Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil

lololololol

"The very best sound was obtained when I slightly loosened the screws on the Duplex Covers. And they sound great!!.

8]

lolololol

every product on the site is like New Hope for the Ape-Eared

i love that website! check out this fancy table: http://machinadynamica.com/machina25.htm

it's supposed to isolate your amplifier from vibrations, "especially the 0 -10 Hz variety produced by Earth's crust movement, traffic, subways, tides, etc. "

how a spring could cancel out waves slower than 1 Hz?

but the best is this "teleportation tweak"
http://machinadynamica.com/machina60.htm

everything on there is great but I'm still standing by the Tru-Tone Duplex cover as the most balls-out

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_12_3/marigo-labs-signature-3d-mat-7-2005.html

oh wait though codename turquoise is pretty fucking rad

Brilliant Pebbles is my favorite one on that site i think

From cidepress' link, this was amusing:

"Where most audiophiles would agree, however, is that tweaks are a minor aspect of system building. Defined by the dictionary in Microsoft Word® as "a slight adjustment or change in..."

italics mine.

http://machinadynamica.com/water.gif for brains

Somewhere, audiophile dude pushes the leather sofa away from the wall, sees four-socket outlet, shrieks.

Well, these are great, but you don't have to spend a lot of money to improve sound:

http://www.belt.demon.co.uk/Free_Techniques/Free_Techniques.html

Holy shit the Teleportation Tweak! We are dealing with <i>balls</i> here, gentlemen. Big, round, shiny balls, of finest brass, lovingly hand-polished to a mirror shine by a taskforce of brilliant Sound Artisans. These balls can be yours for the astonishingly low price of $680 (Big Shiny Brass Balls are not subject to our 30-day money-back guarantee)

it doesn't actually take any courage to be a con man, is the thing. you just have to really, really hate everybody.

The interesting thing about these tweaks is that they abandon the pretense of scientific support. Whereas w/ feet for speaker stands in Stereophile or whatever they'll be some physicist explaining how the damping works, here's it's just like, Hey, put this magic clock in the room and it'll improve the sound. I love it.

Sorry, maybe I'm Billy-doesn't-get-it, but is this site real or an elaborate spoof?

I had initially assumed spoof, but I followed some links and poked around and it appears to be real, or at least elaborate enough a spoof to include three or four different sites. Stereophile had an article on some of these tweaks a few years ago anyway:

http://www.stereophile.com/news/10415/

even if it is a spoof there's certainly enough real snake-oil products with extremely similar purposes/explanations

here's a collection of some more: http://www.ilikejam.dsl.pipex.com/audiophile.htm

i know someone who swears by this ....
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=280182123367&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=018

"extremely flat"

I don't even know what "a richer, fuller sound, with less emphasis of detail" means. it's supposed to be a good thing?

My latest tweak = this chair;

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/Photo624.jpg

i'm actually buying a glass platter for my turntable. i might even buy that mat for it. i'm a sucka 4 luv.

actually the chair i'm assuming was a joke, but honestly i was suprised how much getting speaker stands and "correctly" positioning my chair i listen in and the speakers in the room made a HUGE difference in how good things sounded.

The chair's totally not a joke; it's expensive and comfortable and easily moved but it's not likely to make me fall asleep in it (no headrest); if I'm comfortable and awake, I can concentrate on listening more. I bought it (almost) with the sole intention of it being a 'headphones' chair.

But yeah, basic physics says position your speakers correctly and sit in the right spot; you simply don't get stereo-imaging without it.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/03/audiophiles-cant-tell-the-difference-between-monster-cable-and/

...a coat hanger.

that's AMAZING.
audiophiles are some weird people, man.

actually the chair i'm assuming was a joke, but honestly i was suprised how much getting speaker stands and "correctly" positioning my chair i listen in and the speakers in the room made a HUGE difference in how good things sounded.

-- M@tt He1ges0n, Thursday, December 13, 2007 11:39 PM

totally true

actually properly treating one's room acoustically would probably do a better job than moving your chair and speakers about

is there already a company selling audiophile interior house paint?

because if there is, I should start selling audiophile EXTERIOR house paint.

(xpost)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cb/Dbsts2.jpg

I was much, much less impressed with this enormous fucking Naim set-up than I should have been given how much it ought to have cost. Sure it went LOUD, but sound-wise I wouldn't swap it for my own system, I don't think.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/IMG_0126.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/IMG_0128.jpg

Is it just perspective on that first photo, or are your speakers nearly at shoulder height?

Oh, no - is that a Cyrus CD player? Or tuner? And why isn't everything on Mana shelves? That's why it doesn't sound that good. And has it been on continuously for five years? Another biggie with Naimists. (Seriously, that doesn't look like a great room for those huge - and amazingly ugly - speakers).

What's the turntable - Nottingham Spacedek or something? Oracle Delphi?

mp3s out a old marantz amp someone gave me and 15 y/o bottom of the line cambridge soundworks speakers all day babay

although i did love to read sudiophile magazines when i worked at a bookstore just for the lulz

The speakers are nearly to chest height - I'm 5'8".

The Cyrus is just a DAC for his wireless streaming thing. Dunno what the turntable is. The room is big but odd; it's a loft that used to be three bedrooms. There's a (low) double bed behind the speakers, plus a desk, which is where I slept (not the desk) (although that picture was taken at 6am so sleeping wasn't exactly urgent and key that weekend).

Yeah, I really wish someone had just given me a peek into my co-habiting/flat in communal block/married-with-kids future when I was handing over the moolah for all my gear in 1996-97. I wish I'd just got something good/2nd-hand with a small footprint (Cyrus CD/integrated, ProAc speakers, something like that; maybe a Pro-Ject record deck, old Marantz cassette deck, NAD tuner, cables from Maplin) and STOPPED there. Think of all the photographic gear I could've bought with the money saved if I'd just contracted that particular hobbyist bug a decade earlier!

(Ah, DAC for wireless streaming; the Naim box-stacking is kinda insane - external power supplies for everything. Makes my Audiolab pre/mono arrangement look positively understated).

The speakers are Naim DBLs. They weigh about 15st each. Retail these days at £15k. When he got them, in 2000, they should have been £12k. He got them for £4k cos they were "shop-soiled" - the band he's in had an arrangement with Naim and they'd been using them as a playback set-up when they recorded an album in a country house, and the guitarist's dog had taken a bite out of the bottom corner of one, or something.

I'm kind of glad I've had a brush with stuff that's seriously high-end because it's warned me off a bit. Our flat's not that small, but it's a flat nonetheless, and, you know, I want stuff on the walls and holidays and a new camera and stuff maybe too.

I think my main response to audiophilia these days is that the best way to make your hi-fi sound great is to play better records on it.

actually properly treating one's room acoustically would probably do a better job than moving your chair and speakers about

How so?

the best way to make your hi-fi sound great is to play better records on it.

b i n g o

if anyone is looking for really great speakers that won't break your bank....i bought these about a year ago and couldn't be more pleased with them...they are really surprising given the price and size:

Epos ELS 3 mini monitors:

http://www.musicdirect.com/product/73457

i run them with a Cambridge Audio integrated amp w/Cambridge phono pre-amp.....

My turntable is a Rega P1 -- one thing on that i would recommend is buying a glass platter and also i replaced the original ortofon cartridge with a Denon DL 160 cartridge which is a fucking amazing cartridge for the price...

For CD player I run a really really old NAD one that I got off craigslist for $35...it works pretty well, has a hard time tracking CD-Rs but will play them after awhile (it's from 87 though so I guess there weren't even CD-Rs then)

Post more pics of slobs in garrets seasoned with with ridiculous sound systems and ugly furniture.

I really like the coffee table.

I think my favourite way / place to listen to music these days, rather than the big sofa and NAD / Cambridge Audio / Tannoy / proper rack & stands set-up in the living room, with everything anchored in a nice triangle, blah blah, equidistant from rear walls, speakers toed in, is the hotch-potch system in the back room, with the knackered Marantz CD, 20-year-old Marantz amp, DAC, and diddy Q Acoustics speakers. Cos I have space, peace, my comfy chair, books, headphones, no TV or console to distract.

Those are the kind of speakers you buy to justify having previously bought Monster Cable.

What's the sensitivity rating on those things? It might be all show, but they certainly look like they could bring on an involuntary bowel movement.

considering getting the Aja and Gaucho UHQRs

nice

when I tested out turntables, I brought that Gastr Del Sol 7" on Teenbeat, a Thelonious Monk promo press of piano solo work, and a couple other things I forget

I will admit on my fancy stereos a lot of the low-fi indie stuff just sounds terrible, I should get a DSP for my amps that has a setting for mid-90s compact car stereo

Changed my turntable order to a technics 1200 with an AT VM540ML

sweet. nothing like a bombproof setup

xp - a fine combo. Took me a wee while to alight on the same Technics/540ML combo but very happy with it.

not EXACTLY snake oil but some pretty dicey claims being made in this NYT article (gift link) about Acoustic Sounds in Kansas.

“I mean, you put on a CD and even dogs leave the room,” Kassem grumbled, tucked in a booth at the restaurant where he once slinged short stacks. “I’ve never cried listening to a CD. I’ve never gotten goose bumps listening to a CD. But it happens sometimes listening to an album.

also, "slung" short stacks, wtf, slung is past tense of sling

acoustic sounds has a bogus restocking fee

regardless of anything else, but seeing the acoustic sounds collection is pretty cool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI2t7ZDjpIs

was shopping for a replacement stylus and was struck by this bullet point:
● Nude Conical diamond for raw fidelity, emphasizes musical content unperplexed by air

lol good one

this

all those audiophile try-out records are actually pretty hopeless as a reference because they sound good on anything

plus this

will admit on my fancy stereos a lot of the low-fi indie stuff just sounds terrible

is kind of why I love trying out different speakers with the most amateurish 4-tracky bedroom DIY indie stuff I enjoy — you get entire weirdly mixed parts that vanish on some speakers or are suddenly audible on other ones. I often kind of like the increased terribleness on better gear, where you can hear a little deeper into the amateurism. Plus occasionally you're listening to a song you've loved for 20 years and you're like "wait, this has drums on it?"

lol

getting grouper’s AIA alien observer on vinyl was a critical turning point in my vinyl disillusionment journey, hey wow this costs more and sounds worse! and is actively irritating to listen to

oof

play yr indie records through a lil tubey fender amp, it’ll sound dope

These days I listen to everything through a preset called "PA system at an empty shopping mall"

getting grouper’s AIA alien observer on vinyl was a critical turning point in my vinyl disillusionment journey, hey wow this costs more and sounds worse! and is actively irritating to listen to

this was actually the only album i've ever purchased in order to flip. i'm sorry

i respect that life choice

I don't know that I've come across much DIY stuff that feels genuinely irritating on nicer systems? Unless you're digging into some real hand-to-hand cassette-culture stuff, most all of it will have run through some mastering on the way to release, which should catch any truly catastrophic stuff, like awful noises or painful EQs the artist couldn't hear while mixing on a broken speaker in a basement or whatever. I'm normally noticing ... extreme high- or low-end content the artist probably didn't realize was quite so pronounced, parts EQed so narrow or eccentrically that they stick out on one system and vanish on another, parts that normally mask or blur into one another but suddenly separate and clarify on nice gear, hi-hats that can never find a realistic spot for themselves, stuff like that. I guess sometimes this gets "clinical" and reduces what used to feel like a cohesive recording into a disorganized pile of awkwardly mushed-together tracks, but if that were a huge problem for me I probably wouldn't love this kind of music so much in the first place.

> unperplexed by air

definately the title of next Shackleton/Zimpel collab

I watched that Tweedy thing about his guitars and he described the sound of one of his amps as “transparent” and I was like oh no you dint

It’s weird, “transparent” is immediately evocative to me of a particular sound quality I struggle to describe otherwise. I can see how it would irritate the crap out of a nonbeliever but there is a pretty obvious analogy to its visual usage. Details are distinct, but aren’t necessarily neutrally presented (may be coloured/EQed, have some phase effects). Same with looking through a block of plastic, there are degrees of transparency.

Apart from audiophile definitions, when I think of "transparent guitars", I think very clear, clean, bright, maybe even glassy, possibly enhanced by effects like chorus, the opposite of thick or midrange-y. For a whole song to sound "transparent" to me, it would be very clear, detailed, lots of separation between individual instruments, lean towards bright and airy as opposed to lots of thick mids and low mids.

"Transparent" is more often used in guitar-world to mean something doesn't color the sound passing through it. Like a "transparent boost" or "transparent overdrive" pedal is advertising that it boosts or adds grit without otherwise changing the character of the original sound. (Unlike other pedals, which would have their own unique colorations or EQ shifts that you might like.)

he talks about Roland Jazz Chorus if it's the same video I saw. Which.... weird amp for him, but those could be described as transparent. They're definitely uncolored, which is... itself a color? I'd say chorus tones are "colored"? But the amp itself is very very neutral.

yeah some audiophiles talk about their ideal amplifier as being a "wire with gain" i.e. it transmits the source material with as little 'coloration' as possible. good to know that there's a lot of overlap between the audiophiles and whatever the term is for people who are obsessed with guitar pedals xp

Agree the Roland is strange for him, prob the last amp I’d expect him to play though

Also disagree with calling it transparent, it should be renamed Super Treble Kicker

well that would require you first admitting you have an idea what 'transparent' refers to

Roland Jazz Chorus is pretty close to the guitar sound I was describing above. I can't really say whether it is correct to call it "transparent" or not.

xps “tone attorneys” is the term of choice

Carr Mercury - Holy Grail of Tone - 800 (Lino Lakes)

I will say, as a listener, I definitely appreciate a good guitar tone, thinking of u David Roback RIP

I also understand the desire for gain that doesn't change the timbre or anything else when you turn it up

“tone attorneys” is the term of choice

"shields" imo

Judge Audiophile Guitarist

J. Mascis on transparent overdrives - ‘Why would I want a pedal that doesn’t sound like anything?’

It's just a wet/dry knob turned nearly all the way to dry, isn't it?

was shopping for a replacement stylus and was struck by this bullet point:
● Nude Conical diamond for raw fidelity, emphasizes musical content unperplexed by air

https://www.yankodesign.com/2025/04/07/beosound-balance-natura-speaker-stands-on-a-stunning-stone-pedestal/

each speaker showcases either luminous quartz or 160-million-year-old petrified wood, materials that tell a geological story while supporting cutting-edge audio technology. The result is not merely a speaker but a sculptural centerpiece that commands attention even when silent.

Beyond its visual impact, the pedestal design serves a crucial acoustic function by positioning the speaker at its optimal height for sound distribution. This marriage of form and function typifies Bang & Olufsen’s approach to product development, where aesthetic considerations never compromise audio performance.

I prefer their speakers encased in a 14" thick block of granite, I hate compromises in visual impact when it comes to audio

Speakers should be on motorized stands that track your ear height and adjust accordingly.

This should come with the Hounds of Love pink-grey marble LP.

i can't just let "sculptural centerpiece" slide. quality bullschitt here.

LOL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cCq7qnDhlU

A man possessed of great wisdom.

idgi, is he saying that vinyl sounds worse than CDs/streaming? it kind of depends, doesn’t it?

Seems like he’s just saying it’s less accurate in terms of fidelity to the master.