Interesting link on hifi stuff (2)

I have just read the entire Ethan Winer website. I can tell you right now that this man has absolutely no clue. There was not one word on that site that was accurate. His attempt at technical reasoning is pure blather. The only thing I can conclude from his writing, is that he has totally deluded himself(probably to save money on gear), and he posted a website to make himself think that if it is on the internet, it must be true. A true idiot.

TWL and Sean are correct. This guy is clueless. No pun intended to our very own clueless:)
I took just one piece of his so called work which stated that:
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Myth: Replacing the resistors and capacitors in preamps and power amps with higher quality units can improve the sound of a system.

Fact: Unless your capacitors are defective (they allow DC current to pass through them), or have changed their value over time due to heat and other environmental factors, you are not likely to improve anything by replacing them. The same goes for replacement metal film resistors. It's true that metal film resistors have lower noise than other types, but that makes a difference only in certain critical circuits, such as the input stage of a high-gain mike preamp. It's also true that different types of capacitors are more or less suitable for different types of circuits. But if you think the designers of your amplifier or mixer are too stupid to have used appropriate components in the first place, why would the rest of the design be good enough to warrant the cost of improved parts? In fairness, extremely old gear often employs carbon composition resistors, and replacing them can make a difference in many audio circuits. But anything manufactured in the past 20 years or so will use carbon film resistors and decent capacitors.

If a mixer or mike preamp is already audibly "transparent" and its specs show nearly unmeasurable distortion with a frequency response flat from DC to light, how can it possibly be made better? Bear in mind that a distortion figure of 0.01 percent means that all of the distortion components, added together, are 80 dB. below the level of the original signal! Indeed, the single best way to maintain transparency is to minimize the number of devices in the audio path.
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This is nonsense:
For those of you who don't believe in the value good capacitors etc make in a curcuit I ask you to read the well written special report by Martin Colloms in the July issue of Hi-Fi News regarding their evaluation of Black Gate capacitors. For those of you who can't find it I will be happy to fax it. As an example: We have two transports. Both are exactly the same except one has Black gate caps and other improvements in parts quality. The difference between the two is staggering. Sounds to me like he deals in electrical theory which we all know seems to go by the wayside in audio. I don't know why but it does.

Sean how did you post the link? I like it. I don't know what to think about audio myths, it would be good to hear with / without Black gate caps but not easy to do.

I think you're too harse in your criticism. His biggest faux-pas is presenting opinion as fact, but this a very common failing. That aside, here are a few excerpts I agree with :

"is often accompanied by a resonant peak, which can add ringing and a boost in level at that frequency. Therefore, designing a transducer to respond beyond 20 KHz. is useful because it pushes any inherent resonance past audibility"

"there is nothing inherent in gold that makes it sound better than a clean connection using standard materials"

I would also say to JCaudio, that, often basic theory does not explain all of the strange quirks of audio, but fuller theory, including, most importantly, the effects of real-world constraints and imperfections, will always explain audio effects. I get quite upset when people suggest that we should ignore the theory and use our ears. In fact we should do both ... use our ears then develop the theories, to back them up.
Also we should blind test more often. There are many subtle and unusual effects in audio that have surprised me, but there have been just as many "emperor's new clothes" over the years.

Seandtaylor, I think that just having a couple of non-controversial points in his otherwise ludicrous essay is akin to putting a couple of drops of coffee in your poison to make it taste better. There is such total disregard for known fact in his article, that the 2 things that you mention cannot begin to lend credence to his ramblings.