What is Digg?266 Comments
- PATSCRU, on 10/16/2007, -17/+653just so you guys know, audiophiles are notorious for being stupidly suspicious about audio, and willing to go to insane lenghts to improve their sound, but who have little to no working knowledge of the physical properties of sound that a real audio engineer would know. They purchase items like $500 replacement knobs for their amplifier level controls, $50000 tube amplifiers, and $500 granite power outlet covers that they swear are improving their listening environments, but have little actual effect.
for some insight on this stupidity, check out this audiophile vendor page:
http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina17.htm
it is a 'white paper' on one of their products: Brilliant Pebbles, which is basically a JAR OF FREAKIN PEBBLES that they sell for $129 for you to put into the corners of your room which magically makes your sound that much more brilliant.
Like i said, insane. So please take anything that an "audiophile" says with grain of salt. This coming from a working audio engineer. - mikeneilson, on 10/11/2007, -8/+489And in a strange turn of events, they also discovered that $6000 stereos are GREAT at playing Gran Turismo...
- frant1c, on 10/11/2007, -21/+240Dugg because it's an interesting story, but personally I think it's not true.
First of all, whatever that RCA jack is made of, it cannot enhance sound quality so much to make a 6000 dollar difference. And it especially cannot help if the transport inside is shoddy, which - in audiophile terms - it most certainly is. $6k can buy you a very decent d/a converter and a great transport to go with it, while the PS1 probably has a $2 chip for signal conversion.
I've seen and listened to cabling that costs into tens of thousands of dollars, but never a single jack. I'd really like someone to give me some compelling evidence that this is real, but I sincerely doubt it. - DougPenn, on 10/11/2007, -5/+179I read it on the Internet, so it HAS to be true.
- sjbdallas, on 10/11/2007, -1/+175Any chance this originated from some guy who's hoarding PS1 consoles and is hoping the hype will generate a huge profit for him?
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -10/+177My tired eyes read that as "Playstation 1 is an paedophile's dream?"
I thought to myself, yeah, that Ken Kutaragi never seemed quite right.... - totallyAMAZING, on 10/11/2007, -25/+149A) This is really, really old.
B) DO NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING SAID BY "AUDIOPHILES." If you believe this you haven't really heard about audiophiles. They're like Creationists, they believe what they want, and you're wrong.
They don't believe and ABX blind test is valid. That's like saying you don't need a control group in an experiment. They believe that $20000 speaker cables are worth it (yes cables http://www.electronichouse.com/article/nordost_odin_reference_cables_provide_top_precision/). They think some weird braided copper power cable somehow magically affects your sound (or makes up for the miles of crappy cable from the power company). That a $500 WOOD VOLUME KNOB, yes just the knob that is put onto the actual knob that it turns, makes an amp sound better:
http://www.referenceaudiomods.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=NOB_C37_C
This is the equivalent of putting a different knob on your oven and saying it cooks better food. They are just that crazy. This all comes from their refusal to believe that audio is suggestible, I can tell you something about the equipment you're going to hear (it costs $1,000,000 for example) so you'd be ready to hear something incredible, and you would. Sound, smell, and taste are all very subjective since they're interpreted by you and there's no real concrete way to describe them. A picture (even if you hate it) can be described in words (blurry, bluish, etc) those words conjure up very similar things in people's minds but very concrete ideas. A "bright" sound or "spicy" food is very open to interpretation, where something being "smooth" to the touch isn't a hot topic for debate. These people live in a fantasy world where a "sound stage" is a very real thing (marketing term) and Monster Cables actually make a difference, but not as much as the really expensive cables.
Write these people off like Creationists or Scientologists. - digitul, on 10/11/2007, -7/+9299% of "audiophiles" are just pretentious wannabe's that act like their hearing is so much superior to everyone elses. this article is crap.
- HalFTW, on 10/11/2007, -8/+91Why would any audiophile use a CD player? Surely the sound of the spinning disk would ruin the listening experience?
- frant1c, on 10/11/2007, -8/+81Oh well, here's the article where a PS1 is actually used in a very serious setup, so there must be something to it:
http://6moons.com/audioreviews/leben2/system.html
However, no reasons are given why the PS1 is so good as an audio source. Oh well, I'm gonna find a PS1 and test it in my setup, unfortunately by then Digg will have forgotten all about it. (; - metasin, on 10/11/2007, -18/+90*cough*******cough*
- DarkStalker, on 10/11/2007, -4/+73I don't know how it could really be true. Honestly, I think it's just the placebo effect taken as far as possible.
- LordSkywalker, on 10/11/2007, -13/+79I definitely agree with what you're saying PATSCRU. Most "audiophiles" are nothing more than audio fanboys who want to believe their supposed elitism.
- ipxodi, on 10/11/2007, -5/+70You mean that drawing a green magic marker line around the edges of my CDs doesn't make a difference either? crap. An audiophile told me to do that. That was a waste of effort, darnit.
- CraigJ, on 10/11/2007, -3/+64Are these the same guys that pay over $100 for an HDMI cable because it provides a clearer signal?
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -20/+75Aside from being one of the most poorly designed websites on the Internet, Destructoid also happens to be one of the dumbest ***** gaming blogs I've ever read. Every one of their articles pushes the limits of "asinine", including this one. I don't know how old their contributors are, but it seems they are almost too eager to point out that they have never owned consoles like the "PlayStation" or played games like "Super Mario Bros." or "Metal Gear Solid", or any number of things that people who "work" for such "publications" should be well ***** experienced in.
Kotaku is bad enough with their retarded commentaries that demonstrate their editors know ***** about ***** ("I haven't used Xbox Live Marketplace since 2006" was a comment appended to a story about the Xbox Live Marketplace), but at least their writing is routinely amusing and they often print some useful news stories. But Destructoid? Holy *****. What a terrible ***** website. - meshman, on 10/11/2007, -6/+45"So wait, the old beatup PS1 that I gave to my friend is a high-end audiophile machine?"
No, it's not. That's completely ridiculous. The presence of RCA connectors completely invalidates his point. - robdiggity, on 10/11/2007, -15/+54Okay, well I am willing to part with my original PS1 for, let's say, $5999.
I'm keeping the games though, because they look pretty good on my PS3 1.80. - dasilva333, on 10/11/2007, -5/+43do they have any hard numbers, facts, graphs that will somehow benchmark the ps1 audio to a 6000 audio system?
- vrillco, on 10/11/2007, -4/+38Please take the time to read the article at 6moons, then present yourself at the nearest hospital to have your eyes unrolled from the back of your head.
Take this tidbit of blissful ignorance: "Don't rely on audiophile-grade parts to give you a musical sound. When you design a new amp, pick what you think are the most musical parts."
What makes the extreme audiophile market thrive is this glut of disinformation. I've worked intimately with sound for over a decade and while I can concede that certain types of distortion can be "pleasing" to the ear, that's why just about every stereo from the past 20 years has bass and treble knobs at the very least. However, the people selling these high-priced audio components are explicit scammers. The only science and skill they wield is in their nonsense marketing, which is a true art form of circular lies.
For sake of example, let's consider a television. Let's take a cheap chinese TV, the kind they sell for $79 at Wal-Mart. Now what if this TV turned everyone's face bright orange and made every TV show look like The Simpsons ? Would you pay $7999 for that TV ? I don't think so. Then why would you pay a ton of money for a stereo that distorts the sound ?
Amplifiers are a scientific application of electronic principles. Given infinite funding, you could build something close to a perfect amplifier. I can guarantee you it will take a lot more than some tubes, gold plating and a wooden box to build it. In all likelihood it won't use tubes at all, as by nature tubes will introduce temperature- and voltage-sensitive variations.
In short, if you want to learn about quality sound, just take everything said in that 6moons article and flip it around. If they say something is good, then it's probably really bad. If they say some scientific principle is wrong, THEY'RE wrong. - debtman7, on 10/11/2007, -5/+37I hear it works even better if you use the green paint around the edges of your cd. And of course you'll need some really good cables to hook up your $10 video game console cd player, otherwise you'll never hear the impact of the extremely well designed AD converter that sony wisely chose 10 years ago for a mass market console.
- lolwutt, on 10/11/2007, -3/+34No, they're not talented at hearing well. They're talented at buying overpriced electronics and making sure everyone knows about it.
- Typhoon2009, on 10/11/2007, -3/+31Can I hook it up to my badonkadonk tank?
- ThinkFr33ly, on 10/11/2007, -2/+28Of course, if you even consider spending $6000 on a cd player, you're not just an audiophile, you're a ***** moron.
- david76, on 10/11/2007, -5/+29What "audiophile" listens to CDs?
- Snarfy, on 10/11/2007, -12/+36audiophile - 1. Idiot who knows nothing about electronics. 2. Idiot who pays $80 for *digital* audio cables. 3. Idiot that believes analog adds 'warmth' to audio. 4. ....
- BocoDragon, on 10/11/2007, -2/+24This keeps coming up.... and they keep referring to the same original source. I'm thinking it's like a new religion.
- chaosium, on 10/11/2007, -1/+22"I think it's just the placebo effect taken as far as possible."
Duh, that's the entire focus of audiophiledom. - shockeriv, on 10/11/2007, -5/+25I believe step 4 is profit.
- LegendOfLink, on 10/11/2007, -2/+21Yeah, that's true. Real audiophiles use their SNES's for high end sound.
- st0rm, on 10/11/2007, -2/+21This story made the rounds on the internet about a year ago.
I believe the original story mentioned something crazy like you had to leave the PS1 on for a full day for it to begin to sound that way, and then it was best to leave it on all the time after that? - Snarfy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+17Exactly. 'Warmth' is really distortion. If analog bumps up the mid range then analog is an inaccurate representation. You'd think an audiophile would want the exact representation.
- ZigVicious, on 10/11/2007, -1/+16analog does add warmth to audio. listen to a vinyl copy of DSoTM by pink floyd. then listen to a CD. You'll notice the difference.
- theShiba, on 10/11/2007, -0/+15Analog "warmth" has more effect on the recording side than it does on the playback side of things. IMO, the best results can be achieved with a mix of analog equipment during recording, then played back digitally to ensure precise reproduction of the original recording. You are going to have to spend a lot of money on analog equipment at home to get anything of high enough quality to make it worth the extra "warmth".
- betobeto, on 10/11/2007, -0/+14Conscious listening of music is an habit you train and grow over time. I admit there's a lot of BS floating in the so-called audiophile world, of which prices and the proportional relation of alleged attributes to sticker shock amount are just one of its outrageous (and most regrettable) sides. But there are also those of us who like and look for as-true-as-possible, good sound even if our budgets are closer to $500 than $5.000 - it's all a matter of knowing where to look and fine tune your BS filters. Audiophiles have always been an easy butt of jokes (and some rightly so, when bordering on the neurotic instead of enjoying music) but then again, you have to admit there's more to create good, real, enjoyable sound than those cheap speakers that came with your PC.
- kraney, on 10/11/2007, -2/+15jtown clearly doesn't get how to sell to this crowd.
If you're interested in those $500 wooden knobs, I can provide you with some even more cromulent knobs for $750. - codyfrisch, on 10/11/2007, -5/+18As my audio engineering professor at school explained, people like the warmth of "analog" and vinyl, not because it sounds better but because they are used to the distortion and poor frequency response of these systems. Digital sounds "Bad" because it does not sound like what they are used to, it sounds better but its not accepted as better because its not what they are used to hearing.
- c4171, on 10/11/2007, -3/+15Analog equipment amplifies the lower mid range, which are generally known as those frequencies responsible for "warmth" in audio.
- UKsHaDoW, on 10/11/2007, -6/+18That advice came from a very respected audio company. Usually its the heat, causing things to expand and electrons to move about. Heat has very large effect.
Theres also a same thing for CPU's. Called Burning in, which allows for higher clock speeds. - zydeco, on 10/11/2007, -1/+12I don't think you said that with enough "warmth".
- ricksite, on 10/11/2007, -4/+15It is pretty obvious someone has a truck load of PS1s to get rid of and they are just trying to increase the value. What next? Does the Commodore tape drive have AMAZING audio capabilities?
- dvsbastard, on 10/11/2007, -0/+11But will it embiggen my sound?
- cypher303, on 10/11/2007, -5/+16$6000? Maybe if you're a ***** idiot. Thanks for wasting 3 minutes of my life.
- Dakk, on 10/11/2007, -2/+12Gary Krakow, MSNBC Tech writer and big time audiophile did an article on this too ... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15484873/
- ericthegreat, on 10/11/2007, -2/+12I'll gladly sell my PS1 for the super low price of $1000 to any audiophile!
- betobeto, on 10/11/2007, -0/+10Well I've amassed a collection of hundreds of choice LPs over the course of 20 years but I'd rather call myself a music lover than an "audiophile". The term smacks of neurotic obsession with sonic minutia rather than of pure, simple enjoyment of music for its own sake.
- stmiller, on 10/11/2007, -9/+19"First of all, whatever that RCA jack is made of, it cannot enhance sound quality so much to make a 6000 dollar difference."
It's not really about the RCA jacks, but rather the quality and clarity of the audio signal put through. But only if you have the right speakers, amp, etc. setup will you notice a difference. So for most people, yeah I see how this is a non-issue. True audiophiles are into SACD and DVD-A though these days anyway.
Curiously enough, the wikipedia article on the playstation lists this model as having a poor CD-ROM drive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation
And FYI: the optical 5.1 out on PS2 doesn't not work for CDs, as far as I know. Only works for video or games, which is too bad. - Automatt, on 10/11/2007, -7/+17They're not allowed to lie!
- xxNIRVANAxx, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10Most music companies master them with compression in so we don't have to turn the volume up at the soft parts or down at the loud parts. Sometimes, you can hear clipping due to the compression. Personally, I'd pay more for original audio then compressed garbage, maybe its just me. I'm not an audiophile btw...
- opethlike, on 10/11/2007, -7/+16Maybe its just me, but a cd player is a cd player.
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