The Audiophoolery Thread.

[Craig Sawyers]

I looked at sold listings to see how many were selling at that price. The top one was a Nakamichi Dragon that went for £2,500. Now the Dragon was the impossibly expensive deck back in the day. The one that everyone, including me wished we could even remotely afford Manufactured from 1982 to 1993 it was £2,500 in 1982 - so about £10k in today's money. I was pretty well paid back then, but it represented four month's gross salary. Totally unaffordable.

So whether or not the cassette is a dead technology, I can see people with deep pockets aspiring to one of these.

[Radio Wrangler]

Far out of my reach, too. So I settled for a JVC and convinced myself that it wouldn't be terribly inferior due to the law of diminishing returns. In fact it seemed fine. Anything important went on the A77. The bigger tape format and higher speed gives an advantage that is very expensive to try to keep up with, and may be impossible at any price.

Do you spend £10,000 tuning your 1000cc engine to the limit or do you just buy a 2000cc one? Things pushed so hard tend to become fragile and rather touchy.

But nowadays it's the price of fashion and exclusivity that's at play.

David

[ms660]

Just a word on sold listings on some auction sites.....that might be the hammer price but it's not sold unless the seller receives the dosh, and many times that does not happen but the listing will still show it as sold.

Lawrence.

[knobtwiddler]

My take on the price of cassette decks is that it's, on the whole, not an audiophool phenomenon. Although the prices are outrageous (and as previous post suggests - a lot of them will.be going for less) and I wouldn't pay them personally, I can understand why they are high. The fact is that these machines will never be made again. The tooling would be prohibitive for such a small niche. I've heard rumours that a couple of OEMs are said to be releasing new decks - but I doubt they will have the wizardry Nak introduced, such as auto azimuth adjustment, memory for bias settings - or the crazy mechanism that flipped the tape manually (new ones might work well, though - no reason to suspect not).

Back in the 80s OEMs were engaged in an arms race - they don't call hifi from the era battleship for no good reason. Components such as plasma (Aries) and custom VFD displays would be difficult to make again, if not impossible. In short, replicating some of these decks is never going to happen. One that is in good nick, with its CNC- machined controls, 3 heads, 3 motors and pleasing display will always be desirable to a boomer who couldn't afford it 30 years ago. It wouldn't surprise me if many owners don't listen to them: preferring to watch the meters when playing vinyl or digital.

[cathoderay57]

Change of topic maybe, but I get increasingly irritated by statements on certain auction site adverts for valves where there seems to be an obsession with stating the type of getter. What the **** difference does it make?

[Station X]

Several £££'s!

[stevehertz]

Originally Posted by cathoderay57

Change of topic maybe, but I get increasingly irritated by statements on certain auction site adverts for valves where there seems to be an obsession with stating the type of getter. What the **** difference does it make?

I've seen ads where the seller has provided test results obtained on an Avo (or other) tester. The results are provided list style, one below the other, very official and 'correct' looking. But the results, to anyone who knows about valves expose the valves as being in poor condition! Of course, in the ad the seller says nothing in words about the valves being 'good', merely providing the test results to give 'the impression' that they are. So, an unsuspecting buyer receives the valve(s), they don't work very well, complains, and the seller just refers to the test results in the ad as being 100% correct. Good scam if you're that way inclined.

[ms660]

Originally Posted by cathoderay57

Change of topic maybe, but I get increasingly irritated by statements on certain auction site adverts for valves where there seems to be an obsession with stating the type of getter. What the **** difference does it make?

Some types were prone to falling off....affecting the performance, either a bit or a lot.

Seem to remember reading an article about getters and microphonics, I might have posted a link about that way back somewhere.

EDIT: Found it...make of it what you will:

https://www.effectrode.com/knowledge...investigation/

Lawrence.

[Radio Wrangler]

There are people there who are completely convinced that the shape of the getter, the colour of the writing and even the right cardboard box make HUGE differences to the sound.

What is more definite and is testable, is that money from them spends just as well as anyone else's. Consequently, a market has grown to service* their needs. The aficionados have woken up to the fact that they could be scammed by people swapping or faking boxes, that markings can be scrubbed off all to easily and re-printed in more valuable colours and logos.

The getter has the advantage that it's inside, visible, and protected from scammers.

Some people are so cloth-eared that they can't even tell that all the valves in their amplifier have smooth, round getters, but one had a rectangular plate. Ugh! Jarring sharp corners!

David

*maybe the meaning of 'service' is as the word is used on beef farms?

[stevehertz]

I just happened to say something on an online social media page embracing hifi mods about how ABX testing would prove/disprove a situation, scientific testing not being needed. Below is the brief encounter. It beggars belief that the guy really thinks that what he says makes any sense. See screengrab.

[julie_m]

Surely they are supposed to sound all the same? A good amplifier will sound the same as the original performance, and another good amplifier will sound the same as the first. (Although I've now got an image in my head of a hi-fi bore complaining about the "unnatural and over-processed, obviously digital" sound of a string quartet playing live .....)

What we obviously need to do is create a new kind of switch box, one that specifically does not exert any influence of its own over the sound of whatever devices it is switching into play; so that a particular amplifier will sound exactly the same irrespective whether it be connected via the switch box or directly. We probably also need our improved switch box to incorporate multiple layers of electrostatic, electromagnetic and optical shielding (with an optional future upgrade to include gravitational shielding as and when suitable, safe techniques are developed) so as not to allow any of the devices connected to it to exert any influence over any of the other devices connected to it, in order to rule out any sympathetic effects going on.

[John_BS]

This sort of thing has been going on for several decades.

I think there must have been a convening of Hi-Fi writers back in the mid-80's as CD players started to become popular. How could you review a CD player which had such exemplary engineering performance and say anything other than "it sounds perfect"? (ditto any reasonable amp).

So, the industry fell back to subjective testing /assessment. But then came the inevitable challenge from the engineers: double-blind testing. How to rebutt? One answer was the one given by your Mr Gruber: the introduction of the necessary additional hardware masks the subtle imperfections we're hoping to audition.

These people should join the flat earth society and use their talents to really good effect.

[mole42uk]

Originally Posted by julie_m

We <snip> need our improved switch box to incorporate multiple layers of electrostatic, electromagnetic and optical shielding <snip> so as not to allow any of the devices connected to it to exert any influence over any of the other devices connected to it, in order to rule out any sympathetic effects going on.

That is pretty much the design specification for much of the BBC engineering devices over the past few decades!

[Radio Wrangler]

Originally Posted by julie_m

We probably also need our improved switch box to incorporate multiple layers of electrostatic, electromagnetic and optical shielding (with an optional future upgrade to include gravitational shielding as and when suitable, safe techniques are developed) so as not to allow any of the devices connected to it to exert any influence over any of the other devices connected to it, in order to rule out any sympathetic effects going on.

Somewhat impossible, I fear. One piece of apparatus will definitely see another because the switch box is connecting them together. Unless a buffer amplifier is included to provide directional isolation whatever is doing the driving will see the input characteristic of whatever it's driving.

Put a buffer amp in and it's hard to say it has no influence. Besides the output of the buffer now sees the input of what is being driven as its load.

We wind up with a spiralling argument vanishing up its own exhaust-pipe.

Screening a straightforward switch to preclude external influences is a good idea, but it won't isolate the two items it's connecting from each other.

David

[Radio Wrangler]

Originally Posted by John_BS

These people should join the flat earth society and use their talents to really good effect.

I'm afraid so. There are conspiracy theories all around us. Flat Earth, moon landings a fake, MMR jabs cause children to grow three heads. And right now, people are burning down 5G phone masts.

The problem is that in our population there are enough people with strongly-held weird beliefs to support all these things. Being loud trumps being right.

David

[stevehertz]

Originally Posted by julie_m

What we obviously need to do is create a new kind of switch box, one that specifically does not exert any influence of its own over the sound of whatever devices it is switching into play; so that a particular amplifier will sound exactly the same irrespective whether it be connected via the switch box or directly. We probably also need our improved switch box to incorporate multiple layers of electrostatic, electromagnetic and optical shielding (with an optional future upgrade to include gravitational shielding as and when suitable, safe techniques are developed) so as not to allow any of the devices connected to it to exert any influence over any of the other devices connected to it, in order to rule out any sympathetic effects going on.

Surely the simpler the better? A high quality, multiple pole, rotary, gold plated contacts switch would enable different pieces of equipment to be switched around as required. On the other hand you could go for this: https://avahifi.com/products/abx-switch-comparator

Whatever, it's clearly one of the ploys of the audiophool to debunk ABX testing, so they just carp on forever and a day about how the box affects the results! Just read here how it affects the audiophool and their shallow, irrational reasons for not liking it. The really funny one is, in the first post the guy says, "The truth is that much of the time in blind testing I cannot discern the difference between two competing pieces (e.g. pre or convertor) with any confidence level of significance or repeatability. When I know which is which, I can clearly hear the difference but the introduction of blind random testing reveals just how strong confirmation bias is for me. https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-m...your-life.html They just don't associate themselves not being able to hear a difference with the fact that they can't, really and truly, simply, identify the difference! It beggars belief!

As we all know it is a "Bode of Lollocks" funnily enough I had to spell lollocks with a "b" to make sure I got it right.

[Radio Wrangler]

There's nothing we can do about it. These people have absolute beliefs and will defend them to the death. Facts aren't allowed to intrude, nor is any form of doubt. Once in, they have no way out.

Compared to them, we have immense freedoms to roam across all sorts of equipment and genres of music. We can allow ourselves to listen to manky recordings of brilliant performances, we can build our own gear, and we don't have to memorise cult magazines in order to know what to say.

Ideally we should simply ignore them and get on with enjoying freedom, but who can avoid watching their antics and having a good chuckle? It's like watching youtube videos of people piling-up supercars.

Somewhere, in all the hifi world are occasional oases of calm, common sense, and logic. Nice restful watering-holes. I found one the other day with that interview of a very good speaker designer.

David

[Ted Kendall]

There was a Quad advert a while ago which ran :

"An ideal amplifier has been described as "a piece of wire with gain". A piece of wire? First it would hum, so we'd have to screen it. This would introduce capacitance, so we'd have to make the screening large or the conductor small... and if of appreciable length we'd have inductance and termination problems as well. All in all, a Quad 303 would be much simpler. The funny thing is, if we compared a 303 to our straight piece of wire, the two would sound exactly
the same, no matter how carefully we listened."

[Craig Sawyers]

The interesting thing is that Quad did not listen to their products. Perhaps the speakers during development, but not the electronics.

Donkey's years ago, a University friend went to work at Quad, and when I moved to Cambridge at that time he took me on a Quad visit. I spent quite a while taking to the late great Mike Albinson. I was interested to hear his views on the sound quality of the products he developed. "No - never listen to them. Not that interested really - I'd much rather tinker with my motor bike".

So they pretty much went with measurements and appearance when launching a product.

I did get a good introduction on how they laid out circuit boards. Mike would tape them up at x4, and blue tak it onto the end of a Dexion rack. That faced a toilet door, with a camera lens screwed into a hole in it. So on a sunny day, Mike would go into the loo and tape a bit of board to the opposite wall to the lens. Total magnification was x1/4. Off came the lens cap, and he'd sit there for a rough length of time and then develop and etch the board.

Once he'd got the design right, he'd send the x4 to the board house for manufacture. 33/303, FM3, FM4, 34 and 44 were all done like that. Which is why they are all single sided boards.

Craig