WatHifi: Best of reviews of $xxxx audiophile cables and parts | Hacker News Reader

WatHifi: Best of reviews of $xxxx audiophile cables and parts

wathifi.tumblr.com

15 pointsDiabloD34 comments

Open articleView on HN

I'm guessing that the sellers of these components fall into 2 categories: scammers, and well-intentioned people who misunderstand the technology and physics behind it. I like to think that they mostly fall into the latter category, but that may be wishful thinking on my part.

As an aside, it can be very difficult to run a true unbiased audio experiment. From http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html :

"The Digital Challenge - More on ABX Testing[1], tells a fascinating story of a specific listening test conducted in 1984 to rebut audiophile authorities of the time who asserted that CDs were inherently inferior to vinyl. The article is not concerned so much with the results of the test (which I suspect you'll be able to guess), but the processes and real-world messiness involved in conducting such a test. For example, an error on the part of the testers inadvertently revealed that an invited audiophile expert had not been making choices based on audio fidelity, but rather by listening to the slightly different clicks produced by the ABX switch's analog relays!"

[1] http://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/bas_speaker/abx_testing2.h...

"Harris thought the Hitachi sounded very ethereal, almost out of phase, and rated it lowest; the Seagate was sharper with a more thumpy bass, slightly brighter with a slight tendency to sibilance. Both lacked much drive in presenting the Madonna track, and were certainly ‘mushy’ […]

If the Kingston SSD stood apart from the disk drives for its mostly good yet quite alien character, drive four made itself known for entirely the wrong reasons. This Corsair drive (another SSD) conspicuously highlighted vocal sibilants, and had a hard, relentless quality that was impossible to miss." - http://www.enjoythemusic.com/hificritic/vol5_no3/listening_t...

This hands down beats anything I have ever read on the internet. The bliss of walking through life this stupid must be wonderful. I struggle to grasp how these guys can put their pants on let alone function what are quite possibly full and rewarding lives. Con artists?

I met one guy who was essentially a audiophile zealot. He had a ton of money, very little knowledge but it was like a game to him. He spend something close to a quarter million dollars on his NYC apartment's audiophile system. He described how the engineers "specially tuned" the wi-fi so that he could maintain the right fidelity.

To make it absolutely clear, the owner of this tumblr finds this stuff hilarious and doesn't believe a word of it.

In the context of audiophile grade hardware, magical parts in your digital pipeline (USB, toslink, CPUs, hard drives, etc) cannot make things sound better or worse, magical parts before your power input stage (power cables, fuses, etc) cannot make things sound better due to the AC->DC filtering stage, and magical audio interconnect cables (RCA, 3.5mm/6.3mm, etc) cannot make things sound better by paying $xxxx for a $25 or less part.

Want perfect stereo RCA cables? http://www.monoprice.com/Category?c_id=120&cp_id=12004&cs_id...

Want perfect 3.5mm cables? http://www.monoprice.com/Category?c_id=120&cp_id=12004&cs_id...

Want perfect digital coax, mono RCA, and subwoofer cables? http://www.monoprice.com/Category?c_id=120&cp_id=12004&cs_id...

Want perfect bare speaker wire? http://www.monoprice.com/Category?c_id=102&cp_id=10239&cs_id...

(I'd stick with AmazonBasics for HDMI and Toslink, and Anker for USB though, Monorpice's current gen of those suck).

And just think: Monoprice is still marking these up to make a huge profit.

And what are these $xxxx-tier companies selling? These. They are selling these. Standard thick copper /w good interconnects. Parts that took 50 cents to make.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com