with David L. Jones
The EEVblog is an off-the-cuff video blog and Podcast of interest to anyone involved in electronics design. Electronics professionals, hobbyists, hackers, and makers will find something of interest here. Presented in Dave's unique non-scripted overly enthusiastic style!
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EEVblog #29 – Audiophile Audiophoolery
Posted on September 7th, 2009 35 commentsDave cuts loose on the Golden Ear Audiophiles and all their Audiophoolery rubbish.
Panasonic gets a serve too, or is that applause?
The Blue Jeans cable LINKAnd Kurt Denke’s response to the infamous letter: LINK
The Panasonic design guide is HERE and the rest of it HERE
Post your best Audiophool product links in the comments!Thanks to Steve Macatee from Rane Corporation for pointing out this must-have bit of gear for every Audiophool!
Check out this awesome Audiophool product!: Blackbody
35 responses to “EEVblog #29 – Audiophile Audiophoolery”
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Hi Dave,
Although I agree with you about most of the cable things, i’d like to see some proof of it. That would be cooler than just a monologue.
I think especially speaker cable can be tested very well since the impedance of the speaker is in the same order of magnitude as the cable.
One could do a simple comparison between a thin cable, a thick cheap cable and a monster cable by measuring the waveform over the speaker with different input tones and do an FFT on the output signal to get some idea about the significance of the resistance, inductance and capacitance of the cable. Of course there are a lot more tests that could be performed to show that the actual signal is the same with cheap and expensive cables, but any test would be cooler than a monologue i think.Thanks for the cool blog anyway,
Tom
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Off course the FFT is not needed for the inductance, capacitance and resistance, but it shows more information as well
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Hi Tom
I’d love to provide practical “proof” for everything I talk about on the blog, but unfortunately this is not always possible.
My budget for the blog is zero, so I’d have a hard time getting these $1000 cables to actually test them.
And then of course it all takes time to do this properly, time I often don’t have.
Also, debunking the claims of audiophool products has been done countless times, so I wouldn’t be adding anything meaningful.
And then of course you have the audiophools who will complain that you have to actually LISTEN to them! And doing a double blind A-B listening test doesn’t really work well on a video blog.
So monologue it will have to remain I’m afraid, sorry I can’t please everyone.
The intrepid reader can go out and find plenty of info on this already. Post links to good stuff you find!
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strider_mt2k September 8th, 2009 at 02:49
I found the link to this blog on another tech blog and it’s rapidly becoming a favorite.
I’m learning a TON of things, and it entertaining to see someone else get kinda bent out of shape about the same stuff my friends and I do too.
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I couldn’t help but laugh through all of that. It is frightening that people buy into these kind of things! I wonder if the engineers designing these products feel guilty or annoyed about the spin put on them?
Dave
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Lucassiglo21 September 8th, 2009 at 08:43
yeah, my grandpa is easly fooled with these things, he built a home teathre with a plasma, a 750w amplifier, etc, 200 dollars cables, etc.
the thing is that when i went to visiting him (he is 1200km far, so once a year) he was listening the movies with those small speakers from the plasma!! and HE DIDN’T KNOW!! so i configured everything correctly, the 5.1, dts, etc,etc,etc…and..he didn’t like it!! so i let it as it was before i came and i went. but that was depressing.
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For the person asking for tests between “high-end” cables and cheapo wires, a quick google search of “monster cable versus coat hangers” provides comical reading. In brief, normal people and audiophiles have a double blind test between the 2 types of cables and can’t hear the difference.
About the expensive power leads. At uni one of my colleagues in my Electronic Eng classes was very clever, especially in the related maths. He was an audiophile and I dubiously respected his rantings about equipment (he bought a 1000GBP CD player!), right up to the point he claimed a power lead costing him a couple hundred made made a significant difference to the sound quality.
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David,
Thanks for taking on this subject. You are so spot on! As for the requests to verify the claims with test equipment, forget it. The audiophools will tell you that your equipment doesn’t measure the right stuff. That there’s something more than frequency response, phase response, noise, attenuation, etc. to be measured. That we don’t really understand the way the human ear hears. When CDs first came out, many audiophiles said that LPs had better acoustics. You know what? They were right, but not for the reason they assumed. Many of the early CDs were direct transfers from the LPs and the masters were equalized for the very imperfect reproduction abilities of the LPs. The CDs delivered far flatter sound so LP EQ sounded harsh. But think of all the CD tricks that have surfaced to improve CD sound. The green magic marker around the edge of the CD to improve sound. The balancing weight to smooth out the rotational variation in the CD’s RPM (despite there being a clocked D/A in the sound-reproduction chain), etc. As you say, NUTS!
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The directionality is justified when the cable is a screened twisted pair, which many of them are, the screen should be connected at the source end. This has made its way thru the audiophool marketing machine into aligned crystals and other such BS in it, but it did start as a legitimate thing.
Optical will solve groundloop issues since home audio is for some reason still stuck with unbalanced signals unless you spend megabucks on your gear…
Shielded power cables also help quite a bit when its stuffed behind the gear with poorly shielded RCA cables.
And those powerboards that take the coax cable thru them and grounds it there, will help with groundloops via the cable/sat dish feed.
its just that peoples ignorances means that they will buy the audiophool solution rather then an engeneered one which is normally a lot cheaper – Mine was to screw the coax splitter to the side of the grounded metal powerstrip to remove groundloop noice via the antenna – total cost about 20 mins and 2 screws…
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Hi Dave,
this subject has always been in my way since I started with Electronics 25 years ago. Even back then, there were audiophools claiming this and that. Tube amplifiers were supposed to sound better than transistor amplifiers and final stages with FETs were not as good as the ones with transistors. Go figure… Of course there was never safe ground reasoning and as soon as someone with technical background was producing graphs to prove the profound, brows were raised and claims such as “it’s more than figures and graphs, you know” were brought up. Anyway, my main objection to all this crap, is that people that spend thousands of dollars for cables (not to mention extraordinary equipment with dubious designs) do not spend a dime to go to their doctors and get their ears examined for their frequency response. It’s highly unlikely that anyone more than 25 years old (and thus capable to spend enormous amounts of money…) can hear anything better than 15kHz at maximum. With this characteristic in the chain of sound, they can use even the cheapest mains power cables to connect the amplifier to the speakers and still get the same result.
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Andrew September 9th, 2009 at 07:34
I highly recommend to read the user comments about that Denon AK-DL1 US$500 Ethernet patch cable on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AKDL1-Dedicated-Link-Cable/dp/B000I1X6PM/
A riot.
Also note the price for a used cable
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signal7 September 13th, 2009 at 01:00
I haven’t laughed that hard in years! Thanks for the link and the note on the comments.
You know it’s got to be bad when humanity somehow manages to automatically organize itself into that level of sarcasm.
This is the best:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2MBG53YJEKQCI/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R2MBG53YJEKQCI
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Sebastian September 9th, 2009 at 04:15
Dave,
I think the link below is a classic with respect to audiophools. I bet the two-headed arrrow dramatically improves the transfer rate
…..http://www.usa.denon.com/ProductDetails/3429.asp
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Brian Hoskins September 9th, 2009 at 04:23
My pet hate is the ridiculous output power claims you get on the more regular hifi gear in consumer electronics stores. As manufacturers competed with each other for the best sounding (and therefore best selling) specifications, they resorted to using stupid power rating methods so that they could inflate the apparent performance of their product. All of a sudden cheap Hifi units with 1200W output power (and such rubbish) were appearing from all over the place. Little did the consumer know, but the claimed 1200W power was nowhere near the actual capabilities of the unit. For a start, manufacturers started using PMPO (peak music power) for their measurements so that they could legitimately inflate the specifications, whilst the poor old consumer was none the wiser. And even then, the claimed output power was usually only true when driving a silly load where in practice there would be huge amounts of audio distortion. The realistic output power of these cheap audio systems was actually a fraction of that being quoted on the specs. And good old Joe public, who in fairness was none the wiser, bought into it big time.
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The Panasonic design guide link points to the download button image instead of the actual guide.
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This post is good. Keep up the good work I enjoy the EEV Blog very much. What you said about the cables I have been saying for a long time. I almost feel bad for the people who buy into all of the “advertised buzzwords” that are used to rob consumers.
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David, I really enjoyed this blog. Please keep em coming. Many thanks.
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For those interested, Steve Leibson has posted some links to articles and performance tests on audiophool cables on his blog:
http://www.edn.com/blog/980000298/post/830048683.html?nid=3403
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Donrata September 10th, 2009 at 15:19
Maybe you could contact Monster Cable for a sample cable to review, after the review you can put it in your wall and say “hey this is my $1000 cable”
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threepointone September 11th, 2009 at 18:03
I used to be an audiophool. Just for a little bit =) I got suckered in after looking for some good headphones, ended up making headphone amps, learning analog design and electronics. Then I learned enough electronics to realize it was all rubbish, did a science fair project on double-blind ABX tests to determine the audibility of some of the things they thought (mostly headphone amplifiers, since that was what I had been in to). No difference! Nada!
I have something to add to that list–found it during my research, and it relates directly to loudspeaker cables:
http://sound.westhost.com/cables.htm
In short, if you’ve got longer cable runs, they can make a difference, but there’s no reason why they cost that much. In fact, most audiophool cables probably were designed with snake oil and not physics in mind, and they don’t necessarily perform better. All that matters in the end are the Rs, Cs, and Ls. . .All I can say in the end is that I’m thankful that all my audiophoolery led me to my current EE career path and not an even larger dent in my wallet =)
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Peter Kutas September 12th, 2009 at 16:58
Good onya Dave…
Good to see you bring up a favourite pet hate of mine as well. I just shake my head & walk away when I hear the HiFi salesmen start bull shitting about all these products that will make your sound better.
/Cheers, PK.
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Great rant Dave! Couldn’t agree more, it’s just a pity I haven’t got the hide to take advantage of the poor suckers that spend so much on empty promises. Which raises the question – I wonder if most of the people making these things actually believe what they are claiming, or do they know they’re participating in a confidence trick? No way of knowing I suppose, but I can’t help wondering.
I just discovered your blog today, great work, keep it up!
Cheers,
Andy
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And what about the $135k Blu-Ray player?
http://www.geekologie.com/2009/09/crimes_against_humanity_altern.php
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Firstly, I love this blog and the many others you have done but having said this I will appeal to your electronics background to let you see where you might be a little over-zealous. Btw, I know exactly what you are talking about when referring to snake oil and exorbitant prices. It is ridiculous.
In your blog on caps you talked about dielectric absorption and microphonics. Cables also have this and some of the more interesting ones try to either enhance or mitigate this property without an understanding of what they are doing. The problem is that microphonics in cables becomes highly system dependent. I have personally heard the sound of cables I have rattled when played back through an amp with 10K input impedance.
Some of the microphonics in capacitors can be used to advantage. Say you had a recording which sounded dry and wished to add a little reverb, would the recording not sound “better”? If a high gain input stage has a microphonic capacitor in it which picks up the delayed vibrations from the speaker and feeds it back into the audio signal path would this not be a type of reverb? The microphonics you talk about in ceramic capacitors can be used to add intentional or unintentional reverb which can change our perception of sound quality. I don’t think many people consider this when designing audio equipment though. It is exactly the reason why valve equipment sounds different to solid state. Resonant chambers = valve. High gain valves are almost always microphonic. But I guess that I am talking to a “solid state man”.
Some cables are directional because they are wired up in a pseudo-balanced configuration with a bleed wire attached to the source earth. The concept of crystal orientation is as you say, bollocks.
Power cables are mostly a total crank but I know that any cable is a channel with a characteristic impedance and shielded power cables are actually a passive RF filter which sometimes helps to reject a part of the RF spectrum before it even has a chance to enter the chassis. This helps poorly designed PLL circuits in digital receiver sections of AV units and can reduce the effect of AM demodulation by nonlinear components which is easily heard when a mobile phone is close to an amp or preamp. This radiation is present nowdays almost all of the time at lower levels.
There is no argument about stupidly high prices or some of the outlandish claims cable and capacitor manufacturers make but sometimes there is more to audio than meets the measuring equipment and some perceived effects can be explained using well established electrical engineering theory!
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yes cables are over priced,but they do change the sound.just because they are expensive doesnt mean their better.its what suits a system and the person listening.
power cables change the way music is presented in a audio system.
inportant to consider that not all systems will show a diffrence some have more resolution then others.
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I totally agree that it is sad to see how much electronics theory can be twisted to meet the ends of the sales and marketing types. It quickly becomes a lot like……. politics (at which point I run screaming with my hands in the air). Monster Cable really should be ashamed but they aren’t the worst culprits for overcharging. Try siltech cables, audioquest, kimber, cardas, or van den Hul. I work for a hifi manufacturer sometimes and their most expensive cable is also their most capacitive and can start to roll off at 18kHz under poor drive and termination conditions (measured). The psychoacoustics of a product is definitely a trick thing to capture in measurement beyond a certain point but I sure wish you could pin down what sounds good as a simple set of measurements.
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Add this to your pipe and smoke it. Complete cryo treated power sockets and plugs!
Wattgate 381 Audio Grade Duplex Socket
List Price: $148.00
Price: $147.72
You Save: $0.28For those people who want to brag that they have cubic dollars to burn!
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^HAHA I was just about to link to the same item, but its on a different site so I will:
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=110-439&vReviewShow=1&vReviewRand=2818820
Read those glowing reviews, hilarious.
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Parts-Express? Oh dear me, how embarassing! But then I guess if the profit margin’s good enough in this economy…
Off to see if the reviews compare with the “Ethernet Cable from God” over on Amazon.
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In fact you can also get HDWI (not a typo) cables now for 200 bucks!!!!!!!!!
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=186-188
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A little late to the party, but I have to share this, my all time favourite audiophool product:
http://www.altmann.haan.de/tubeolator/default.htm
Wrap your head around that one!
Unfortunately it seems it’s no longer available, what a shame
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Tom September 8th, 2009 at 01:01