What is the Silliest Accessory You Have Ever Seen.

Mijo, you are a man full of convictions.

I liked that Youtube video for the music, not so much for the dancing.  I'm gonna get me some Zappa LPs.

Can you get it that I am NOT criticizing or dismissing Zappa's music?  I am only saying that most people are not so familiar with his music as they are with his persona or his appearance, or both of those.  And it's only my opinion; I don't insist on the absolute accuracy of that observation.  I have no stats to back it up.
Mahgister, To answer a question with an insult to the intelligence of the person who asked the question is not helpful or informative.  Also, please leave dear Groucho out of this.  What is the exact opposite of "production of consciousness BY the brain"?  Where can consciousness come from if not the brain?  Leave out spiritual or religious allusions.

What IS the exact opposite of "production of consciousness BY the brain"?

Yes, I don’t know Zappa’s music, and I do know him by sight and by some of his clever thoughts. I probably should have confined my statement. For example, I could have said, I bet more people know Zappa by his eccentric looks than by his music. But maybe I am just a bit too old to have soaked up his music at its zenith.

I have to agree; Zappa is better known as an  interesting person than for his music.

And Ray Charles.

Fortunately for posterity, Groucho made more sense and was anyway funnier than the above posts.

"cheapest copper wire" would actually be an upgrade over what is used in many modern contructions, where you might find aluminum wiring.  THAT would be the cheap way out.  But the argument against expensive power cords, based on the idea that miles of inexpensive wire precede the wall socket, is an old one that never dies.  I take no sides but I also would never buy a hyper-expensive power cord, based instead upon the fact that I can make my own, using very high quality copper or silver wire and very good plugs, for much less cost.

Should have written "...that in my opinion are closer to snake oil...."Others are free to decide for themselves.

In response to Mijostyn:  I do tune my room using both home-made absorbers and diffusers and also commercial products that do the same.  I aim usually to eliminate any nasty peaks that are inherent to the room, and that's about my only goal.  But to paraphrase Joe McCarthy's famous question, I am not now, nor have I ever been interested in electronic methods to shape the frequency response of my amplifier/speakers.  I do modify my electronics and in one instance a speaker crossover, in order to improve upon the interaction between electronics and speakers.  The goal there is always compatible with a flat response at the level of electronics.  As I mentioned elsewhere, that was particularly important with respect to the Sound Lab 845PX crossover. In general, my opinion after 45 years as a hobbyist is that if your own choice of room/speaker/amplifier/front end equipment does not already get you 90-95% toward your own audio Nirvana, no amount of tweaking per se will get you the rest of the way. That includes ICs, power cords, NOS tubes, boutique parts, and various add-ons that closer to snake oil than to common sense.  The ICs, power cords, etc, can embellish, but you can't turn an audio sow's ear into a silk purse with gadgets.

What interests me is that in some posts you sound like you have been in the audio business, but from other posts I gather you are a physician, likely a pediatrician.  Since those to professions are quite different, I wonder which is correct.

"The right frequency response is much harder. If you think you can trust your ears for this you are out of your mind."

I do not agree there is a "right" frequency response suitable for all program sources.  And I am definitely out of my mind. You are chasing your tail with digital room correction, but have fun with that. It's yet another hobby.

What is wrong with tuning your listening room to suit your listening preference, so long as you have the sound of live, preferably unamplified music in a live venue as your comparator?  To achieve that end, or get close to it, you need to experience live music as often as possible, of course. In my opinion, that approach is as valid as any other.

Just make sure you place the audiopoints at the end of each chair leg, facing downward to the floor.  Placing them facing up on the seat bottom will be instantly destabilizing the moment you sit down.

Audio2design, You are absolutely correct about the frozen yoghurt incident that I witnessed.  The fuse probably had nothing to do with it. I realized this about 15 minutes after posting, but at that time I was out of the house doing something more useful than this, so until now I hadn't the chance to make corrections.  As to the capacitor business, it is fair to say that capacitors "hardly ever" short to ground.  But once in a while they or other devices in a circuit do short to ground.  I've built a few amplifiers and done some extensive mods to both preamplifiers and amplifiers, over about a 25 year period, just as a hobbyist, and I have experienced at least two capacitor failures of that type. So, do you want to use these tidbits to disagree with me that fuses built into audio electronic devices should be left in place to do their job? Did you want to agree with Mijostyn who relies upon his circuit breakers to protect his gear? If so, there we part company.  If not, what is your point?  If your goal was to point out my error in the way I told the story of the yoghurt machine, you win.  I goofed. However, I stand by the main message of my post. 


I am not an EE and never claimed to be.  All of my electronics knowledge has been acquired from books and from conversations with EEs and their ilk.  Plus I have a solid grounding in basic physics, math, and chemistry from college, medical school, graduate school, and from 40 years as a biological scientist.

Dear Mijo, In my original post on your disdain for fuses, I acknowledged that the little fuse screwed into the back of your equipment indeed cannot prevent damage due to a lightning strike. However, lightning strikes are rare as..... getting struck by lightning. There are innumerable equipment glitches that can kill you, take out a power transformer, destroy your circuitry without killing you, that fuses DO protect us from. Your knowledge of electronics is sketchy. DC voltage is the least of your worries with a transformer. For example, in any conventional power supply, capacitors are used as filters to remove AC ripple from the DC output of the supply. Each of these filter capacitors is connected between the DC voltage rail and ground. If one of those capacitors fails such that it shorts the path to ground, then the transformer sees a sudden huge current demand. (Due in part to the fact that there is suddenly zero or very much lower than normal resistance between the high voltage rail and ground, which means the transformer is asked to pass infinite current momentarily.  In that case, the little fuse acts much faster than the circuit breaker. This is Ohm's Law in action.) Your realization that that has occurred might only be smoke rising from your kaput power transformer. Or worse yet, those capacitors may put voltage and current on the chassis, such that when you touch a conductive knob, you receive a possibly deadly shock. (In an unrelated episode, I once saw a woman die when she touched a metal control on a frozen yogurt machine, due to cardiac arrest.  This was in the NIH cafeteria, yet.) Stuff can also catch fire. Similar phenomena can occur if a solid state device or tube fails such that there is a hot to ground short within its body. Fuses are there for a reason, and where there is a fuse, it should be rated for the current recommended and left in place. Knock yourself out with boutique fuses, if you like, but do use fuses.

In support of the fuse.  Mijo, You are wrong.  Sure, there are failure modes where the fuse fails to protect the circuit.  But there are many more failure modes where the fuse will save your ass if not also your power transformer.  Power transformers are very expensive and sometimes impossible to replace without engaging the services of a custom transformer winder.  Guess how many of those remain in existence in the USA? Your circuit breakers are probably at least 15A in capacity.  How would your preamplifier look after it passed 15A for long enough to blow the circuit breaker?  Pretty toasty I suspect. I am surprised at you.  And if lightning (not "lightening") were to strike your system, ain't nothing gonna save it.

Take a look at Mpingo dots, if you think the Shun Mook record weight is funny. If better stop there.

mofojo, Careful. Shun Mook has many true believers.  Not including me.

Maybe, but I hear a lot of emotion in the exchanges.

I have been reading contretemps such as these for years, on this Forum and also on Tweaker's Asylum.  I cannot remember ever even one instance where two guys who vehemently disagreed on the efficacy of this or that tweak eventually came to hold a common view.  More typically, the opponents go their own way in anger, secure in their own set of beliefs.  Every one of us has his own "truth".  Best to leave it at that.  It does not bother me if someone else believes in an "SG" or room equalization by digital means or whatever.  From what I know of physics, at least some of these tweaks are flat out impossible, but I don't care if someone else believes otherwise.  I would be interested to hear the before and after results with my own ears, is all.  Too bad we live so far apart from one another.  In this world, there are other ingrained beliefs that grieve me and concern me much more than the play of audiophiles.

twoleftears, Love your coat of arms.

This is a dangerous game to play.  One man's meat is another man's poison, and all that jazz.  There are lots of add on gadgets being sold to audiophiles that have no discernible scientific justification, but inevitably there will be some who swear by this or that, and who is to say they are not hearing the benefit they say they are hearing?  Not I, except when I just can't stand the chicanery.  The response to criticism or incredulousness is inevitably of the "don't knock it if you haven't tried it" type.  So, I am not going to write what I think.