 
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
|
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
71.218.3.216
In Reply to: RE: Bluetooth questions posted by neolith on November 09, 2017 at 07:35:26
Sorry there is so much misinformation out on the internet.
The fact is that Bluetooth is more-or-less a lower powered version of Wi-Fi. It was developed so that battery-operated devices (such as mice, keyboards, et cetera) would not drain the battery by using a 500mW transmitter (the Wi-Fi minimum standard). Therefore Bluetooth is limited to 50mW of transmitted power.
The next problem is the antenna. Even at Wi-Fi/Bluetooth frequencies (the exact same frequencies used in microwave oven, by the way), the proper antenna design for optimal connection is too large to fit into a mouse. While one *could* fit into a keyboard, it would be directional and have nulls in certain orientations that could potentially cause a loss of link if the keyboard were oriented improperly or too far away.
The low power limits the range, which is the only reason that the Bluetooth standard also limits the transmitted signal bandwidth. Since Bluetooth and Wi-Fi operate at the same frequency, they can support the same signal data transfer rate. It's just that the higher the data rate goes, the more difficult it is to maintain the connection.
In a way, increasing the bandwidth of the transmitted signal has the same effect as lowering the transmitter power - reduced range.
After that, everything comes down to consumer expectations. Nobody expects a Bluetooth wireless mouse to connect from 50' away. But they do expect Wi-Fi to connect from 50' away. Since Wi-Fi often will not connect from 50' away, they have been relaxing the standards and allowing more power to be transmitted via Wi-Fi, along with other "tricks" to meet consumer expectation.
There are at least two problems you will run into with the suggestions posted so far:
1) If you transmit your audio data via Wi-Fi (instead of a wired network connection), I have heard countless reports of sonic degradation that may be equal or worse than the sonic degradation imposed by Bluetooth's mandatory lossy compression.
2) The fact that both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth operate at the same frequency as your microwave oven means that using either is literally turning your house into a low-level microwave oven. The health effects are currently unknown, although the WHO has already declared Wi-Fi as a "probable carcinogen". The studies are mixed, but if one separates them by source of funding, then over 80% of papers independently-funded find links between microwave radiation (including mobile phones as well as Wi-Fi/Bluetooth) and health hazards, while the percentage of studies funded by the military or the microwave industry have about the reverse portion showing a link. The result is about a 50/50 split, so that the microwave industry can claim that "the jury is still out".
Still Bluetooth is safer from two general standpoints - it is lower powered, and it almost always has automatic shutoff systems to conserve battery life when not in use. In contrast, almost all Wi-Fi (along with all modern cell phones) are constantly transmitting unless the user deliberately turns them off manually. (Pulsed or intermittent radiation in the case of cell-phones.) Caveat emptor.
Follow Ups:
It makes total sense to use wired connections when possible as you suggest, Charles. It's difficult to filter out the facts from fiction when the WHO publishes a report and we figure all is ok to use wifi/bluetooth when other reports suggest clear and present dangers. I remember in the 50's when doctors and nurses used to smoke all over the place and tobacco company ads suggested smoking promoted good health. We know better today yet I still see some doctors and nurses smoking. We've become a society addicted to devices, players, servers, etc. and it seems convenience, WAF or just old fashioned BS will trump the fact that we live in a sea of increasing potential carcinogens. Now if only I could hide this 15' ethernet cable somewhere..;)
> > It's difficult to filter out the facts from fiction < <
Especially here in the US where both the media and the government are controlled by giant mega-corporations whose sole motive is profit.
If you go to Europe you will find that many countries have already banned Wi-Fi in grade schools, and some are looking at banning it in colleges.
As I said, awareness of this issue in the US today is about the same level as awareness of the dangers of smoking was in 1950.
> > We've become a society addicted to devices, players, servers, etc. and it seems convenience < <
Very true. And in many countries in Europe, they continue to be addicted to the nicotine in cigarettes, as smoking has dropped off radically in the US in past decades, yet remains much stronger in many European countries.
It is difficult for me to understand how different cultural biases correlate to different addictions. Perhaps someone smarter than me will figure it out.
Take the tin foil hat off!
https://www.howtogeek.com/234817/dont-worry-wi-fi-isnt-dangerous/
Cut-Throat
Using an internet link to discard things posted on the internet - "Don't believe everything you read on the internet".
As Rafiki told the young Liong King, "Look deeper..."
nt
Cut-Throat
If either your ears are insufficiently trained or your system is so low resolution that you can't hear the difference these make, you have my condolences. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
One important point is that these retail for about $8 to $12 each, so Ayre makes around a whopping $2 gross profit on each one sold. This is not like some of the other companies making footers that retail for literally 10x the price of the Ayre Myrtle Wood blocks. Low volumes of low-profit ten dollar accessories simply don't generate the profit required to sustain even a one-man garage operation, let alone an entire small company.
On top of that, I've not heard any better footers at any price (for cables and electronics - not recommended for loudspeakers). And the kicker? We tell you straight up front that if you are skeptical, simply try using Jenga blocks (a kids game of stacking and unstacking wood blocks that is kind of fun). A new can of 50 Jenga blocks will cost you about $20 new at a Target or similar. I've bought a used set at a garage sale for $2.
That's a pretty low-risk way to test the idea. The Jenga blocks are made in China and the wood species varies, depending on what is currently the cheapest. When we first started using them over a decade ago they were using a species that I've forgotten the name of - it was a light, fine-grained hardwood that is common and low cost in the US - probably poplar.
The Jenga blocks will give about 1/2 to 2/3 the sonic benefits of the Myrtle Wood blocks sold by Ayre. They are just as easy to use under components, but much more difficult to use under cables, as the Ayre Myrtle Wood blocks for cables have notches in them to keep the cable from sliding off of the wood.
Trained listeners familiar with their system can easily hear the difference these make. I will give one example. One time a customer sent back his preamplifier that was about a year old, saying something didn't sound right, but he couldn't explain exactly what. We got the preamp back at the factory and compared it to the identical unit that was in our then-current reference system.
The entire system had dozens of Myrtle Wood blocks underneath all components and all cables (to keep them off the carpeted floor) - including 20'-long interconnects between the front end components (in a rack) and the power amp (on a low stand between the speakers), all speaker cables (bi-wired), and all power cords. Both preamplifiers and the disc player had outboard power supplies which also were on blocks. When we installed the customer's unit to listen to it, we were short one Myrtle Wood block, and instead used a single prototype maple wood block as one of the three blocks underneath the customer's preamp's power supply - the spot we thought it least likely to affect the sound.
After careful listening back-and-forth for 40 - 50 minutes (the listeners included myself and another employee whose ears I completely trust and respect), we decided the customer was right - his unit for some unknown reason sounded slightly "brighter" and "harder" than our reference unit in the factory's sound room. Luckily before we opened up the unit to try and figure out what might be wrong with it, we realized that even though we were one block short of having identical blocks under both preamps, we were only listening to one of the preamps at a time.
(Whenever we compare, we never use quick A/B switching through different preamp inputs. Not only was that impossible in this case, but we have found that having the variables of different cables and different inputs can skew the results - even if everything is nominally "identical", the amount of break-in time can affect the sound and also mask other subtle differences. Instead we typically listen to three full songs of different genres which we know very well - about 10 - 15 minutes total, then make the change and listen to the same three full songs again. By going back and forth minimum of at least three times, we can be sure that there is no variable created by the act of plugging and unplugging cables that might "clean" the contacts and change the sound. Since we normally use corrosion-proof rhodium plated connectors, we've never heard a change by doing this, although the solid-silver contacts in the volume and input selector - on Ayre products that use Shallco rotary switches - need to be rotated at least every week or two before some corrosion builds up and subtly degrades the sound. Also we have found that physically moving any of the cable changes the sound until they've had a chance to "run-in" again. Depending on the brand and construction of the particular cable, this process normally takes between one and three days. We have found that simply playing the first track of the Ayre IBE disc accomplishes the same result in literally one minute - it is the 1-minute "sweep" or "glide" tone - saving massive amounts of time when doing careful comparison testing. The point of all of this is simply to show that Ayre is extremely thorough and methodical to eliminate all possible variables when conducting listening tests. I am literally *giving* away valuable "secrets" here - and when I've done so in the past have been accused of simply pimping the Ayre IBE disc - again something that is a very low profit item for which Ayre essentially offers as a service - our business is not one of living off the sales of accessories, but rather of complete products that sell for typically 100x more than the accessories. The cost of selling a $10 product is the same as the cost of selling a $10,000 product - by the time Ayre has paid for receiving the order, placing it into the system, packaging the order, tracking it, billing it, waiting for payment, and processing the payment, we literally lose far more money on a $10 retail product than the gross profit made. That is perhaps the main reason that companies selling only accessories and low-priced products have to charge what seems like ridiculously inflated prices for them. Unless one is making at least hundreds of dollars of gross profit on every single order, the net profit - after paying all of the internal costs - is insignificant or even negative.)
Back to the preamp - once we realized that we were only listening to one of them at a time, we could move the "missing" Myrtle Wood block back-and-forth between the two DUTs as needed. Here is the kicker - having just one maple wood block (out of three) under the outboard power supply gave that unit a slightly "brighter", "harder" sound than did using all three Myrtle Wood blocks. This was confirmed by putting the single maple block under the power supply of the reference unit that had been in place for many months.
The point is that trained listeners with sensitive ears listening to music, a system, and a room with which they are intimately familiar can reliably hear small, subtle differences - even with things that by all rights and all known physics should *not* make any difference whatsoever. I have no rational explanation for how these work. I could make up some far-fetched "hand-waving" explanation that is vaguely plausible, but it stretches even *my* credulity - so I don't even bother to present it to others.
That is exactly why we call the Ayre system enhancement disc "Irrational But Efficacious" (IBE). It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, yet it works. We've sold well over 10,000 and the only person I know of who didn't like it was Art Dudley of Stereophile. He said it changed the sound of his system, but for the *worse*! I think he said it took a week or two before it sounded the way he liked it again. On the other hand ex-Sterophile columnist John Marks, loved what it did, still swears by it, and recommends it to all of his friends and readers. As does Jim Smith long-time retailer, then sales manager for Audio Research, then importer of AvantGarde horn loudspeakers, and currently consultant and author of the book "Get Better Sound". I know that JA has heard the difference it makes and agreed it was an improvement, but don't think he uses it himself, and I'm sure never recommends it to people as he is likely too embarrassed to endorse something he cannot explain. However both the Myrtle Wood blocks and the IBE disc remain in Stereophile's "Recommended Components" list to this day.
Ayre doesn't use the traditional marketing techniques of either fear ("if you don't have this great thing, you are missing out on life!") or sex ("if you buy this product, you will be more attractive and surrounded by other beautiful people") to sell these simple accessories. In fact, we don't advertise them at all, as quite frankly they are somewhat embarrassing to sell.
Many less skilled listeners (apparently including yourself) who have never heard the benefits of tweaks (I define a "tweak" as something that changes - hopefully for the better! - the sound of your system, yet has not logical, scientific, or rational explanation. This includes power cords, interconnects, speaker cables, footers, certain "room treatments", and even extends down to brands and models of capacitors, PCB materials, connectors, chassis material and construction, and on and on - the list is nearly endless.)
The crowd at Hydrogen Audio has much the same philosophy that Julian Hirsch of Stereo Review held - if you can't measure it with traditional measurement techniques, it doesn't exist and it's all in your head - a purely psychological self-deception. If I believed what they believe, I too would laugh at Ayre's Myrtle Wood blocks. Most of the people who visit this forum have first-hand experience in hearing differences in some of the above-mentioned things that don't make any rational sense, and are more open to the idea of other tweaks that they've not yet heard.
All I can do is present it to you. You can either try it or not. If you buy Jenga blocks you will be out (at most) $20 for a new set, and if you don't think they make any difference whatsoever, you can always give them away as a gift to a friend or relative - or keep them to play the game with yourself.
One thing that I think is somewhat telling is that one rarely finds them for sale on the used market. From that I infer that people who buy them either keep and use them forever, or if perhaps they do find a different footer/cable lifter they prefer that they move the Myrtle Blocks to a second system or give them to a friend. I doubt any are thrown away or burnt as firewood or spontaneously combust or vanish into another dimension. It's possible they are sitting in a closet unused, as the time and effort to sell them isn't worth it, but in that case I suspect that most would simply give them away to a friend or relative rather than hang on to clutter they don't use.
It's still more-or-less a "free country" (don't want to get off topic too much), so you are welcome to try them or not, laugh at Ayre or not. All I can say is that just as with many, many tweaks of which I was equally as skeptical, in the end I was simply kicking myself in the rear for waiting so long to even give them a try - I had been missing out on a lot of listening pleasure for years, simply because I was too close-minded to even try a low- or zero-cost tweak.
As always, strictly my personal opinions. YMMV.
PS - JA recently uploaded an old review of the Jadis JA-200 monoblock amplifiers. DO gave it a mixed blessing, but JS loved it so much that he purchased a pair. At the time (1994), he was using the Avalon Ascent loudspeakers I had designed 7 years earlier. The contrast between Stereophile's editorial content from then until today (23 years) is quite remarkable, IMO. Worth reading and linked below.
Zowie! To have such sensitive, and trained, ears as to be able to distinguish the type of wood you place under your cables!If I may offer a humble insight: you're pursuing the wrong career. You want to go to where the money is. If you haven't noticed, "high" end audio is kind of struggling these days. However, judging by the palaces they are building, medicine is doing just fine.
Those scoundrels are able to sell bags of saline solution that they buy for about US$0.50 each for literally hundreds of US$ each.
They make Myrtle Blocks look like pikers.
What you should do is take your ears, and their training, and teach Medical Doctors how to listen! With your preternatural abilities and mad skillz you might be able to get MDs to the point where they don't need ECGs! All they will need is a stethoscope, the hearing skills you taught them and they'll be able to diagnose a heart attack years before it happens!
Or maybe they can do sonograms without having to have an actual sonogram machine in the room!
Heck, if you put enough Myrtle Blocks in the room the Doctors may even be able to hear cancer growing!
Trust me, with what you say your hearing can do your Nobel prize is going to be just a footnote in medical history books. You just need to demonstrate your talents to the right folks.
All the best!
JE
"A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all." - William James
Edits: 11/17/17
About doctors: first off you rarely can predict a future heart attack via ECG, but more to the point I had an attending during medical training who could diagnose heart murmurs and arrhythmias by looking at the chest wall of a patient or even more accurately by placing his hand on the chest wall, all with not even a stethoscope. He worked to develop this skill because he was hearing impaired. You seem to have no idea what humans are truly able to perceive and distinguish given sufficient motivation and training. Charles' claims seem quite credible to me and most of us.
He worked to develop this skill because he was hearing impaired.
Very interesting. See also Evelyn Glennie. (The link is to her Wiki entry; for a short but fine essay of hers, see: https://www.evelyn.co.uk/hearing-essay/ .
D
See link below. She has obviously trained her body to hear things most of us can't hear with our ears. Also I met a man who had been blinded for about 6 months. During that time his other senses became sensitive to amazing degrees - for example, he could tell how many people were in a room from sensing their body heat on his cheeks. This skill persists many years later - IME much like riding a bike. He has other amazing stories about his listening skills.
Zowie! To have such sensitive, and trained, ears as to be able to distinguish the type of wood you place under your cables!
Charles is not alone....luthiers and makers of fine string instruments do this every day. Certain woods are chosen (in particular) for soundboards, fretboards, pegs, necks, and other key parts. Piano makers do the same, usually using aged wood. Look up YouTube videos for Steinway....it's educational!
You are saying that different woods have different acoustical properties.
I've no problem with that claim.
However, Charles seems to be saying not only that wood can change electrical signals passing through a nearby cable, but that different woods make different changes to the signal.
That's a far different claim and I have lots of problems with it.
"A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all." - William James
Charles seems to be saying not only that wood can change electrical signals passing through a nearby cable, but that different woods make different changes to the signal
The point is at least consistent with your first post. It said, "Zowie! To have such sensitive and trained ears as to be able to distinguish the type of wood you place under your cables!".
Very droll and all that but, had you read CH's post with the same care as you seem to have spent on your response to it (it was at least well written), you might have spotted that he makes no such claim. The DUT whose sound he reported as changing as a function of the type of wood it was mounted on wasn't a cable, it was a pre-amp power supply. That's not a trivial difference for reasons I'm sure you understand.
I don't like ad hominem rants and like them even less when they're based on sloppy quotes. But, if I've misrepresented your position, do please say so.
D
Charles had made so many references to cables and woodblocks elsewhere in this thread I thought my analogy was fair play.
Charles seems to agree with that.
Even if there was a distinction, I still don't understand how placing a wooden block in proximity to an electrical signal can change the electrical signal. To my knowledge, wood is not an electrical conductor. How does the piece of wood intrude upon the electrical signal and modify the signal? This is the point I was trying to make. Further, if it can reliably and quantifiably do so, why do I only see products like this marketed for audio products? Is there really medical equipment out there that uses wood for this purpose?
JE
"A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all." - William James
> > Even if there was a distinction, I still don't understand how placing a wooden block in proximity to an electrical signal can change the electrical signal. To my knowledge, wood is not an electrical conductor. How does the piece of wood intrude upon the electrical signal and modify the signal? < <
I have absolutely no idea. All I can say is that it is plausible - here's why. We typically think of a wire as "plumbing". The copper acts like a "pipe" to carry the "electrons". In this model, anything outside of the "pipe" has no effect on the flow of water.
But this is *not* how electricity is carried in wires. Instead, applying a voltage to a copper wire sets up an electrical field in this wire. The free electrons in the copper move in response to the presence of this field. Yet they are not the same.
In the first place the electrons travel at what is called the "drift velocity". This is incredibly slower than the speed of light. In a 2mm wire carrying 1 amp, this works out to 23 microns per second.
And that ignores the fact that the electric field travels more slowly in a wire than it does in a vacuum (where it travels at the speed of light). In most wires the velocity of propagation is between 0.7 and 0.9 times the speed of light in a vacuum. And what factors affect this velocity?
*Not* the conductors, but rather the insulators around the conductors. This implies that there is energy being stored in the insulators, and when looked at on a microscopic level, this is absolutely true. When an insulator is exposed to an electric field there are two main mechanisms for storing charge, both of them rooted in moving that charge in a way that creates a mechanical stress - not unlike pulling the rubber straps on a slingshot stores energy in the straps. (In that case, the molecular bonds are being stressed.)
If the insulator comprises polar molecules, the molecules will attempt to orient in the electric field such that the entire system is in its lowest energy state. If the insulator comprises non-polar molecules, the relative position of the various charged particles (eg, protons and electrons) will shift, again such that the entire system is in its lowest energy state.
Now I don't think it's hard to see how various insulators could affect how the electric field propagates on a wire.
> > Further, if it can reliably and quantifiably do so, why do I only see products like this marketed for audio products? < <
Also a good question, and again one where I think that people tend to think in a rut. Specifically, it is possible for us to build test equipment that is far more powerful than our hearing is - but only with regards to specific parameters.
For example, humans can only hear sounds between 20Hz and 20kHz. Yet it is quite easy to construct microphones that will detect frequencies as low as 0.001Hz and other microphones that will be quite flat to over 100kHz. Or distortion - I don't think there is much evidence that humans can hear distortions at levels much below 0.01% - and even then only under highly specific conditions. On the other hand we can now easily build test equipment that can measure distortion levels 10,000x lower.
Then comes a dangerous (and likely sub-conscious) faith that simply because our test equipment can measure some things more readily than the human ear/brain that it applies to all of them. This is simply not the case.
One trivial counter-example is the ability of the human ear to detect extremely low level sounds - far below that of any test equipment to date. The generally accepted hearing threshold is 0dBSPL. This represents that the eardrum has a peak excursion of less than the diameter of a single hydrogen atom! In contrast, even the best measurement microphone/preamp systems will typically have a noise floor of between 10 and 20dB higher than that.
I believe that (with training) the human ear/brain can be far more sensitive than any test equipment in almost any aspect of sound. The problem arises simply because not all listeners are equally skilled (just as we cannot all play the violin equally well). Then in a (futile) attempt to avoid arguments we turn to "measurement equipment", which turns out to hurt more than it helps. YMMV. Like all of science, it's just a story that has been made up in an attempt to explain what really happens in the real world. Hope this helps.
"But this is *not* how electricity is carried in wires. Instead, applying a voltage to a copper wire sets up an electrical field in this wire. The free electrons in the copper move in response to the presence of this field. Yet they are not the same."
But isn't this how "signal" is carried in wires? Assuming a well designed circuit, what does all this gibberish have to do with not just modifying a signal, but improving it? Even if it did modify the signal, who appointed you guardian of what is best? Methinks you're pretty full of yourself.
Sir, I take my hat off to you. You may not be able to dazzle with brilliance, but you sure do know how to baffle with bullshit.
You are a miracle!
I feel like Steve Martin discovering just what Goldie Hawn was capable of in "House Sitter"
After reading your screed, which I can only assume to be a riposte to my simple question: "How does the piece of wood intrude upon the electrical signal and modify the signal?" I must concur with your opinion: "I have absolutely no idea."
What was the expression: the blind leading the blind? Here we have the clueless selling to the clueless.
JE
"A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all." - William James
Late to this sub-thread but thought I would comment.CH may have been alluding to the dielectric properties of materials.
If you think of capacitors, that will lead you to discover the various dielectric materials used in their construction including paper in some types - which is just thin wood ;-)
The dielectric material used will affect capacitance, breakdown voltage, ESR, temperature coefficient, leakage current, etc.
Will wood under a wire or transformer affect the signal? Plausible, but is it actually audible out the speaker? Not so sure about that. But if it's plausible, its sellible I suppose.
Edits: 12/01/17
. . . I still don't understand how placing a wooden block in proximity to an electrical signal can change the electrical signal.
and, replying to CH's entirely non-controversial explanation of some electronics ABCs:
How does the piece of wood intrude upon the electrical signal and modify the signal?
A plausible hypothesis for the observed effect of many mounting gizmos is precisely that they don't change an electrical signal but instead, distance the target device (PSU, cable, whatever) from materials that do by making them vibrate (a resonant shelf, say), by altering their capacitance (several feet of carpet beneath a speaker cable?) and so on. [More accurately, they corrupt the signal by orders of magnitude less than the default but I'll keep it simple for now.]
The I/V stage of my DAC, for example, comprises a pair of encapsulated transformers from a reputable manufacturer. If I mount them on a solid oak shelf, they sound unacceptably harsh but, if I put them on a granite tile mounted on fancy footers on the shelf, they sound superb. The effect is marked and repeatable, the tiles cheap (the footers, sadly, less so).
If you can't - or won't - hear such nuances, that is, as CH suggests, fine but it no more gives you the right to sneer at those who can than I'm entitled to belittle those who demonstrate perfect pitch.
If you're at all familiar with instrumentation techniques (your latest post suggests you're not), the importance of isolating circuitry shouldn't surprise you. Think for a moment of an audio replay system as a series of transducers each with a mission to vibrate, oscillate, change characteristics with temperature, etc etc and so modulate the signal they are meant merely to amplify, to transfer, etc. Isolation is typically much harder to achieve than just buying a few wooden blocks.
Try to grasp that the likes of a power transformer and a moving coil microphone are not all that different electrically; find time to learn about the lengths to which audio cable manufacturers (mainstream players such Supra, Belden, van Damme, Canare, not just the boutique sector) go to address the pertinent issues in products aimed at the pro audio sector. And so on. In short, try to read more than you rant.
D
Ironically, it was the supercilious tone in the CH post you allude to that set me off on this visit to the asylum. Had CH been a little less snide, you folks would not have heard from me.
You say: "If you're at all familiar with instrumentation techniques (your latest post suggests you're not)"
Guilty as charged! I have no idea what on earth you mean by "instrumentation techniques." I freely admit I am not familiar with whatever it is you are talking about. Could you please go back and lay out a bit of background so I have some idea what "instrumentation" you are talking about, what the techniques are that apply to them, and what that has to do with whatever point you are making and that I'm missing?
I'm sorry you dislike my presence so much, but truly, I'm here to learn. Telling me to put wooden blocks under wires or components because you claim it "improves" the listening experience doesn't teach me anything. Telling me why I should do that would not only teach me something, but may teach other inmates as well.
I also have to point out that if you had read CH's posts more carefully, you would have noticed that he specifically made the claim that it was the difference in material that made the difference in the sound with regard to the wood blocks he is touting:
"The Jenga blocks will give about 1/2 to 2/3 the sonic benefits of the Myrtle Wood blocks sold by Ayre."
Now perhaps there is a hidden configuration of Jenga blocks that CH is coyly concealing from us that would match the alleged performance of his myrtle blocks, but it seems to me CH is saying his wood is special and superior.
Which brings us back to my original question: if it is the non conductive wood itself bringing about the changes, how on earth does the wood do that?
JE
"A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all." - William James
it was the supercilious tone in the CH post you allude to that set me off . . .
He's certainly met his match.
Could you please . . . lay out a bit of background
Just checked - plenty of material in Wiki and other places. I'm not your clerk.
I'm here to learn
Insulting a respected designer in the field and following up with a rabble-rousing pop psychology post (worthy of H L Mencken) is probably not a fruitful approach to study.
if it is the non conductive wood itself bringing about the changes, how on earth does the wood do that?
I offered you a simple hypothesis based on experience and general reading that suggested you were asking the wrong question. It doesn't seem very mysterious to me; apologises if I didn't make myself clear.
D
> > But, if I've misrepresented your position, do please say so. < <
It's OK - even though I didn't say it, I've heard the same differences between wood species when used as cable risers. I don't even try to explain it, as it makes little sense to me.
When power conditioners first became super-popular, I (and many others, sometimes in print) noticed that the sonic imprint of a particular power conditioner tended to be the same - no matter where it was used in one's system - if used to power your preamp or your turntable motor. This one *might* be due to a "hand-waving" explanation of the power conditioner affecting the AC mains quality in that entire branch of the circuit - do you remember the power conditioner that was simply a large inductor in a box that was plugged in *parallel* to your equipment (instead of in series)? I forget the name but it had a logo of some HV power lines on a badge on the side. They were popular (and somewhat controversial) for years - one attraction is that they were less expensive than most "traditional" power conditioners.
It's OK - even though I didn't say it, I've heard the same differences between wood species . . .
I rather guessed you might have. My point however is that one should respond only to what was said in an argument, not what one assumes [wants to assume] was said. Easier said than done but pertinent for all that.
Also I met a man who had been blinded for about 6 months. During that time his other senses became sensitive to amazing degrees - for example, he could tell how many people were in a room from sensing their body heat on his cheeks.
What fascinates me about the phenomenon is that there is no evidence (or, more accurately, in my long-ago day there wasn't) to suggest that the other senses perform better when "filling in" for a damaged one. IOW, the improvement is perceptual, not sensory; the "new" information was always available to but was hitherto unused by the brain . In reality, your man's senses were in all probability performing poorer than they were several years earlier but the percept was nevertheless much richer.
Funny things, brains.
We're a long way from the OP's topic . . .
D
Thanks for the excellent, thought-provoking post. I appreciate your approach to intellectual rigor when making arguments/investigations. I find them to be of vital importance - *especially* in the area of audio, where we are entering a world with few familiar landmarks.
> > IOW, the improvement is perceptual, not sensory; the "new" information was always available to but was hitherto unused by the brain. In reality, your man's senses were in all probability performing poorer than they were several years earlier but the percept was nevertheless much richer. < <
Agree 100%. I find a good parallel in the area of meditation. IME, the simplest way to explain the goal of meditation is to simply silence the constantly-running "internal dialogue". Then one is free to "hear" all of the things that have always been there - simply "drowned out" by the internal chatter.
Or going back to the '60s, when there were only three channels of TV broadcasts, a popular aphorism was "Once you turn off your TV, there are an infinite number of channels from which to choose." The brain is completely fascinating, and I find it discouraging that more and more "scientists" tend to look at it as simply a highly complex computer. IME, this approach is simply leading down a blind alley.
... one myrtle block short of a preamp evaluation?
I'm so glad I burned my Audiophile card.
Stepping back out of the 'sound' and into the 'music' is so much more enjoyable.
Dynobots Audio - Music is the Bridge Between Heaven and Earth
> > Stepping back out of the 'sound' and into the 'music' is so much more enjoyable. < <
Taking that to the logical extreme, just buy the cheapest thing that makes noise (a Chinese Bose copy?) and spend all of your money on music - both live concerts and recordings.
Which also begs the question of why you are wasting your time here rather than simply listening to your favorite music?
Enjoy!
If I started playing with wooden blocks, I would not be 'Balanced'.
Cut-Throat
> > If I started playing with wooden blocks, I would not be 'Balanced'. < <
That's fair enough. What makes for a "balanced life" clearly varies from person-to-person. When I first became an "industry professional", designing and manufacturing loudspeakers, I could not reliably hear difference between cables or footers (back then there were only cones made from different metals - sorbothane was just coming out).
Doing it professionally had me listening many hours a day and exposed to many different systems - at other manufacturers, dealers, and reviewers. After a few years of this exposure, I could easily hear differences to both of the above.
When at Ayre I had the conscious realization that if dealers, reviewers, customers, and other manufacturers had trained their listening skills to be better than mine that I would literally be at a competitive disadvantage. If I couldn't hear flaws in the products I designed while others could, I would be living in "blissful ignorance" - yet losing sales to those who could hear the flaws. This was simply an observation - it didn't induce me to develop and maintain any explicit "listening training program".
Yet every time we would do listening tests for different circuits, or different parts, or different circuit parameters, a byproduct would be that my listening skills increased. I've also met people who seem to be naturally gifted in this regard - they can hear virtually the same fine differences that required decades for me to develop - without even being "audiophiles" or focusing on any kind of training.
It's the same for the Hydrogen Audio crowd who don't hear any difference between wires or electronics - only speakers and rooms. It doesn't bother me or hurt me in any way. It only becomes annoying when they try to tell me what I can or cannot hear, and that I am trying to "rip off" unsuspecting "suckers".
There have been many, many times when careful listeners have told me of low or no-cost tweaks to improve the sound of my system. I thought the ideas so ridiculous that for years I refused to even try them. Then when I finally did, I was kicking myself for not doing it years prior and enjoying much better sounding music the whole time.
It only becomes annoying when they try to tell me what I can or cannot hear, and that I am trying to "rip off" unsuspecting "suckers".Your posts on this thread have been most interesting - many thanks.
I don't know why so many, including competent electronic engineers (though few who are genuinely innovate in audio) find it so hard to grasp that key parameters in perception and the engineering aspects of musical reproduction are so loosely correlated.
In crude terms, you can't describe how or what we hear by looking at an oscilloscope even if observed perceptual phenomena, however counter-intuitive, will sooner or later be shown to have a basis in physics. To put it even more crudely, God help us from wannabee psychologists too lazy to learn what has, after all, been well understood for many years.
Perhaps the most fatuous example of this Philistinism (for such it is) is the tiresome repetition of the term Double Blind Test by people who couldn't design a perceptual test that would pass muster in a first-term psychology class if their very lives were at stake. Worse, they not only seem to have no interest in discovering why but insist in stressing how they prefer to listen to music - as if those with audio skills were indifferent to it.
D
Edits: 11/13/17
> > I don't know why so many, including competent electronic engineers (though few who are genuinely innovate in audio) find it so hard to grasp that key parameters in perception and the engineering aspects of musical reproduction are so loosely correlated. < <
Yes, I sure do miss Richard Heyser. He was the president-elect of the AES, but never assumed office due to a very rapid cancer. He was the most credible and visible of the "respected" scientists (PhD professor at CalTech) who was constantly trying to invent new ideas and methods to develop some kind of measurement that would correlate with what we actually hear.
He made a huge advance with TDS (Time Delay Spectroscopy), which allowed him to create the first waterfall plots. This was enormously helpful for loudspeaker designers (and soon after replicated by Doug Rife using his Maximum Length Sequence System Analyzer - MLSSA). Unfortunately, to date nobody has been able to do the same for electronics. John Curl and Matti Otala tried (many decades ago) with TIM - that helped make a lot of bad-sounding IC op-amps sound less bad - but it is far from a "final answer".
Which is fine by me. Just as we will likely never have the "perfect" car, I doubt we will ever have the "perfect" amplifier (or whatever). Cheers!
Unless you balanced your gear on the blocks?
No worries, Charles is still in awe of this hobby, let him enjoy playing around and going in circles.
Its fun to try different stuff, hardware, software, operating systems, wire, room treatments, operating system tweaks, rocks, sticks, gems, etc. I figure after about 50 or so go-rounds of trying every combination he can imagine plus every combination he's found, he'll finally get tired, sit down and listen to some music.
Dynobots Audio - Music is the Bridge Between Heaven and Earth
I am listening right now to Charley's creations: the KX-R Twenty preamp, MX-R Twenty amps, QX-5 Twenty DAC, and the P5-xe phono preamp through Wilson Alexia Series 2 speakers (not Charley's preferred speaker).Trust me when I say he is not going in circles!
Edits: 11/14/17
> > Trust me when I say he is not going in circles! < <
Hi Steve - thanks for the kind words. I would be pretty happy with that system, too! I've found that good electronics can make pretty much any speaker sound amazing. This is something that JA pointed out nearly 20 years ago (see linked review below).
That said, I know that there are better sounding phono stages out there than the one you are using. However, they all either use tubes, or cost at least 10x as much as your example. I know how to build a better sounding one now (that design was created over a dozen years ago). And I could probably make (slightly) better examples of everything you own - given an unlimited budget.
But the frustrating thing is that many won't buy those products for one reason or another - each of them having nothing to do with the performance or even the cost. "Too old" or "no MQA" or "too small" or "not expensive enough" or whatever. But I would gladly put that system up against anything else at any price using any technology (tubes or solid-state) - with the exception of the phono stage (as noted above).
The bottom line is I guess I'm better at design than at marketing.
I am pretty impressed with the P-5xe when using the balanced inputs given the unit's reasonable cost. I have owned more expensive phono preamps when vinyl was my primary source, but the P-5xe still sounds darn good mated to the R Series.Thanks for designing these fine components Charley.
Edits: 11/17/17 11/17/17
> > I am pretty impressed with the P-5xe when using the balanced inputs given the unit's reasonable cost. < <
I agree - given the caveat. On the other hand, I don't believe your other components need any caveats. (Of course, I would say that, wouldn't I?)
Thank you for sharing.
Dynobots Audio - Music is the Bridge Between Heaven and Earth
Well actually Charles, I've been here probably before you were here...AA that is...
Been there and Done That to everything you have both done and can imagine.
LITERALLY....gear, recordings, etc. etc. etc. etc.
Why do I 'lurk' here? Pretty much out of amusement seeing that 'historically' I am and have been years ahead of the 'next big thing' that shows up here....for example differences in USB etc. I've posted about that and have offered scientific tests by Texas Instruments on that years ago.
You see JRiver going Linux and Mac...well guess were that bug in their ear came from?
The question is, if you enjoy "live" music why are YOU here? Have you convinced yourself that Roon = Live music in sound quality? I enjoy music, good music sounds good no matter what, the best = live which has my money not trying to recreate the experience at home.
Enjoy yourself and have fun in this hobby.
Dynobots Audio - Music is the Bridge Between Heaven and Earth
nt
Cut-Throat
Imagine being a photographer and being so caught up in microscopic aspects of your photos that instead of appreciating the photo you obsess over pixels, power supplies for your monitors etc.
Over the years I can't count how much money I've saved and how much more music [variety] I've listened too....Its Great!!
Dynobots Audio - Music is the Bridge Between Heaven and Earth
At some point you have to stop experimenting and just enjoy what you've got. Otherwise every listening session becomes A/B-ing with the latest gizmo, which is usually not a pleasurable exercise.
Cut-Throat
I appreciate the clarification about bluetooth and wifi. As I understand it, the mutagenic effects of radiation are cummulative so fortunately at my age the damage going forward should be minimal :).
I married the perfect woman. The downside is everything that goes wrong is my fault.
> > As I understand it, the mutagenic effects of radiation are cummulative so fortunately at my age the damage going forward should be minimal :) < <
Yes, this is true for both ionizing radiation (eg, radioactive material) as well as non-ionizing radiation (eg, microwaves) (and also things like exposure to cigarette smoke).
Famed physicist Richard Feynman stood up from the protective ditches dug for observers to watch the very first A-bomb test in New Mexico. It took about 33 years for this exposure to show up as a fatal cancer in his case. It took him 10 more years of often agonizing medical treatment to actually die.
The most recent research shows that it requires less than 10 years of exposure to non-ionizing radiation at the level used in mobile phones to see cancer rates quadruple.
It's your life - but you can't make informed decisions without accurate information. Information that virtually all corporations try to hide, just as the tobacco industry tried to hide the dangers of smoking for decades after their own studies proved it was dangerous.
I would say that in the US, our awareness of the danger of microwave radiation today is about the same as it was for smoking in 1950. Back then, your doctor would often smoke during a routine office exam, and the tobacco companies would run advertisements touting studies that medical doctors preferred specific brands of cigarettes.
Shouldn't they have already spiked?
Um. The reason they know is *because* they have spiked. Four times more common brain tumors in heavy cell phone users than no or light cell phone use. Based on studying people at age 30 who began using cell phones at age 20.
I absolutely love your signature line!
(As with all of my favorite humor, it's only funny because it's true.)
| FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
