Holographic imaging

Norm,
I'm not passing any judgment on the H-CAT. I have not even seen nor heard one. It may well be the great sound reproducer that you attest to. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I have used Multi-Tap Delay circuits to good effect and results in my own system. Based on everything that Roger has said, it lead me to believe that he may be using this process but then again he may not.

My only issue here is the lack of foundation in his theory, hypothesis and attempts at technical communication on Rogers part.

If you like what you hear from his equipment than more power to you. To each his own and at the end of the day it is one's (the product owner)ears which are the final test and judge.

Keep enjoy it. I will try to listen to his gear if given a chance. Maybe Roger is just not an eloquent communicator, who knows, but these exchanges do not reflect well on his technical soundness.

Carlos269, have you ever heard an instance where are product is well defended in terms of theory or science? Since most merely revise old circuits with better parts or bells and whistles, what can they say?

Norm,
I agree with you that 95% of the High-End product have a hard time justifying their cost but I would venture to say that a good 70% of them are technically sound and can be defended in terms of theory and science.

An amplifier circuit is as you say nothing new either in tube or solid-state form but it either works or it doesn't. In other words, it either does what it claims, amplifies, or it doesn't. A Preamplifier has to by definition switch between inputs and adjust gain or it does not do its job.

But when it comes to tweaks, cables, power conditioning to a certain extent, isolation devices and so on; I whole heartily agree with you that most of the claims are unfounded and are faith driven.

Remember the title of my upcoming book: "The Great Audiophile Swindle!"?

I recently read a review where the reviewer says: "yes, like many other audiophools, I have a bad tendency to equate price with performance"

Audiophiles for the most part are gullible and will take these faith based products at face value. The ear is a powerful tool but it can be misguiding as what may sound neutral and true to the original to me may not be true to you nor anyone else on this forum.

This subject fascinates me as we are all after that "Absolute Sound" and spend thousands of dollars trying to achieve it. But in reality their is no such thing as we were never present at the original performance to base it on and compare it to; and even if we were all there we would all hear a slightly different account of the performance. The "absolute sound" that we all seek is a VERY personal thing that only makes a one-to-one connection and that is to ones self by ones self.

I could go on and on but I wont. The bottom line is that at the end of the day, ONLY you have to be able to live with what you have purchased and it sound like you and I and the rest of the people on this forum have; but don't expect the H-CAT to be the cats meow to everyone else.

My only problem with Roger is his lack of technical foundation, and when he does try to get technical he makes some outlandish claims.

Norm do you happen to know Roger Paul's academic credentials?

Tbg, some more things to point out. I've been careful not to say anything about how any of these products sound. I have only offered personal experience on what causes imaging. As far as the H-Cat goes, I'm only concerned with the explanation, not the end result.

Here is an insight. Life is. It does not care what we think of it, it simply is. Humans usually exist as reason and meaning making machines. We attach reasons and meanings to everything. In fact, we are generating stories all the time (reasons, interpretations, beliefs, etc.) about life. This is not a problem so long as we are aware of it, but when we try to live our lives as if our made-up stories are real, anywhere where life disagrees will be a source of suffering.

for more info see http://www.landmarkeducation.com -if any of this resonates with you, do not hesitate and take the class called the Landmark Forum.

My feeling through this whole thing is that Roger latched on to a 'story' or 'reason' (I use that word since he concedes that he never tried to prove or disprove its reality) to justify his actions regarding his 'phenomena'. That is not to say that whatever he's *doing* does not work, but the 'reason' does not hold water. It is a matter of **profound luck** that he has success (if you are to be believed), this bit of 'profound luck' (and contradictory explanations) led me to Occam's Razor- I doubt its coincidence, I doubt its luck and think there is a simpler explanation.

There are many products well defended by theory and science. In that conversation, I would be careful about assuming that just because that is so, that that product is a mere rehashing of old circuits. For example, we built the first fully-differential balanced preamps, which were also the first to have a direct-coupled balanced output. That's not exactly a rehash... I can point to some other examples, like the Messenger, that are not rehashed either, and they are all supported by theory and science.

To answer your previous question, yes, bandwidth is what you need for imaging. Imaging is reliant more on bandwidth than any other 'phenomena' in audio. Naturally low distortion is helpful to improve detail, but you can have quite a lot of distortion and imaging will still occur as long as there is good bandwidth. If you think Roger's design has good imaging, if you check you will find it also has good bandwidth (well beyond 20-20KHz). This happens to be one of those things that is audible and measurable. Anytime **those two** coincide, you've got something that is real.

Carlos269,

Very well said. Bravo!