Hifi snake oil

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Anything mechanical (Transducer's/motors etc.) then quality is usually proportional to cost (to a point); so turntables, loud speaker drivers, headphone drivers, microphones that kind of thing.

Anything related to signal reproduction is down to the selection of the components and the design. The components themselves aren't necessarily expensive. I could knock up a pretty decent headphone amplifier from a few scraps out of my spares bin and you could double blind test it against an amp costing a grand, and you wouldn't be able to tell me which was the more expensive amp.

My main hifi amp is DIY LM3875 based chip amp based around this design (LM3875-kit-instructions.pdf (audiosector.com). Components and case set me back around £180, and it sounds awesome.

People go mad when it comes to hifi cables. A cable either works or it doesn't. What I mean is if a cable alters the audio signal in any way that makes it audibly different, then it is either not fit for purpose (impedance mismatch due to capacitance or inductance, or resistive), or it's broken.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Latest in a line of complete and utter bollocks. Another product whose target market is those who have had their brain removed:

Entreq ES Pad Ultimate Equipment & Speaker Support (Pack of 3)

The ES Pad is barely 35mm high and incorporates a threaded multi faceted hard acrylic base, with a mineral filled soft Pad making direct contact with the equipment or product itself.

www.futureshop.co.uk

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Latest in a line of complete and utter bollocks. Another product whose target market is those who have had their brain removed:

Entreq ES Pad Ultimate Equipment & Speaker Support (Pack of 3)

The ES Pad is barely 35mm high and incorporates a threaded multi faceted hard acrylic base, with a mineral filled soft Pad making direct contact with the equipment or product itself.

www.futureshop.co.uk

The kind of people who fall for this guff deserve to be parted from their money.

This is a review from a particular website for a DIGITAL cable. They either work or they don't, but this clown thinks it makes his Spotify sound better.

"Definitely Better.."
..than the Basics cat7 that it replaced. Wasn’t sure what to expect putting this between router and streamer but the overall sound on Spotify is certainly calmer and fuller. Why that should be when both are cat7 cables I can’t say but it is certainly an improvement in my set up.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

Latest in a line of complete and utter bollocks. Another product whose target market is those who have had their brain removed:

Entreq ES Pad Ultimate Equipment & Speaker Support (Pack of 3)

The ES Pad is barely 35mm high and incorporates a threaded multi faceted hard acrylic base, with a mineral filled soft Pad making direct contact with the equipment or product itself.

www.futureshop.co.uk

Fucking hell, I thought I'd look at their most expensive cables and the reviews on these ones are amazing. One person was reduced to tears of enjoyment by his (and it almost certainly is his) speaker cables. For another person, he had to make sure they 'settled in' before he reviewed them. I had no idea you had to break in a wire like it was a pair of shoes.

But let's be honest, it's very hard to admit that you've spent 300 quid on a bit of copper that's no different to the 10 quid one.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

The kind of people who fall for this guff deserve to be parted from their money.

This is a review from a particular website for a DIGITAL cable. They either work or they don't, but this clown thinks it makes his Spotify sound better.

"Definitely Better.."
..than the Basics cat7 that it replaced. Wasn’t sure what to expect putting this between router and streamer but the overall sound on Spotify is certainly calmer and fuller. Why that should be when both are cat7 cables I can’t say but it is certainly an improvement in my set up.

As far as I'm aware, if you care about music quality, then you wouldn't be using Spotify in the first place, because it's all compressed. Of course most people care more about convenience than sound quality, and most of the time the sound quality of something like Spotify is perfectly fine.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Fucking hell, I thought I'd look at their most expensive cables and the reviews on these ones are amazing. One person was reduced to tears of enjoyment by his (and it almost certainly is his) speaker cables. For another person, he had to make sure they 'settled in' before he reviewed them. I had no idea you had to break in a wire like it was a pair of shoes.

But let's be honest, it's very hard to admit that you've spent 300 quid on a bit of copper that's no different to the 10 quid one.

£300? For a pair of speaker cables? You cheapskate!

You need these:

Tellurium Q Statement Speaker Cable - Factory Terminated

The Statement is Tellurium Q’s revolutionary new range of outstanding speaker cables designed to take the performance of your system to new heights. Made from the finest materials and cutting edge manufacturing techniques, we believe the Tellurium Q Statement can deliver the most natural and...

www.futureshop.co.uk

Only £2,600 for a 3m pair. I mean if you cannot spend two and a half grand on your speaker cables, it's hardly worth bothering is it.

 

[Chippy_boy]

As far as I'm aware, if you care about music quality, then you wouldn't be using Spotify in the first place, because it's all compressed. Of course most people care more about convenience than sound quality, and most of the time the sound quality of something like Spotify is perfectly fine.

I missed that. What a moron that guy is.

 

[ali benarbia's studs]

repairing cables is fun, but there is a worrying side to the industry....... and waste is the issue.


Dead right OP, some tech stuff is just a joke...take beats headphones for example. Total shite!

 

[metalblue]

Placebo effect. Put an expensive price tag on something, therefore it must be good.

Tell somebody something is better and they believe you. Say it often enough and it becomes fact.
Well that's what works for the rags and dippers!

100% this. People want to believe it’s better so it will appear better to them.

Same with folk feeling drunk on 0% beer in tests.

Tricks of the brain

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

As far as I'm aware, if you care about music quality, then you wouldn't be using Spotify in the first place, because it's all compressed. Of course most people care more about convenience than sound quality, and most of the time the sound quality of something like Spotify is perfectly fine.

It's more the fact that he thinks a digital signal cable has the ability to effect anything in the audio chain. Especially when he's waffling about a £45 bit of network cable that I could knock up for about £3.50 that you couldn't tell the difference between.