Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Audio myths

I stumbled across this link.

Audio Snake Oil

According to the author, the following qualify as myths:

--Biwiring
--Expensive speaker wire of similar gauge and length, but dissimilar retail cost
--Silver vs. copper speaker wire
--Wire elevators
--Green paint around the edges of a CD
--Freezing CDs
--"Anti-static" CD treatments
--"Demagnetizing" CDs
--Expensive aftermarket power cords
--Expensive power receptacles
--Sand bags placed on, in, and around electronic audio components
--Speaker wire and audio interconnect "break-in"
--Speaker "break-in"

Yes, hh, that lists quite a few, although it unfortunately doesn't exhaust all the possibilities. Hopefully the mindless repetition of such old audiophiles' tales will give way to common sense and audio engineering principles(but we shouldn't hold our breaths).

So you're saying I can use any old power cord on my CD demagnetizer; it doesn't have to be Monster Cable ?

Oh man, I was about to purchase 50 lbs of sand to put in my TV. I figure if it can help out speakers, why not the video too.

It is amazing that with all the intelligent audio folk out there that so many still believe in that crap. Really quite sad, if you think about it.

Actually, I have an old 13" TV that died and didn't seem real fixable. Rather than throwing it out, I was thinking of filling it with sand, leaving it around the side of my house, and getting some footage of people trying to steal it.

Was going to use lead shot but that's getting too expensive to throw away, at least the good stuff we use for reloading.

You should paint a tropical island scene on it and put it on a shelf...

no, really...

Here's one I don't understand. CD player manufacturers tout 18 bit, 20 bit, 24 bit sampling although the informatin on the cd is only 16 bit. I don't know the science behind this but how can this make any difference? Please folks, give me some credit here. :-) I'm trying to see things from the other side.

A whole new thread for me to play Devil's advocate in...

This is one man with his own opinion, such as we all have summised. To think we'll ever get a solid answer for all to cling to as fact is like saying we're all going Democratic or Republican because one side has all the answers. Balance is good.

Hopefully out of all of this we learn a little something from each other. There's a lot of information out there. It's up to us to filter it and draw our own conclusions. I may not agree with everything on this list, but I do agree with some. I too must admit the sand bag thing seems a little out there...but again, just because this one man listed all these items does not make them all wrong.

Just trying to keep an open mind for all the thread viewers out there

Happy posting...

Riffman, I'll take a guess that what these manufacturers are touting is upsampling. Take the Denon 3910 for example. It has the Alpha 24 Plus sampling, which takes all material (16 and 20 bits alike) and upconverts it to 24-bits, which in turn is decoded as 24 bits once it reaches the receiver.

Over on Audioholics Forum they talk about Myths and Snake oil all the time not just the members but the staff who set up the forum. If you want to chat about it just pick any forum or topic and have at it, very popular topic.

Riffman and Misfit_Toy,

You are quite correct and it does not make any difference, at least in the comparisons I've done with colleagues, some in studios with similar sets of golden ears doing the listening. In theory, each bit will deliver 6 dB of dynamic range, hence CD theoretically has a potential dynamic range of 96 dB (6 dB x 16 bits) and a 24-bit system (6 x 24), a dynamic range of 144 dB.

In practice, however, this is seldom realized because of thermal noise generated by the transistors and circuitry. Moreover, even the CD's dynamic range is often too great for domestic environments. With ambient house noise (furnace fans, refridgerators) typically running around 40 dB, the theoretical dynamic peaks become unlistenably loud in the relatively small rooms in which most of us reside.

Still, it's kind of nice to know that DVD-Audio and SACD could realistically reproduce the entire dynamic range of human hearing, even well past the threshold of pain--the latter usually deemed to be in the 130 dB SPL to 140 dB SPL region. This assumes you would be listening in quiet woods where the sound of a gentle breeze rustling the leaves rings in at about 15 or 20 dB SPL. (No wonder the sonic booms of supersonic fighters tested over uninhabited areas of Northern Quebec and Labrador freak out the elk and reindeer!)

Regards,

Alan - thanks!

In reply to:

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(No wonder the sonic booms of supersonic fighters tested over uninhabited areas of Northern Quebec and Labrador freak out the elk and reindeer!)

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And here I thought it was Ian's tests of the new subs!

I didn't think Canada had supersonic jets.

As far as I know, most fighters these days are supersonic. After all, if the new Airbus plane can do .89 Mach, shouldn't be hard for fighters to get up to at least Mach 1.5. Of course, I'm just speculating.

the Canuck Air Force actually has numerous CF-18s, which are essentially rebadged F-18s. However, due to our embarrassingly underfunded military, a lot of the operational equipment used on the CF-18s are long outdated. That's part of the reason Canada has been unable to participate with the US in some recent military operations - the equipment is outdated and in some respects, considered unsafe to match the older CF-18s with the upgraded American jets/equipment.

Spiff:

Yep, we buy 'em from the US! Not like those used subs we recently purchased from the Brits (one just sank in the Atlantic and there was one fatality).

Alan

Last I knew Canada had the 4th or 5th largest, most powerful airforce in the world. So like they can really take off 'eh! :-)

jr

I was kidding guys! geesh!

oh i think we knew Craig, it's just there is some level of truth to that comment - whether you realized it or not!

Riff, there've been some good replies on your point, but I'll rehash a bit and add some comments. Yes, the maximum amount of information that a CD can have is 16 bits, which theoretically would allow up to about 98dB of dynamic range on a recording(the short version is 6 times the number of bits; the actual formula is 6.02n+1.76). No amount of oversampling, which all players have used for about 20 years, or the essentially identical upsampling process can change this. It's fine to use DACs with higher bit rate capacities since they're now very cheap(available to manufacturers in quantity for $1 or so)and they insure that the full 16 bit theoretical figure could easily be handled.

Now when we get into the real world of the dynamic range actually available in recordings we find that around 80dB is tops, even on some of the classical items that I have. A quiet listening room may have a noise floor around 40dB(even a very quiet recording studio would have at least a 30dB floor). Playing a very dynamic recording(most pop recordings in particular have a narrower dynamic range)loud enough so that the softest part can be heard could possibly result in an almost painfully loud 120dB on the highest crescendo. You may have read some classical CD reviews where the reviewer actually complains about the dynamic range when he sets the volume for a very quiet beginning and then almost gets blasted out of his chair.

So, 16 bits are plenty for home listening. Note that when Sony and Philips were co-developing the CD format about 25 years ago, Philips contended that 14 bits were adequate, but Sony wanted 16 bits, just to be sure.

Attach a 20 foot black nylon rope to the bottom of it. That way, the thief can pick it up and start running. When he gets up to full speed and runs out of rope, one or the other is gonna go flying...