High End Audio Bullshit!

[djg]

I think speakers need guns.

I don't get that, but how's this?

[chad1376]

Yay - an internet fight! Now I have to keep checking back to see if this escalates, or if the thread gets locked.

[r-carpenter]

I think speakers need guns.

[craigk]

Want to become an audiophile? Cut a small hole in your pants pocket, just large enough for a marble to slip through. Fill that pocket with marbles. Go for a walk. One by one the marbles will fall though the hole. When you've lost all your marbles, congratulations! You are now an audiophile!

I have listened to a few of your designs, we can agree, you are not an audiophile.

[craigk]

Lmfao!

If that made you " lmfao" you need to get out more.

[billfitzmaurice]

Mike is not alone, many others still defend those charlatans.

Want to become an audiophile? Cut a small hole in your pants pocket, just large enough for a marble to slip through. Fill that pocket with marbles. Go for a walk. One by one the marbles will fall though the hole. When you've lost all your marbles, congratulations! You are now an audiophile!

[kenny_k]

Lmfao!

[fpitas]

I will never understand why people spend so much time "disproving" and "debunking" this hot garbage in a dumpster fire.

Imagine the progress that can be made in terms of musical enjoyment if people focused on enjoying the music, and coming to their own conclusions on what matters and what does not based upon their own research into what may be right for them?

I have heard many systems that are designed with some serious belief in pure voodoo that sound excellent. Who am I to judge? Even if they let me completely re-design their system from source to speaker from what I thought was good....Would it truly be "better" or just a same but different?

The further DACs advance the less SSD vs. Spinning disc becomes an issue.So was it the discs all along? Likely not... Newell and Holland have published several papers on the specta distortion that occurs when complex waveforms are sent through cables as related to the property of the cables. No one seems to ever cite those because it makes it hard to argue. $5,000 cables are not the answer for sure, however. Want a SPDIF to live with for the rest of your life? Go to Guitarded Center and spend $10 on a HOSA 1m SPDIF cable. I told a dandy once it was a $1,000 digital cable and put it in his very expensive system. He thought it was more enjoyable over his $2,000 Nordost thingy. When he found out what it was, it was funny to watch his mind unravel and he suddenly heard how "bad" the HOSA was. Good connectors, good quality materials, good construction of it all, and shelidling are about all it takes to keep small signals in check. That does not cost much.

I think people who are legitimately interested in high end audio as a hobby and a channel to enjoy the music have more at their disposal than ever. This is not the 90's anymore. Brilliant Pebbles, and cable lifters no longer entice since a quick google search will give any N00B the right information about such things.

It is more of the same, over and over. Haters are going to hate, and with the complexity and variables involved in just about every aspect of the audio chain, it is easy to fall victim to the Sharpshooter Fallacy: Clustering information to support an inherent belief and drawing the target around it. While there is a lot of phooey out there...Poppycock and even tomfoolery, there if a lot of good, too. Many companies pushing the bar forward like Vivid has in driver design, and Bricasti has in clock precision and DAC filtering, especially on the DSD side of things.These projects are expensive. It shows in their products, but like anything else, it will eventually become the norm. Is the cost of the incremental improvement worth it? Perhaps to us it is not, but can companies like Vivid and Bricasti afford to absorb the R&D cost over the years it takes to yield this result because Joe Youtuber thinks it should be cheap? No. Just the programming and software development alone for Bricasti's M1 was over $250,000, and that was 10+ years ago. Making a small change to release a more affordable product like their M3 still brings heavy prototype and R&D costs.That all ends up in the pricetag.

We cannot forget to give credit where credit is due, too. More importantly we cannot forget to enjoy the music. That's the end result, no? In recent years I have come to realize a big part of getting the most enjoyment from this hobby is keeping an open mind, but not so wide open your brain falls out. Buyer beware, question everything, but if along the way you happen across something you love...Love it regardless of what every one else thinks if it brings enjoyment to your listening experience.

Happy listening fellas.

Did you really spend all that time writing that just to tell us we think too much about it? The irony drips...

[johnnyrichards]

...and despite what you may have heard, Z didn't like his "magic exists" position challenged. Same reason he has flipped out here in the past. Some things never change.

If you want to join this so-called magic kingdom (we've never claimed it to be, our only rules are no politics, no religion, and don't be a d**k), I'll shoot an invite your way.

Also, commercial posts have their own space. They can shill there, I guess.

[johnnyrichards]

We gave our members invitation priveleges, incidentally. Maybe yours got lost in your spam folder, Squid.

Mike Z. is bona fide published reviewer, take everything he says with as many grains of salt as you would the clowns at 6Moons - or the rest of the closeted commercially sponsored "DIY"ers around here these days. Maybe right, maybe wrong - agenda is everything. I don't see people around here giving the same deference to Steve Gutenburg...

[craigk]

Squid/Craig,

Nice to hear from you fellas, and thank you. Squid, I will give you a call this weekend!

Its not about right/wrong, but there is interesting perspective out there. I have always had a lot of fun between learning, listening, designing, building, and engaging with others who love music as much as I. Beyond that, I do not really care. Being wrong is 1/2 the fun. Gives one an opportunity to learn, and the internet is not always the best place for doing so which was also a hard lesson!!! I will hold a belief, based on available data and experience, until it is proven otherwise... Then I will be happy to change it. If someone believes differently, That's ok too. Does not mean we both cannot shut our pie-holes and enjoy the gerddern music.

No matter, I am still building and regularly get out to shops and shows, and working with Positive Feedback Online has been such a humbling experience I am grateful for. I find that under the crusty layer of hot garbage, there is a gooey center to all things audio and people who really care about music reproduction, these are the people who do not have time to internet argue, and could care less about such things anyway because they are too busy trying to better the audio community at large.As for the other types... Well they just can't wait to make noise now can they? Funny what ultimately defines us...

It has been a hard several years for me. My work-life was way out of whack, but with a little effort and a whole lot of luck things are in a much better place so I figured I would peek in. People come and go, and cliques will be cliques, but there still should be some love for the hobby at large, and I am hoping to host something if not late fall, early spring. My new house has a decent sized dedicated listening room I plan on going unnecessarily overboard with so it would be nice to get some time in with old friends, and new faces! I noticed a lot of new names posting round' here.

Sorry to hijack this thread.... There are other forums, but this has always been a sort of a home for me.

Ok, I cannot leave without saying something audio related.

I recently used the new SB 3/4" Dimple dome with the 4" Tymphany/Vifa/WHatevertheirnameistoday NE123 and a pair of 10" paper ref's. The NE123 and Paper refs are well vetted, but the SB21RDC was a great find for $50. Measures beautifully, very laid back and extended sounding, and crossing as low as 2500 2nd order would be no issue for it. Cheers!

Glad things are looking up. Nice build too. I am sure it sounds great.

[mzisserson]

Squid/Craig,

Nice to hear from you fellas, and thank you. Squid, I will give you a call this weekend!

Its not about right/wrong, but there is interesting perspective out there. I have always had a lot of fun between learning, listening, designing, building, and engaging with others who love music as much as I. Beyond that, I do not really care. Being wrong is 1/2 the fun. Gives one an opportunity to learn, and the internet is not always the best place for doing so which was also a hard lesson!!! I will hold a belief, based on available data and experience, until it is proven otherwise... Then I will be happy to change it. If someone believes differently, That's ok too. Does not mean we both cannot shut our pie-holes and enjoy the gerddern music.

No matter, I am still building and regularly get out to shops and shows, and working with Positive Feedback Online has been such a humbling experience I am grateful for. I find that under the crusty layer of hot garbage, there is a gooey center to all things audio and people who really care about music reproduction, these are the people who do not have time to internet argue, and could care less about such things anyway because they are too busy trying to better the audio community at large.As for the other types... Well they just can't wait to make noise now can they? Funny what ultimately defines us...

It has been a hard several years for me. My work-life was way out of whack, but with a little effort and a whole lot of luck things are in a much better place so I figured I would peek in. People come and go, and cliques will be cliques, but there still should be some love for the hobby at large, and I am hoping to host something if not late fall, early spring. My new house has a decent sized dedicated listening room I plan on going unnecessarily overboard with so it would be nice to get some time in with old friends, and new faces! I noticed a lot of new names posting round' here.

Sorry to hijack this thread.... There are other forums, but this has always been a sort of a home for me.

Ok, I cannot leave without saying something audio related.

I recently used the new SB 3/4" Dimple dome with the 4" Tymphany/Vifa/WHatevertheirnameistoday NE123 and a pair of 10" paper ref's. The NE123 and Paper refs are well vetted, but the SB21RDC was a great find for $50. Measures beautifully, very laid back and extended sounding, and crossing as low as 2500 2nd order would be no issue for it. Cheers!

[craigk]

Now jazr, I have not been active on the forum for awhile, maybe the occasional compliment. I have not seen Mizzz post in a long time as most people that used to post here have gone onto other special butttt suck forums that you need an invite go to these days. Since Mike has been a friend/mentor since meeting him at Iron driver NYC and went to
his NE DIY gathering a couple years back that was awesome, he has been helping me with a design that is years in. So I was glad to see him post, hell I am glad to see old or
new post. I don't disagree with 96.6 % of your wisdom on issues but I was trying to reach out to MZZZ. Why spend your time on this forum when you have your Uber perfect no
BS forum that mere mortals cannot log into?

Well said.

[Squidspeak]

Not really wisdom. We should not be afraid to call BS. Mike is afraid to call BS. He sold out. His entire post is about respecting people advocating untenable positions. The "high end" crowd has to let that go.

Now jazr, I have not been active on the forum for awhile, maybe the occasional compliment. I have not seen Mizzz post in a long time as most people that used to post here have gone onto other special butttt suck forums that you need an invite go to these days. Since Mike has been a friend/mentor since meeting him at Iron driver NYC and went to
his NE DIY gathering a couple years back that was awesome, he has been helping me with a design that is years in. So I was glad to see him post, hell I am glad to see old or
new post. I don't disagree with 96.6 % of your wisdom on issues but I was trying to reach out to MZZZ. Why spend your time on this forum when you have your Uber perfect no
BS forum that mere mortals cannot log into?

[johnnyrichards]

Mike is not alone, many others still defend those charlatans.