The Audiophoolery Thread.

[Pfraser]

What a great thread! Tales of psychology, technology and breathtaking fertiliser.

Spending big certainly encourages the listener to find improvements in the sound. Conversely, I wonder if the use of inexpensive and unpretentious items serves to mask any imperfections in the reproduced audio? A former radio colleague had previously been an engineer at an audio-visual production facility. He said their sound monitors were connected with common or garden bell wire! Staff and (presumably) clients were quite happy with the results...

[Radio Wrangler]

It seems that in the audiophile world, the subjective appearance of the sound is set by knowing what's in use, rather than the entry of pressure waves to the lug 'oles. Just mention any sort of blind testing and they either fall into a dissembling mass or they're off running.

Having a sense of proportion can save you a lot of money. A sense of humour can be used to protect that sense of proportion.

David

[E93AFAN]

Thanks everyone who has contributed to this thread, I have dipped into it over the last few days and it has given me much entertainment.

To this audio infidel most of the products are unbelievable nonsense, but I guess if you have considerable available disposable income then being obsessively gulled by audiophile spivs is better than turning to drugs even though the outcome seems equally delusional !

Being an "ancient" I recall cardboard tube, concrete sewer pipe and sand filled loudspeaker enclosures and arguments about the relative merits of different makes of chokes, mains and output transformers, brands of output valves and interminable hand wringing about whether triodes produced "purer sound".

I recall making 6SN7 "fuzz boxes" for friends along with guitar amplifiers using octal valves because these were "much more musical" than their B9A counterparts, so I guess nothing much changes, the limiting factor in the 50s and 60s being disposable income.

Please do keep up the good work, in these less than happy times we all need cheering up and this forum does some very good work in that respect, thank you all

[RichardGM]

On the whole I tend to find the immense gullibility of human beings more sad than entertaining. But I do agree that spashing out money on imaginary improvements in reproduced sound is less harmful than some other silly things that people do.

Well short of the extremes of phoolery, but still to my mind fairly silly, is quoting a high amplifier "damping factor". As long as the output impedance is less than about a fifth of the speaker impedance, I would expect any further reduction to make minimal difference.

[wireless_john]

I have a Technics SU-Z2 amplifier that I bought in 1979. It's still in regular use and even the lamps in the meters haven't gone. I thought I'd Google it so see what people say about it and came across a couple of reviews. In one of the reviews I read this, and I quote:

"What you want to know is Peak verses RMS. Peak is 100 watts per channel. This is what the greasy salespeople go on about. Range Mean Sound, RMS, is what matters. this is the constant true power. I'm sure you have heard a mini 300 watt system that could get blown off the cabinet and out the door by this Old School 35 watt RMS system."

I have never heard the term Range Mean Sound before. Have I missed something?

John

[Dickie]

Sounds a bit like an attempt to debase a perfectly honest definition. A bit like "CE" marking actually stands for China Export.

[Craig Sawyers]

Where does one start? The unit is 35W per channel continuous into 8 ohms, or 16.7V rms. The peak of that sinusoidal waveform is 23.7V.

Yup. looking at the schematic, the chip power amps have rail voltages of +/-38.4V with no signal. The usual calculation is (1) -10% tolerance on mains voltage (2) ripple on the power supply when delivering power (~2V) and (3) voltage losses in the power devices and drivers in the chip amp (~4V).That gets the maximum peak voltage to the 8 ohm load of 28.6V or 50W. But it could well be limited to 35W continuously per channel thermally by whatever heatsinks are in place.

Ah - I see where that clown's 100W peak comes from. The maximum voltage to the 8 ohm load, giving rise to 50W is 28V. Shove a square wave into it and you get exactly 100W. So what he is trying to say is that the amp might be thermally limited to 35W into 8 ohms both channels driven, but on short term transients it could put out 100W.

In which case why did he not say so in clear terms? And Range Mean Sound

Yup - the device is indeed rated at 50W into 8 ohms http://www.datasheet-pdf.com/PDF/STK...eet-ETC-499698

Craig

[Radio Wrangler]

RMS - doesn't it mean "Really Massive Soundstage"?

David

[Craig Sawyers]

Or Really Moronic Specification?

Craig

[wireless_john]

I have to say that when we bought it, power output was never a consideration for me!

It came from a place called Hampshire Audio, https://audiot.co.uk/audiot-southampton
and they let me listen to an LP I took with me on different combinations of turntable, amplifier and speakers that were within my budget.

We came out with a Yamaha YP-B2 turntable, Technics SU-Z2 amplifier and a pair of RAM speakers. Speaker cables are from a reel of speaker cable from Screwfix. (Thick bell wire).

I liked it then and still do!

John

[Craig Sawyers]

Oh I remember Hampshire Audio. I was at Southampton University, and was the go to place to listen to awesome audio. About the only thing I could afford at that point was the odd accessory, like a headshell.

The guy that owned and ran it in the 70's to early 80's (and maybe beyond) was pretty quirky. Above the door he had the lain motto "experto crede" which means "believe the expert".

But he was a guy who only sold excellent gear.

Craig

[stevehertz]

Originally Posted by wireless_john

I have to say that when we bought it, power output was never a consideration for me!

It came from a place called Hampshire Audio, https://audiot.co.uk/audiot-southampton
and they let me listen to an LP I took with me on different combinations of turntable, amplifier and speakers that were within my budget.

We came out with a Yamaha YP-B2 turntable, Technics SU-Z2 amplifier and a pair of RAM speakers. Speaker cables are from a reel of speaker cable from Screwfix. (Thick bell wire).

I liked it then and still do!

John

In the mid 70s when I changed from the very thin bell wire to some thicker cable that I borrowed from work and twisted them together, I reckon I could hear a slight difference. No mater what I tried after that, I could not detect a difference. So, in my book 'thick bell wire' is adequate for serious hifi. Anything above that is AP territory. Just my opinion.

[Radio Wrangler]

Originally Posted by Craig Sawyers

Or Really Moronic Specification?

I know when I've been beaten!

David

[wireless_john]

Originally Posted by Craig Sawyers

Oh I remember Hampshire Audio. I was at Southampton University, and was the go to place to listen to awesome audio. About the only thing I could afford at that point was the odd accessory, like a headshell.

The guy that owned and ran it in the 70's to early 80's (and maybe beyond) was pretty quirky. Above the door he had the lain motto "experto crede" which means "believe the expert".

But he was a guy who only sold excellent gear.

Craig

I remember thinking that they knew what they're talking about and we didn't get the hard sell from them either. I went back a few years ago to buy a new belt for the turntable and had the same impression again that if you want audio equipment in this area, that's the the place to go.

On the subject of speaker cables, I did originally have the speakers connected with bell wire and they were like that for many years until we came to move things around and at that point I bought speaker cable from Screwfix as I said earlier. At the time, I did measure the capacitance between the conductors and also the cable resistance. I don't recall what the figures were now but I thought that as far as audio frequencies were concerned they were insignificant.

I couldn't hear any difference, but that's probably my ears! Perhaps the speakers might sound better if I put the cables on pylons or something ...

John

[Radio Wrangler]

The first law of audiophoolery is that no true audiophool can ever consider there to be any limit to the discrimination of their hearing. Therefore, in their universe, there is nothing which can be accepted as insignificant.

Non-audiophools can't accept this and I wonder how audiophools handle it when they really can't hear any difference. The answer seems to be that they go right ahead with believing things make a difference but can't admit their own limitation, so they have to go by what some accepted guru has said.

This brings up the matter of just how many audiophools are in this position.

The gurus themselves must be in an awkward position. Asking them the colour of the emperor's new clothes is just going to get mired in the language describing colours, but a direct objective question like how many buttons there are on the jacket puts them in a very awkward position. It seems to be handled by once the first guru has got into print with an opinion on something, then the others must fall in line. They get to use different but similar adjectives, but they can't disagree without creating a rift which could threaten their universe.

This is testable.

Let someone listen to some decent equipment of no visible make or model and an ordinary citizen will happily tell you what they think. A real audiophile will, too. But an audiophool will do anything to avoid giving an opinion because they are afraid of disagreeing with anything from a guru. They don't know what the gear is, so they don't know what to say.

Some things do sound different, some things do make a difference. The difficulty lies in filtering out the tremendous amount of bull sloshing around in the audio world, and in having the self-confidence to form your own opinions despite pressure from others.

If I find a difference, I want to dig in and investigate it until I understand what is happening. Sometimes it's my imagination, sometimes it's real. I just want to know so I can stop worrying about it.

Hifi Corner in Edinburgh (top of Leith Walk) used to be a good place in the 70's - straight forward advice, straight forward demonstrations, they let good gear sell itself. I've not been in for many many years.

David

[Valvepower]

Hello,

Hi-fi, like it or loathe it, there are times where it’s just downright perplexing giving me pain in all the diodes in my left side.

I think if your an electronics engineer actively working in the world of ‘subjective’ hi-fi you need an ‘audio’ refuge or bolthole – mine is valve guitar amplifiers like the old Fenders and Marshalls et. al. – the worst that can happen here, is
someone will ask to make an amplifier that goes up to 11

Terry

[The Philpott]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

The gurus themselves must be in an awkward position.
David

Indeed. I'm glad i don't know anyone with the Emperor's New Clothes mindset. Christopher Lee's Art Critic characterisation from 1965 comes to mind (praising a piece of modern art then being introduced to the chimpanzee who created it)

Dave

[deliverance]

Originally Posted by The Philpott

Indeed. I'm glad i don't know anyone with the Emperor's New Clothes mindset. Christopher Lee's Art Critic characterisation from 1965 comes to mind (praising a piece of modern art then being introduced to the chimpanzee who created it)

Dave

Yes I remember the film .

[Radio Wrangler]

I've got this sense of humour to live with and I can't resist suggesting a certain Danny Kaye recording as a particularly suitable test-record.

David (The king is in the all-together, the all-together, and all together the...)

[PJL]

"With the controls at maximum fidelity the balance is exceptionally nice and free from colouration. Top response is good and attack is very clean." no, not a description of the latest in amplifiers but from a 1937 review in the service sheet for a Marconi 561 radio.