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
We may have gotten our signals crossed. What I find remarkable is that the people who truly believe that everything is in the head of the listener are very often the ones who have very limited knowledge of the basics of electronics. I don't purport to know a hell of a lot about the basic science behind electronics, but I know enough to recognize poppycock when I hear it. On the other hand, it does not all sound the same. Often enough there would be a simple fact based explanation, but it is a lot more entertaining to talk in broad terms emphasizing aesthetics and to bring everything back to one's individual likes or dislikes than to use a double track approach of measuring and listening. It is so strange how one school always fears that the other approach will, somehow, taint their judgment.
Continue the list:

A GOLDEN EAR TEST.

...for a perfect and sensible ear(s) that able to hear .1dB differences:

1. Eat a bowl of grean pea soup with smoked chops of pork turkey or beef.
2. Play a critical recording you're intended to judge a system performance.
3. Pass some gas during an auditioning(preferably quiet especially for those who has a microphonic tube equipment so you won't interrupt a listening test)...

In result you should hear sonic changes of more than 0.1dB(not realy sure if worse or better) as the air pushed by the speaker has some content of impurities that somewhat change the air dencity and thus vary the room accoustics.
I've noticed that, contrary to the myth that audiophiles have adversarial relationships with their spouses, my system sounds better when my wife sits next to me. I don't think she quite qualifies as furniture, however. (Although she can be a bit stoic, sometimes.)
On certain rather bright recordings, however, they do sound best when she stands in the corner.
To really listen to furnature you must be quiet. I find it very stressful myself.