ralphpnj wrote: > Softwire you are starting to sound as if you drank some the Kool-Aid :) > You are correct that audio quality is not an open-shut case but it's > also not the night and day case that the audio rags would have us > believe. However in the case of jitter there is quite clearly a case of > the audio press selectively choosing when jitter is audible and when > it's not. In order to pedal asynchronous USB DACs for aging audiophiles > to use with their precious miniMacs jitter became this horrible beast to > slayed at any cost. However when pedaling high end NOS DACs jitter is no > longer important because the DAC is just so wonderful. Give me a break! > > Look I've stated my case many times on many other posts on this forum. I > agree that is a place for envelope pushing state of the art designs and > equipment that by its very nature costs a small fortune but that is > quite different from refusing to use ANY objective testing standards in > ANY of the reviews. All manufacturers are free to charge as much as they > possibly can for their products because it's always caveat emptor as far > as us poor consumers are concerned and again this is quite a different > thing from having a entire industry of audio review magazines which > serve the manufacturers (also know as advertisers) rather than the > readership. Pushing $500 USB cables makes them CLOWNS. Ignoring the big > bad jitter monster when it suits the proposes of the manufacturer makes > them CLOWNS. Refusing to do the least bit of any kind of objective > testing makes them CLOWNS. > > Now that being said does not absolve the manufacturers of their share of > the blame. Just as there are more clownish members of the high end press > (TAS are by far the master clowns) there are more dishonest > manufacturers (with high end cable manufacturers leading the way). > Charging $3,000 for a black metal speaker is dishonest no matter how you > slice it. Charging $7,200 for a power cord or $13,100 for a one meter > pair of interconnects (no that's not a mistake $13,100 is correct) as do > Crystal Cable and then having that same over-priced piece of garbage > named a Product of the Year, as is the case in the latest issue of TAS, > only makes it case of CLOWNS squared. So I'm going to continue to > calling out these CLOWNS as often as I like because the audio press is > just not interested in honestly helping their readers. It's a dirty job > but someone has to do it.
Ralph - I agree with you on the appalling exotic cable vendors fleecing the rich , gullible audiophiles (deservedly :-) ) . Especially, the Audioquest Ethernet cables was the most silliest thing I have ever seen. That said, I probably have taken a different path than you in this hobby. I started out young and knowing EE, I thought digital cables are digital and so used some cheap toslink, I also used a TV stand with castors for my audio equipment. Even the salesman, who sold, NAD integrated amps and PSB speakers, sold me some bulk speaker cables because they were good enough for me, even though he was selling high-priced wires otherwise. But I realized, changing to a electrical digital cable, a good solid rack and wires like DHLabs t-14 did make a change in the sound of my system. I tried different speakers. I tried different amps. Currently loving my Newform Research and TACT amp. I think this is the most transparent sound I have heard (though not completely blowing away Silverline Sonatinas). Because of the various changes I did to get this far . I keep wondering if I modded my Squeezebox with better clocks or got a asynch USB converter, will the sound improve. I know fully well from Archimago's graphs things are way below 100db. But I am unable to get over this mental sickness :-) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SoftwireEngineer's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7000 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97950 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
