Is the snake oil slowly retreating from the Hi-Fi industry?

lucid said:
snip.
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I pretty much agree with everything you've said. It's one of those industries where any criticism can be shouted down with cries of objectivity, or claims of golden insight (or ears, in this case). On one side of the scale you have companies like Ross Andrews doing the audio version of homeopathy, which is to say exploiting the ignorant, and on the other you've solid little companies such as Alessandro releasing a range of products from the great to the questionable. I don't think I've ever dealt with an audio company (speaking as a consumer) that I could say is 100% without issue when it comes to what they pitch. So much is just utterly confusing and oft' presented in such a way as to be very convincing. I struggle with much of it even now, I don't consider myself to be particularly stupid, and I've a lot more experience than the average Joe when it comes to the topic.

Unfortunately, where it's difficult to regulate a thing, and/or objectivity can be argued, I can't see much of anything changing. It isn't like computer hardware where we can specifically test performance metrics.

Mr Badger said:
It's good to know that if you do need a cheap lead to plug in your old CD player you can still snap up a bargain from Richer Sounds:

https://www.richersounds.com/hi-fi/.../chord-company-signature-tuned-aray-1-5m.html
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Honestly I think the 'cable' arguments are the worst of the lot. There are HDMI cables which can improve picture quality that I know of, but they essentially come with a signal booster/upscaler, so technically it's not even the 'cable' itself, and they can be had for well under £100 last I checked.

robgmun said:
Not to mention that all that money is wasted when listening to said speakers in such a small overcrowded space the sound is so dampened it becomes pointless. He needs a relatively fairly large sparse room to take full advantage. Anyway, I've seen loads of experiments on YouTube with audiophiles and it's pretty conclusive that you really can't hear any difference once you pass spending $10,000 on a hi-fi in terms of audio quality. They really struggle in blindfold tests.
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Absolutely.

I'm actually reminded of one of the biggest audio 'scams' of the 90's and 00's, being 'listening rooms' in big department stores. They were often medium sized self standing structures within (but not part of) the building/shop. I'm not aware of any still in the UK, there may still be some in the US or elsewhere. When it comes to audio, the environment you listen in can have a huge impact to how things sound. I'd argue that a properly sound treated room would have better results for a good stereo setup over almost anything else once you start spending over a certain budget. Now, these 'listening rooms' were often sponsored by the likes of Bose. So your average guy would come along and be convinced to go in and have a listen, they'd hear the most amazing quality audio they'd ever heard and immediately throw money at this life changing experience. Problem is, the room was perfectly shaped with acoustic panelling, the speakers were perfectly placed. The hardware the speakers were plugged into was much higher end than what the guy buying would have at home, or would buy to go home with. The music or movies played were chosen and mastered specifically to sound amazing in the scenarios the potential buyers would hear them in.

Joe Bloggs would spend hundreds, if not thousands buying the life changing audio equipemnt. He'd get it home and set it up in his living room, and it'd sound absolutely nothing like it did in the store. Consumer rights back then were nothing like they are now, so good luck returning the goods.

The same happens to this day with headphones, I remember many years ago going into an audio shop before I knew any better. A guy being served before me had just auditioned some Sennheiser HD650's, and don't get me wrong they're amazing headphones and among my personal favourite. However, from what I overheard and witnessed while waiting the guy wanted some 'great' headphones to plug into his Hi-Fi he'd got from Argos for a couple of hundred quid. The guys in the shop let him 'audition' them with all the proper equipment and with music that really showed them off. The poor sod probably got home and thought they were broken, I doubt his stereo could even power them. I've seen similar happen many times since, the last being about a year and ago in my local Richer Sounds where a guy bought some HD700's to plug into his iPhone to stream music.

I love audio but I've very little respect for most companies involved in it.
 
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Didnd't even know this stuff existed lol. I dont frequent hifi stores, but when I have been the staff have not been helpful and tend to be quite rude and up themselves.

I'm just going to go ahead and say if you're worried about power mains filtering or voltage surges, just use a cheap surge protector and if you want to go all out, just get a UPS. dont bother with plugs and cables, they do nothing. Not that I believe any of these devices would alter the audio quality that anyone's ears could hear. It's one thing to design a scientific instrument that can pickup the tiniest audio change, its a whole other matter what the human ear can actually differentiate
 
There's a reason why there aren't any audio reviewers that perform genuine blind testing, because it would be embarrassing for a lot of manufacturers.

Same reason this line that audio quality isn't quantifiable or measurable is peddled. It's just air pressure changes at the end of the day and ripe for empirical analysis, but no one does it because there's a massive industry that thrives off the back of pretending that insanely expensive kit is 'better'.

I'm not and audio philistine by any mrans, I spend thousands on it, but I'm not under any illusions either :)
 
gailjon said:
It's not long ago that we used to burn 'witches'.

"proprietary procedure that leads to relativistic time dilation and biological quantum entanglement at the DNA level".
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Some people are just retarded, let's call it what it is. The other day someone asked me if 5G causes coronavirus....
 
lucid said:
The irony here, as always, is that a lot of you are poking fun at the fringe elements of the Hi-Fi enthusiast from the "safe ground" of the centre of the hobby. All the while, the rest of the country thinks we're all mad to spend more than £100 on a complete audio system. Who is 'right' exactly?
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I no longer mock people for (imo) overpriced cables/power supplies/widgets or tech in general anymore. After trying and failing to convince my wife that my more expensive Dali floorstanders sounded 'head and shoulders' better than my old KEFs. 'But surely you can hear the difference? ' I heard myself say smugly, as her eyes glazed over. At that point I knew it was I that sounded like the crazy person in the room.

We all do it, whether it be Hifi, computer components, watches or whatever. Sometimes we just want nice things. Eye of the beholder and all that.
 
naefeart said:
I no longer mock people for (imo) overpriced cables/power supplies/widgets or tech in general anymore. After trying and failing to convince my wife that my more expensive Dali floorstanders sounded 'head and shoulders' better than my old KEFs. 'But surely you can hear the difference? ' I heard myself say smugly, as her eyes glazed over. At that point I knew it was I that sounded like the crazy person in the room.

We all do it, whether it be Hifi, computer components, watches or whatever. Sometimes we just want nice things. Eye of the beholder and all that.
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https://www.russandrews.com/13a-superfuse-mains-plug-fuse-single/

You would not mock someone for buying one of those?
 
Nope, as I alluded to in my post; each to their own. I wouldn't buy it personally, but then I'm sure there are many people who would think my av/hifi gear unnecessary and overpriced. Possibly even a few on here.
 
What’s the difference to someone buying very expensive PC parts from this site to build a rig to be able to post impressive benchmark figures. I read plenty of those sorts of threads over the years. So possibly best look to ones own hobbies and passions before mocking others.

For sure there is some crazy priced stuff about, perhaps some of it has a use and works. The tricky bit is telling good from foo.

I’m going to find a forum about wine, to tell them it all tastes the same. We trust our eyes, we trust our sense of taste and smell, but our ears? Nope we need measurements to tell use what we can and can’t hear.

I don’t have any RA products, I’ve tried the odd lead, also confess to laughing at some of the prices. Each to there own though.
 
9designs2 said:
What’s the difference to someone buying very expensive PC parts from this site to build a rig to be able to post impressive benchmark figures. I read plenty of those sorts of threads over the years. So possibly best look to ones own hobbies and passions before mocking others.
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I've seen this comparison made before but i dont understand why. When it comes to PC hardware, any improvement can be measured and displayed. There is still the question of whether you'd notice an improvement if you weren't looking at the numbers unless it's a significant improvement but even still it can be proven. Can the same be said of audiophile ethernet cables, or isolating feet for your components, or cable risers? If it could, I don't think this thread would exist?

I’m going to find a forum about wine, to tell them it all tastes the same. We trust our eyes, we trust our sense of taste and smell, but our ears? Nope we need measurements to tell use what we can and can’t hear.
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A few years ago i want to an awards ceremony with work. There were probably 400 of us in total from all walks of life. the entertain for the evening consisted of a very decent meal followed by.....a tasting competition. 10 wines i think it was, and we all had to decide which was which, which was the most expensive, which was the cheapest etc.

Not one person in the room got it all right. Not one.

I dont see why wine should be treated any differently to anything else :)
 
Gimpymoo said:
https://www.russandrews.com/13a-superfuse-mains-plug-fuse-single/

You would not mock someone for buying one of those?
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I really wish I knew someone who had some just so I could mock them:p. I'd love to know people's reasoning behind this stuff. How can a fuse make any difference, it's just a fuse. To say it improves anything is just horse feaces. I'm not convinced when I went from budget qacoustic floorstanders to CM7s that there was any difference in sound and I agree with the other poster above that nobody ever scientifically checks things, it's all subjective testing.
 
The point about the PC comparison is that spending large to improve a benchmark score is equally a waste of money as some one buying questionable HiFi accessories that possible gives them an amount of pleasure as well. So who is to judge and mock? You’d have to be doing serious heavy duty real work to actually see number crunching improvement in the super hot rod PC rig.

Reference the wine, thanks for confirming. Thing is though, those that drink wine often develop the ability to tell one from the other and identify them. Some I’ve seen can identify the grape used. The point is if you’ve not developed that fine taste over time and practice you’ll find them all very similar. Same if you drag some people off the street who are not use to listening to audio then they also won’t tell one set up from another.

For sure there still a lot of snake oil and pointless stuff about, but I don’t dismiss out of hand like some.
 
9designs2 said:
The point about the PC comparison is that spending large to improve a benchmark score is equally a waste of money as some one buying questionable HiFi accessories that possible gives them an amount of pleasure as well. So who is to judge and mock? You’d have to be doing serious heavy duty real work to actually see number crunching improvement in the super hot rod PC rig.

Reference the wine, thanks for confirming. Thing is though, those that drink wine often develop the ability to tell one from the other and identify them. Some I’ve seen can identify the grape used. The point is if you’ve not developed that fine taste over time and practice you’ll find them all very similar. Same if you drag some people off the street who are not use to listening to audio then they also won’t tell one set up from another.

For sure there still a lot of snake oil and pointless stuff about, but I don’t dismiss out of hand like some.
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It's not the same, at least PC parts you can measure an output, things like Russ Andrews it has never been even measurable.

You could argue the same about getting a car to 1,000bhp, not many people can use it, but they can at least measure it to boast.

Wine has always flummoxed me, that is so personally subjective I can't believe a wine worth £1,000s would be universally liked, just as when you go to a Michelin Star restaurant. 10 courses that are all 'great', but you'd probably get very little agreement on the overall positioning of them if you ranked them individually around a table of half a dozen people.
 
XLR cables, interconnects, speaker cable, even speaker jumper cables can dramatically change the sound of your hifi. Mains cables? Yup, they change the sound as well.
Tube amps, class AB and D all sound totally different.
The same goes for dacs and CD players.
Does playing a cd sound different to streaming? 100% yes. You don’t need special hearing to notice the difference in sound in any of the above. It can be quite substantial.
I added a pair of chord signature jumper cables to my speakers ( which shall name nameless for the moment) . I forgot that I had them, but I thought I’d try them.
The whole soundstage collapsed. The mids ended up behind the plane of the speakers and the vocals became thin and harsh. Weird that it’s just copper with shielding.
But it is a link in the chain. Change one link and it can ruin or transform your sound.

The way of thinking at the moment is to eek out every single ounce of sound, warts and all. This can be seen with silver plated copper cables can sound quite thin and analytical. Speakers that come across as fast sounding, clinical are what some are after . Raidho being an example with their diamond coated drivers.

snake oil... yup. Seen it in action , first hand. naim fanboys shaking their fricking speaker cables to align the electrons or some crap like that. Bamboo speaker cable supports to keep the cable of the floor....
A set of isolation spikes for your speakers for £10k . Watched the guy hand his card over. Nordost Odin speaker cable for £24k, not for me thanks.

I tried the streaming route five years ago. I didn’t realise how much of a mine field it was system matching. Went deep down the rabbit hole and ended up selling everything bar my tube amp, which is still in my system.
Now I’m back to good old cd’s and I love it. I have built up my latest system over a Couple of years, trying out low price stuff to fairly expensive to get a feel I guess as to what this whole hifi hobby/passion is about. .
To each their own.
Regards
N

side note. I only ever buy second hand. I’m not that stupid.....
 
Gimpymoo said:
As the move to "digital" is almost complete and interconnects become obsolete with a generation using wireless for everything, has the hi-fi industry been forced to become more "honest"?

I feel "bang for buck" is now better than it ever has been for Hi-Fi equipment.
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There's a guy on here that spent £350 on a usb cable literally like a month ago.
 
9designs2 said:
@str!xt .... good for you :cool: ....... (PS streaming doesn't have to sound worse than CD ;)
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A huge amount of it comes down to mastering and the version you're listening to.

If you spend £1000 on gear to listen to crap mastering you might as well have spent £100.

It's something you don't see mentioned often unfortunately.

If a streamed (assuming good bitrate) song is properly mastered great, you might not see much if any difference from a CD.

When I buy music now and there's multiple releases, I try to track down how the mastering was done. This is much easier with disc/physical than it is with digital streaming. Then again, I don't listen to a lot of current day stuff anyway.
 
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