The Audiophoolery Thread.

[mickm3for]

The real answer to all this dodgy electric conning into your house, the fix for this is to generate your own but then that raises the question where to get "pure coal" is the coal you are using created at the right time in the sunspot cycle in the right year, dont even get me started on nuclear Mick

[Refugee]

Pure coal.
Post #11 in this thread looks like it leads to pure coal.
https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/showthread.php?t=140332
Also scroll back to post #2792.

[Radio Wrangler]

I spotted something from earlier in the thread. Thinking about it, there are profound implications:

Originally Posted by David G4EBT

(The definition of 'faith' is 'a strong and unshakeable belief in something without proof or evidence').

So the moment there is any evidence or proof whether in support or opposition, then faith goes out the window.

No wonder audiophiles and audiophools are all scared of scientifically-conducted double blind comparisons. Such things threaten their very foundations.

David

[wave solder]

Techmoan on YouTube has found a device to make your CD's and DVD's sound better by trimming the edges.

https://youtu.be/f-QxLAxwxkM

[stevehertz]

Here's one to raise a chortle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-QxLAxwxkM

There's some very interesting answers!

[Craig Sawyers]

It's admission time. I have one. I swore it made a difference.

Here's the but. I have since ripped all my CD's using dBpoweramp using FLAC lossless encoding to a NAS drive. That software compares your rip to all other FLAC rips track by track, sometimes numbering hundreds of rips. The comparison of a track reports an 8 hexadecimal number checksum. If it is an identical checksum it pretty much says that all rips are bit identical. And that is regardless of whether the CD has been treated or not. If your CD is not identical, there is sometimes an obvious reason - a scratch on the surface, or pinholes in the aluminium layer. A scratch can clearly be polished out, but pinholes are not correctable.

So anyway - using dBpoweramp, and comparing bit by bit with umpteen other rips suggests that edge treatment makes no difference whatever.

So my edge shaver collects dust. Maybe I ought to flog it; since it is no longer made it must be pretty valuable...

Craig

[PJL]

High-end is often the term used to describe audio products and a quick google of 'high-end meaning' gives you 'most expensive', not 'best' but just 'most expensive'. Phoolery applies to many other sectors, watches comes to mind, but art is on a whole different level...

[stevehertz]

Originally Posted by PJL

High-end is often the term used to describe audio products and a quick google of 'high-end meaning' gives you 'most expensive', not 'best' but just 'most expensive'. Phoolery applies to many other sectors, watches comes to mind, but art is on a whole different level...

I'm not an expert on watches, but I haven't witnessed any blatant mis-selling of high end watches in the same way that the audiophoolery market works ie stuff that costs a small fortune, but is basically based on bogus (con based) technology. Yes, they are sold for high prices and there's a huge amount of snob appeal, but apart from the copies of such, they are generally what they say on the tin, high end, expensive timepieces that work perfectly well; no snake oil, no smoke and no mirrors.

[The Philpott]

I agree with the watch analogy- from both points of view.

Handmade, more hours spent on assembly and testing, more expensive materials and more solid warranties and aftercare, but...the improvement in timekeeping isn't likely to be proportional to the increase in retail price..nowhere near. (If, of course, we regard the raison d'etre of the watch as keeping good time)

Dave

[bluepilot]

Originally Posted by The Philpott

the improvement in timekeeping isn't likely to be proportional to the increase in retail price..nowhere near.

Nowhere near. A cheap radio controlled watch will keep much better time than the most expensive Rolex. I think a Rolex is good for +/- 2 seconds per day. A radio-controlled watch wouldn't be that inaccurate in a million years. It's nothing to do with telling the time. It's having a fantastic piece of micro-engineering.

[Beobloke]

Originally Posted by Craig Sawyers

It's admission time. I have one. I swore it made a difference.

Here's the but. I have since ripped all my CD's using dBpoweramp using FLAC lossless encoding to a NAS drive. That software compares your rip to all other FLAC rips track by track, sometimes numbering hundreds of rips. The comparison of a track reports an 8 hexadecimal number checksum. If it is an identical checksum it pretty much says that all rips are bit identical. And that is regardless of whether the CD has been treated or not. If your CD is not identical, there is sometimes an obvious reason - a scratch on the surface, or pinholes in the aluminium layer. A scratch can clearly be polished out, but pinholes are not correctable.

So anyway - using dBpoweramp, and comparing bit by bit with umpteen other rips suggests that edge treatment makes no difference whatever.

So my edge shaver collects dust. Maybe I ought to flog it; since it is no longer made it must be pretty valuable...

Craig

So you could have sworn you heard a difference but measurements showed no change?

Ah, we'll make an audiophile out of you yet!

[andrewferguson]

I watched TechMoan's video and while I largely agree that this device is probably just snake oil, there are issues when reading / ripping CDs that make projects such as Exact Audio Copy worthwhile if you want / need an exact bit-for-bit copy of what was originally on the CD.

Originally Posted by Craig Sawyers

So anyway - using dBpoweramp, and comparing bit by bit with umpteen other rips suggests that edge treatment makes no difference whatever.

It would be interesting to do a before / after comparison of the same disc, seeing the number of times the CD drive had to employ error correction. If the device actually does work, you would expect to see a decrease in the number of times that error correction was employed.

Of course, this ignores the fact that Craig's test seems to show that the error correction on a CD is good enough to fix any errors anyway, without the need for the device. Additionally, the error correction is done in the drive firmware, even on PC drives I believe, so getting a "number of times error correction was used" would be very non-trivial.

[Radio Wrangler]

It may be interesting to try it out on data discs. Any uncorrected error here is a major problem, so the correction protocols are more serious.... also raw error statistics may be more available for drive evaluation.

I like that the phoolery product is belt drive. I understand why processed discs would not sound so good had it been direct drive....

Helpfully, they've made sure that the belt is easily visible.

David

[Craig Sawyers]

The interesting thing with dBpoweramp is that it returns an 8 hex checksum for each track as compared with all other rips. And your rip is added to their database. 8 Hex (well FFFFFFFF) is a >4e9 decimal number. Even 1 bit wrong on the checksum will be reported as an imperfect rip.

So it is hard to see that anything done to "enhance" a disc could improve on a bit-perfect rip. And I've tried them all - not just the edge thingy. But pulsed UV, stuff to remove mould release agent, anti-static stuff. A bit like all the daft stuff we did to vinyl records back in the day - sticky rollers, antistatic spray, ioniser gun etc etc..

But it turns out that it all does diddly squat.

The thing I absolutely do with vinyl records is clean them, mainly because I get records from charity shops. And that does make a difference, getting rid of tobacco residue, fingerprints etc. And I've cleaned some of my own that I stupidly treated with the antistatic spray sometime in the late 70's. All that actually did was clog the stylus with goop part way through a side.

Craig

[jamesperrett]

Originally Posted by andrewferguson

Additionally, the error correction is done in the drive firmware, even on PC drives I believe, so getting a "number of times error correction was used" would be very non-trivial.

Some drives can output low level error information using the right software. Plextor were the first to make this information officially available with the Plextor Premium drive and Plextools software but I think that CD Speed, which later became Nero Drive Speed, can also extract error information from certain other drives (but not from Plextor drives due to legal issues).

I've just checked a fairly recent commercial CD which gives an average of just over 5 errors per second with a peak of just over 30 errors per second. CDs that I burn have average error rates of under 1 per second. All these errors are fully correctable level one errors so shouldn't cause any problems for a properly designed player.

[Radio Wrangler]

Fully correctable, certainly.

But this is the audiophoolery thread, so we must consider the effect of knowing that there were errors on a British Standard audiophool.

While they seem happy to contemplate huge expenditure on mains cables, the concept of buying a CD player with a (pre-correction) error rate display is only going to cause distress, and the emission of a lot of unhappy adjectives.

David

[Craig Sawyers]

One of the very early Cambridge Audio CD players, a two or three box unit IIRC, had an additional readout of error rate.

Ah yes - I was remembering correctly https://www.hifinews.com/content/cambridge-audio-cd1-vintage

Craig

[knobtwiddler]

Pro DAT machines often gave error rate. The consumer versions (the ones loaded with SCMS) would not have it as standard, but on some you could get it if you knew which buttons to push.

I shall now go and think of a way to trim sharp edges off DAT tapes. It'll be the way I make my fortune.

[DonaldStott]

Originally Posted by Valvepower

Much like The Infinite Improbability Drive [from Hitchhikers Guide] give your audio system a fresh cup of really hot tea ... and turn it on! And hey presto audio nirvana

In a similar way, my partner decided to inadvertently spill a full mug of hot milky tea over three vinyl LPs that I had recently purchased. The tea seemed to dissolve some of the glue and ink from the covers which flowed into the grooves making the vinyl unrecoverable and therefore unplayable - audio nirvana?

[The Philpott]

-Talking of glue, there is (or was) a craze for cleaning vinyl by spinning it on a turntable and applying wood glue, then peeling it off, hopefully with any dirt attached. A marketing opportunity for overpriced 'special glue' i would have thought, in line with the subject of this thread.

Dave