The Audiophoolery Thread.

[ajgriff]

Originally Posted by Beobloke

Cable lifters have no place in this thread as there is sound science behind them and it's all about keeping cables away from the "noise floor". Allow me to explain...etc

Brilliant and such eloquent drivel. Nordost would pay highly for your services.

Alan

[deliverance]

A witty bloke beo.

[Radio Wrangler]

Some lateral thinking....

The power cables for your active lifters would need lifters of your own, as you said.

But these would also need their own power cables and lifters.

And so on, ad inf.

Now, instead of vanishing up your own tuned port, mount the second lot of lifters upside down! connected to the same power cables they are lifting by pushing away from the floor.

Perfecto!

And a horrible inifinite recursion is avoided, though you miss out on the profit of selling an infinite number of lifters per system.

David

[Craig Sawyers]

Instead of using lifters from the floor, you need hangers from the ceiling. Such a length of hanger could easily be made temperature compensated.

Almost reminds me of a joke pulled by a student at Southampton (who became a full Professor and is now retired). He wrote on headed notepaper from RAL that there was a risk of small scale thermonuclear detonations at the focus of high intensity laser beams. It caused more reaction than he had expected with the near closedown of the laser labs.

His letter said that the risk could be mitigated by locating a temperature compensated boron rod in proximity to the focus; and he had arranged a rod of grey plastic with some wires attached, so when the safety officer arrived to tell him to shut off his laser he said "It's OK - I've got a temperature compensated boron rod just here".

At that point they knew they had been had!

Craig

[fetteler]

Originally Posted by Ted Kendall

Well, some of the stuff the same Chris Rogers came out with in support of design decisions on his Sirac-1 valve amplifier would do nicely...

I'm interested, please elucidate - tripe is tripe and being a northerner (albeit vegetarian) I love the stuff

Glad I only built the speakers! In fairness I was always happy with them.

Steve.

[Ted Kendall]

It's a sort of Peter Belt thing - Rogers undoubtedly designed a decent speaker, but he veered off into rampant subjectivism - the denunciation of the the Quad 33 as "making the music sound amateur" (!) was in a review done on his watch. The particular phoolery around Sirac, which was a queer-looking beast using kinkless tetrodes - whether 88s or 66s I can't recall - was in his description of optimising the feedback networks by ear, balancing "harshness" against other audible artifacts. Even across a space of nearly fifty years, his description is phoolery of the first water. Curiously, the Sirac project flopped..

[wd40addict]

The articles are here if you scroll down:

http://www.saturn-sound.com/history/...20projects.htm

[The Philpott]

In the light of the experiments I saw on the Blaze channel the other day, audiophools should probably not be standing anywhere near their sound reproduction equipment, for fear of affecting the sound quality:

The subject held electrodes in both hands (each about the size of a red bull can) attached to a machine that detects static electricity. He was able to generate static (unremarkable) but seemed to be making it change polarity, or at least fluctuate, at will. Aha, I thought- he's differentially squeezing the electrodes, but then the experiment was repeated with his hands held NEAR the electrodes. No, he wasn't shuffling his feet on the carpet.
The same bloke was able to increase the number of photons his body was emitting by a factor of 100 under laboratory conditions. I didn't even know we emitted photons...

There's plenty to laugh at on the Blaze channel, but it's to be noted that you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you're unlikely to fool Nick Pope.

For true high fidelity experiences perhaps the enlightened should stand outside while the music is playing indoors, so that they can imagine what it sounds like without the distorting effect of human proximity.

Dave

[Beobloke]

I've often wondered if having a turntable in my listening room makes the sound worse when listening to vinyl but I can never prove it as, when I take the turntable outside the room, I can't play any records.

[Craig Sawyers]

Originally Posted by The Philpott

I
The same bloke was able to increase the number of photons his body was emitting by a factor of 100 under laboratory conditions. I didn't even know we emitted photons...
Dave

The only photons you emit are infrared. By the Stefan-Botzmann Law (which used to be A-level physics back in the day) the emitted power is proportional to T^4, where T is in Kelvin. So a factor of 100 would imply his body temperature was reduced by a factor of 100^0.25 or 3.16. Now body temperature is 273+37 = 310K, so a reduction of a factor of 100 in emitted power implies his body temperature was reduced to 310/3.16 = 98K, or 21 degrees warmer than liquid nitrogen.

Brrrr!

Craig

[radioman]

The 'Sirac-1' amplifier rung a bell with me.... ah yes, I bought this magazine BITD (aged 14) and this was probably the very first time I read about valve amplifiers - I never knew the design wasn't highly thought of...

Andy

[Ted Kendall]

It started off all right, being based on a GEC design, but then he would fiddle with it.

[Ted Kendall]

Originally Posted by Beobloke

I've often wondered if having a turntable in my listening room makes the sound worse when listening to vinyl but I can never prove it as, when I take the turntable outside the room, I can't play any records.

Well, you say that, but back in the seventies, one Edmund Ryan did just this - he moved his turntable and amplifier out into the hall, retaining the speakers in his lounge. The object of the exercise was to combat the effects of static on record noise in his centrally-heated house. I kid you not - he wrote it all up in Hi Fi Sound.

[bigfathairyvika]

It seems phools are easily parted with their money as I've just seen a used ecc83 selling for £800, and the auction hasn't finished.
If your going to spend that much on a single valve , I'm pretty sure there is a company somewhere in the world that could manufacture a brand spanking new one, and to your specifications for much less than £800.
For that much money , I'd want it to include a personal assistant that would hold the amp up off the ground so it didn't sit anywhere near the noise floor.

[Craig Sawyers]

Well 21 bids and over two days left to run! Considering you can buy new ones (clearly with no audiophool foo) for £16 from https://watfordvalves.com/product_detail.asp?id=1306

And for £12.50 from https://www.stewmac.com/electronics/...3-preamp-tube/

Must check my stock of ECC83's and see if I can find a "MULLARD ECC83 LONG BLACK WELDED PLATE SQUARE GETTER 1600 1953"!

Craig