5 ms·

These charlatans sell a $10,000 "Active Ground Block" complete with a 5 day long burn in process. https://www.synergisticresearch.com/power/accessories/galileo

by MertsA 5y ago

These charlatans sell a $10,000 "Active Ground Block" complete with a 5 day long burn in process. https://www.synergisticresearch.com/power/accessories/galileo-sx-ground-block/ https://www.synergisticresearch.com/power/accessories/galile... Just when I think I've seen the peak of Audiophile stupidity some "entrepreneur" comes along and raises the bar yet again. This isn't even an isolated grounding system, it's just tying a piddly little ground bar to the regular electrical ground through the power cord through some B.S. filters that have no chance of doing anything even remotely useful. I'm amazed that no one involved is being prosecuted for fraud. How is such a substantial chunk of people delusional enough to fall for all this HiFi garbage? It's like finding someone in their 40s who still believes Santa Claus is real. No, your analog Rube Goldberg sound system does not sound better than a half-decent DAC playing an MP3 on $30 headphones, you're just incapable of rational thought.

xwdv 5y ago
Often times when people reach the endgame of a hobby the desire to spend more money still lingers. You can make good money selling high priced niche products to these people to satisfy their craving.
BeFlatXIII 5y ago
There are audible differences between HiFi equipment and $30 headphones. Once you get above $300 headphones, that's when it's mostly marketing woo.
- klodolph 5y ago
  It's not mostly marketing woo. Diminishing returns, yes. Marketing woo, no. When I make a song, I spend a lot of time listening for specific, subtle changes. Like I might be adjusting the EQ of a rhythm guitar in a mix by a couple dB, and trying to balance it with the hi hats. Making those kinds of decisions in a full mix, you'll notice lots of deficiencies in headphones that are supposedly high-quality reference headphones. If you look at measured frequency response for headphones, even high end headphones, you'll see that the frequency response curves can really be all over the place. That's not even considering transient response (where you'd want to look at a waterfall graph). IMO, headphone amps and DACs are where the real marketing woo is.
  - hiptobecubic 5y ago
    Yes, but then it gets streamed through Spotify or something to a 40 year old with diminished hearing acuity.
    - klodolph 5y ago
      Spotify's audio fidelity is quite good. It uses AAC or Vorbis at decent bitrates... depending on network connection, but on a reasonable connection, you're going to get something very near to transparent, if not completely transperent. 40 is also not so old, when you are talking about hearing acuity. Meanwhile, you can see from frequency response curves, that high-end headphones might even be off by 5 dB in the high mids, something that should be audible even to 40-year-olds listening to Spotify over a congested network link.
      - AstralStorm 5y ago
        There's also the fit/refit variability so you cannot quite just correct some of them and call it a day. Plus the cheaper/worse quality products have resonances and other rather audible deficiencies not related to frequency response. (But visible to waterfall diagram or some temporal charts.)
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
    Fully agree about the DACs being the #1 spot for marketing woo. The key to navigating expensive headphone purchases is to find which ones are expensive because they're worth it and which are expensive because of the marketing.
- AstralStorm 5y ago
  Transducers, usually not, but there is a lot of side grades at the top. Most amplifiers it does apply to, kind of depending on the headphones. (There exist a few that are absolute monsters to drive.)
l1tany11 5y ago
I went to an audio show. “The show”. Complete waste of time. Only good thing I saw there was the $350 bottle of snake oil! https://highfidelitycables.com/products/nps-1260 https://highfidelitycables.com/products/nps-1260 “Through magnetic conduction, NPS-1260 works on a micro-level to bind the electrons in your connectors, improve their transfer of energy, and direct the current more fluidly. Put simply, NPS-1260 strengthens the chains that make your system, so you’ll have no weak links. As a result, you end up with a system that has higher clarity, less distortion, and better imaging.” So amazing.
BrandoElFollito 5y ago
I know nothing about HiFi (I use Spotify, just to set the bar) but even with a literal PhD in physics I could barely understand b what was on that page. There is something about fluid frequencies, holographic frequencies and green frequencies. The kind of frequencies we do not hear about at school. Together with the gold something digital transmitters of sampled signal (I think they mean HDMI) I am out.

by MertsA 5y ago

xwdv 5y ago

Often times when people reach the endgame of a hobby the desire to spend more money still lingers. You can make good money selling high priced niche products to these people to satisfy their craving.

BeFlatXIII 5y ago

There are audible differences between HiFi equipment and $30 headphones. Once you get above $300 headphones, that's when it's mostly marketing woo.

klodolph 5y ago
It's not mostly marketing woo. Diminishing returns, yes. Marketing woo, no. When I make a song, I spend a lot of time listening for specific, subtle changes. Like I might be adjusting the EQ of a rhythm guitar in a mix by a couple dB, and trying to balance it with the hi hats. Making those kinds of decisions in a full mix, you'll notice lots of deficiencies in headphones that are supposedly high-quality reference headphones. If you look at measured frequency response for headphones, even high end headphones, you'll see that the frequency response curves can really be all over the place. That's not even considering transient response (where you'd want to look at a waterfall graph). IMO, headphone amps and DACs are where the real marketing woo is.
- hiptobecubic 5y ago
  Yes, but then it gets streamed through Spotify or something to a 40 year old with diminished hearing acuity.
  - klodolph 5y ago
    Spotify's audio fidelity is quite good. It uses AAC or Vorbis at decent bitrates... depending on network connection, but on a reasonable connection, you're going to get something very near to transparent, if not completely transperent. 40 is also not so old, when you are talking about hearing acuity. Meanwhile, you can see from frequency response curves, that high-end headphones might even be off by 5 dB in the high mids, something that should be audible even to 40-year-olds listening to Spotify over a congested network link.
    - AstralStorm 5y ago
      There's also the fit/refit variability so you cannot quite just correct some of them and call it a day. Plus the cheaper/worse quality products have resonances and other rather audible deficiencies not related to frequency response. (But visible to waterfall diagram or some temporal charts.)
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  Fully agree about the DACs being the #1 spot for marketing woo. The key to navigating expensive headphone purchases is to find which ones are expensive because they're worth it and which are expensive because of the marketing.
AstralStorm 5y ago
Transducers, usually not, but there is a lot of side grades at the top. Most amplifiers it does apply to, kind of depending on the headphones. (There exist a few that are absolute monsters to drive.)

l1tany11 5y ago

I went to an audio show. “The show”. Complete waste of time. Only good thing I saw there was the $350 bottle of snake oil! https://highfidelitycables.com/products/nps-1260 https://highfidelitycables.com/products/nps-1260 “Through magnetic conduction, NPS-1260 works on a micro-level to bind the electrons in your connectors, improve their transfer of energy, and direct the current more fluidly. Put simply, NPS-1260 strengthens the chains that make your system, so you’ll have no weak links. As a result, you end up with a system that has higher clarity, less distortion, and better imaging.” So amazing.

BrandoElFollito 5y ago

I know nothing about HiFi (I use Spotify, just to set the bar) but even with a literal PhD in physics I could barely understand b what was on that page. There is something about fluid frequencies, holographic frequencies and green frequencies. The kind of frequencies we do not hear about at school. Together with the gold something digital transmitters of sampled signal (I think they mean HDMI) I am out.