Because people hang themselves with lamp cord ....It does make sense. Audio cables are often not flexible enough.
Never with an audio cable....
Too good a post to waste
On a thread that is a running example of the textual equivalent of nonstop cat videos. So here it is again.
I could understand the cables are snake-oil doubters and take them seriously- in 1980. Back then there was no internet, Stereo Review was pretty much it, and Julian Hirsch was the Oracle of all things audio. Stereo Review and Julian Hirsch said if it measures the same it sounds the same. Wire is wire, and that was that.
Even then though J. Gordon Holt had already started the movement that was to become Stereophile. JGH took the opposing view that our listening experience is what counts. Its nice if you can measure it but if you can’t that’s your problem not ours.
Stereo Review and the measurers owned the market back then. The market gave us amplifier wars, as manufacturers competed for ever more power with ever lower distortion. For years this went on, until one day "measures great sounds bad" became a thing.
Could be some here besides me lived through and remember this. If you did, and if you were reading JGH back then, I tip my hat to you, sir! I fell prey to Hirsch and his siren song that you can have it all for cheap and don’t really have to learn to listen. Talk about snake-oil! A lot of us bought into it. Sorry to say.
But anyway like I was saying it was easy to believe the lie back then because it was so prevalent and also because what wire there was that sounded better didn’t really sound a whole lot better.
Now though even budget wire sounds so much better than what comes off a reel you’d have to be deaf not to notice. Really good wires sound so good you’d notice even if you ARE deaf! No kidding. My aunt Bessie was deaf as a stone but she could FEEL the sound at a high enough volume, knew it was music. The dynamic punch of my CTS cables is so much greater than ordinary 14 ga wire I would bet my deaf from birth aunt Bessie could "hear" the difference. Certain so-called audiophiles here, I'm not so sure.
Oh and not done beating the dead horse quite yet, according to my calendar its 2020, a solid 40 years past 1980. Stereo Review is dead and buried. Stereophile lives on. A whole multi-billion dollar industry built on wire not being wire thrives. Maybe the measurement people can chalk up and quantify from that just how many years, and billions, they are out of date and in denial.
I could understand the cables are snake-oil doubters and take them seriously- in 1980. Back then there was no internet, Stereo Review was pretty much it, and Julian Hirsch was the Oracle of all things audio. Stereo Review and Julian Hirsch said if it measures the same it sounds the same. Wire is wire, and that was that.
Even then though J. Gordon Holt had already started the movement that was to become Stereophile. JGH took the opposing view that our listening experience is what counts. Its nice if you can measure it but if you can’t that’s your problem not ours.
Stereo Review and the measurers owned the market back then. The market gave us amplifier wars, as manufacturers competed for ever more power with ever lower distortion. For years this went on, until one day "measures great sounds bad" became a thing.
Could be some here besides me lived through and remember this. If you did, and if you were reading JGH back then, I tip my hat to you, sir! I fell prey to Hirsch and his siren song that you can have it all for cheap and don’t really have to learn to listen. Talk about snake-oil! A lot of us bought into it. Sorry to say.
But anyway like I was saying it was easy to believe the lie back then because it was so prevalent and also because what wire there was that sounded better didn’t really sound a whole lot better.
Now though even budget wire sounds so much better than what comes off a reel you’d have to be deaf not to notice. Really good wires sound so good you’d notice even if you ARE deaf! No kidding. My aunt Bessie was deaf as a stone but she could FEEL the sound at a high enough volume, knew it was music. The dynamic punch of my CTS cables is so much greater than ordinary 14 ga wire I would bet my deaf from birth aunt Bessie could "hear" the difference. Certain so-called audiophiles here, I'm not so sure.
Oh and not done beating the dead horse quite yet, according to my calendar its 2020, a solid 40 years past 1980. Stereo Review is dead and buried. Stereophile lives on. A whole multi-billion dollar industry built on wire not being wire thrives. Maybe the measurement people can chalk up and quantify from that just how many years, and billions, they are out of date and in denial.
Showing 32 responses by glupson
Many posts around here claim some science and technology that is frequently unreadable. Some of the time because it may be too complicated for me, some of the time because it is poorly written. There is nothing wrong with being able to present one's thoughts in a readable manner. I cannot argue if almarg's post was correct, or not, but it was readable. Now, if instead of equaling decent writing skills with incorrect statements, one could argue about them in similar and coherently written style, it could be beneficial. Otherwise it is just whining "Yo re convincing and therefore you must be wrong because I am right and have never convinced anybody." |
The “genius” who lists “stock cables” on his profile Audiogon Systems. That says it all.Seems like a meticulous person who thinks that "everything matters" and lists it without hiding. Including the brand of stylus cleaner. Well, maybe he was embarassed to list Magic Pebbles, but we can understand that. |
"No radiologist or MD ever once asked for a double-blind. That would be nuts." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30430273/?from_term=x-rays+double-blind&from_pos=6 |
"Who Do you think makes more money, Ford or Ferrari?"Ferrari has much higher profit margin. As of the beginning of this year, Ford was not doing that well financially. Ferrari was fine. It might have changed since then. https://auto.hindustantimes.com/auto/news/ferrari-earns-as-much-profit-selling-one-car-that-ford-doe... |
Something is suspicious here...
"But most of the scattered light - around 75% - is INVISIBLE and not amenable to absorption by ANY color, including green, turquoise, or even black." It seems this is an advertisement for a product that claims to do what advertisement says it cannot do. What the heck? "...scattered light reflects off surfaces inside the CD transport container, lighting up the interior like a Christmas tree." Christmas tree lights up with invisible light? |
My experience is that you do not need a buffer in the car CD player, at least from late 1990s. At the same time, that discussion is, in practice, a little outdated. SD cards, USB jump drives, etc, have made car CD players all but obsolete. And they sound just fine. "... if they can build a CD player good enough to isolate a car, rather inexpensively,"I suspect that whole "upgraded" mechanism/isolation cost pennies to produce. Maybe it was not even that complicated. I do not know either of those for a fact. However, whole 6-CD changer was $300. Not to mention that I bought it in the dealership so aftermarket would have been even less. Adjusting for inflation, it would be what? $500 today? Without taking into consideration that prices of such electronics did fall. It really makes you wonder about expensive slabs of wood sold as fancy isolation platforms. |
geoffkait, You are not following. I am not commenting on sound quality of car CD players, which is very good indeed, but on your erroneous statement ridiculing me... "Shock in cars is ameliorated by buffering the data, everybody and his brother knows that. "It seems that everybody but your brother's brother knows it is far from always being true. |
"Shock in cars is ameliorated by buffering the data, everybody and his brother knows that. "Ok, guys. I do not know much about intricacies of CD reproduction, but have had a car and a CD player. Some car CD players were advertised as having ESP or some sort of it. A buffer of sorts. When same brand had different models, those higher ones were advertised as having an advantage because of ESP. Relatively early, I tried comparing such models and those without ESP did skip more over proper potholes. At some point, I was looking for a CD player for a car and was to skip a certain model because it did not have ESP. Salesperson said I should have not been worried as isolation, or whatever, was improved enough in then-newer models that I would not notice the difference between ESP and non-ESP. He was right. I managed to make that particular CD player skip on purpose. One bump, a proper one, and not a series of them as would be needed for ESP. Without that deliberate insult, the thing skips once a decade, I think. Which is quite a feat. No, geoffkait, you are not right and if you followed my advice and have known when to stop you would have not assumed I wished I had shut my mouth. |
"I understand he is still in denial that CD players can work perfectly in a car, without any noticeable issue, on rough roads, and have been doing so, at low cost, since the early 90s. What quantum magic is this?"That is a good question. I am still amazed how well CD players work in cars. Even without ESP, they barely ever skip. Close to never. |