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#66551 06/08/06 11:43 AM
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 115
H
Haligan Offline OP
Member
Pop on over to the forum at Audio Asylum and check out this heartwarming discussion on receptacles as they weigh the relative sound quality of various receptacles.

Example:
"Any of the P&S receptacles I've experimented with (5242, 5262 and 5262A cryoed) all exhibited the hashy, splashy high frequencies relative to a cryoed Hubbell 8200H. To my ears, as yours, the Hubbell's midrange is more relaxed, but, equally important, it tends to be more open, more detailed and less "congested". I can tend to see why some might prefer the P&S's bass quality, but to me the "tighter" quality of the bass on any of the P&S receptacles will result in a much leaner presentation which I am not really fond of."
http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=cables&m=116937

I am going to start a topic of my own-
Best quality wire nuts.
I find that Ideal's wire nuts present a creamy and forward midrange with expansive highs about 10k. The bass is chocolately rich and it embraced me like a French paramour.
I joke. But maybe some of these guys CAN really hear that well. For better or for worse.

Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 745
M
Member
I would say that those audiophile-type people are full of hooey, but I actually know a guy at the college where I work who "claims" to have such a sensitive ear. If he is to be believed, vitually all of life must be about as pleasing to him as fingers scratching on a chalkboard.

This is the same guy who will spend as much as $8,000.00 on an amplifier which puts out about 5 watts per channel, or buys custom-made speaker cables to the tune of $300.00 per foot for his home sound system (while his living room is literally void of all furniture other than an equipment cabinet and a single chair. All this while the power to his equipment travels through knob and tube wiring from an FPE (gasp) breaker panel [Linked Image].

Go figger.

Mike (mamills)

Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 625
S
Member
They don't call the board "Audio Asylum" for nothing! It is, clearly, a place for audiophiles who need to be kept in an asylum.

Seriously, a number of years ago my wife and I were auditioning some speakers to buy. They happened to be driven at the time by a very expensive Acoustic Research tube amplifier. When we came back to the store to finalize the purchase, I noticed to myself that, while they still sounded very nice, that some of the "magic" was gone. At which point, my wife commented aloud about the same thing. The salesman then told us that he'd connected them to an Adcom amplifier, which was what we were considering getting to drive the speakers with.

So I'll vouch that some of these things do in fact make a difference.


I've watched with amusement discussions about power cords costing hundreds of dollars that are supposed to make things sound vastly better. Sorry, I can't bring myself to believe that six feet of magic power cord will make much difference in series with 75 feet of Romex, the cheapest breaker the contractor could find, and miles and miles of POCO wires.

"cryoed"??!! You mean these guys are cyrogenically treating the receptacle??!! I assume there's a special, high-security wing of the asylum where they keep those guys locked up where they can't hurt the rest of us?

I understand that a nickle plating, such as Hubbell uses on their hospital grade receptacles, is actually rather nonlinear (somewhat diode-like, as I recall) (I'm talking here about actual, measurable properties, not the results of "listening tests"); I would think they would get better results from a receptacle with plain-vanilla brass or bronze contacts. But I guess I'm missing the point--the more expensive it is, the better their ears like it. [Linked Image]


[This message has been edited by SolarPowered (edited 06-08-2006).]

Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 806
N
Member
If there is an audible difference in the output from a stereo system as a result of nickel contact plating, cryo treating the receptacle, etc., then whoever designed the amplifier's power supply needs to go back to engineering school. [Linked Image]

The whole function of the power supply is to convert the incoming AC (warts and all) into stable, filtered DC to operate the electronic circuitry. Any "diode effects" caused by nickel plated contacts would be so far down in the noise floor compared to all the other junk on the typical powerline that it should have no measurable effect on the output of the supply. If tiny pertubations in the incoming powerline ride through to the output rails, then the filtering and regulation of the supply must be essentially non existent, and you would never hear those tiny effects through all the 120 Hz hum from the rectifiers!

The audiophool crowd has a LONG history of falling for all kinds of scams, the more expensive, the better. Green magic markers for the edge of CDs, special magic paint to coat solid state components with to give "tube sound", $1000 wooden volume control knobs, special stones to absorb negative vibrations from your listening room, etc. There was even a "specially treated" digital clock that was claimed to "realign" the electrons coming out of your wall sockets.

USDA Grade A prime BS, the lot of it.
http://www.elecdesign.com/Globals/PlanetEE/Content/768.html http://www.ethanwiner.com/audiophoolery.html http://www.ilikejam.dsl.pipex.com/audiophile.htm

Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 115
H
Haligan Offline OP
Member
Great links!

I'm going to start marketing my own special Audiophile Goo that you rub in your ears for SUPERIOR sound. Price will be $12,000 per 6oz. And it makes you look 10 years younger.

Speaking of which... The female equivalent of this audio hooey would have to be beauty products. There's a lot of ridiculously expensive stuff with MAGICAL powers.

Back to Electical. Have you noticed how many restaurants and shops are putting compact florescents in their recessed cans? Pretty Ugly. Probably good savings tho. (california)

Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 1,429
L
LK Offline
Member
You can think what you want, about the coustomer, but take a look at the companies both selling, and installing these systems, they have large profit margins, and increased revenues.

The average cable run, and wall fish, is 2 to 3 times, what an electrician asks, and they mark-up all their material with a hefty figure, less trainning, then an electrician, less truck inventory, and less operating overhead, is there something wrong, with this picture?

Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 4,294
Member
Oh, how I love the audio devices........
They're even going down in price!!

Some oldies from ECN: (I think the links to the fine devices are still valid) https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum1/HTML/004279.html
https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002238.html

(I personally love the rewarding, robust low and midrange tones I get from my #6 Aluminum Triplex service drop.)

Joined: May 2003
Posts: 2,876
E
e57 Offline
Member
There's a stereo store I go into (a lot) that has $45 per foot braided power supply cord... I die laughing everytime I see it because it has a $.50 cord cap on it from the 50's. I should get a picture....


Mark Heller
"Well - I oughta....." -Jackie Gleason
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 7,520
P
Member
Coupling speakers to a different amplifier can certainly make a difference in the sound due to impedance matching, the combined frequency response, source impedance of the amp affecting damping, and so on.

The claims for $300 per foot speaker cables which are somehow directional (with an A.C. signal?!), and sound best if oxygenated, frozen, broiled, or fricaseed are just ridiculous. Yes, if you try to run 300 watts to speakers down 500 feet of 24-gauge telephone wire you'll notice a difference comapared to the same amp and speakers with more suitable cabling, but that's a rather different story.

Quote
Green magic markers for the edge of CDs, special magic paint

Don;t forget the little sticky triangles (late 1980s?) which you are supposed to align on all the equipment to improve the sound. I think pointing them in the right direction shows the electrons or the flux lines from the earth's magnetic field the right way to go, or something like that. [Linked Image]

Personally, I'm convinced that sound quality is poorer since we adopted the new European cables here. That brown and blue insulation on the conductors adds a certainly fuzziness to the mid-range, and restricts the presence of the highs much more than the old red and black insulation. [Linked Image]

Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 794
Likes: 3
W
Member
Most of the audiophiles who end up wasting money on all this snake oil are mostly people who are not in a technical field, and thus not able to sort the valid improvements from the snake oil scams. Throw in the placebo effect, and that trying to compare subtile changes that might happen since you stopped listening to the stereo while you change out the power cord or such is pretty much impossible (your brain and ears forget too much over ten minutes). Especially if the change had zero effect. Research labs do "ABX" testing, where a listener listens to a system without an improvement (A), then immediately the improvement is switched in (B), and a third selection where A or B is randomly selected, unknown to both listener and the person running the test (but recorded in a computer for later analysis). If the listener ends up picking the improvement 50% of the time, then the improvement has no value.

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