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Topic: Fool's Gold (Read 41559 times) previous topic - next topic
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Fool's Gold

Reply #50 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote from: KozmoNaut on
As far as I see it, Steve's cables actually provide a benefit over most standard cables, since they seem to be softer and less susceptible to microphonics than the thinner and stiffer stock cables.


Cable microphonics? Please tell me a TOS-8 compliant story about THAT!

Ok ok, in the strictest correct definition of the term "microphonics" (physically-induced electrical signals/noise), that is certainly not a factor at all in normal headphone usage.

However: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microphonics#Other_uses

I am of course referring to the common use of the term when talking about headphones, namely the tendency of cable movement to cause vibration and therefore noise to be transmitted to the ear. Anyone who's used IEMs has experienced this, and it also affects normal headphones to a certain degree. My point is that a cable which can reduce this effect could be considered a worthwhile upgrade.

And you knew full well what I meant.

Fool's Gold

Reply #51 –
I would love to see the DBT version of that. Someone who is not in the same room with you moves the cables of your earphones in such a way that you can only receive audible stimulus and nothing else.

Fool's Gold

Reply #52 –
I am imagining an elaborate wire and pulley setup.

Fool's Gold

Reply #53 –
Quote from: antz on
Not directly. Rather than drag quotes from the website, look for yourself. There are claims about electrical and sonic benefits, which I seriously doubt could be substantiated.


Yes. Like the gold being "injected," and that it fills in "cracks" in the silver. THere he's just repeating nonsense from Siltech who started this whole silver-gold alloy thing.

Also, that the gold adds a "touch of extra punch in the low end frequency response." A curious claim given that cables are low pass filter. But the Frank is just a hack who has no real understanding of even basic electronics.

And that it allows the signal to transmit faster.

So yeah, there is stuff on his website that would make for a valid ASA claim.

se

Fool's Gold

Reply #54 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Cable microphonics? Please tell me a TOS-8 compliant story about THAT!


Wouldn't fall under TOS-8 as it has nothing to do with any subjective claim about sound quality.

I know "microphonics" isn't the most appropriate technical terminology, but "microphonics" is the common term used by headphone users to describe the level of acoustical noise produced due to mechanical handling of the cable. Some cables act like the tube on a stethoscope and transmit vibration to the headphone/earspeaker/IEM and can be very annoying.

This is most problematic with cables with extruded plastic insulations. The extruded plastic is pretty good at transmitting vibration. Particularly with harder plastics because they're better at transmitting higher frequency vibrations.

With my cables, with the exception of the thin film of enameling on the individual strands of the litz wire, all the insulation is textile based (one of the primary reasons for using litz is to maintain electrical insulation in case the cables have something spilled on them). The braided silk sleeving isn't very efficient when it comes to transmitting vibration, so cable "microphonics" are significantly reduced compared to most other cables.

Here's how it's constructed:



se

Fool's Gold

Reply #55 –
Quote from: pdq on
I would love to see the DBT version of that. Someone who is not in the same room with you moves the cables of your earphones in such a way that you can only receive audible stimulus and nothing else.


I would hold my breath if I were you. 

se

Fool's Gold

Reply #56 –
Gold plating does of course protect against corrosion ... now disregarding the horror case I posted above:  can't you just use the common copper shine before tightening the nut around your wires?

Fool's Gold

Reply #57 –
Quote from: Steve Eddy on
Quote from: antz on
Not directly. Rather than drag quotes from the website, look for yourself. There are claims about electrical and sonic benefits, which I seriously doubt could be substantiated.


Yes. Like the gold being "injected," and that it fills in "cracks" in the silver. THere he's just repeating nonsense from Siltech who started this whole silver-gold alloy thing.

Also, that the gold adds a "touch of extra punch in the low end frequency response." A curious claim given that cables are low pass filter. But the Frank is just a hack who has no real understanding of even basic electronics.

And that it allows the signal to transmit faster.

So yeah, there is stuff on his website that would make for a valid ASA claim.

se



well gold is yellow, the sun is yellow, more bass sounds warmer QED

also I remember someone who once was famous in the audio world saying in a 1997 publication:
"And they say silver, I choose gold
I'm not afraid to be alone
Someone will judge his gentle soul
Let the boy cry and he will know" 

glad I could help.

Fool's Gold

Reply #58 –
Quote from: castleofargh on
glad I could help.


Hehehe.

The whole conductivity thing is a red herring. Some cable makers have even used ferromagnetic resistance wire (i.e. wire used to make wire wound resistors), whose conductivity is in the basement. Has to be. You're making resistors with it. And the cables were very well received.

Alloying silver with gold is just playing the game of doing something different just for the sake of being different to stand out and create a "new & improved" bias in the minds of customers.

se

Fool's Gold

Reply #59 –
Quote from: Steve Eddy on
Quote from: castleofargh on
glad I could help.


Hehehe.

The whole conductivity thing is a red herring. Some cable makers have even used ferromagnetic resistance wire (i.e. wire used to make wire wound resistors), whose conductivity is in the basement. Has to be. You're making resistors with it. And the cables were very well received.

Alloying silver with gold is just playing the game of doing something different just for the sake of being different to stand out and create a "new & improved" bias in the minds of customers.



It's the placebophile market. Two words: Sighted Evaluations.  Science and reason left the building long ago.

What nobody knows is whether any of this actually sells, and more importantly sells profitably.

Interesting stats:

Monster's web site activity

versus

Hydrogen Audio's Web Activity

Fool's Gold

Reply #60 –
Quote from: Porcus on
Gold plating does of course protect against corrosion ... now disregarding the horror case I posted above:  can't you just use the common copper shine before tightening the nut around your wires?


Huh? No idea what you're on about.

se

Fool's Gold

Reply #62 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
What nobody knows is whether any of this actually sells, and more importantly sells profitably.

Interesting stats:

Monster's web site activity

versus

Hydrogen Audio's Web Activity


I'm not quite sure I get what's supposed to be interesting about those stats.

I mean, Hydrogen Audio exists solely as a website, whereas Monster is a manufacturer with product in retail establishments around the world, as well as huge e-tailers like Amazon.

If you took a random poll of people who have an interest in any kind of audio gadgetry and ask them if they've ever heard of Monster Cable vs Hydrogen Audio, I think Hydrogen Audio would lose by quite a large margin.

I'm not knocking Hydrogen or defending Monster. I'm just not seeing how a comparison of website statistics is saying anything interesting or meaningful. It's apples and oranges.

se

Fool's Gold

Reply #63 –
Quote from: Steve Eddy on
Quote from: Porcus on
Gold plating does of course protect against corrosion ... now disregarding the horror case I posted above:  can't you just use the common copper shine before tightening the nut around your wires?


Huh? No idea what you're on about.


He's talking about a well-known comment relating to the fact that every once in a while the wrong insulation gets molded  onto the wrong wire and the wire corrodes. It think it was Home Deport that sold a ton of 12 gauge clear plastic insulated findely stranded low voltage wire (AKA speaker wire)  with this problem. It literally turned green and black in a few years.

Surface corrosion on metals like Copper, Silver, and Brass looks horrible on the outside but as long as you don't mess with the terminations, the conductors generally remain bright inside the connectors.  A well- installed connector has what is known as a "Gas tight seal" at those points, and the gas tight means no corrosion where it matters.

If you do mess with the terminations the corrosion comes right off with a little work. I used 240 grit wet/dry sandpaper for my clean up jobs, but a wide range of alternatives including  Brasso metal polish would also work.  I then soldered some, put some other into screw-down dual Banana Plugs, etc.  No audio systems were ever harmed!

Fool's Gold

Reply #64 –
Yeah, I know all about that. Just that it was posted as a reply to my original post so I thought it had some sort of relevance to that.

se

Fool's Gold

Reply #65 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Surface corrosion on metals like Copper, Silver, and Brass looks horrible on the outside but as long as you don't mess with the terminations, the conductors generally remain bright inside the connectors.  A well- installed connector has what is known as a "Gas tight seal" at those points, and the gas tight means no corrosion where it matters.


I would use "bare wires" connectors like these in the old days: http://www.htd.com/core/media/media.nl?id=...9f9d6c5b7da864b
Certainly not gasproof ... I have assumed that if fitted tight, there wouldn't be much corrosion in the contact surface. Not that it ever was a problem back then with me, things had to be moved around too often for the connectors to gather visible rust.

(Nowadays I run active speakers, so I don't fit speaker wires.)

Fool's Gold

Reply #66 –
Quote from: Porcus on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Surface corrosion on metals like Copper, Silver, and Brass looks horrible on the outside but as long as you don't mess with the terminations, the conductors generally remain bright inside the connectors.  A well- installed connector has what is known as a "Gas tight seal" at those points, and the gas tight means no corrosion where it matters.


I would use "bare wires" connectors like these in the old days: http://www.htd.com/core/media/media.nl?id=...9f9d6c5b7da864b
Certainly not gasproof ... I have assumed that if fitted tight, there wouldn't be much corrosion in the contact surface. Not that it ever was a problem back then with me, things had to be moved around too often for the connectors to gather visible rust.

(Nowadays I run active speakers, so I don't fit speaker wires.)



If the nuts holding bare wires are kept adequately tight, if they are eventually removed there can still be bright metal where the nuts contact the bare wires.  That indicates a local gas tight seal.

It doesn't matter if the conductor is corroded away from the contact points. Its strictly a cosmetic problem. There would be a problem if the corrosion detracted significantly from the amount of conductive material, but with copper wires in reasonably dry environments, it does not.

In wet environments where there is a significant voltage drop between the conductors, copper can become completely eaten away, and this can be observed with power line wiring in very wet areas. But this is irrelevant to speaker wires because the voltage drop isn't there and the environment isn't wet.

Fool's Gold

Reply #67 –
Maybe you should start selling gold alloyed cables, Steve. You can't argue with stupid and the world is getting stupider. It would be easier to sell Nigel a $1000 cable than to convince him that he's wrong. Look at advertisements and labels for all popular products: it's all hype. Being an honest person has only limited one's success for the most part in the examples I can think of. Not many people care about the "truth" in this world, and why should they?

If all the stupid in the world angers you, you have to be very careful and strategic about how you attack it. Unfortunately, the stupid is quite powerful. By rational argument, at best you can hope to annoy them to the point where they bother to discredit (ruin) your character (via ad hominem attacks on a grand scale). They have a state, government, and police force to protect them and to enforce their will. They have a justice system to get rid of people that threaten them in a way that sounds pleasant, nice, and sophisticated. They have a media to entertain them and keep their minds distracted from desiring to think too much. Most of the world is on their side. Many are not too stupid themselves but leech or survive off the stupid and therefore will defend the system as it works in their favor.

Of course you're probably only interested in combating stupid on a small scale, in the context of audio engineering, but the problem is much larger than that. Even if you succeeded in this context, you'd need a strategy for tackling the stupid that comes next (perhaps you're not ambitious and so appeasing the higher stupidity would be good enough for you). That strategy will almost certainly be based in deception, not in honest rational discussion.

Fool's Gold

Reply #68 –
But the issue isn't about hype, it's about fraud.

Sure, you can say your silver-gold alloy cable "sounds better," but that just goes toward subjective preference, against which there is really nothing to argue. However if you're selling a cable using silver alloyed with at least 1% gold, and then go on to claim that even with the 1% gold the wire is still more conductive than copper, then that is an objective claim that is provably false. And since that claim is made in the course of getting someone to part with their money, it is fraud.

It is particularly bad that even when confronted with the truth, Toxic Cables actually doubled down on their false claim, instead of correcting themselves and apologizing to their customers.

se

Fool's Gold

Reply #69 –
Quote from: Steve Eddy on
But the issue isn't about hype, it's about fraud.


Indeed

Quote
Sure, you can say your silver-gold alloy cable "sounds better," but that just goes toward subjective preference, against which there is really nothing to argue.


Better only exists if there is a difference, and the presence or absence of a difference is usually a fact.

The exception occurs when there is a difference of opinion.  The difference of opinion can exist even when there is in fact no difference.

So, if I say that you will have a better opinion of my product, that is strictly off in the land of opinion.

But if I say my audio gear has better sound, then it must at least sound different, whether or not our opinions agree.



Fool's Gold

Reply #70 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote from: Steve Eddy on
But the issue isn't about hype, it's about fraud.


Indeed

Quote
Sure, you can say your silver-gold alloy cable "sounds better," but that just goes toward subjective preference, against which there is really nothing to argue.


Better only exists if there is a difference, and the presence or absence of a difference is usually a fact.

The exception occurs when there is a difference of opinion.  The difference of opinion can exist even when there is in fact no difference.

So, if I say that you will have a better opinion of my product, that is strictly off in the land of opinion.

But if I say my audio gear has better sound, then it must at least sound different, whether or not our opinions agree.

Yes but you can never prove that they don't sound different, you can only point to absence of proof that they do.

Fool's Gold

Reply #71 –
Quote from: pdq on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote from: Steve Eddy on
But the issue isn't about hype, it's about fraud.


Indeed

Quote
Sure, you can say your silver-gold alloy cable "sounds better," but that just goes toward subjective preference, against which there is really nothing to argue.


Better only exists if there is a difference, and the presence or absence of a difference is usually a fact.

The exception occurs when there is a difference of opinion.  The difference of opinion can exist even when there is in fact no difference.

So, if I say that you will have a better opinion of my product, that is strictly off in the land of opinion.

But if I say my audio gear has better sound, then it must at least sound different, whether or not our opinions agree.

Yes but you can never prove that they don't sound different, you can only point to absence of proof that they do.


I don't have to prove that they don't sound different to claim fraud if the fraudster himself can't prove that they sound different. 

The difference is what he sells, and if he can't prove that the difference actually exists, he's selling a non-existent product, which is ordinarily fraud.

Fool's Gold

Reply #72 –
Quote from: Steve Eddy on
But the issue isn't about hype, it's about fraud.

Only superficially. The underlying issue is that people are stupid and buy into hype, which makes fraud even an intelligent thing to do for someone looking to make money. You can say he's morally wrong, which is your subjective opinion of him, but you can't say he's not successful. If people were smarter and more rigorous, they wouldn't be deceived so easily, whether "fraudulently" (deception deemed illegal) or otherwise (deception deemed legal).

Quote from: Steve Eddy on
Sure, you can say your silver-gold alloy cable "sounds better," but that just goes toward subjective preference, against which there is really nothing to argue. However if you're selling a cable using silver alloyed with at least 1% gold, and then go on to claim that even with the 1% gold the wire is still more conductive than copper, then that is an objective claim that is provably false. And since that claim is made in the course of getting someone to part with their money, it is fraud.

Not really. You can't prove anything except by definition. I challenge you to prove one thing.

Quote from: Steve Eddy on
It is particularly bad that even when confronted with the truth, Toxic Cables actually doubled down on their false claim, instead of correcting themselves and apologizing to their customers.

In your opinion, but in their customers' opinion (ie. Nigel's opinion) they are right and you're an idiot. 

Fool's Gold

Reply #73 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Better only exists if there is a difference, and the presence or absence of a difference is usually a fact.


In the objective sense. But I wasn't speaking in the objective sense.

The exception occurs when there is a difference of opinion.  The difference of opinion can exist even when there is in fact no difference.

Quote
So, if I say that you will have a better opinion of my product, that is strictly off in the land of opinion.

But if I say my audio gear has better sound, then it must at least sound different, whether or not our opinions agree.


I tend to prefer leaving the phrase "better sound" of "sounds better" in the subjective domain as it is our own subjective experience that means anything at the end of the day. I leave things like that alone unless someone goes off the reservation and begins making objective claims about their subjective experience.

se

Fool's Gold

Reply #74 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
I don't have to prove that they don't sound different to claim fraud if the fraudster himself can't prove that they sound different. 

The difference is what he sells, and if he can't prove that the difference actually exists, he's selling a non-existent product, which is ordinarily fraud.


I prefer to distinguish between "sounds different" and "audibly different."

How something "sounds" to us is the result of the gestalt which includes many things beyond the sound waves hitting our eardrums.

se