Hifi snake oil

Chippy_boy said:
Just what is it that makes people want to spend ludicrous money on silly things like speaker cables and connectors etc??? They absolutely make fuck all difference to the sound of anything and anyone who thinks they do, is a deluded fool.

I mean, just look at this (extreme) example, at a miserable £1,200:

tq_silverdiamondhf_square03_jpg.webp

www.futureshop.co.uk

Tellurium Q Silver Diamond Waveform hf Digital Coaxial Cable

Just when Tellurium thought the limits were reached - the Silver Diamond went further!
www.futureshop.co.uk www.futureshop.co.uk

It's a fucking *digital* cable FFS. Do buyers of garbage such as this not realise that bits is bits??? (And before anyone starts going on about jitter, no that is not an excuse, all modern DACs reclock the signal removing all jitter anyway.) This thing will sound 100.00000000000000000000% identical to a £5 cable. Bonkers, absolutely bonkers.

Then we have gems like this:

entreq_receivus_square01.jpg


https://www.futureshop.co.uk/entreq-recievus-radiation-absorber


A mere £750 for a piece of wood with a wire attached? FFS.
Click to expand...
Haha where did you find these web sites? My wife complains constantly that I pay too much for hifi but this really is a piss take
 
Anybody remember the "Power leads" fad.
Apparently, spending hundreds on a 1m lead from the socket to your amplifier improved the sound. These leads could cure all ills. Same with high end speakers cable.
I know proper shielding and gauge could offer improvements for hi-fi analogue interconnects. But that was actual science.

I was massively into AV at the time. Travelling the country on meet ups and AV demonstrations.
All this snake oil selling was really getting to me. I just couldn't figure out how people could be so gullible.
Come the digital age and these snake oil peddlers just carried on as normal.

So a few of us decided to find out once and for all.

So we arranged a massive show. We invited all the top manufacturers and got those high end suppliers to bring their best stuff.
What we didn't tell them, that we had set up a stage to do some blind testing.

The biggest flop was the power leads. Nobody could tell any difference at all. The power lead sellers were furious!

Next up was speaker cable. Some really high end stuff got really low scores. What we found that speaker cables did in fact has some slight impact on sound. But not for the reasons we thought they might. Turned out some cables were affecting the impedance to the amplifier, changing the sound very slightly.
The winner of that section was actual coat hanger wire!

It went on and on with all sorts from DVI to HDMI leads. etc

Of course they were right there with the excuses. Not the right environment. Leads not "run in" properly. Takes time in your own environment before you could see/hear the improvements etc.

The event ended with John Dawson from Arcam giving a speech.
He in one swoop dispelled the myths. Explaining that investing all that extra cash on snake oil products would be better spent on actually buying higher end gear in the first place. Even he admitted there are diminishing returns in doing that as well.

We demonstrated his point. We blind tested low end/med and high end gear.
The differences were immediate and clear.
The only worrying bit was some supposed "real" high end gear (£100,000 plus stuff) scored really lowly in some tests.
We felt they had spent all the money making that stuff look great and unique using exhotic materials and good marketing and forgot to actually make good gear!
 
fulabeer said:
Anybody remember the "Power leads" fad.
Apparently, spending hundreds on a 1m lead from the socket to your amplifier improved the sound. These leads could cure all ills. Same with high end speakers cable.
I know proper shielding and gauge could offer improvements for hi-fi analogue interconnects. But that was actual science.

I was massively into AV at the time. Travelling the country on meet ups and AV demonstrations.
All this snake oil selling was really getting to me. I just couldn't figure out how people could be so gullible.
Come the digital age and these snake oil peddlers just carried on as normal.

So a few of us decided to find out once and for all.

So we arranged a massive show. We invited all the top manufacturers and got those high end suppliers to bring their best stuff.
What we didn't tell them, that we had set up a stage to do some blind testing.

The biggest flop was the power leads. Nobody could tell any difference at all. The power lead sellers were furious!

Next up was speaker cable. Some really high end stuff got really low scores. What we found that speaker cables did in fact has some slight impact on sound. But not for the reasons we thought they might. Turned out some cables were affecting the impedance to the amplifier, changing the sound very slightly.
The winner of that section was actual coat hanger wire!

It went on an on with all sorts from DVI to HDMI leads. etc

Of course they were right there with the excuses. Not the right environment. Leads not "run in" properly. Takes time in your own environment before you could see/hear the improvements etc.

The event ended with John Dawson from Arcam giving a speech.
He in one swoop explained that investing all that extra cash on snake oil products would be better spent on actually buying higher end gear in the first place. Even he admitted there are diminishing returns in doing that as well.

We demonstrated his point. We blind tested low end/med and high end gear.
The differences were immediate and clear.
The only worrying bit was some supposed "real" high end gear (£100,000 plus stuff) scored really lowly in some tests.
We felt they had spent all the money making that stuff look great and unique using exhotic materials and good marketing and forgot to actually make good gear!
Click to expand...
A power lead record surely
 
How much ,for a power block
www.kronosav.com

Titan Audio Eros Mains Block / Signature Mains Cable Bundle

Unlike most power distribution blocks which are busbar (meaning they are all connected via solid metal bars) thus causing a reduction in power delivery as you descend down the unit. This in turn leads to a noticeable reduction in sound quality. Each of our sockets are independently wired with...
www.kronosav.com www.kronosav.com
 
fulabeer said:
Anybody remember the "Power leads" fad.
Apparently, spending hundreds on a 1m lead from the socket to your amplifier improved the sound. These leads could cure all ills. Same with high end speakers cable.
I know proper shielding and gauge could offer improvements for hi-fi analogue interconnects. But that was actual science.

I was massively into AV at the time. Travelling the country on meet ups and AV demonstrations.
All this snake oil selling was really getting to me. I just couldn't figure out how people could be so gullible.
Come the digital age and these snake oil peddlers just carried on as normal.

So a few of us decided to find out once and for all.

So we arranged a massive show. We invited all the top manufacturers and got those high end suppliers to bring their best stuff.
What we didn't tell them, that we had set up a stage to do some blind testing.

The biggest flop was the power leads. Nobody could tell any difference at all. The power lead sellers were furious!

Next up was speaker cable. Some really high end stuff got really low scores. What we found that speaker cables did in fact has some slight impact on sound. But not for the reasons we thought they might. Turned out some cables were affecting the impedance to the amplifier, changing the sound very slightly.
The winner of that section was actual coat hanger wire!

It went on and on with all sorts from DVI to HDMI leads. etc

Of course they were right there with the excuses. Not the right environment. Leads not "run in" properly. Takes time in your own environment before you could see/hear the improvements etc.

The event ended with John Dawson from Arcam giving a speech.
He in one swoop dispelled the myths. Explaining that investing all that extra cash on snake oil products would be better spent on actually buying higher end gear in the first place. Even he admitted there are diminishing returns in doing that as well.

We demonstrated his point. We blind tested low end/med and high end gear.
The differences were immediate and clear.
The only worrying bit was some supposed "real" high end gear (£100,000 plus stuff) scored really lowly in some tests.
We felt they had spent all the money making that stuff look great and unique using exhotic materials and good marketing and forgot to actually make good gear!
Click to expand...
Well yeah, if you're getting to the point where you're spending more on equipment than the recording studio who made the thing in the first place, then you've probably gone too far.

But yeah, it's very important that my electricity, after travelling kilometres to get to my house does the last metre of the journey through a premium cable. Like someone who lives at the end of a mud road and has a beautifully paved driveway so they don't damage their Ferrari.
 
I have spend some time and more than tiny a bit of money on hi-fi through the years. The absolute cheapest cables should be avoided but no need to spend more than a few quids. The biggest impact on the sound are the speakers so put your money there and get a system that fits those. But what really matters most in the end is the room itself, its acoustic properties and the placement of the speakers. You can get a modest system to sound terrific if you spend a little effort on that bit. Avoid standing waves, make some simple bass traps and those sort of things.
That said the age of good sound is mostly history now. 99% of today's sound production is totally compressed shit geared towards the simple mobile equipment most people use now. No dynamics, just loudness. But if you still listen to old stuff it might be worth it.
 
DruntBlunt said:
I have spend some time and more than tiny a bit of money on hi-fi through the years. The absolute cheapest cables should be avoided but no need to spend more than a few quids. The biggest impact on the sound are the speakers so put your money there and get a system that fits those. But what really matters most in the end is the room itself, its acoustic properties and the placement of the speakers. You can get a modest system to sound terrific if you spend a little effort on that bit. Avoid standing waves, make some simple bass traps and those sort of things.
That said the age of good sound is mostly history now. 99% of today's sound production is totally compressed shit geared towards the simple mobile equipment most people use now. No dynamics, just loudness. But if you still listen to old stuff it might be worth it.
Click to expand...

Excellent post mate.
 
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