "Explanations for why manufacturers ... perpetuate the myths of the subjective audio crowd are varied"
 * Uh, greed?
 * What's the gramophone picture here for?
 * "to the point where scam artists have sold products claiming to make transistors function like tubes."
 * How is that a scam?
 * Different goals: for sound reproduction, a lot of this stuff is indeed bunk. For recording and live sound, however, a lot of it is perfectly valid.  The non-linearities of tubes do produce a certain sound in a distorted guitar amplifier, and while it is *possible* to reproduce with transistors or DSP, it's easier to just slap a real tube in there.  Likewise, microphone and guitar cables can have significant effects on the sound (piezoelectric/triboelectric noise as the mic cable moves around, high-frequency roll-off from high capacitance, etc) and are subject to much abuse, so more expensive cables can be genuinely better and more reliable.  I think a lot of confusion comes just from people talking about "the tube sound of amplifiers" without specifying whether they are talking about a guitar amp (distortion is good) or a music reproduction amp (distortion is bad).
 * Cables with gold-plated connectors: Good because they're resistant to corrosion, not because of the low resistivity of gold, which is irrelevant in series with the 100 ohm source impedance of whatever's driving the cable.
 * "a cult developed around "treating" the playing surface of CDs with Armor-All (specifically) to improve the sound. "
 * Does it fill in scratches? That could genuinely improve the sound.  CD players are designed to interpolate small errors without most people noticing. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul98/articles/digitalbasics3.html http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/cd-recordable/2-17-Why-don-t-audio-CDs-use-error-correction.html
 * Monoblocks are "generally considered overkill by sound engineers"? More like "underkill"?  Cutting off the patient to save the leg?
 * "reduce harmonic distortion (THD) was causing intermodulation distortion (IM) artifacts"
 * No no no, THD and IMD are not different types of distortion. They're different ways of measuring the same distortion, by applying different signals. The exact same circuit will produce harmonic distortion if you put a sine wave into it, and intermodulation distortion if you put 2 sine waves (or music) into it.
 * "and a 1:1 transformer can cut down on harmonics. Most amplifiers, though, will already use a transformer which naturally even out circuit harmonics"
 * Hmm? Like, power line harmonics?  Like you're filtering out the power line harmonics before full-wave rectifying it, which produces way more harmonics than were ever there in the first place?  Maybe you mean something about isolation transformer and ground loops? Hmmph (talk) 03:26, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Article contradicts itself
The "Sometimes right" section refers to low impedance headphones in the same context as the "Useful things" section refers to them as high impedance - I think it's the latter which is wrong 124.168.75.32 (talk) 09:38, 23 July 2014 (UTC) HuwG