The Audiophoolery Thread.

[Craig Sawyers]

Who can forget the infamous "friendly four legged stance device", the rainbow foils, or the morphic green cream?

Or indeed filing notches in mains plug pins.

Our own home bred complete audio madness is just not the same now he has shuffled off this mortal coil - and now purveying his special one drop liquid and morphic message foils beyond the pearly gates.

Craig

[Craig Sawyers]

All Belt's stuff is online. Here's his Quantum Clip. Basically a croc clip, soldered onto a bit of wire, and a nut soldered on the end of the wire. You are also provided with a pair of antistatic tweezers (like we use for handling static sensitive devices)

https://pwbelectronics.co.uk/wp-cont...antum-Clip.pdf

The price for this is (or was) £500

[stevehertz]

Originally Posted by Craig Sawyers

Who can forget the infamous "friendly four legged stance device", the rainbow foils, or the morphic green cream?

Or indeed filing notches in mains plug pins.

Our own home bred complete audio madness is just not the same now he has shuffled off this mortal coil - and now purveying his special one drop liquid and morphic message foils beyond the pearly gates.

Craig

Oh I don't know, there's some pretty good sellers of snake oil around.

[Beobloke]

Exciting new audiophoolery for your ethernet network. And it doesn't use PCBs - those evil, nasty, ruinous things!

I bet our sonic blacks will never have been inkier....

http://aardvark.com.ar/

[Jez1234]

Well indeed but in the frontispiece photo I'm more intrigued by the piece of wood with a hole in it the cable passes through! Is this to make it sound more organic one wonders. Yew wood have thought people wood twig this as a con instantly and the culprits wood be birched!

[Buzby123]

I thought Ethernet was already galvanically isolated, as every Ethernet card I've seen uses transformers to interface to the cable.

Am I missing something here ? Are there non-isolated Ethernet solutions somewhere ?

[Craig Sawyers]

Network isolators for Ethernet are often a requirement for medical applications to ensure operator and patient safety.

https://baaske-medical.com/isolators...net-isolation/

An alternative manufacturer from EMO systems https://www.mouser.co.uk/datasheet/2...20-1901131.pdf . There are not cheap at £189.50 from Mouser, but are very highly specified.

Thing is that you need four transformers for Ethernet

Craig

[Radio Wrangler]

Doesn't that lock them out from having directional cables?

David

[Craig Sawyers]

Looks like the Aardvaark network isolator is $449, so about twice the price of the EMO unit from Mouser (at current exchange).

I thought the audio-factor would be much higher than that!

Craig

[Radio Wrangler]

Need to fit one at each end? That might get the pricing factor nearer expectations.
;-)

Couple of small cores $1. Solder-through enamelled wire $1, Case $2, labour $5 overheads x5

Still plenty of margin. but I missed the unicorn widdle.

David

[Beardyman]

Found this little gem, they even explain how they think it works, shame on them!
There's even graphs!

https://www.lessloss.com/blackbody-p-200.html

[Craig Sawyers]

I tried going from page to page and almost lost the will to live.

What total tosh.

[Craig Sawyers]

Did you notice that these things are $836 each?

[Radio Wrangler]

I also noticed that in places they suggested daisy chaining several together.

David

[Craig Sawyers]

I wonder why? C-ching.

Craig

[Beobloke]

Originally Posted by Beardyman

Found this little gem, they even explain how they think it works, shame on them!
There's even graphs!

https://www.lessloss.com/blackbody-p-200.html

Well that’s it then - if there are graphs it must be genuine!

I’ve ordered 5 - 3 for the left channel and 2 for the right as my left channel is noisier.

[Radio Wrangler]

They're holding the white lab coats and heavy, black rimmed rectangular glasses in reserve in case their authority is challenged.

David

[Buzby123]

I did waste some time looking around the website. It does give a clue as to where some of the expense comes from.

The 'Less Loss' wires, the ones supposed to filter HF out, are quite complex to make. They are built using some kind of laser sintering. Very clever.

Whether this does make a difference to the sound depends on your belief.

[Jez1234]

It had to happen eventually I guess.... the mad hatters are holding a tea party over one of MY products now!

There's an MC only phono stage I make and which is a giant killer in its performance but powered by a "wall wart" type supply. Now the audiophools think these are the work of the devil and replacing them with something much more expensive and heavier (these seem the main criterion they judge things on in the absence of any technical knowledge) will transform the performance.

I've had many enquiries about "better" supplies and always told people not to waste their money as it will make no difference.

Surprise surprise some wag on one of the hi fi forums (yes I'm banned from it for saying stuff like I'm saying here now) has been "reliably informed" by some audiophool guru mate of his that the fact that the standard PSU has a ferrite core near to its entry point on the amplifier (standard EMC good practice) guarantees awful sound... and that the PSU needs to be rated for many amps in spite of the fact that the unit uses a voltage tripler and "floating ground" generator followed by 3 pin voltage regulators and draws around 50mA. The "wall wart" is simply a 12V AC transformer BTW. So... wait for it... his mate has made him a big heavy 12V AC transformer in a box and with no EMC precautions and yes it is now transformed to another level where it is one of the best amplifiers available at any price Guess what....? There's a queue of people who have one of my amps asking where they can buy one of these wonder PSU's.

The guy does say something like "if Jez is reading this he'll be cursing me and laughing at me as he insists it can't make any difference". He's not wrong on that one!

Well I think I'll offer an aftermarket PSU for it and charge £500 for it. It will be sold with a guarantee that it is a complete waste of money. Reginald Perrin and his "Grot" shops anybody??

[Beobloke]

I can’t comment on the specific case of your phono stage, Jez, but PSUs can often make a big difference to equipment, especially to amplification devices.

The biggest surprise I had recently in PSU terms was on a turntable I reviewed last year - a big, lovely, chunky German thing that was fantastic. Normally it was supplied with a 24Vdc wall wart but this was a limited edition model that was supplied with the manufacturer’s ‘upgrade’ linear 24Vdc PSU as standard, which normally retailed for £900 (bear in mind the deck retailed for £17,500!).

Well, the wall wart was still in the box so I tried both and the sonic differences were quite apparent - the upgrade PSU definitely made things better, especially in the bass. Now I realise that this is all subjective nonsense about which you will not care one jot, but what if I also tell you that, when it came to the measurements, the £900 PSU reduced the through-bearing rumble figure by nearly 6dB?

I wouldn’t dismiss PSU upgrades so readily, personally.