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Audiophile Fakery

I recently became aware of a trend in the auto world and I'm wondering if there is an audiophile analogy.

The sound of a revving engine says something primal to those who know and appreciate such sounds. The rumble of a V-8, the whine of an in-line four, that 12 cylinder growl and of course, the Harley heavy metal thunder. The newer, smaller and more efficient engines simply don't make these sounds and the auto makers have found a way around what they perceive as a problem. They simply fake the sound and run it through the car's audio system. Sometimes the engine sound is digitally synthesized and other times it's actual engine noise run through mechanical or DSP processors and then amplified. The list of manufacturers that engage in this sort of fakery includes BMW, Ford, Lexus, Volkswagen and Lotus.

I don't know if there are any high end audio equivalents of this practice, but could there be?

How about a preamp with half a dozen tubes prominently displayed, but when you examine the signal path the tubes are all bypassed. Or maybe a loudspeaker with a ribbon supertweeter that's not connected. A 160 lb. mono power amp with 120 lbs. of lead shot concealed under the circuit board. If these products existed would they be fakes or are the manufacturers just giving the people what they want, or at least what they think they want?
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tom32
33 posts
 
"How about the very simple, and I guess generally accepted, frequency contouring of speakers? "

The geometry of the speaker box is very important to the sound quality and projection. I'm no expert in this area, but I have experimented with speakers in boxes and small changes make big differences. It's pretty complex, because sound waves bouncing off the backplane combine with the fundamental wave and you get cancellation and addition of the waves. At different frequencies you get different summation patterns of the waves, so there is always phase problems/effects with the box resonance and reflected waves.

To see what I mean, go to a web site that allows you to play with a simulated "wave tank".
musicpod
192 posts
 
There was a tube CD player I was reading up on. It had a tube displayed in the center behind a clear material. And when the CD player was turned on the tube would also turn on. But someone said that the tube wasn't an operating tube and the manufacturer had placed it there for aesthetics. However, someone else wrote that the tube was for the headphone amp -- I believe.

Not sure who was right on that one.
tom32
33 posts
 

As long as the manufacturer is honest that the tube is just for visual aesthetics and is not really functional, I don't see a problem with putting some illuminated tubes on display. Some people want their equipment to look cool. The advertising should boldly say whether the tube is part of the amp.
jond's avatar
jond
5,744 posts
 
Tom32 I didn't mean to imply that frequency contouring was easy to do, just in the context of this thread vs add on doodads and such. Meaning it's a relatively commonplace alteration. I'm sure like all aspects of speaker design it's quite complex.
tom32
33 posts
 
"Tom32 I didn't mean to imply that frequency contouring was easy to do"

Yes, Tom32 wasn't real clear about his point, but to clarify... =-}

Speaker design is very tricky, and goes beyond standard engineering and science and into the world of the black arts. =-} Some weird features of speakers might have some type of real function. It is hard to say, the field of wave interactions is so complex. A speaker box is more than just a container for the speaker, it is an important part of the design for projecting the sound waves. A complex area...
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