Anybody want a laugh?

I didn't see in the photo where one would pour snake oil into the switch.

I think that when spending beaucoup bucks on a hifi, people figure a couple hundred extra on a router with noise management as a design focus, regardless of actual merit, is not a big deal. An insurance policy at worst.

Again, there are some I know with very well thought out and resolving setups, who I do not suspect of imagining things, who claim the device covered in the white paper did make a difference. So I have to give them the benefit of the doubt. To me, if there is noise on a circuit, all devices connected to the circuit MIGHT be affected.

Personally, I’ve used wireless network connections to my streamers exclusively now for many years with excellent results so I am more than pleased with that approach.  Always dead quiet with top notch detail, if you have the right gear to show it.

Which is why I said before the amp. If the signal over noise and distortion on the analog outputs of the DAC is below human hearing then it’s transparent and all those streamers, switches and routers and whatever upstream doesn’t amount to diddley. Now after the signal hits the speaker and how it interacts with the room is a different story.

Even upstream to the dac all the electrical particular grid of the house, and all that is connected to it will color the sound coming from the dac...The dac itself being a mass of electronic components, so good it is or pricey, will add noise but if rightly design will do it in a good trade-off ... Any small new electronic components, the smaller one also, will intoduce noise of their own.... The audio engineering design is mainly the art of trade-off ...Nothing more...

ALL IS INTERCONNECTED in a non linear way and affect human hearing in way perceptible not only in DB measured way... Imaging for instance is not measured in DB....The instrumental perception of timbre is not reducible to DB measures....

All this is only my opinion and experience, i am a poet perhaps certainly not an engineer.... :)

But i work hard to give to me the Hi-Fi experience at peanuts cost.... I succeed....I succeed with non orthodox homemade improvised systematic experiments and low cost materials, not by buying costly effective products, nor by "buying snake oil"....

The title of my "virtual system page" is: audiophile experience for the poor.....And it is possible.... I did it..... :)

A relatively high audio quality experience is possible for all and cost peanuts....The necessary high price to pay for audio S.Q. is  partly a " myth"....

rixthetrick,

'And do you suppose that it cannot possibly be improved upon, in any way by anybody?'


No one is going to argue with that. Specifications and tolerances can always be improved. However, transmitting audio signals over Wi-Fi is not considered particularly challenging nowadays, is it?

It wasn't too long ago that wired connections were considered advisable for 4K etc but now most routers can manage it wirelessly. The demands required for streaming high definition audio should easily be well within the wireless capabilities of any router anywhere, shouldn't they?

Therefore shouldn't we be primarily concerned whether these improvements are of any actual sonic use to us, or are they merely just another marketing ploy to add another zero or 2 (or maybe even 3) to the price demanded?

That's the problem here, isn't it? The perennial problem facing all audiophiles; the fact that anyone, anywhere can sell anything regardless of whether it has any discernible effect for any price they choose. All they seemingly have to do is to imply some quasi-nebulous sonic improvement, and they have a mandate.

As many of us may have already fallen for this tactic previously, what does this say about us a group? Are we really so gullible and so easily led?

If so, then how should we protect ourselves against such devious attempts to hoodwink us?

The one thing that might help us would be the demand for more double blind testing, but that is usually met with much hostility and resistance by almost all sides. 

Alan Shaw once offered a free pair of Harbeth's top of the range M40 loudspeakers to anyone who was able to come down and successfully identify a sonic difference between 2 level matched amplifiers under such conditions at his factory. 

Guess what happened? No one took him up on his offer. Not even after years and years of debating and arguing the point!

Even more recently Gene Della Salla of Audioholics fame got into a Facebook spat with his sometimes sparring partner, none other than Michael Fremer, over the worth of power conditioners (see Audioholics Community).

Needless to say Fremer's responses so far have been far from convincing, merely reactionary and defensive. In previous times Michael was not always adverse to double blind testing.

Maybe times have changed and once more the scam continues as the cartel  continues to protect itself.

Fair enough, they all want to keep their jobs, but how do we audiophiles protect ourselves?

Blind testing cannot even " perfectly" prove anything.... But supposing it can, it will disprove a particular change and only one...

The art of audio embeddings imply a successive incremental chain of positive changes.... For that no blind testing is possible except at the end of the cumulative process of changes....I can perfectly remember how awful was the sound of my audio system before and after these 2 years of changes and experiments...The same audio system is day and night....No blind test for me :)

Audiophile must focus on the basic deep problem of audio implementation and improvement not on the defense of singular superficial modification ( like a cable addition) that can be real or not and contest by any blind tester ....

The only way to protect ourselves is experimenting with low cost materials.... This is sufficient to win Hi-Fi anyway if the basic amplifier, dac, speakers are relatively good and well choosen....