Ten Biggest Lies in Audio (1 Viewer)

[FeisalK]

if Ibanez packaged it nicely and sold it as a consumer product maybe some people will buy it and put it in between their CDP/DAC and their amp. (I can see the blurb "GIVE YOUR SYSTEM THAT TUBEY SOUND, WITHOUT ANY OF THE ARCANE RITUALS!!!")

it'd have to have a remote though, although they wont need one while playing air guitar

or they could buy a tube amp

 

[alan halvorson]

I'm quite astonished by this troll comment by a long time member. I'd like you to explain it also. There's 10 "Lies"; which don't you agree with and why?

 

[Grant B]

I once read an article for s**** & giggles on a $75k* turntable. I thought nobody in their right mind would buy that.

Then my wife started working for the guy who started the Good Guys Chain. He was selling off some radio stations and stuff which my wife did for him. He would give her his top of the line Benz and tell her don't worry about little things like handicap parking spaces .....$300 tickets weren't worth the time.
That's when it hit me who buys $75k turntables and it's like you or me buying an ipod.
If crappy things make you happy and you have $$$ to burn, what the hell.
Stock up on the audiophile bricks for your amp!
People like that don't have time to read crap articles like that....they have other people read it for them

(* tone arm extra....like I needed to say that heathen!)

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Good article. 'Course, I've seen it before because I've been subscribing to the Audio Critic for over 10 years.

 

[Arthur S]

Phil

I have to disagree with you. About 20 years ago, Bob Carver declared that he could make one of his inexpensive solid state amps sound like any amp. Two magazines took him up on the challenge.

First, The Audio Critic magazine offered up a Mark Levinson ML-2. Bob won that challenge with what went on to be his M1.5t amp (that cost about 15% of the Levinson).

Later, he did the same thing on a challenge from Stereophile magazine. In 48 hours, he "tuned" one of his solid state amps to match the sound of the $12,000 Conrad-Johnson Premier 5 amp.

Saying something can't be done because it hasn't been done does not prove that it can't be done.

There is a tremendous amount of nostalgia and superstition about old tube guitar amps. If we can make it worth his while, maybe Bob Carver will take this one on.

 

[Tim Hoover]

There are huge amounts of tube-amp emulators now saturating the guitar scene - it's the latest fad and has been for several years, ever since Line 6 debuted the Flextone amp series. The accuracy of the emulations may be questionable, but it's not for a lack of trying...

 

[FeisalK]

kinda ironic to talk about being accurate in producing distortion *LOL*

 

[Kevin C Brown]

So when can we expect to come across a tube design that sounds as clean as solid state?

 

[Chu Gai]

As soon as negative feedback stops becoming a bad word.

 

[lee ison]

what about "I'm right, my system is the best and everyone else is wrong, oh and I spent alot of money".

 

[willyTass]

its always amusing when i open up a high end speakers and find small guage, poorly insulated copper wiring and yet people fret over getting THX certified cable for their home theatre .

If people are stupid anough to throw money at audioquest and Monster is it any wander they keep lying to us.

Recently there was a Pioneer plasma on display with its picture in picture function on. "the picture on the left is the one with Monster cable" the salesman said. "the one on the right is normal cable". He became understandably nervous when I asked him if I could look at where the cables were plugged in. Surprise surprise the Monster cable was plugged into HDMI out and the cheap cable was sending the picture through composite

Of course, he wasn't aware of this anomaly...

 

[Shiu]

I think he could be wrong about the bi-wire "lie". Once the link is removed at the speaker, the pair of wires connected to the high frequency drivers will carry mainly high frequency signals because the low frequency signals will see a higher impedance presented by the HF crossover circuit. Likewise the LF crossover circuit will present higher impedance to the high freqency signals, so the pair of wires connected to the low frequency drivers will carry mainly low frequency signals. Bi-wireing does make a difference in terms of physics, whether it will make your system sound different or not, is a different story.

 

[JeremyErwin]

Really? I thought that was the whole point of tube amps-- when the amps distort, they distort pleasingly. I dunno-- something about nth order hamonics. Conversely, when transistor amps distort, it isn't quite as pleasant. It follows, then, that it's easier to get tubey distortions out of a tube amp (turn it up beyond its limits) then out of a transistorized amp (spend a good deal of time running Matlab and running experiments.)

 

[alan halvorson]

Shui: Bi-amplification can be a beneficial thing. Bi-wiring, meaning a single output connected twice to the speaker, regardless if they're to different drivers or not, acts as if they are a single connection. The extra wire and connectors are wasted.

 

[FeisalK]

Jeremy, I know.. but distortion destroys accuracy - thats why its ironic

Kevin,

maybe there has already been one .. but not survived economics

 

[jim.vaccaro]

Wow. That's crap. Did you call him on it? I'd have made a loud announcemnt to everyone in the store about the technically true, but utterly irrelevant argument the salesman made.

 

[Shiu]

Alan, I understand what you are saying, but unless the driver's crossover networks are internal connected (than what is the point to have the links outside), once the links are removed, one would think that the two crossovers networks are separated from each other. Of couse this is assuming speakers that allow for bi-wiring have two separate crossover networks to begin with. Then even if the two pair of wires are connected at the same point at the amp's output, each pair will still carry different signals. One will carry mostly the high and the other mostly the low frequency signals. This is so because the speaker terminals are no longer joined with the link therefore the high crossover network is now able to "high pass" the high frequency signals and reject the low frequency signals (by presenting a much higher impedance to them). The low frequency crossover will do the opposite and let mostly low frequency signals to pass through that pair of wires. I hope this helps clarify my point. Actually I did not invent this theory, I read it from some speaker manufacturer's site but I cannot remember which one. It makes sense to me though, at least from E.E. (or some call it physics) stand point. It is quite possible that the claim that bi-wire does not make any difference in terms of physics, is the real lie, that lead many to believe it to be true.

I would totally agree with you if the drivers/crossovers are really joint together inside. Then it does not matter how many pair of wires you use. I can't see how speaker manufacturers can be that dishonest.

 

[chrisCo]

That's just it, with bi-wiring they are not removed they are just moved back to the single terminal that the two wires originate at on the amp. Bi-wiring may make a difference if there is an underlying problem, a bad termination, too small a speaker wire, etc. But with adequate wire every aspect of the signal presented to the two separate crossover posts will be the exactly the same in every way because it is one signal at the point of origination. Maybe some of that $20 a foot speaker wire can know if it is connected to the high pass side or not and somehow change or alter the signal from the source.

I am surprised at how much play this lie gets in the forums too.

 

[Shiu]

Chris, if you agree the crossovers are in fact separated, then would you not agree that each XO will reject the frequencies it does not want to take? So even though the signals still originate from one single point at the amp, the LF and HF signals now have two different paths to arrive at the speakers separated crossovers. Whether this will translate into better sound or not I do not know.

For clarity, it seems that we all agree the signals will still start at the same point at the amp, abolutely no argument. Since from that same point at the amp, you now have two different paths to the speaker. At the speaker end each of the separated crossovers will have their preferred frequency range to let into the particular drivers.

Again,I am not saying bi-wiring will make the speakers sound better but there is a physical difference in that with bi-wiring you have mostly LF (consider a 2-way system)in one pair (from point A to B) and HF (from point A to C) in the other. Point A being the common point at the amp, point B & C are two separate/isolated points at the speaker's crossover networks.

When it is not bi-wired, everything goes from point A to B&C as well but B&C are now the same common point (joined by the links)of the crossovers. In this case LF and HF must flow through the same wires.

 

[FeisalK]

you do have two different paths, but the amp does not separate the sound out into HF and LF so both A->B and A->C carry the same full range signal

unless the amp knows which wire send the HF thru and which goes to LF