check this guy out! :) Drew Daniels*

It's also very difficult to record and the major labels almost always get it wrong.

 

I agree completely: no two people hear exactly the same. In my family, I'm the one with "golden ears" and I know from reading many of the posts on this forum that I don't even come close to some of you. For example: while I can hear a difference between lamp cord and Monster speaker wire, I can honestly say that when I heard some much more costly cables in a store, I was completely unable to hear whether or not they would be better in my system, and since I have a rather limited budget, spending that much on cables seemed unwise, I'd simply rather buy more music. OTOH, I can hear significant differences in amplifiers, CD players, etc. When it comes to buying equipment, I buy the best sounding (to me) gear I can afford. I would never dis anyone for spending a fortune on high end audio and cables (unless their children were dressed in rags and starving, but that's not part of this conversation), after all without the wealthy audiophiles to buy the esoteric equipment there would be no R&D that (hopefully) translates into better audio for those of us in the unwashed masses as the new technology trickles down. Sadly, most people these days simply don't care about sound quality and don't comprehend our drive to have better sounding audio systems. Of course, some of those twenty-somethings these days have significantly more hearing loss than many 50-year olds do thanks to 1000w car audio amps, some of which I have heard from as far away as 1000 feet! Being 50, I know I have some high-frequency loss, although, the last time I had an audiologist give me a test he said my hearing was "normal," whatever that means.

 

yes - but not 500% better - the law of diminishing return applies -

Only your ears can really answer this, but I recently heard a Rockport with Forsell Air Tangent arm ($75k) and it did sound better than my poor full spec $10k Linn LP12.

Would I buy one if I won the lottery ? yes

Tim

Tim

 

Are you sure you have the names correct? As far as I know, the AirTangent air-bearing linear tracking tone arm is not made by Forsell - it's made by Leif Haggmark.

Many of the top of the line Rockports come with Andy Payor's own linear tracking arm - especially the Rockport System II Sirius and System III Sirius.

Nice graphics on this site:

http://www.airtangent.net

SH Forum member mikel's System III:

 

Tim, You are right on Diminishing returns is what it is all about and being able to afford them. At least 99.99% of the people in the world will think you are crazy to have spent $10K on a TT, but yet you know that if one is willing a capable of spending 7 times that they can have even better audio reproduction. The best sound system I have ever heard was at HE2004, the big triple amped system from Sound by Singer. The audio image it created is still vivid in my mind almost a year later. It is now my reference for the ultimate system, however, here's the catch - price $250K (top-of-the line Focal.JMlab Utopia speakers, triple amped with top-of-the line BAT amps and top-of-the line dCS front-end, no TT, pure stereo, no MC). Obviously, the only way I would ever afford this is if I won the lottery and just like you if I did I would buy it.

 

One more Shakti Stone tidbit. James Randi has offered John Atkinson (Stereophile) $1 million if he can determine if the stones are in use.

http://www.randi.org/jr/112604yes.html#4

WVK

 

This photo is causing serious drool problems for me. Yes folks, this is my lottery fantasy.

 

Has anyone else noticed that so many of the people who don't like the idea of audiophile tweaks are so condescending and arrogant in their language? This ranges from the James Randi mentioned by WVK, to WVK himself in this thread, to the hi-fi newsgroups most vocal posters (the Sullivans, Krugers, Pinketons etc).

I'm left wondering why they feel the need for their choice of language. Could it be that they are more interested in abusing people than they are in discussing ideas? And if so, why then should anyone take them seriously?

 

I think you are mistaking skepticism for condescention and arrogance. Speaking of ideas, do you have any idea why a inert do-nothing product would command such high praise for the High-End press?

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/reviews.htm

WVK

 

Sure. Maybe it works for some systems and people are impressed.

I'll give you an example. Cardas sells nickel caps for empty RCA plugs on the back of a preamp. I was skeptical but I tried it and it worked. Don't know exactly why, maybe RFI/EMI, but it works.

Another example is limiting microphonics by placing special rubber bands on tubes in an amp. Worked incredibly well.

What about Caig Pro Gold? Amazing stuff. Until you try it you have no idea how cleaning contacts helps-those things oxidize fast. Really cleans up the sound.

Tweaks are great because they can be cheap and effective. But some seem "strange" or "weird" until you have the experience.

 

Speaking as a tweakoholic, most tweaks make perfect sense to me. Most of them address damping vibration, cleaning electrical contacts and maintaining structural integrity. I suppose what annoys people about tweaks and the kind of obsessive focus some of us audioholics have is that they can't see the point of it all, they could care less if a difference occurs. Some don't care because they can't hear a difference. Others don't care because they can hear a difference, but it never gets close enough to the real thing to make it worthwhile. A lot of musicians fall into the latter camp.

 

WVK,

It is arrogant if you have not experienced the product for yourself in several systems. At the very least it's unfair to the manufacturer.

 

Do you think that it is arrogant and unfair to simply dismiss these as quack products without trying them out?:

"Intelligent chip"
http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina27.htm

"Silver Rock Signature Knob"
http://www.referenceaudiomods.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=NOB_C37_C

WVK

 

Gary, No difference sonically, the expensive one just has the Cardas insignia on it. These are not a tweak that is science fiction. The theory behind them is well understood. The unused connectors on the back of your gear can act as small antenna to RFI/EMI interference. Capping them simply shields them (grounds them). How much you will notice a difference depends on how well your equipment was designed with respect to RFI/EMI hardness. I use them as insurance.

 

You are entitled to your opinion, but this one is pretty baffling. No one knows why it works - but my experience of it at CES was positive. Everyone heard the improvement.

As far as Audio Consulting go, I'll admit that the wooden knob is a bit outrageous, but those guys really know their stuff. At CES 2004 they had a totally awesome sounding room with some very esoteric stuff - like a battery-powered amp, Silver Rock phono stage, Teres 'table with wooden tonearm, Reference Audio Mods Marantz SA-1 with wooden case, Audio Consulting power isolation transformer system. I can imagine that someone who likes their gear and has the top of the line Silver Rock would by the knob. These things are made in such small quantities, so naturally they are expensive.

I'm wondering what your point in all this is. You are not in the market for any of these items.

 

WVK,

No one here is endorsing all the tweaks out there. There are certainly some loony products, but I think the tendency to dismiss tweaks as a whole by you and Drew may be unfair to makers of quality components and may prevent some readers here from experiencing some inexpensive upgrades to their systems.

 

I think that this thread is getting a little out of hand.

If you find certan tweaks usefull, and they work in your system, thats great!! I certanly do! But don't say that they are worthless unless you have tried them yourself.

I think that we should end this thread at that.

 

Roger that!
wvk

 

Then even the manufacturer has no clue. They must have accidentally stumbled upon an effect in the same way a cohort of 10 000 chimps with typewriters may accidentally compose Hamlet.

I think a prudent approach is to look somewhere else than the chip itself for a cause of any experienced improvement.

- Harald

 

All I can say, is that the folks who came up with the Nyquist Algorithm owe everybody an apology.

 

This is a pretty ignorant statement.

It's the Nyquist Theorum and I believe it was first developed in the late twenties. Well before digital audio was thought of.

Whatever one thinks of science and measurements, they are the basis of all electronics. I'm not saying everything can be measured - that will never happen, but the biggest hack electronics designer to the greatest has to follow the rules of electronics.

 

You are correct. Mr. Nyquist developed the sampling theroy so that you could fit more than one phone call down one telephone wire. The sending switchboard would break up all of the phone calls at a certain interval, and then the receiving switchboard would reassemble them at the other end. It is a completely analog thing. Sample and hold takes place in capacitors. In fact, it still does. When you record something in your computer, the sampling is completely analog, until it comes time to permanently store it. Sample and hold occurs in capacitors, until each value can be quantized and recorded as a binary signal on a digital storage device.

 

Yeah, you're probably right, I really don't know enough about the Nyquist Theorum to make a total slag like that. What I do know, however, is that SACD and other Hi-Rez formats prove pretty conclusivly that twice the frequency of the highest audible tone (44.1k give or take a few) never was enough. This either demonstrates that we really can hear higher than 20k or that there is meaningful out-of bandwidth info that needs to be recorded. Sorry Dr. Nyquist, I promise to be good from now on.

 

Eh, I shouldn't of said ignorant. Sorry, it was an impulsive move.


Hi rez formats follow the same theorem. Higher sampling rates enable more bandwidth.