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High End Myth Glossary.

Disclaimer:
Many of the glossary terms bellow are entered with little or no comments. Large comments might require large space and time investment. If anyone reading this glossary is offended, than I'll keep you a company as well. Every myth-paragraph bellow adds a price to the audiocomponent only without substantial improvements and "upgrades" to your system.

Feel free to add to the list bellow:

1. Cables' price should be arround 10...20% of the whole system i.e if the system costs $100k than $10...20k should be for interconnects and speaker cables.

2. Directional signal cables.

3. Zero Negative Feedback.

4. $10k 10Wpc amps.

5. No need for larger output power. Place compact system speaker into the plywood horn enclosure and use SET 1W/ch.

6. Tube watts v.s. SS watts.

7. CD-players or digital separates over $1.5k(Analogue sources stay somewhere next to but not to the same degree for example $10k cartridges)

8. Audiable differences in .3dB or in .5%THD v.s. .001%THD.

9. Auditioning of audio furniture.

10. Stereophile or other oriented magazines one-person "expert reviews"

11. $5000 Mark Levinson amp looks like it should sound excellent...

12. $12k CD-player reads CD with greater precision.

13. tubes $900/matched pr

14. amp stands $600/pr.

15. microphonic-free chasis, power interconnects and speaker wires. tubes and transistors can certainly be added as well.

16. wire reactance influence on audio freequencies.

17. Nirvana speaker wire has substantially less reactance than Home Depot.

18. S/N ratings of CD-player(larger than CD's dynamic range 16bit = only 60dB!)

P.S. I would be also glad to see Worst-of section in forums here.
128x128marakanetz

Showing 2 responses by nrchy

nrchy's avatar
nrchy
2,124 posts
 
Does that mean all vehicles driving 75mph must have the same engine?
nrchy's avatar
nrchy
2,124 posts
 
Some of these myths come across as being just plain silly. Too many people believe if a difference cannot be measured that it is not a difference.

The issue is that our science is still in an infancy state, but likes to make statements about things that are way over it's head! If I were to give you a set of measuring cups, but not just any set, a really good set of stainless steel, ranging from 1/8th of a cup through a two cup measuring set that is made so accurately that they contain exactly the marked amount within .00001% deviation could you tell me how many wpc I am pushing when I have my pre-amp turned up exactly half way and I'm driving an average of 4 ohms on my speakers with my Krell FPB 200 amplifier.

Remember these are the best measuring cups known to mankind and are garanteed to be within the tolerances listed above. If you were to have any trouble with these cups and the determination I requested, although I don't know how this would be possible, I will also provide the best German micrometer that money can buy!

Most of the measurements listed when equipment is designed and/or reviewed are fine as far as they go, but too much of electronics is still a complete mystery to science. Saying that there is no measurable difference between two pieces of gear so they must be the same is like looking out to the horizon and saying the earth is flat. This statement is easily observable, just look out the window, the earth is flat. Ultimately though this is still wrong!

Unlike Bob Bundus says every aspect of life is governed by absolutes, just because we don't know or like the absolutes does not compromise the truth. Opinions don't change truth either, even if we reduce them to the level of absurdity by calling them myths.
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