This is the best audiophoolery i read in a while ...

[T4P]

http://ludens.cl/Electron/audioamps/aaaa.html


 

[ThunderSqueak]

Ok, this made me lol .  Thanks for that!   

 I repair tube amps for audiophiles and musicians in my spare time for a few extra dollars and this made me think of them .   You would be surprised how they respond to you using a gold contact somewhere or adding some other cosmetic thing to the circuit.  Suddenly it sounds better!  At least to their ears .  Usually they throw in an extra bit of cash with what they owe me for such nonsense .  I must be doing something's right as my client base keeps growing and they keep coming back to get more old gear fixed or modified.   

Btw, explaining that a certain change to a circuit is purely cosmetic and does not affect the quality of the audio usually falls on deaf ears.....   Maybe that is why it sounds so much better?

[T4P]

Btw, explaining that a certain change to a circuit is purely cosmetic and does not affect the quality of the audio usually falls on deaf ears.....   Maybe that is why it sounds so much better?

That is precisely the reason, it's called physological marketing, the same way people get tricked when an item is at 19.99 instead of 20.00
I learnt it just a few weeks ago 

[David Aurora]

I am sure I know of some audiophoolery, myself: last night my friend visited, and proceeded to become incredibly pleased with himself for planning to spend £140 on... headphones. I asked if they were worth £140, and what was it about them that made them so expensive - the answer? "Oh you can TELL the difference, mate", but he didn't have any explanation to what this "difference" was. Probably been sucked in by marketing psychology in the same way my other friend who is convinced that a £70 HDMI lead is "better" than a £5-10 one... again, they are noit electronics engineers, but that aside - they don't EVER seem to hit the hammer on the nail of what EXACTLY it is that makes these overly-inflated products "better".

Give me a break! 


"I can just HEAR that gold plating - and the lack of oxygen in the copper makes the sound seem to flow smoother" or some such piffle... hahaha! So much madness!

Placebo gotcha - you got had.

Assuming your friend had the good sense to actually listen to the headphones before deciding how good they were...

... that is not a lot of money for quality headphones. Nowhere near audiophool kind of money, that's still very much in the realm of you get what you pay for. Since I first opened a studio in 2002 I've owned and tried more cans than you can poke a stick at, and while I've found reasonable sounding cheapies for drummers to trash under $100, for my own listening enjoyment or for a reference when I need to work mobile or I want a break from the speakers, the cheapest things I've found that I would touch cost a few hundred bucks. At this price point it's not about "air" or "openness" haha, it's about "sounds pretty accurate" rather than "what the fuck is wrong with these lying bastard cans?" 

[T4P]

I wish the cheapies would be a little better. There was 2 of these Sennheiser (est)15 pounds that i scored for buying a LED printer, and they were just far too think 
But i'm still using a 25 pound cheapie that has been resoldered 10 times and still goes fine

(You can probably hear them go "Oh the cable is not OFC!" "THAT CONNECTOR IS NOT MADE OF GOLD, IT'S GOING TO BE NOISY" "THESE FOAM PADS DETEORIATE THE SOUND" "THAT CABLE IS TOO THIN")
Bullshit, clearly OFC is just for the sake of preventing wire rot and that's only important in high current situations and gold is just for reliability plus these foam pads feel nice on the ear

[G7PSK]

If audiophools wat to spend vast amounts of money on being conned, I have about 50 OC71/72 transistors,of the original black painted glass types that they can have if they want to wait I will get the leads gold painted and have a witch doctor dance over them and all for any amount of money that they want to part with as long as there is at least 2 zero's in there.

[T4P]

If audiophools wat to spend vast amounts of money on being conned, I have about 50 OC71/72 transistors,of the original black painted glass types that they can have if they want to wait I will get the leads gold painted and have a witch doctor dance over them and all for any amount of money that they want to part with as long as there is at least 2 zero's in there.

You might want to sell it to the diystompboxes community ... they are ready to give you big cash if you claim there are "matched pairs"

[G7PSK]

They are all matched. (They all look the same black 3 wires and red dot must be close enough)

[T4P]

They are all matched. (They all look the same black 3 wires and red dot must be close enough)

Yeah alright, go hawk the stuff to them remember to use these keywords
"NOS OC71/72 from 1951 All Matched In Original Black Glass Case OC71: 50hFE"
Also write the first hFE you see from your batch of OC72

[David Aurora]

I am sure I know of some audiophoolery, myself: last night my friend visited, and proceeded to become incredibly pleased with himself for planning to spend £140 on... headphones. I asked if they were worth £140, and what was it about them that made them so expensive - the answer? "Oh you can TELL the difference, mate", but he didn't have any explanation to what this "difference" was. Probably been sucked in by marketing psychology in the same way my other friend who is convinced that a £70 HDMI lead is "better" than a £5-10 one... again, they are noit electronics engineers, but that aside - they don't EVER seem to hit the hammer on the nail of what EXACTLY it is that makes these overly-inflated products "better".

Give me a break! 


"I can just HEAR that gold plating - and the lack of oxygen in the copper makes the sound seem to flow smoother" or some such piffle... hahaha! So much madness!

Placebo gotcha - you got had.

Assuming your friend had the good sense to actually listen to the headphones before deciding how good they were...

... that is not a lot of money for quality headphones. Nowhere near audiophool kind of money, that's still very much in the realm of you get what you pay for. Since I first opened a studio in 2002 I've owned and tried more cans than you can poke a stick at, and while I've found reasonable sounding cheapies for drummers to trash under $100, for my own listening enjoyment or for a reference when I need to work mobile or I want a break from the speakers, the cheapest things I've found that I would touch cost a few hundred bucks. At this price point it's not about "air" or "openness" haha, it's about "sounds pretty accurate" rather than "what the fuck is wrong with these lying bastard cans?" 

Each person's ears are different - there can be no "definitive" standard, only a rough, average one. Anyway, I'm not getting sucked into this whole world of audio pifflery... I am happy with my £2o Sony phones, bashed, battered, cracked... resoldered endless times... but they make me happy :-)

The "happy" part is definitely key here, it's about the enjoyment of the music rather than the spec of the gear. It just seemed like you were coming from the opposite extreme to the audiophiles there though which to me is just as odd.

Ears may be different, but reproduction quality is a fairly well agreed on thing and quite easy to standardise. Those of us who listen for a living (audio engineers, musicians) might disagree on questions of taste with sound, but quality of reproduction is very easy to define. And to a certain (rational) point, you really do get what you pay for. I'll happily go for a walk with my iPod and the standard ear buds, or other cheap sets I have. But I'd be outright lying if I said they even sounded half as good as the expensive cans I have, and for critical listening in my job there's only one set I own that I'd use. It's not the dollar figure, it's the component/build quality, and unfortunately that stuff costs money.

Bottom line- there's cheap, then there's good, then there's hype. A few hundred bucks for headphones is reasonable for durable build and great sounding drivers (provided you can hear the difference). A thousand dollars + for some cans with shells made from dinosaur bones, leopard skin lining and cryogenically treated cables... different story. Same deal with speakers- my work speakers are worth as much as my car, and one of the best purchases I've ever made. But the kettle cords that power them probably literally came from kettles haha, and there's no magic rocks or mahogany power boards around them for audiophile voodoo