Are you ready for a £7500 kettle lead?

magick said:
Yeah the answer is defintely no. Most people in pro audio laugh at audiophiles spending silly money on cables like this. Goto a pro-audio forum like http://www.gearslutz.com/board/ and check some of the cable threads there. You'd be suprised how little top studios spend on there cables.
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That's right I work for a large media that deals with feature film and television mastering and we use standard kettle leads for our equipment but we do have a dedicated and regulated power supply to the machine room. All our other cables for video and audio are just standard 75 Ohm RG-6 cable with balancing boxes for analog audio. So a £7500 power cable is going to do sweet FA since the material was generated using a 50p power cable!
 
If I had money coming out of my ears, I probably would spend that much on cabling. Along with the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, already spent on equipment, the millions spent on my mansion(s), boat(s), car(s), plane(s), football team(s), etc.
 
how about some regulation so that any piece of Hi-Fi equipment costing over £100 has to include results of a double blind listening test or something similar? Speakers could be exempt though. These companies are just con artists in my mind.

Funny thing is about the double blind test - one of the editors of stereophile magazine did one and he rubbished the test later because he was unable to tell the difference between 3 different types of amplifier. He later claimed that after swapping the amplifier himself and listening the differences became obvious. He put this down to psychological effects of the test itself. Hmm. Right.
 
oli collett said:
Funny thing is about the double blind test - one of the editors of stereophile magazine did one and he rubbished the test later because he was unable to tell the difference between 3 different types of amplifier. He later claimed that after swapping the amplifier himself and listening the differences became obvious. He put this down to psychological effects of the test itself. Hmm. Right.
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He probably was right although not in the way he thinks, the test would affect how he'd view the equipment psychologically because without knowing what he was 'supposed' to think was the better equipment he'd be free to choose from any of them. When he does it himself he then knows which one he is supposed to prefer and (probably unconciously) weights his views accordingly. He would be emotionally invested in the £2,000 amp as providing a better sound than the £300 amp, if without external clues he couldn't tell the difference then he is basically faking it and people don't tend to want to admit that sort of thing to themselves for obvious reasons.
 
semi-pro waster said:
He probably was right although not in the way he thinks, the test would affect how he'd view the equipment psychologically because without knowing what he was 'supposed' to think was the better equipment he'd be free to choose from any of them. When he does it himself he then knows which one he is supposed to prefer and (probably unconciously) weights his views accordingly. He would be emotionally invested in the £2,000 amp as providing a better sound than the £300 amp, if without external clues he couldn't tell the difference then he is basically faking it and people don't tend to want to admit that sort of thing to themselves for obvious reasons.
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Indeed - there was a lot of double blind testing done in the 70s, 80s and early 90s which concluded with the scientific view that the only real way to change the sound of a system is to change your speakers. It's not surprising this was not the end of hi-fi however as the same magazines that drew these conclusions soon got rid of such testing and went back to promoting nonsense products. I don't know how many of these magazine editors, salesmen and manufacturers actually believe in their products or not and whether they know they are selling snake oil.

It's funny how the world works - as long as you market something in the right way, someone will buy it.
 
oli collett said:
how about some regulation so that any piece of Hi-Fi equipment costing over £100 has to include results of a double blind listening test or something similar? Speakers could be exempt though. These companies are just con artists in my mind.
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Noble idea, but will never happen. Most cable companies are very reluctant to stage double blind listening tests because they know most people won't be able to tell any difference.

oli collet said:
Funny thing is about the double blind test - one of the editors of stereophile magazine did one and he rubbished the test later because he was unable to tell the difference between 3 different types of amplifier. He later claimed that after swapping the amplifier himself and listening the differences became obvious. He put this down to psychological effects of the test itself. Hmm. Right.
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I was reading about a DBT on a link in one of your threads. At Hi-End show this year DBT tests were conducted using an expensive valve amp and a cheap denon amp hardly no one could tell the difference. I always thought amps added perceptible sonic flavours to the sound. Does this mean that those £20k Krell amps people rave on about don't actualy add anything to the sound?

I was speaking about this to someone who was involved in the manufacture of pro audio equipment by email recently and he said Krell are making a fortune ripping people off and they know it. I know cables are a scam but I thought amps do actualy make a difference.
 
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Some people have daft money to spend on "better" quality audio stuff. I remember a turntable about 20 years ago which cost £12,000 and had a "floating" needle which only lasted 60 hours play and cost £800 to replace.

£13.33 per hour ignoring original purchase cost just to listen to you records? :eek:
 
magick said:
Noble idea, but will never happen. Most cable companies are very reluctant to stage double blind listening tests because they know most people won't be able to tell any difference.



I was reading about a DBT on a link in one of your threads. At Hi-End show this year DBT tests were conducted using an expensive valve amp and a cheap denon amp hardly no one could tell the difference. I always thought amps added perceptible sonic flavours to the sound. Does this mean that those £20k Krell amps people rave on about don't actualy add anything to the sound?

I was speaking about this to someone who was involved in the manufacture of pro audio equipment by email recently and he said Krell are making a fortune ripping people off and they know it. I know cables are a scam but I thought amps do actualy make a difference.
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I'm afraid that seems to be the case.

Amplifiers are of course not that simple. If you start with a very good pair of speakers, they will probably require a fairly large amount of power. To produce that power with reasonably low distortion and flat frequency response you need a good amplifier. I would not have thought you need to spend more than £1K to acheive this for stereo speakers. But the idea that amplifiers effect the character of the sound is unproven and i believe it only started to come around in the late 70s which i think was around the same time the Japanese manufacturers came along with the cheaper amps doing the same thing as the british manufacturers.
 
oli collett said:
I'm afraid that seems to be the case.

Amplifiers are of course not that simple. If you start with a very good pair of speakers, they will probably require a fairly large amount of power. To produce that power with reasonably low distortion and flat frequency response you need a good amplifier. I would not have thought you need to spend more than £1K to acheive this for stereo speakers. But the idea that amplifiers effect the character of the sound is unproven and i believe it only started to come around in the late 70s which i think was around the same time the Japanese manufacturers came along with the cheaper amps doing the same thing as the british manufacturers.
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Interesting. Do you think the same is also true with CD players? Again in one of your links someone who is a sceptic admits there maybe differences in quality between budget and high end cd players when it comes to stereo imaging and more expensive cd players do produce a more holographic sound. And the person who said this was a hi-end sceptic.
 
oli collett said:
I would not have thought you need to spend more than £1K to acheive this for stereo speakers.
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Should also add the pro-audio guy I was communicating with sent me a pic of his system, he had some amazing 10k speakers but he was powering them with two 1000w mono Peavey PA amps that cost a lot less than his speakers. He said the Peavey amps are the best you can get spec wise. a lot better than Krells yet only 10% of the price.
 
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magick said:
Interesting. Do you think the same is also true with CD players? Again in one of your links someone who is a sceptic admits there maybe differences in quality between budget and high end cd players when it comes to stereo imaging and more expensive cd players do produce a more holographic sound. And the person who said this was a hi-end sceptic.
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This article explains much better, but again, it's the same story:
http://theaudiocritic.com/plog/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=8&blogId=1

And also in a review of a DAC:
http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/news/audio_critic_review/index.html

It should be obvious from the above discussion, at least to those familiar with The Audio Critic, that the Benchmark DAC1 has no sound of its own, transparently passing on to its output the quality of its input. Whatever sonic peculiarities may perchance be audible are due to the input signal, not the DAC1 circuit. Even if the circuit were a lot less perfect, that would still be the case. Absolute sonic transparency is a concept innocent audiophiles are uncomfortable with, believing that all audio components — CD players, preamplifiers, amplifiers, tuners, all of them — exhibit varying degrees of soundstaging, front-to-back depth, grain, air, etc. That it isn't so, except in the case of loudspeakers, is a fact calmly accepted by professional engineers but not by the high-end pundits and high-end manufacturers, who would be out of business if the truth were to sink in universally.
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Another one that is amusing is the idea in hi-fi that if something is designed to do more than 1 function, it cannot possibly be better than an individual unit. For example, DVD players are always criticised for their ability playing CDs. Why would a DVD player be any worse playing a CD than a CD player?
 
magick said:
Interesting. Do you think the same is also true with CD players? Again in one of your links someone who is a sceptic admits there maybe differences in quality between budget and high end cd players when it comes to stereo imaging and more expensive cd players do produce a more holographic sound. And the person who said this was a hi-end sceptic.
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How can a CD player possibly affect the quality of the sound? They just read digital 0s and 1s off the disc. The CD player will either do this perfectly, or it will not, and is broken.

It's the same with £100 HDMI cables supposedly giving you deeper blacks and better colour definition on your telly - of course they don't, it's digital!
 
timbob said:
How can a CD player possibly affect the quality of the sound? They just read digital 0s and 1s off the disc. The CD player will either do this perfectly, or it will not, and is broken.

It's the same with £100 HDMI cables supposedly giving you deeper blacks and better colour definition on your telly - of course they don't, it's digital!
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By cd player I didn't mean the cd transport itself but both the transport and dac combination.
 
I have purchased on of these kettle leads. The kettle boils much quicker and the hot water that is produced is much cleaner. Well worth the money :D

electrickettlehd6.jpg
 
timbob said:
How can a CD player possibly affect the quality of the sound? They just read digital 0s and 1s off the disc. The CD player will either do this perfectly, or it will not, and is broken.
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That is a CD transport. A cd player out puts sound for amplification. Between reading the bits of the disc and ouputing them to an amp is where a cd player will affect the sound. Not to mention DACs and things.

People have used PS1 cd drives as hi fi cd transports VERY succesfully.
 
whitecrook said:
That is a CD transport. A cd player out puts sound for amplification. Between reading the bits of the disc and ouputing them to an amp is where a cd player will affect the sound. Not to mention DACs and things.

People have used PS1 cd drives as hi fi cd transports VERY succesfully.
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Indeed - a DAC is an important part of the hi-fi chain but they don't alter the sound any way, unless they are doing their job incorrectly.
 
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