Nothing says “audiophile” like a $15,000 power strip.
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@petrillic I remember seeing really expensive wooden knobs to replace all the knobs on your stereo because the plastic knobs would vibrate too much
@gloriouscow buy them because they’re pretty. Because they feel nice to use.
That’s enough.
It’s the bullshit that’s exhausting.
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@gloriouscow buy them because they’re pretty. Because they feel nice to use.
That’s enough.
It’s the bullshit that’s exhausting.
@petrillic i think my favorite audiophile accessory are cable stands
whoever came up with this was a genius because if you convince someone these are necessary they have to buy a ton of them.
you see having your cable touch the floor is bad. so you have to put little stands under all your cables.
they can be extremely elaborate.
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@Unixbigot this is exactly my point. It’s just… I can’t wrap my head around it. The power cable bullshit is the most absurd of all of it.
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@petrillic i think my favorite audiophile accessory are cable stands
whoever came up with this was a genius because if you convince someone these are necessary they have to buy a ton of them.
you see having your cable touch the floor is bad. so you have to put little stands under all your cables.
they can be extremely elaborate.
@gloriouscow they’re like little teflon standoff posts on a super low leakage circuit.
Except useless.
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And if you’ve got the money and it makes you believe you are getting better sound? Be my guest.
You’d be better served throwing a decent rug on the floor and thinking about where the speakers are placed. That does make a big difference.
And honestly, at least have the fucking decency to make these cables with low thermal EMF tellurium copper connectors or get your cables from Junkosha or something.
Or at least use Litz wire to reduce skin and proximity effect. What even are you doing?
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@Unixbigot this is exactly my point. It’s just… I can’t wrap my head around it. The power cable bullshit is the most absurd of all of it.
@Unixbigot like, just install bus bar and call it a day.
Just don’t lick the bus bar.Or do. I’m not your doctor.
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Or at least use Litz wire to reduce skin and proximity effect. What even are you doing?
Also, how had nobody done a tube amp with water cooled tubes?
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Look, I’m not an idiot. Yes there are qualitative, and sometimes quantitative, differences between various bits of audio gear. The Grado cartridge I have on my turntable sounds substantially different than the inexpensive Ortofon that came with it.
The Focal speakers have a very different sound that the KEF I looked at. Blah blah.
And a $12,500 power cable is a level of wankery that is just hard for me to believe anyone falls for.
@petrillic this is targeted at the consultants who design things for billionaires and get finders fees for recommending this “the very best”
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@petrillic I've always felt if i wanted to turn evil and make lots of money with the least risk, starting a business selling some audiophile claptrap would be the way to go
there's just endless ways to spin some useless gadget into conceivably improving audio quality by making up some bulshit about quantum vibrations, magnetic oscillation.
This coaster reduces parasitic impedance fluctuations in semiconductors by passive coupling of your equipment to earth's magnetic field. Place one under each foot of your audio gear, only $400 each
@gloriouscow @petrillic I turned evil many moons ago. I went into a store and bought really expensive speakers, and then told the guy I'd be using cat5e to wire them up. He blew several fuses and ended up screaming in my face I could not walk out with those speakers and subject them to such abuse. So he handed me a pair of cables that cost like 500€ and told me to never come back.
The cables have arrows on them "sound travels this way". -
@gloriouscow @petrillic I turned evil many moons ago. I went into a store and bought really expensive speakers, and then told the guy I'd be using cat5e to wire them up. He blew several fuses and ended up screaming in my face I could not walk out with those speakers and subject them to such abuse. So he handed me a pair of cables that cost like 500€ and told me to never come back.
The cables have arrows on them "sound travels this way".i've directional indicators on ethernet cables packaged with some high end networking gear.
i was tempted to plug them in the wrong way for fun, but I didn't want to get fired if it actually mattered for some reason
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Also, how had nobody done a tube amp with water cooled tubes?
If you want to spend more than necessary, but at least not fund woowoo nonsense, Blue Jean Cables at least is totally honest about what they sell. They’re decent people too. They understand things like SWR and PSRR. They can read eye diagrams.
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If you want to spend more than necessary, but at least not fund woowoo nonsense, Blue Jean Cables at least is totally honest about what they sell. They’re decent people too. They understand things like SWR and PSRR. They can read eye diagrams.
They’re also in Interbay here in Seattle. Or at least last I interacted with them they were.
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i've directional indicators on ethernet cables packaged with some high end networking gear.
i was tempted to plug them in the wrong way for fun, but I didn't want to get fired if it actually mattered for some reason
@gloriouscow @petrillic Only reason for that is if the shielding is only grounded in one end, in which case the arrow don't refer to signal direction (duh!) but, presumably, which end should be connected to the grounded device.
I don't think that would apply to speaker wire
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@gloriouscow @petrillic Only reason for that is if the shielding is only grounded in one end, in which case the arrow don't refer to signal direction (duh!) but, presumably, which end should be connected to the grounded device.
I don't think that would apply to speaker wire@ltning @gloriouscow I demand guards on all my analog cables!
Hold on, a product idea has just occurred to me. And then we can sell them super expensive triax connectors!
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@ltning @gloriouscow I demand guards on all my analog cables!
Hold on, a product idea has just occurred to me. And then we can sell them super expensive triax connectors!
i will say that after going down a rabbit hole trying to run an hdmi cable from my computer to my TV to support 4K @ 60fps ... that sometimes more expensive hdmi cables are, actually, better than the cheap ones
But I paid $150 for the one that finally worked consistently, which would not even buy me a nice audiophile knob
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Nothing says “audiophile” like a $15,000 power strip.
@petrillic This is like an amped-up (pun definitely intended) version of what happens when an audiophile complains about my speakers and I ask what I could improve. The scale is always just ... I do not care That Much, and do not comprehend people who do.
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@gloriouscow @petrillic I turned evil many moons ago. I went into a store and bought really expensive speakers, and then told the guy I'd be using cat5e to wire them up. He blew several fuses and ended up screaming in my face I could not walk out with those speakers and subject them to such abuse. So he handed me a pair of cables that cost like 500€ and told me to never come back.
The cables have arrows on them "sound travels this way".@ltning @petrillic @gloriouscow I feel like Cat5e might be a step up from the lamp cord that I use to connect the surrounds to my A/V receiver - at least from an interference perspective.
My front speakers use some old Monster speaker cables that my wife owned before we met, which hilariously also have direction arrows on them - despite effectively being just chonkier 4-wire (for bi-amp) lamp cord.
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Nothing says “audiophile” like a $15,000 power strip.
Yeah its expensive but i can hear the noise reduction from here.
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Somehow, I ended up on the mailing list for an audiophile catalog and it’s just… well it’s amusing and sad in equal parts.
I mean who doesn’t need a $1,900 Ethernet cable? Jitter something something bullshit something.
@petrillic And I thought a $130 ToSLINK optical cable that's basically thick monofilament fishing line inside black shrinkwrap was a rip-off.
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Look, I’m not an idiot. Yes there are qualitative, and sometimes quantitative, differences between various bits of audio gear. The Grado cartridge I have on my turntable sounds substantially different than the inexpensive Ortofon that came with it.
The Focal speakers have a very different sound that the KEF I looked at. Blah blah.
And a $12,500 power cable is a level of wankery that is just hard for me to believe anyone falls for.
@petrillic Sure. I paid what might seem absurd amounts for a pair of transformers to use in a homebrew Harada amp, and if my 1970s Klipsch speakers weren't inherited, I'd probably still be paying them off, but I'm using electric heater zip cord for two 7 foot runs of speaker wire, and I'm entirely content with 3 foot Hosa RCA patch cords bought 30 years ago at Guitar Center for the -10dBV line level components of my system.
