There’s a LOT of snake oil in the audio world. Especially home theater and home studio setups. I’m a professional audio technician, and some of the “audiophile” setups I have seen are just outright asinine.
Use balanced signal for runs over ~3 feet. Use the cheapest star-quad cable you can get, and the most basic $4 Neutrik connectors. Why? Because that album you’re using to test your “hi-fi” sound system was recorded using exactly that: Cheap ¢30/foot cable and basic Neutrik connectors.
It’s also what concert setups use. You think a concert with six combined miles of cabling is going to be paying $2000 per cable? Fuck no, they’re using the cheap shit (which was hand soldered in bulk at the warehouse workbench by their lowest paid shop tech), to run that million dollar audio system. Their money goes to the speakers, amps, and mixer; Not gold plated wire, robotic soldering, or triple insulated jackets. In double-blind tests, audiophiles can’t hear the difference between a $500 cable and a couple of plasti-dipped coat hangers twisted together.
The people who complain about digital audio also can’t tell the difference in double-blind tests. Because modern audio hardware is able to perfectly emulate old analog gear. Google the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem for a breakdown of how we can perfectly capture and recreate analog audio with digital equipment. Vacuum tubes were groundbreaking when they were first used. But they had a lot of issues, and have very little relevance in today’s systems. They’re prone to burning out, notoriously fragile, and can be emulated perfectly.
Also frequencies greater than half the sampling rate aren’t lost they fold into lower frequencies unless filtered out.
But if you think it’s easiser to capture those room acoustics with analog equipment the non linear amplification and distortion of any analog system is going to change the sound just add much if not more then a good digital system.
So yeah both lose or distort the signal but digital does it in avery predictable way that can be accounted for and it does have a frequency region that it captures precisely. Analog doesn’t.
Fucking Toslink: one round optical fiber in the middle, but it plugs in in only one position out of four, and you can’t feel which way the female connector is. EU should fine the assholes responsible.
Fully analog tube amps do definitely produce a warmer/richer sound with less complicated things to go wrong. Artists like them because they are reliable, generally user serviceable, (usually just need to replace bad/old tubes) and makes each recording sound relatively unique.
The thing is, is that it really only works during production. Unless being cut direct to a master record, the sound will get saved in a digital format to produce the user-facing media, which can include digital-source vinyls.
Those products marketed to audiophiles try to take the digitally recorded/archived products to “try” making it sound like the original.
I remember buying some bits and pieces to setup my home theatre in a new house years ago, and the guy at the store tried to sell me a $100 TOSLINK cable. When I asked why a $12 cable was going for so much, he pointed out that it was the “premium” cable, to ensure the highest quality audio.
I couldn’t stop laughing. Like their special cable scrubbed the photons before sending them or something.
Yes. I have a love-hate relationship with those people, as someone that does unrelated analog electrical stuff. On the one hand, it’s kinda cool that somebody made these crazy parts (and found someone dumb enough to pay for it). On the other, no that’s not what my search was about.
Everything marketed audiophiles, not only gold plated cables, but also anything that uses vacuum tubes because “they sound better”
There’s a LOT of snake oil in the audio world. Especially home theater and home studio setups. I’m a professional audio technician, and some of the “audiophile” setups I have seen are just outright asinine.
Use balanced signal for runs over ~3 feet. Use the cheapest star-quad cable you can get, and the most basic $4 Neutrik connectors. Why? Because that album you’re using to test your “hi-fi” sound system was recorded using exactly that: Cheap ¢30/foot cable and basic Neutrik connectors.
It’s also what concert setups use. You think a concert with six combined miles of cabling is going to be paying $2000 per cable? Fuck no, they’re using the cheap shit (which was hand soldered in bulk at the warehouse workbench by their lowest paid shop tech), to run that million dollar audio system. Their money goes to the speakers, amps, and mixer; Not gold plated wire, robotic soldering, or triple insulated jackets. In double-blind tests, audiophiles can’t hear the difference between a $500 cable and a couple of plasti-dipped coat hangers twisted together.
The people who complain about digital audio also can’t tell the difference in double-blind tests. Because modern audio hardware is able to perfectly emulate old analog gear. Google the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem for a breakdown of how we can perfectly capture and recreate analog audio with digital equipment. Vacuum tubes were groundbreaking when they were first used. But they had a lot of issues, and have very little relevance in today’s systems. They’re prone to burning out, notoriously fragile, and can be emulated perfectly.
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It’s Nyquist–Shannon. Norquist is taxes.
Also frequencies greater than half the sampling rate aren’t lost they fold into lower frequencies unless filtered out.
But if you think it’s easiser to capture those room acoustics with analog equipment the non linear amplification and distortion of any analog system is going to change the sound just add much if not more then a good digital system.
So yeah both lose or distort the signal but digital does it in avery predictable way that can be accounted for and it does have a frequency region that it captures precisely. Analog doesn’t.
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Frequency folding is the term used in DSP no need for quotes. The Nyquist frequency is commonly referred to as the folding frequency.
And yes frequencies above the Nyquist folding frequency alias into lower frequencies. A simple low pass filter prevents this however.
Properly filtered digital sampling produced a more accurate reproduction of the frequency range with less distortion then an analog signal.
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I was buying a toslink cable recently and I shit you not, there was a gold plated optical cable…
Fucking Toslink: one round optical fiber in the middle, but it plugs in in only one position out of four, and you can’t feel which way the female connector is. EU should fine the assholes responsible.
I 100% believe you.
Doesn‘t that defeat the entire purpose of Toslink cables ? The light can‘t go through gold?
The connector was gold plated. Not a golden wire.
I agree, but with one caveat.
Fully analog tube amps do definitely produce a warmer/richer sound with less complicated things to go wrong. Artists like them because they are reliable, generally user serviceable, (usually just need to replace bad/old tubes) and makes each recording sound relatively unique.
The thing is, is that it really only works during production. Unless being cut direct to a master record, the sound will get saved in a digital format to produce the user-facing media, which can include digital-source vinyls.
Those products marketed to audiophiles try to take the digitally recorded/archived products to “try” making it sound like the original.
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I remember buying some bits and pieces to setup my home theatre in a new house years ago, and the guy at the store tried to sell me a $100 TOSLINK cable. When I asked why a $12 cable was going for so much, he pointed out that it was the “premium” cable, to ensure the highest quality audio.
I couldn’t stop laughing. Like their special cable scrubbed the photons before sending them or something.
Yes. I have a love-hate relationship with those people, as someone that does unrelated analog electrical stuff. On the one hand, it’s kinda cool that somebody made these crazy parts (and found someone dumb enough to pay for it). On the other, no that’s not what my search was about.
The Guys podcast has a pretty fun episode about this.