316 Comments

• Digg
• Bury

The green marker trick remains one of the funniest "audiophile" tweaks ever. Seriously, who thought that made a difference?

• Reply

• Digg
• Bury

That's pretty damn sweet. It even has a vinyl record cutter!

• Reply

• Digg
• Bury

it's my room you folks are commenting on. i hope the pictures of my room entertained you as much as reading the comments entertained me. to clear up a few issues;--i don't believe in intentionally ingesting smoke into my lungs. i do, OTOH, enjoy a spot of single malt occasionally.--i have a separate Home Theatre in my home as well as other TV's....but video will not soil my 2-channel room. cheers!

• Reply

• Digg
• Bury

Records sound "warmer" than CDs so that's why some "audiophiles" like 'em better.But they physically cannot reproduce the original sound as faithfully as a CD.Contemplate that LPs rolloff at about 120Hz -- this is intrinsic in the ballistics of the tone arm, and those are fixed for all time by the RIAA (of necessity, as it's essential that all tone arms conform to the same ballistic profile so that all records can be played on all turntables). This means that "sounds at 120Hz are half as loud" -- and there are still two-and-a-half octaves of audible frequencies below this.Consider the tremendous clarity of the high-frequencies on a CD -- even the best turntable suffer above 16KHz (though this is less important as few people can hear in that range) -- but worse, repeated playings of an LP will very quickly kill everything above 10KHz as the needles wears down the pointy parts in the groove.Consider the incredible dynamic range of digital -- the lack of "hiss" or "surface noise" -- the complete lack of time-based distortion effects like "wow" and "flutter" to which the ear is extremely sensitive...Or to hear all these effects, just watch a DVD action movie with a lot of jet engines, explosions and metal breaking, and imagine what that would sound like coming through the "warmth" of an LP -- if you're an honest listener, you'll know at that point.(Or if you're a musician, compare Paul's bass and Ringo's cymbals between the LP and the CD of Sgt. Peppers...)

• Reply

• Digg
• Bury

And I'd like to add that this activity is terribly wasteful wasteful consumption. A nice, quiet room to listen to music is great! -- but all that gear is pointless.The astonishing quality of today's musical recording and reproduction equipment means that sitting a few feet away from a pair of good near-field studio monitors and playing uncompressed music from a good quality DAC in a room that isn't too live will get you precisely the same effect. I note pictures of Coltrane and Miles on the wall -- by today's standards, their music was recorded on low-fidelity equipment that even a hobbyist musician would never accept now -- while talented, caring engineering got the best results out of this primitive gear, the fact remains that you do not need an $100,000 investment to appreciate the results.You'd be better off trying whole new fields of music to open your ears, rather than spending so much time on micro-details of the repertoire you currently have -- or even better, making music yourself -- or even better, contributing the money to musicians, most of whom (particularly out of the United States) live more or less in poverty and would make more and better music for you to enjoy if you helped them (contact me if you want some suggestions for new music or worthy musicians, I certainly know for example a music school in Indonesia who was affected by the hurricane that I gave to...)

• Reply

• Digg
• Bury

comment to TomRitchford; you said;"I note pictures of Coltrane and Miles on the wall -- by today's standards, their music was recorded on low-fidelity equipment that even a hobbyist musician would never accept now -- while talented, caring engineering got the best results out of this primitive gear, the fact remains that you do not need an $100,000 investment to appreciate the results."the pictures are actually of Thelonios Monk and Coltrane (although Miles Davis's picture (among others) is on the opposite wall but not in the picture). i agree that enjoying any of these great artists does not require anything more than the most basic means to play the music.....music is valid on every level and at any fidelity.OTOH your comment that their music was recorded on 'low fidelity equipment that even a hobbyiest musician would never accept' is simply wrong. recordings from this 'golden age' (1955 to 1965) are some of the best we have today for both Classical and Jazz. even some of the Pop and Rock from this era is outstanding. this has to do with a number of issues; one of which is the one you mention.....'talented, caring engineering'. besides that; they used tubed analog tape at mostly 15 inches per second.....still unrivaled for capturing the musical event....it was mostly recorded live to 2-track.....there was little or no compression. the biggest issue is the genius of the musicians. most 'legitmate' musicians of today would kill to be recorded on analog tape and worship those older recordings.today's digital recording equipment is not 'astonishing' to my ears.....but can sound quite good when restraint is used (which it seldom is). i do agree that reproduction gear is much better today (for the most part) but pro audio studio monitors are not really ideal tools for music enjoyment. they are cold and sterile for the most part. listening in the extreme nearfield does give you ultra detail.....but as far as music listening it's like putting your ear up to a trumpet.....lotsa sound but not much music. if that is your reference and not live acoustical music then i guess it comes down to a matter of taste.i have maybe 5000 lps and maybe 3000 cd's......easily the best recordings are these 40 year old ones.another point; every one of my recordings was PURCHASED.....i think i have done my part to support the artists. i have likely 300 to 400 cd's of world music.....some of it is very good.i respect your humanitarian concerns.....my charitable direction is personal.

• Reply

• Digg
• Bury

damn. can i move in?

• Reply

• Digg
• Bury

this guy might have some cool stuff, but he's still an idiot. Those cables cost $30,000 each. "Opus MM Speaker Cable consists of many heavy strands of individually insulated oxygen-free copper. We specifically chose the strand size for its low noise, low resonance properties in audio signal applications. OPUS MM is so quiet and resolving that final adjustments to the network require tolerances to 1/100 of an ohm and 1 picofarad."See the link:<a class="user" href="http://www.aurant.com/signaturefeature.php&quot;&gt;http://www.aurant.com/signaturefeature.php&lt;/a&gt;

• Reply