# Snake oil for your cables!



## silkstone (Feb 23, 2020)

Chord Company’s ChordOhmic fluid promises improved cable signal transfer
					

Essentially by creating a greater contact area on the connection




					www.whathifi.com
				




Because $500 for a USB cable wasn't an obvious enough ripoff, companies are literally now making snake oil for your cables.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Feb 23, 2020)

Take my money, I'm putting it on all my cables ,cheap too my electric will flow out the plug smoother, might improve the colours on my hdmi too.
Wonder if it would fix the O2 sensor on my car?


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## Athlonite (Feb 23, 2020)

A fool and their money are soon parted I'll guarantee you that some twat will buy this shite because they're one of those ignorant tech snobs who have no idea


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## micropage7 (Feb 23, 2020)

So they advertise it like thermal paste that fill the gap and improve the transfer between 2 media


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## Athlonite (Feb 23, 2020)

micropage7 said:


> So they advertise it like thermal paste that fill the gap and improve the transfer between 2 media



bit like saying gold plated connectors offer superior signal quality for a digital signal it's all just a crock of shit


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## silkstone (Feb 23, 2020)

Talking about the current being the signal just highlight how little these people know about audio.


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## TheLostSwede (Feb 23, 2020)

Athlonite said:


> bit like saying gold plated connectors offer superior signal quality for a digital signal it's all just a crock of shit


Gold plated cables do tend to corrode less though, but that's about it.

As for this snake oil


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## Apocalypsee (Feb 23, 2020)

OK I didnt expect they using oil for audio, I'm not surprised if they use snake to make it.


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## silentbogo (Feb 23, 2020)

Well, either their own press-release got edited for clarification, or everyone on the net missed the mark a bit.
Chord specificaly denoted that it's basically a fancy overpriced contact cleaner, not a magic "audio enhancing miracle liquid".









						Chord Company come clean with ChordOhmic Transmission Fluid at Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2020 - The Chord Company
					

ChordOhmic Transmission Fluid (hi-fi contact cleaner) This contact treatment was initially developed by an industrial chemist and Andante Largo in Japan and consists of a Polish and Polymer. After testing over 500 different variations, the final formulation was selected. It outperformed the...




					www.chord.co.uk


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## Jose Jeswin (Feb 23, 2020)

It reminds me of something...something familiar...


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## silentbogo (Feb 23, 2020)

Jose Jeswin said:


> It reminds me of something...something familiar...


Yep, that's actually pretty close analog, only >10x more expensive )))


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## flmatter (Feb 23, 2020)

Jose Jeswin said:


> It reminds me of something...something familiar...


As a mechanic that was a BS post. I wish people would stop posting fud just to post something.  Permatex has gasket shellac that is amazing and there is pipe dope for threads when normal thread tape does not work or something harder is needed. @silentbogo   it is in no way a close analog stop supporting BS when you don't know what it is.

Back to OP's post yes that is crazy and as it was pointed fools will soon be parted with their cash.


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## PooPipeBoy (Feb 23, 2020)

200 pounds for a 10mL bottle, get out of town.


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## EarthDog (Feb 23, 2020)

Finally... when someone at this forum says snake oil.... it's actually snake oil! Where's Trickson?!


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## freeagent (Feb 23, 2020)

Hope he didn't slip on any delving into the world of HiFi


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## xtreemchaos (Feb 23, 2020)

I don't need any, ive some Hens teeth paste which make my fps double   .


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## DeathtoGnomes (Feb 23, 2020)

its doesnt glow in the dark and doesnt have sparklies in it nor does it have stink-pretty flavoring, so no I'll pass.


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## silentbogo (Feb 23, 2020)

flmatter said:


> @silentbogo it is in no way a close analog stop supporting BS when you don't know what it is.


No need to make assumptions when you don't even feel the amount of irony in my words. 
There's no way in the world I'm gonna side with a company that sells a generic polymerized conductive goo for $200. Just clarifying that the clickbait title is wrong as f#$k. 
If you haven't noticed, I don't support blind-monkey copy-pasting either.


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## silkstone (Feb 23, 2020)

silentbogo said:


> Well, either their own press-release got edited for clarification, or everyone on the net missed the mark a bit.
> Chord specificaly denoted that it's basically a fancy overpriced contact cleaner, not a magic "audio enhancing miracle liquid".
> 
> 
> ...



Where does it say that it is basically a very expensive contact cleaner in their press release?

IMO, they are intentionally vague about their claims, knowing full well that people will read the '_contact enhancing product_' as '*Audio Enhancing*'. As well as making vague claims that can be misinterpreted such as '_it starts to work at very low voltage thresholds_' and '_still significantly outperforming an identical (but untreated) pair of cables built at the same time_'.   Being a UK company (and still in the EU) i think that they have to be a lot more careful about wording their claims due to legislation on false advertising.

As for making the title click-bait. 'Snake-oil' was literally the first thing that popped into my head when reading the 'review' and thought it was kinda funny as well as summarizing the usefulness of this product (at any price over a few $$) pretty neatly.


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## silentbogo (Feb 23, 2020)

@silkstone , and I quote:


> *ChordOhmic Transmission Fluid (hi-fi contact cleaner)*


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## bonehead123 (Feb 23, 2020)

Hummm....snake oil....yep I'll take 312,579.63458 bottles, like , yesterday...cause I mean, really, like you never know when it will come in handy....



n.O.t.. ....


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## R-T-B (Feb 23, 2020)

Athlonite said:


> bit like saying gold plated connectors offer superior signal quality for a digital signal it's all just a crock of shit



It means something for rca connectors and other analog signals.  For digital?  Heh, good luck with that.

Refering to gold plating.  Have my doubts this fluid does anything.



EarthDog said:


> Finally... when someone at this forum says snake oil.... it's actually snake oil! Where's Trickson?!



Heck, if you really want snake oil, common garter snakes around here produce an oily musk when upset.  I used to collect them as a kid.  Made your hands reek and it was defintely some kind of oil.  Never came out of your clothes.

I should bottle some up and sell it for epic profits.  Mind the stink.  Just need maybe an industrial shaker and toss some garters in it.  Don't tell the aspca.








flmatter said:


> As a mechanic that was a BS post. I wish people would stop posting fud just to post something.  Permatex has gasket shellac that is amazing and there is pipe dope for threads when normal thread tape does not work or something harder is needed. @silentbogo   it is in no way a close analog stop supporting BS when you don't know what it is.
> 
> Back to OP's post yes that is crazy and as it was pointed fools will soon be parted with their cash.



He was saying it would probably work equally good for audio (ie not) for 10x less money dude.  He wasn't saying it doesn't work for it's intended purpose.


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## Grog6 (Feb 23, 2020)

This is for the crowd that buys silver speaker wire because it "sounds better". 

Or "Pre burned in cables" for that smoother sound.



For those who thought I was joking:



			http://www.increcable.com/kryptonite-hd-usb-2.htm


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## flmatter (Feb 24, 2020)

R-T-B said:


> He was saying it would probably work equally good for audio (ie not) for 10x less money dude.  He wasn't saying it doesn't work for it's intended purpose.



Then I missed the sarcasm and @silentbogo as well.....   oops


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## silkstone (Feb 24, 2020)

R-T-B said:


> It means something for rca connectors and other analog signals.  For digital?  Heh, good luck with that.



The surface area on the RCA connectors means that the connector type really shouldn't add any significant resistance. Even if it did, I doubt it would make a difference to the 'quality' of an analog signal. It'd be much more important to have some sort of shielded wires. Even then, there are much more important things to buy before shelling out $500 for a uber-quality wiring.


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## Frick (Feb 24, 2020)

I once saw a power cord for SEK 17900 (roughly 1800USD), down from 24990.


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## delshay (Feb 24, 2020)

I have Audioquest Diamond cable HDMI & USB with Audioquest patent DBS which uses batteries 72v.

Here is what the company have to say on DBS

*Dielectric-Bias System with Radio Frequency Trap*

All insulation between two or more conductors is also a dielectric whose properties will affect the integrity of the signal. When the dielectric is unbiased, dielectric-involvement (absorption and non-linear release of energy) causes different amounts of time delay (phase shift) for different frequencies and energy levels, which is a real problem for very time-sensitive multi-octave audio. The inclusion of an RF Trap (developed for AudioQuest’s Niagara Series of power products), ensures that radio frequency noise will not be induced into the signal conductors from the DBS field elements. (DBS, US Pat #s 7,126,055 & 7,872,195 B1)

EDIT: Just been searching though my old stuff & i just found a high end Display Port cable from the Chord Cable Company, brand new never used.


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## Ricktheslickster (Feb 24, 2020)

TheLostSwede said:


> Gold plated cables do tend to corrode less though, but that's about it.
> 
> As for this snake oil


Gold is one of the better conductors of electricity, there's no doubt about that, the question is, does it make a sound difference that your ears can notice>


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## delshay (Feb 24, 2020)

Ricktheslickster said:


> Gold is one of the better conductors of electricity, there's no doubt about that, the question is, does it make a sound difference that your ears can notice>



The best way is to have no connection points at all. Solder speaker wire direct to the transistor & direct to the speaker. Do the same to all connection point HDMI, USB, ect, ect, oh dammit, just solder everything. Now I don't need that snake oil.


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## Frederik S (Feb 24, 2020)

Made my day, thanks for sharing!


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## ratirt (Feb 24, 2020)

I hear turtle oil is better


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## silkstone (Feb 24, 2020)

delshay said:


> I have Audioquest Diamond cable HDMI & USB with Audioquest patent DBS which uses batteries 72v.
> 
> Here is what the company have to say on DBS
> 
> ...


Why would you put/have an insulator between any connector?

Edit - I just realized that it's talking about interference between conductors in the same wire. A company trying to sell their wares by being so technical that no one understands what they are talking about. Also this being a digital signal, phase shift or anything else, has no effect on audio quality. It either works or it doesn't.

This is more of their blurb:

_Conductor material quality makes a world of difference in the performance of a USB cable. AudioQuest's unique Perfect Surface metals start with very high purity silver to minimize distortion caused by grain boundaries that exist with any metal conductor. The metal is then drawn and annealed though a novel proprietary process which creates an exceptionally soft silver conductor with an astonishingly smooth and uncontaminated surface. Extreme high-purity solid Perfect-Surface Silver (PSS) is the ultimate embodiment of this conductor technology.
Diamond's 72-Volt DBS System

Unfortunately, because insulation stores and releases energy, it is also a 'dielectric.' In a cable application, all released energy is distortion. The misnomer break-in is often used to describe the pronounced improvement in performance as the dielectric adapts to a charged state as the cable is used. Whenever a cable does not have a charge on it, it is re-adapting to an uncharged state; it is becoming new again.

By maintaining a 72-volt dielectric-bias, far above the voltage of delicate audio signals, the DBS system provides considerably better transparency and dynamics than is possible even from a cable in continuous use. It takes a couple of weeks for the DBS system to reach maximum performance. Since DBS battery packs are attached when Gibraltar cables are first terminated, Gibraltar will be approaching or at peak performance by the time it is installed in your system. Since there is no load on the two standard hardware-store batteries, they will last for years. A test button and LED allow for occasional verification of battery performance.

There are huge differences in the sound of USB cables. As part of AudioQuest's re-examination of USB cable design, specific attention was paid to maximizing the sonic performance of USB. AQ's Indulgence USB series pushes USB sonic performance to new levels. While test equipment is excellent at tracking control errors or ensuring data pass through, no computer can compete with the human ear when it comes to perceiving the subtle but crucial audio errors and distortion that can reduce the enjoyment of your music and video files via USB. _

$600 for a USB cable. Snake oil at its finest!


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## Grog6 (Feb 24, 2020)

Silkstone, you got in there before me. 

Any insulator is a dielectric; and two conductors separated by any insulator is a capacitor.

Someone telling you that they can inject anything on a cable and make it have less distortion is BS.

If you bias the dielectric to where it stops behaving like a dielectric, it becomes a conductor, and melts; it's called dielectric breakdown.

Even with a 72V bias, the capacitor will still act like the *same* capacitor, unless it breaks down.
This is first year electronics stuff, lol.

You got ripped off, and you're bragging about it to people who know you got ripped off, lol.


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## freeagent (Feb 25, 2020)

I’ve got a pair of M.I.T Terminator 2  speaker cables. They were 400 bucks for 2x 6 foot lengths. I also have some stuff that came on a spool. Thats what I’m using. My high end cables are sitting in the closet. On my AVR systems they do me no good. It’s been so long since I’ve had a stereo that I can’t comment there either. I have many high end cables that have been made obsolete by hdmi


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## Easy Rhino (Feb 25, 2020)

I've spent a long time in the high end audio area. The argument for this type of nonsense is that there is jitter in the electric signal being carried on the line and that impacts sound quality. However, the level of jitter would have to be incredibly high for the human ear to perceive any real difference in sound quality in the digital space.


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## R-T-B (Feb 25, 2020)

ratirt said:


> I hear turtle oil is better



Turtle wax...  my dad (as a young person) once coated his pet turtle with it and had to take it to the vet.  Hint:  Do not do this.

Tutrle was ok, but vet thought my dad was dumb as a box of rocks.


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## Totally (Feb 25, 2020)

silentbogo said:


> Well, either their own press-release got edited for clarification, or everyone on the net missed the mark a bit.
> Chord specificaly denoted that it's basically a fancy overpriced contact cleaner, not a magic "audio enhancing miracle liquid".
> 
> 
> ...


 
I read that an thought after taking 4+ years to realize a difference why not just buy new cables.


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## Schmuckley (Feb 25, 2020)

Needs to glow RGB!


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## Palladium (Feb 25, 2020)

Easy Rhino said:


> I've spent a long time in the high end audio area. The argument for this type of nonsense is that there is jitter in the electric signal being carried on the line and that impacts sound quality. However, the level of jitter would have to be incredibly high for the human ear to perceive any real difference in sound quality in the digital space.



If the claims of placebophilia even had a smidgen of truth in them, then Agilent etc won't be selling their parts-per-billion/trillion chemical detectors that can run perfectly on a $1 power cord plugged to unfiltered consumer AC mains.


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## Easy Rhino (Feb 25, 2020)

Palladium said:


> If the claims of placebophilia even had a smidgen of truth in them, then Agilent etc won't be selling their parts-per-billion/trillion chemical detectors that can run perfectly on a $1 power cord plugged to unfiltered consumer AC mains.



You are going to have to restate that in a way I can better understand.


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## silkstone (Feb 25, 2020)

Easy Rhino said:


> You are going to have to restate that in a way I can better understand.


He's saying that if there was any effect at all, then you'd see $$$$ cables used with digital scientific equipment where precision is key. Yet we don't.


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## delshay (Feb 25, 2020)

silkstone said:


> He's saying that if there was any effect at all, then you'd see $$$$ cables used with digital scientific equipment where precision is key. Yet we don't.



That depends on the quality of the mains. I read many years ago some ultra high end audio uses spent over 200k just the have a dedicated clean mains supply "direct from the street". This reduce interference from normal household electrical items.

I would expect scientific equipment where precision is absolute, they would already have super clean mains supply. I would not be surprise if they even have they own internal generator where ultra sensitive equipment is powered separately from other non sensitive equipment.


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## silkstone (Feb 25, 2020)

delshay said:


> That depends on the quality of the mains. I read many years ago some ultra high end audio uses spent over 200k just the have a dedicated clean mains supply "direct from the street". This reduce interference from normal household electrical items.
> 
> I would expect scientific equipment where precision is absolute, they would already have super clean mains supply. I would not be surprise if they even have they own internal generator where ultra sensitive equipment is powered separately from other non sensitive equipment.



That's not how it works. AC is not usually fed directly into any components, instead it is converted to DC, just like with a computer power supply. Getting clean DC power has everything to with the quality of the PSU and little to do with the 'quality' of the mains supplying it.
Having 'clean' AC from the streets would do nothing at all for interference as interference is caused by the alternating current in the wires (_From Lenz's Law - Moving charges create a magnetic field, thus change in motion of the charges create a changing magnetic field. An alternating magnetic field induces an EMF in a conductor; the wires nearby_). It's not like 50 Hz AC causes less interference than 49 Hz AC. And while spikes are an issue where the grid is not clean, the issue is that they break electrical components in the conversion circuit. E.g. A well built PSU will blow up from spikes on the grid long before it damages any internal components of your PC. I have personally lost at least 5 PSUs from having dirty power to the point where I now run a UPS to protect against surges. The only way I've killed internal electronics has been down to my own stupidity.

Grid power is much cleaner than any generator, and while ultra sensitive equipment may have protection in place, it wouldn't have anything to do with interference. Remember that pretty much everything runs on DC. We only use AC for transmission purposes (apart from grid-grid transfer via superconductor). AC has to be converted to DC before use and the quality is entirely based on the sophistication and quality of the circuits performing the conversion.


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## delshay (Feb 25, 2020)

silkstone said:


> That's not how it works. AC is not usually fed directly into any components, instead it is converted to DC, just like with a computer power supply. Getting clean DC power has everything to with the quality of the PSU and little to do with the 'quality' of the mains supplying it.
> Having 'clean' AC from the streets would do nothing at all for interference as interference is caused by the alternating current in the wires (_From Lenz's Law - Moving charges create a magnetic field, thus change in motion of the charges create a changing magnetic field. An alternating magnetic field induces an EMF in a conductor; the wires nearby_). It's not like 50 Hz AC causes less interference than 49 Hz AC. And while spikes are an issue where the grid is not clean, the issue is that they break electrical components in the conversion circuit. E.g. A well built PSU will blow up from spikes on the grid long before it damages any internal components of your PC. I have personally lost at least 5 PSUs from having dirty power to the point where I now run a UPS to protect against surges. The only way I've killed internal electronics has been down to my own stupidity.
> 
> Grid power is much cleaner than any generator, and while ultra sensitive equipment may have protection in place, it wouldn't have anything to do with interference. Remember that pretty much everything runs on DC. We only use AC for transmission purposes (apart from grid-grid transfer via superconductor). AC has to be converted to DC before use and the quality is entirely based on the sophistication and quality of the circuits performing the conversion.



What are you talking about.

My audio equipment used to pick-up the fridge compressor when it kicked-in. There was sometime not always a loud pop.
The heating system can also do this along with just turning on the lights. Using mains filters reduce it, but did not completely remove it.

EDIT: Just for the record it's well known that some audio equipment do suffer from these interference, it's nothing new.


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## Mussels (Feb 25, 2020)

this thread offends me


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## silentbogo (Feb 25, 2020)

Totally said:


> I read that an thought after taking 4+ years to realize a difference why not just buy new cables.


I think it's meant for those who went bankrupt after the first round of $1000 cables and $200 cleaners 




delshay said:


> *Dielectric-Bias System with Radio Frequency Trap*
> 
> All insulation between two or more conductors is also a dielectric whose properties will affect the integrity of the signal. When the dielectric is unbiased, dielectric-involvement (absorption and non-linear release of energy) causes different amounts of time delay (phase shift) for different frequencies and energy levels, which is a real problem for very time-sensitive multi-octave audio. The inclusion of an RF Trap (developed for AudioQuest’s Niagara Series of power products), ensures that radio frequency noise will not be induced into the signal conductors from the DBS field elements. (DBS, US Pat #s 7,126,055 & 7,872,195 B1)


Last night I've briefly looked through their patent on DBS, and I totally get _what_ they are trying to do here, but even the slightest idea of "_why_" still eludes me... Especially for modern digital interfaces, where the only thing that really matters for signal integrity - is building to-spec.


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## Vayra86 (Feb 25, 2020)

Grog6 said:


> This is for the crowd that buys silver speaker wire because it "sounds better".
> 
> Or "Pre burned in cables" for that smoother sound.
> 
> ...



You haven't seen nothing yet, there is something for every fool, look






						Cables
					






					www.thecableco.com
				






silkstone said:


> _Whenever a cable does not have a charge on it, it is re-adapting to an uncharged state; it is becoming new again.
> 
> By maintaining a 72-volt dielectric-bias, far above the voltage of delicate audio signals, the DBS system provides considerably better transparency and dynamics than is possible even from a cable in continuous use. It takes a couple of weeks for the DBS system to reach maximum performance. Since DBS battery packs are attached when Gibraltar cables are first terminated, Gibraltar will be approaching or at peak performance by the time it is installed in your system.
> 
> There are huge differences in the sound of USB cables. As part of AudioQuest's re-examination of USB cable design, specific attention was paid to maximizing the sonic performance of USB._



Wooooow  Amazing



delshay said:


> What are you talking about.
> 
> My audio equipment used to pick-up the fridge compressor when it kicked-in. There was sometime not always a loud pop.
> The heating system can also do this along with just turning on the lights. Using mains filters reduce it, but did not completely remove it.
> ...



That just means your power wiring in the house is pretty shit to begin with. I've never had such problems with just normal wiring from top to bottom on every single device anywhere. Start with grounded sockets... I mean, its not rocket science and certainly doesn't warrant BS cables like this.


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## Valantar (Feb 25, 2020)

Frick said:


> I once saw a power cord for SEK 17900 (roughly 1800USD), down from 24990.


Well, it's obvious that the last 1m or so of power transmission into your stereo system is going to affect audio quality, isn't it (and not the hundreds of meters to several kilometers between you and the nearest transformer station leading directly into this last meter)?


delshay said:


> The best way is to have no connection points at all. Solder speaker wire direct to the transistor & direct to the speaker. Do the same to all connection point HDMI, USB, ect, ect, oh dammit, just solder everything. Now I don't need that snake oil.


Dude, solder is tin, and possibly even lead. That's not even close to good enough - they're not even precious metals! You need to secure your cables by casting molten gold around the connection points. Preferably in an oxygen-free environment. Duh. I only use gold-cast connections manufactured in space - the difference is obvious, and clearly worth the occasional trip to the ISS when I want to unplug my headphones or ...charge my phone.


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## GlacierNine (Feb 25, 2020)

delshay said:


> That depends on the quality of the mains. I read many years ago some ultra high end audio uses spent over 200k just the have a dedicated clean mains supply "direct from the street". This reduce interference from normal household electrical items.
> 
> I would expect scientific equipment where precision is absolute, they would already have super clean mains supply. I would not be surprise if they even have they own internal generator where ultra sensitive equipment is powered separately from other non sensitive equipment.


Please stop. You're just embarassing yourself at this point.

Electrical power lines don't even use copper, they're made of aluminium to make the cables lighter, thus requiring fewer pylons and making the pylons themselves lighter. The electricity "from the street" has been carried hundreds of miles through aluminium, then to a substation where it is carried through commodity grade copper to the junction box on your street from which more commodity grade copper gets it to your houses electrical box (Which also uses commodity grade copper on it's connections), from which it goes through yet more commodity grade copper to your outlets.

And you're telling me that after all of that low spec material, using 1m of cryogenically treated ultra super mega copper is going to change the properties of your home electricity? It's horseshit and you know it.

"Ultra high end audio users" in your post can be considered synonymous with "gullible idiots who have been sold magic bullshit by audio companies".

Anyway, @delshay, here's a great video that will educate you on why digital audio really is digital: 








You will note he is using lab equipment more than capable of reproducing even inaudibly tiny differences in the signal.


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## silkstone (Feb 25, 2020)

Valantar said:


> Well, it's obvious that the last 1m or so of power transmission into your stereo system is going to affect audio quality, isn't it (and not the hundreds of meters to several kilometers between you and the nearest transformer station leading directly into this last meter)?
> 
> Dude, solder is tin, and possibly even lead. That's not even close to good enough - they're not even precious metals! You need to secure your cables by casting molten gold around the connection points. Preferably in an oxygen-free environment. Duh. I only use gold-cast connections manufactured in space - the difference is obvious, and clearly worth the occasional trip to the ISS when I want to unplug my headphones or ...charge my phone.



Interestingly enough, this would actually make the connections work. Solder joints start grow tin whiskers much more readily in space. No one knows why.








						Tin whisker
					

Tin whisker



					www.esa.int


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## Valantar (Feb 25, 2020)

silkstone said:


> Interestingly enough, this would actually make the connections work. Solder joints start grow tin whiskers much more readily in space. No one knows why.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Interesting stuff, though I still don't think space-based cable manufacturing is a very good idea  No doubt the audiophile placebophile community would gobble them up, though.


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## R2DSF (Feb 25, 2020)

silkstone said:


> Essentially by creating a greater contact area on the connection


Er, what?


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## delshay (Feb 25, 2020)

Vayra86 said:


> That just means your power wiring in the house is pretty shit to begin with. I've never had such problems with just normal wiring from top to bottom on every single device anywhere. Start with grounded sockets... I mean, its not rocket science and certainly doesn't warrant BS cables like this.



A reasonable expensive amp I have which I bought many years ago is grounded, it takes a normal 3 pin plug. A very cheap 5.1 surround amp does not suffer from this. Some amps are sensitive to home electrical appliance & blaming house wiring, well that's another thing & needs to be proven.


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## Vayra86 (Feb 25, 2020)

delshay said:


> A reasonable expensive amp I have which I bought many years ago is grounded, it takes a normal 3 pin plug. A very cheap 5.1 surround amp does not suffer from this. Some amps are sensitive to home electrical appliance & blaming house wiring, well that's another thing & needs to be proven.



Hey its not my problem at all, I'm not buying overpriced cables here lol

Its entirely up to you how you choose to fix an issue, just saying that is the more likely cause and you have likely not fixed that at all. You might be better off having your power box and wiring checked out by a certified electrician if you have those surges from other equipment. Always fix a problem as close to the source as possible...


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## GlacierNine (Feb 25, 2020)

delshay said:


> snip


Please reformat your post so that it's legible. I'm sure you're going to be difficult enough to convince already, I don't need to have that made harder by broken quote tags.


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## delshay (Feb 25, 2020)

GlacierNine said:


> Please stop. You're just embarassing yourself at this point.
> 
> Electrical power lines don't even use copper, they're made of aluminium to make the cables lighter, thus requiring fewer pylons and making the pylons themselves lighter. The electricity "from the street" has been carried hundreds of miles through aluminium, then to a substation where it is carried through commodity grade copper to the junction box on your street from which more commodity grade copper gets it to your houses electrical box (Which also uses commodity grade copper on it's connections), from which it goes through yet more commodity grade copper to your outlets.
> 
> ...



The person that claims he got mains direct from the street into his house for his high end audio is something I read in "What Hi-Fi" many years ago. I don't know how true it is & I can't prove such a thing really happened. 

If such a event did happen, then this person may of had the same problem I had, household appliance interference.


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## freeagent (Feb 25, 2020)

Indeed, I’ve read that too.

Some of the best sound I’ve heard came from lamp cord on a spool from the hardware store, an old silver faced Rotel amp that weighed as much as a small child, and some Angstrom floor standing speakers  

That was many moons ago though.


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## delshay (Feb 25, 2020)

freeagent said:


> Indeed, I’ve read that too.
> 
> Some of the best sound I’ve heard came from lamp cord on a spool from the hardware store, an old silver faced Rotel amp that weighed as much as a small child, and some Angstrom floor standing speakers
> 
> That was many moons ago though.



I was really, really taken back by these speakers many years ago https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264374798642


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## GlacierNine (Feb 25, 2020)

delshay said:


> The person that claims he got mains direct from the street into his house for his high end audio is something I read in "What Hi-Fi" many years ago. I don't know how true it is & i can't prove such a thing really happened.


It doesn't matter how true it is or if it really happened. If it didn't happen he's lying. If it did happen he's imagining the benefit.

Again, the national grid transports power over hundreds if not thousands of miles of aluminium and industrial copper. You cannot "fix" that by using a fancy cable for the last 0.00001% of the journey it makes from power station to your device. 

Any degradation in signal quality occurring due to power supply noise is not the fault of the grid, it is the fault of the power supply in your device being poorly designed. Look at the power supply reviews on this very website - voltage stability, droop, ripple etc are all addressed by the PSU manufacturer and nobody is blaming the national grid for poor PSU performance. Jonny Guru isn't reviewing PSUs anymore but when he did, he never told users to he wary of the condition of their local grid just in case noise from the substation or junction box affected the PSU he was reviewing. The PSU is literally designed to make any variation in the amount of noise received, a non factor, by rectifying and stabilizing the input voltages.

If it can't do that properly its a bad power supply. If you're spending oodles on a super high end amplifier and it can't meet the standards of a commodity PC PSU then you're *being taken for a ride by it's manufacturer.*


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## trickson (Feb 25, 2020)

silkstone said:


> Chord Company’s ChordOhmic fluid promises improved cable signal transfer
> 
> 
> Essentially by creating a greater contact area on the connection
> ...


LMFAO! Just like the Audiophile industry this too was only a matter of time! 
They finally found another industry they can sucker into there snake oil BS! 
You just have to love the tenacity of the BS snake oil industry they will try to tell you that the speaker wire you use isn't good enough NO not at all so they sell MORONS 10K-70K wires for there speakers LMFAO now they have there eyes set on the HDMI/ USB and other computer cables? OMG 
What's next? Soon to be told that you 4k Ultra isn't really 4k until you have there special 10k wires? WOW!


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## freeagent (Feb 25, 2020)

4K is the next 480p 
Or was it 720p


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## trickson (Feb 25, 2020)

freeagent said:


> 4K is the next 480p
> Or was it 720p


it's all just .


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## delshay (Feb 25, 2020)

GlacierNine said:


> It doesn't matter how true it is or if it really happened. If it didn't happen he's lying. If it did happen he's imagining the benefit.
> 
> Again, the national grid transports power over hundreds if not thousands of miles of aluminium and industrial copper. You cannot "fix" that by using a fancy cable for the last 0.00001% of the journey it makes from power station to your device.
> 
> ...



At that time I don't think electrical equipment needed to meet todays standard emission. This is probably why my amp suffers from this & I don't think anyone with a expensive amp is going to mod it. I could mod my amp as it has a complete separate PSU which weighs a ton, but I won't, just in-case it changes the sound.


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## trickson (Feb 25, 2020)

delshay said:


> At that time I don't think electrical equipment needed to meet todays standard emission. This is probably why my amp suffers from this & I don't think anyone with a expensive amp is going to mod it. I could mod my amp as it has a complete separate PSU which weighs a ton, but I won't, just in-case it changes the sound.


WHAT? No you can not mod the PSU on your AMP. it's designed a certain way to produced power for sound it's not just some computer PSU you can plug and play MAN people... 
I have worked on stereos and TV's all my life and no you just can not even interchange a PSU from one amp to another unless everything is a perfect match. 
Please lets leave out any talk of emissions and green environmental SNAKE OIL BULLSHITZ! Thank you.


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## EarthDog (Feb 25, 2020)

trickson said:


> WHAT? No you can not mod the PSU on your AMP. it's designed a certain way to produced power for sound it's not just some computer PSU you can plug and play MAN people...
> I have worked on stereos and TV's all my life and no you just can not even interchange a PSU from one amp to another unless everything is a perfect match.
> Please lets leave out any talk of emissions and green environmental SNAKE OIL BULLSHITZ! Thank you.


While obviously some considerations need to be heeded, swapping out the power supply in amps are certainly possible (though not recommended for people who have little idea of what they are doing). I'll let Delshay fill in the details for you.


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## trickson (Feb 25, 2020)

EarthDog said:


> While obviously some considerations need to be heeded, swapping out the power supply in amps are certainly possible (though not recommended for people who have little idea of what they are doing). I'll let Delshay fill in the details for you.


Yeah NO need I have done more than my fair share fixing stereos and tv's I forgotten more than you will ever know about them.


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## GlacierNine (Feb 25, 2020)

trickson said:


> WHAT? No you can not mod the PSU on your AMP. it's designed a certain way to produced power for sound it's not just some computer PSU you can plug and play MAN people...
> I have worked on stereos and TV's all my life and no you just can not even interchange a PSU from one amp to another unless everything is a perfect match.
> Please lets leave out any talk of emissions and green environmental SNAKE OIL BULLSHITZ! Thank you.


You can absolutely change out the PSU in an amplifier. In fact you can even change out individual power section components, like the transformer. 

You have to design it properly, and obviously that's not a trivial task, you'll probably need to modify the chassis to accomodate different sized components etc, but if your power supply circuitry is on a separate PCB to the rest of the amp circuitry, you can absolutely just design a replacement board and connect the two up without it causing any real havoc.


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## trickson (Feb 25, 2020)

GlacierNine said:


> You can absolutely change out the PSU in an amplifier. In fact you can even change out individual power section components, like the transformer.
> 
> You have to design it properly, and obviously that's not a trivial task, you'll probably need to modify the chassis to accomodate different sized components etc, but if your power supply circuitry is on a separate PCB to the rest of the amp circuitry, you can absolutely just design a replacement board and connect the two up without it causing any real havoc.


Yeah that would be then re-designing and or building your own at that point. NOT moding a PSU. more like making an entire new unit. Sounds like more work than is needed, 
Just put more snake oil out there. LOL.


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## EarthDog (Feb 25, 2020)

trickson said:


> I have done more than my fair share fixing stereos and tv's I forgotten more than you will ever know about them.


lol, it doesnt seem that way! Keep an ear open, you will learn something.


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## trickson (Feb 25, 2020)

EarthDog said:


> lol, it doesnt seem that way! Keep an ear open, you will learn something.


LOL I am and so far nothing but Snake oil. 





Please do not buy the Snake Oil the sales man is selling.


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## GlacierNine (Feb 25, 2020)

trickson said:


> Yeah that would be then re-designing and or building your own at that point. NOT moding a PSU. more like making an entire new unit. Sounds like more work than is needed,
> Just put more snake oil out there. LOL.


He said "I could mod my amp as it has a complete separate PSU"

You said "No you can not mod the PSU on your AMP."

Seems to me the problem is you couldn't read that his PSU is a separate unit he could easily replace, and presumed he was just going to go ham replacing capacitors.

Not that you can't do that to some extent. Guitar amps are more commonly modified than hifi stuff since guitarists are always looking to change the sound of their gear and aren't concerned about perfect reproduction. Replacing transformers and the like happens enough in that realm that you get companies like this one: https://www.mercurymagnetics.com/shop-by-amp


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## trickson (Feb 25, 2020)

All the Snake Oil about the AMP PSU..
Back on topic. 
And I still stand behind my statements. You can pump out the Snake OIL all you want. It changes NOTHING! 
First off there is no OIL you can put on a cable to make it more efficient or any more conductive than it is. 
Just Snake Oil being sold to unsuspecting people to get there money.


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## GlacierNine (Feb 25, 2020)

trickson said:


> All the Snake Oil about the AMP PSU..
> Back on topic.
> And I still stand behind my statements. You can pump out the Snake OIL all you want. It changes NOTHING!
> First off there is no OIL you can put on a cable to make it more efficient or any more conductive than it is.
> Just Snake Oil being sold to unsuspecting people to get there money.


You've obviously never experienced amplifier sag as a result of a PSU with an underspecced transformer that can't replenish the charge in the capacitor banks quickly enough to handle rapid transients.

Fortunately, you can reproduce it for yourself in software - go find yourself a copy of Guitar Rig 5. Many of the amp models allow you to literally define the amount of PSU sag you want it to emulate. Alternatively, the Fractal Axe-FX system is a hardware unit that also allows this. 

You can also hear it in action here, in this demo of the Kemper Profiling Amp: 








Listen for the demonstration where they compare the Orange amplifier to the Kemper. On the high strings of the guitar the Kemper and the Orange sound identical. On the low strings, the Kemper retains definition, clarity and attack, where the Orange amplifier does not.

This is amplifier sag. The Kemper is not accurately reproducing the sag because none of the test tones the Kemper took it's data from, included rapid low frequency chugging on the strings, which drain the capacitor banks of the real amplifier faster than the transformer is able to provide replenishment power.

An uprated transformer in that Orange amplifier would result in a sound much closer to the Kemper profile - and Rob Chapman even comments on this in the video, remarking that "The Kemper actually fixed a problem with the real amp".


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## Vayra86 (Feb 25, 2020)

trickson said:


> All the Snake Oil about the AMP PSU..
> Back on topic.
> And I still stand behind my statements. You can pump out the Snake OIL all you want. It changes NOTHING!
> First off there is no OIL you can put on a cable to make it more efficient or any more conductive than it is.
> Just Snake Oil being sold to unsuspecting people to get there money.



No real audiophile topic is complete without snake oil!


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## EarthDog (Feb 25, 2020)

Vayra86 said:


> No real audiophile topic is complete without snake oil!


Did you know Dolby Atmos is snake oil............ but not anymore?!


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## Chrispy_ (Feb 25, 2020)

WAT? Oil for electrical contact improvement?

If it's conductive to increase the contact area you get short-circuits between pins.
If it's an insulator you prevent any of the pins from making contact at all
If it's a semiconductor in solution it won't conduct once dried (that's not how semiconductors work)
If it's an low-viscosity insulating oil that is scraped out of the way by the contacts and pins, then it is a placebo.
Place your bets, gentlemen. FWIW, I've bet the farm on number 4.


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## Bill_Bright (Feb 25, 2020)

trickson said:


> All the Snake Oil about the AMP PSU..
> Back on topic.
> And I still stand behind my statements. You can pump out the Snake OIL all you want. It changes NOTHING!
> First off there is no OIL you can put on a cable to make it more efficient or any more conductive than it is.
> Just Snake Oil being sold to unsuspecting people to get there money.


We are in agreement here. The best electrical contact occurs with direct metal-to-metal contact. That is, you must have a proper "mechanical" connection first in order to achieve the best electrical (0Ω) connection. No oil or other compound sitting between the two conductors is going to improve that. Period!

FTR, my first love in electronics was in supporting audiophile grade audio reproduction equipment - going back to the mid to late 60s when my dad bought a set of Acoustic Research AR-3 speakers and "stereo" was the new-fangled thing. I spent nearly 2 month's pay buying a pair of AR-3a speakers (which I still have!). It was a good thing I lived in the barracks and ate in the mess hall. 

I've been using electrical contact "grease" since tech school in 1971! Though "grease" is a misnomer. It not grease at all. The product and idea is nothing new. But it does *NOT* improve conductivity or audio fidelity. Never has and never will.

But what it does do, and does very well, is prevent moisture and other contaminants from getting in between the contacts, to include (and here's the kicker) oxygen. No oxygen and no oxidation! No oxidation, no corrosion. No corrosion, no loss in conductivity.

So what that contact "grease"/snake oil does is prevent oxidation (a good thing) thus preventing (or at least minimizing) the degradation of sound quality due to contact contamination.
It only improves sound quality *IF* that sound quality was degraded in the first place due to a poor (perhaps worn or damaged) mechanical connection.


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## freeagent (Feb 25, 2020)

If it has gold connectors there should be none of that? 

unless you bring your stereo in the shower


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## Vayra86 (Feb 25, 2020)

EarthDog said:


> Did you know Dolby Atmos is snake oil............ but not anymore?!



Yeah I think...? Something to do with the status of that technology? I remember when surround was widely regarded as definitely not audiophile... but Atmos somehow is because more speakers were added.

Remarkably similar logic


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## trickson (Feb 25, 2020)

Bill_Bright said:


> We are in agreement here. The best electrical contact occurs with direct metal-to-metal contact. That is, you must have a proper "mechanical" connection first in order to achieve the best electrical (0Ω) connection. No oil or other compound sitting between the two conductors is going to improve that. Period!
> 
> FTR, my first love in electronics was in supporting audiophile grade audio reproduction equipment - going back to the mid to late 60s when my dad bought a set of Acoustic Research AR-3 speakers and "stereo" was the new-fangled thing. I spent nearly 2 month's pay buying a pair of AR-3a speakers (which I still have!). It was a good thing I lived in the barracks and ate in the mess hall.
> 
> ...


Yeah so does soldering the connections. LOL I solder all my wire's when possible.
Like my speaker wires are all soldered. Now I know exactly what you are talking about I used that "electronic grease" for a lot of stuff, Mainly when putting things in my boat each wire end gets a generous application the stuff I use is like Vaseline and is used to keep out water and moisture as well as oxygen.
Once I solder the connections I just apply the electronic grease to the ends I never get corrosion.



EarthDog said:


> Did you know Dolby Atmos is snake oil............ but not anymore?!


I think what is funny is the term Audiophile. And the term Audiophile is Snake OIL in my honest opinion. PURE SNAKE OIL!


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## Bill_Bright (Feb 25, 2020)

freeagent said:


> If it has gold connectors there should be none of that?


Yes but... .

Gold is sometimes used because it does not oxidize or corrode. HOWEVER, gold is NOT, by a long shot, the best conductor. In fact, it is barely better than aluminum. Silver is the best by far, but it oxidizes/corrodes way too easily. Copper is almost as good as silver, which is much better than gold. and while copper still oxidizes, it is not nearly has fast as silver. And copper is definitely more affordable than silver or gold. 

If copper sets the standard at 100% conductivity, silver will come in ~ 109%. But gold is way down to ~ 70% conductive. (source)

Sadly, you will often see gold used more as a marketing gimmick because people incorrectly think it is better. Its not. 


freeagent said:


> unless you bring your stereo in the shower


Actually, totally wet is better (in terms of preventing oxidation) than simply being in a humid environment. 



trickson said:


> Yeah so does soldering the connections.


Yeah! While the exterior of the solder may show some oxidation, the mechanical connection underneath is nicely isolated from oxygen.  Yeah, solder and shrink wrap (when practical) is great!


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## EarthDog (Feb 25, 2020)

trickson said:


> I think what is funny is the term Audiophile. And the term Audiophile is Snake OIL in my honest opinion. PURE SNAKE OIL!


Audiophile isn't snake oil though. Do you understand what the definition of Snake oil is?

An audiophile is a hi-fi enthusiast (someone that cares and tried to get the best sound they can from whatever setup they have using known rules from governing bodies and applies that in their room). Now, many people will define that differently, but the term isn't snake oil... there are audiophile grade hardware, but again, not snake oil... that definition has some grey area, like calling a Fisher stereo in a box audiophile quality. People's definition of what constitutes 'audiophile' grade equipment varies.... but being an audiophile or having 'audiophile' level products isn't, by definition, snake oil. Again, the problem is there isn't a defined line of what is/is not audiophile type equipment. I don't consider what I have as audiophile ($400 Sony receiver, Polk 12" sub, Paradigm center channel and surrounds, and Bose 401's... someone else may consider that audiophile level. I call it off the shelf and affordable. Same as most Klipsch speakers and Denon receivers. But you obviously feel it is audiophile level.  The good part.........nobody is wrong here. 


...buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut it isn't snake oil no matter how you slice it.


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## Bill_Bright (Feb 25, 2020)

trickson said:


> I think what is funny is the term Audiophile. And the term Audiophile is Snake OIL in my honest opinion. PURE SNAKE OIL!


Ummm. No. Considering it goes back nearly 70 years and comes from Greek and literally means "someone with a love of audio". So I think it makes perfect sense. 

That said, I am not going to pretend marketing weenies haven't abused, twisted and obliterated the word.


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## trickson (Feb 25, 2020)

Like any word if used to much it looses it's meaning.
And as rich snobs and Know it all's took over the word it is MEANINGLESS to me. 
Now if you don't have ATMOS and 50 speakers and 10k in wires and some over priced out of reach system and your speakers have to be PERFECTLY ABSOLUTELY 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000% Perfectly aligned and at the right angle and you HAVE to MUST have can NOT be an audiophile UNLESS you have your system hooked up via HDMI! 
YEAH FING SNAKE OIL!!!!!


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## EarthDog (Feb 25, 2020)

trickson said:


> Like any word if used to much it looses it's meaning.
> And as rich snobs and Know it all's took over the word it is MEANINGLESS to me.
> Now if you don't have ATMOS and 50 speakers and 10k in wires and some over priced out of reach system and your speakers have to be PERFECTLY ABSOLUTELY 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000% Perfectly aligned and at the right angle and you HAVE to MUST have can NOT be an audiophile UNLESS you have your system hooked up via HDMI!
> YEAH FING SNAKE OIL!!!!!


I'm thankful breathing is involuntary....I worry about some people... LOLOL


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## Bill_Bright (Feb 25, 2020)

You don't have to be rich or a snob to appreciate "audiophile" quality sound being reproduced from "audiophile" quality reproduction equipment. I may not be able to afford a $10,000 speaker, but I sure do love listening to it.


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## trickson (Feb 25, 2020)

All I have to say about the OP's post is "Watch out". If it sounds too good to be true it most likely is.


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## silkstone (Feb 25, 2020)

Bill_Bright said:


> We are in agreement here. The best electrical contact occurs with direct metal-to-metal contact. That is, you must have a proper "mechanical" connection first in order to achieve the best electrical (0Ω) connection. No oil or other compound sitting between the two conductors is going to improve that. Period!
> 
> FTR, my first love in electronics was in supporting audiophile grade audio reproduction equipment - going back to the mid to late 60s when my dad bought a set of Acoustic Research AR-3 speakers and "stereo" was the new-fangled thing. I spent nearly 2 month's pay buying a pair of AR-3a speakers (which I still have!). It was a good thing I lived in the barracks and ate in the mess hall.
> 
> ...



I agree with almost all of what you say, I just need some justification as to why (not overly) oxidized connections would lead to degraded sound quality, even with analog system. The only thing I can think of is that if the oxidization is great enough to cause pd across the connection, you'd lose the very lowest voltage part of the signal, but you can increase the line level in that case. Also, having a potential drop across the connector does not necessarily relate to losing any frequency of sound and I'm not exactly sure what it would relate to in terms of the quality of the audio.


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## trickson (Feb 25, 2020)

silkstone said:


> I agree with almost all of what you say, I just need some justification as to why (not overly) oxidized connections would lead to degraded sound quality, even with analog system. The only thing I can think of is that if the oxidization is great enough to cause pd across the connection, you'd lose the very lowest voltage part of the signal, but you can increase the line level in that case. Also, having a potential drop across the connector does not necessarily relate to losing any frequency of sound and I'm not exactly sure what it would relate to in terms of the quality of the audio.


Oxidized connection isn't going to lead to any real signal loss unless the area is also corroded. Oxidization should not cause any loss in perceptible sound, Unless there is corrosion of the metal. 
So it's really not an issue unless you live is the saltiest air in the world.


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## Chrispy_ (Feb 25, 2020)

What metal is used for electrical contacts has and always will be irrelevant. Even high-carbon steel is soft enough at a microscopic level that when two contacts slide against each other they scrape off superficial oxide layers and make metal-to-metal contact.

Between the copper wiring of a cable itself, and the gold/aluminium/steel connector on the end of the cables - there's such a short distance of non-copper metal that it's completely irrelevant. We are talking resistivity (in Ωm) of tenths of a billion and distances in hundredths or thousandths of a meter. The difference in resistance between these different connector materials is going to be measured in trillionths of an Ohm, when other parts of the audio circuit have resistance in tens or hundreds of Ohms.

As for "Audiophile", I would assume that there are two types of people that label applies to:

The first is someone like me who understands that audio quality depends on the entire chain recording/playback from the artist's instrument all the way back to your eardrums. You really don't need to spend silly money to get a good enough amp and speakers/headphones such that other parts of the chain (largely outside your control) become the limiting factor to sound quality.
Hi-Fi snobs who go out of their way to find minute differences between audio hardware some of whom will take sides irrationally much like fanboys of any other demographic. I've met some pleasant Hi-Fi snobs and I've met some obnoxious Hi-Fi snobs. Most of them know what they're talking about in terms of sound differences but not all of them have a technical understanding of why the sound differences exist. The insufferable ones are those in this category who can be classified as both "fanboy" and "not technically inclined"
For the record, my cheap copper speaker cables get screwed into brass terminals on my equipment without any snake-oil lube. My off-the-peg amps and speakers are all "budget" by Hi-Fi or snobbish audio standards, and the vast majority of source material I play is lossy, compressed audio. Unsurprisingly, the biggest quality problem I face at home is dealing with the room acoustics and the quality of the calibration and equalisation job usually far outweighs the differences between $200 speakers and $20,000 speakers. As long as you're not using cheap earbuds, the inbuilt TV/monitor speakers or plastic computer speakers, you're probably doing just fine!


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## EarthDog (Feb 25, 2020)

Chrispy_ said:


> The first is someone like me who understands that audio quality depends on the entire chain recording/playback from the artist's instrument all the way back to your eardrums. You really don't need to spend silly money to get a good enough amp and speakers/headphones such that other parts of the chain (largely outside your control) become the limiting factor to sound quality.
> Hi-Fi snobs who go out of their way to find minute differences between audio hardware some of whom will take sides irrationally much like fanboys of any other demographic. I've met some pleasant Hi-Fi snobs and I've met some obnoxious Hi-Fi snobs. Most of them know what they're talking about in terms of sound differences but not all of them have a technical understanding of why the sound differences exist. *The insufferable ones are those in this category who can be classified as both "fanboy" and "not technically inclined"*


*So well said* (and timed)...QFT!


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## Bill_Bright (Feb 25, 2020)

silkstone said:


> I agree with almost all of what you say, I just need some justification as to why (not overly) oxidized connections would lead to degraded sound quality


You answered your own question. If not "overly oxidized" there wouldn't be any degraded sound quality - at least not what our ears could determine. But some of that will depend on which connection. For power amplifier outputs to speakers where you are talking many watts of power, no. But for a phono preamp connection where it takes the output of phono cartridge, which might be as low as .5mW (for moving coil cartridge), even a small amount of corrosion might impact sound quality. 


Chrispy_ said:


> As for "Audiophile", I would assume that there are two types of people that label applies to:
> 
> The first is someone like me who understands that audio quality depends on the entire chain recording/playback from the artist's instrument all the way back to your eardrums. You really don't need to spend silly money to get a good enough amp and speakers/headphones such that other parts of the chain (largely outside your control) become the limiting factor to sound quality.
> Hi-Fi snobs who go out of their way to find minute differences between audio hardware some of whom will take sides irrationally much like fanboys of any other demographic. I've met some pleasant Hi-Fi snobs and I've met some obnoxious Hi-Fi snobs. Most of them know what they're talking about in terms of sound differences but not all of them have a technical understanding of why the sound differences exist. The insufferable ones are those in this category who can be classified as both "fanboy" and "not technically inclined"


I note the artist's instrument may be his or her vocal cords. The human voice is rich with intricate harmonics. And, for example, reproducing the sung letter "s" with some artists can be a real challenge with some speakers. 

I would also argue that true audiophile snobs would not take sides _irrationally_ like fanboys. Fanboys let their prejudices and biases cloud their judgement - even when confronted with undeniable "facts". A "true" audiophile may go green with jealousy and envy, but they would acknowledge the superiority (at least to themselves) of Speaker A over Speaker B if that were the case. 

Of course, there is a lot of subjectivity involved too - especially with speakers. Two speakers with identical frequency responses and identical distortion curves and all other technical specs identical can still "sound" quite different to the discerning ear. That's where fanboyisms may come in. 

I find myself somewhere around 1.3 or so on your 2 point scale. That is down from around 1.75 back in the day. That decline from my peak is not by choice but a matter of circumstances working on and around military flightlines for 24+ years. Jet noise, especially fighter jets will do a number on your hearing. Plus ironically, decades of listening to loud rock didn't help my hearing either!  And of course, old ears just aren't as discerning as they used to be. If I were 45 years younger and had a little deeper pockets, I would definitely be around a 2.5 on your scale because not only do I have the technical understanding of electronics and the recording and reproduction process, I know how to actually sit down, listen with purpose, and discern those tiny nuances between different speakers, phono cartridges,  and other devices.

But alas, my ears are no longer young.  

As a side note, I was very fortunate one year to help out the sound engineers set up for Mannheim Steamroller when they were doing a military appreciation concert. American Gramaphone Records and Mannheim Steamroller are headquartered in Omaha, near where I live. I learned a lot about audio mixing, recording and reproducing "live" events. And I learned even more how sound engineers can alter the sound, and how different a guitar, for example, can sound when standing in front of the guitarist versus when standing out in the audience, or when listening to the recording afterwards in your living room. The sound engineer is an integral part of any band.


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## Bill_Bright (Feb 25, 2020)

trickson said:


> Oxidized connection isn't going to lead to any real signal loss unless the area is also corroded. Oxidization should not cause any loss in perceptible sound, Unless there is corrosion of the metal.
> So it's really not an issue unless you live is the saltiest air in the world.


Ummm, not exactly. While corrosion may not be oxidation, oxidation is often a part of the corrosion process. And in excess, oxidation can cause signal attenuation. As seen here, oxidation "hinders the electrical conductivity of copper wire". Why? Because oxidation results in the loss of "free" electrons in the outer shell because they bond to the oxygen molecule. If no longer free, they cannot "flow" - as in the flow of current. By definition, oxidation is the electrochemical breakdown of metals.

HOWEVER, if there is a good, solid mechanical connection, oxygen should be blocked from getting in between the electrical contacts, preventing oxidation from occurring. This is why it is good practice to clean the contacts before connecting - especially if those connectors have been exposed to the air for some time.


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## Chrispy_ (Feb 25, 2020)

Bill_Bright said:


> And of course, old ears just aren't as discerning as they used to be. If I were 45 years younger and had a little deeper pockets, I would definitely be around a 2.5 on your scale because not only do I have the technical understanding of electronics and the recording and reproduction process, I know how to actually sit down, listen with purpose, and discern those tiny nuances between different speakers, phono cartridges,  and other devices.
> 
> But alas, my ears are no longer young.


I have a 'hearing age' of 35 or so. In other words, I can't hear shit if it's above 18KHz and stuff below 15KHz seems awful quiet.
It's sad that the youth mostly have to make do with bad, cheap audio and by the time they're old enough to afford and appreciate better their hearing is already past its prime.


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## robot zombie (Feb 26, 2020)

Man, it's no wonder people like to mess with audiophiles. It's all of the people responsible for this stuff who make every guy who likes nice audio gear look like a tool. There is a lot to dig into with different gear. Every transducer sounds different and excels at different things. There are all kinds of different speaker and headphone designs that can give you a different experience with the music. Same with different amplifier topologies. Different ones bring different transducers to life in different ways. Just as no transducer is perfectly accurate, different amps add/omit certain things. Meaning there are different balances you can strike depending on what engages you more to the music. There's some real ingenuity that goes into designing a really good discreet amp. And what they get from the DAC can change the sound, too... you can get slightly different tonal qualities to the overall sound, with a range of different presentations.

I feel like this should be intuitive. You remember hearing at least two, if not many more things, that sounded completely different. I can't remember ever hearing two systems that sounded the same. So at the very least there are plenty of obvious things that can be done to change the sound. I think people just get a little desperate trying to pull out answers and it leads to a lot of funny ideas.

The thing with audio is... psychoacoustics, when it comes to people experiencing music on any kind of home systems, still aren't that well understood. We have a lot of ways to measure things, to compare one thing to another and extrapolate, but it's much harder to directly tie that info with what we actually experience. Much of it still just is subjective. It's unavoidable. A lot of the more prideless companies take advantage of this by making a lot of pseudo-scientific claims, interspersed with measurements that actually are not definitive, so as to appear on the bleeding edge. The other side of this is internet marketing. There is a lot of favoritism of certain types of products. There is definitely a lot of borderline shilling, and probably more that goes unseen... a lot is done to sort of 'steer' the mindshare towards certain products and ways of doing things. A lot of people don't even realize how often they actually mimic the vernacular of the ad-pieces and flowery reviews they read... they basically regurgitate them to each other. That language makes them sound like they know what they're talking about, but they don't know a lot about how things actually work. Most audiophile communities exist to sell gear, essentially. It's been like this for a long time... since way before the internet, even. The flex factor is definitely a part. It's something people like to flex, and in flexing it, serve their overlords well by making other flexers agitated 

Tubes are a good microcosm. People go gaga for certain tubes... sometimes as old as 60 years. At first those tubes are cheap, but as soon as it's sniffed out, the finite supply drops until they cost more than the amps they go in... like hundreds of dollars for an old vacuum tube. And maybe you need 4 of those matched. There will be many other good, cheap, yet mostly untouched tubes out there that are just as good, but the $300 tube will still be the favored one. Somewhere along the line people get duped into thinking the price of the tube dictates the quality... because quality is in high demand (common marketing strategy for audiophile companies... they want you to buy their rare, expensive boutique items.) But really it's just the tube is more in demand. People's thinking tends to skew in these directions when they get a little too embedded in the things they've read and learned through the related media.

I still think that if you're shopping for $$$$ cables to make your super-expensive setup sound perfect, it might be easier to just admit that you don't fully like the sound of it and stop trying to make it what you want by throwing more money at it. You could take that same money and by new speakers, headphones, amp, DAC, whatever and do a lot more to change the sound. Or at least admit to yourself that you have more money than you know how to deal with   Anything else is sort of a waste of time and money, unless some other important part of the chain is actually broken or really shitty.

This gook is sort of a lesser version of that. I still think you should just stahhhhp and admit to yourself that you're not fully into what you got and save your pennies for something new, instead of throwing crap like this at it periodically. Quit being silly.

And then there is the knee-jerk camp on the other side, who truly feel that measurements are everything. They insist everything sounds the same and favor DACs and amps with boasting really low THD and good SINAD, for maximum accuracy or whatever, even if they actually sound like ass. That is possible... I have heard great measuring stuff that actually sounds immediately, like completely intuitively terrible. You know right away "Oh wow for $150 this sounds like SHIT. What's wrong with it?!"

It's all a bunch of bullshit... just a cult mindset. There is some mysticism to how we experience music. Nobody quite knows how that magic works on us. I can say from passing stuff around and going to demos, that different gear does sound different. Without a doubt there is a huge variation. Nobody really knows exactly why that is, but most people know when they're enjoying music drastically more, or when it is unpleasant to them. Anybody trying to tell you what makes music sound good and why while also trying to talk you into a purchase is either lying or ignorant. The only thing they can say is how they liked the sound, and try to describe what they liked about it. There are still some things you can look for, and actually knowing the science that IS there (like how the engineering itself works - not what it 'does' to the sound) can keep you from buying inconsequential crap at a huge mark-up. That's why at the end of the day it's better to find a way to try things out than go to some forum, article, or review guru. You can pick up some things there... it's just that if that's all ya got, you may wind-up misled. The more mystical side of things is the fun part... just discovering how things sound first hand. People overthink that so badly sometimes. Making gear and setting up systems are both a lot like cooking.

I've always had hi-fi stuff as a side hobby. I probably would never buy this, even if I didn't know it was kinda BS. Every couple of years I make some changes to a system, without spending batshit insane money. It can be pretty fun if you like to listen to a lot of music. It makes sense to be more actively invested (time/resource-wise) in things you spend a lot of time doing. You game a lot, you build a more particular rig. Like movies, you put time and care into a home theater setup. It's just another layer to the experiences you have with something you really like. Best advice I can give to people is to not mind what they read online too much. The best way is to either find a dealer where you can try gear, or make your way out to a trade show, where you can demo everything under the sun and maybe learn a little. Don't get so stuck in your head that you buy over engineered cables and goop for your plugs.


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## delshay (Feb 26, 2020)

If you want to improve your hearing then try "otex" ear drop. I did this a few times overnight & the next day my hearing was much clearer.
Some, not all conversation started to sound too loud & I'm having to tell people to speak more softly & stop shouting. It got annoying because as the conversation continued I'm having to tell them they still shouting. Tv also sounded too loud compared to others that were comfortable with the volume setting.


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## GamerGuy (Feb 26, 2020)

delshay said:


> If you want to improve your hearing then try "otex" ear drop. I did this a few times overnight & the next day my hearing was much clearer.
> Some, not all conversation started to sound too loud & I'm having to tell people to speak more softly & stop shouting. It got annoying because as the conversation continued I'm having to tell them they still shouting. Tv also sounded too loud compared to others that were comfortable with the volume setting.


There may be something to this, in a way. I have a friend who had told me that one of his friends, a guy who could hear sound that he couldn't, and only after repeated re-listening of a track or two, was he able to pick out the sound that his friend had pointed out to him. He told my friend that he goes for regular ear cleaning and treatment (I dunno what's involved though), my friend and I wonder if this was real or not, neither of us willing to try this treatment.

A few years back, I was really into audio gear, especially headphones and DAC stack/combo. The cables I'd gotten are just regular stuff (Balanced cables for my headphones from Surf Cables LLC, eBay) only because some of my headphones don't come with balanced cables. As for snake oil mumbo jumbo for cleaning contacts that supposed helped with sound, I didn't buy into that stuff. My friend did show me a liquid that helped clean and remove oxidation from connectors (RCA ports and plugs), I thought it was useful but yet didn't buy it because it cost a fair bit for a tiny dinky bottle......more than I was willing to pay for anyways.


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## silkstone (Feb 26, 2020)

GamerGuy said:


> There may be something to this, in a way. I have a friend who had told me that one of his friends, a guy who could hear sound that he couldn't, and only after repeated re-listening of a track or two, was he able to pick out the sound that his friend had pointed out to him. He told my friend that he goes for regular ear cleaning and treatment (I dunno what's involved though), my friend and I wonder if this was real or not, neither of us willing to try this treatment.
> 
> A few years back, I was really into audio gear, especially headphones and DAC stack/combo. The cables I'd gotten are just regular stuff (Balanced cables for my headphones from Surf Cables LLC, eBay) only because some of my headphones don't come with balanced cables. As for snake oil mumbo jumbo for cleaning contacts that supposed helped with sound, I didn't buy into that stuff. My friend did show me a liquid that helped clean and remove oxidation from connectors (RCA ports and plugs), I thought it was useful but yet didn't buy it because it cost a fair bit for a tiny dinky bottle......more than I was willing to pay for anyways.



You'd likely notice a bigger difference in sound quality by removing wax from your ears than investing in a new HDMI cable. I never even thought about it from that perspective. There's gotta be a market for $1000 'Audiophile' ear dropsI'm going to be rich!


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## GamerGuy (Feb 26, 2020)

silkstone said:


> You'd likely notice a bigger difference in sound quality by removing wax from your ears than investing in a new HDMI cable. I never even thought about it from that perspective. There's gotta be a market for $1000 'Audiophile' ear dropsI'm going to be rich!


What about a joint venture? We can both strike it rich, MuAhAhAhAh!


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## delshay (Feb 26, 2020)

Going back to the ear drop, I ended up sleeping with my earphones on (no audio) because everything at night sounded louder & I could not sleep.
I had to do this for a few nights because planes/cars going by was louder than what I was used to before.


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## Ferrum Master (Feb 26, 2020)

robot zombie said:


> Nobody really knows exactly why that is



Rubbish... everything can me measured, it ain't some voodoo, the added or removed harmonics because of the distinctive architectural flaws even for modern devices do add to the spectrum. It applies to all devices. Trade offs are everywhere. It just depends how we cope with that. Problems with bad reviewers they only look at the percentage of the measurement result. Percentage of certain distortion, they don't look exactly in the spectrum plot and look what and where exactly is going on. They don't know... the just use the damn number and expect that everything is fine with that. Some people looking at those figures can easily distinct even what kind of DAC is used, as they tend to have signature distortion patterns for example 3rd or 5th harmonic... that's the silly thing about devices sounding different.

Music theory teaches that, books are written about sound wave nature and what kind of psychological effect you can achieve with using certain techniques. If you have lived with a composer for 3 years, while she goes for a doctor degree, you have picked up something from that area too. It is not only about the reproduction(my creations), but also on the production side(her creation). You can artificially add up certain harmonics to gain psychological effect. It's sometimes random as result of an experiment, but it is explained already for sure, if an educated person looks at it.

The audio reproduction part is just a coincidence with certain mix of gear and audio material - if it omits, adds up, or adds, alters and omits harmonics(like tubes mostly does). If you use them on blind, some like some not, because of the added distortion figures and if the individual can hear those things anymore. There is one distinctive thing depending on the record of course - The worse the record is the worse it sounds on better equipment, the better it is it sounds better, the gap increases. Masking imperfections, or amplifying them. Nothing else... a matter of taste. There is no point arguing for sure. But if a individual wants he can know for sure where to look at and why is that. Even a device for xxxxx$ will have flaws, it just depends on your state of deafness and taste or being just cuckoo. It is just a certain line of happiness with each of us, when the gear is enough... it can be even imperfect but it is enough yet we understand there can be better, but the effort will give diminishing returns.

So the subjective listening tests, especially for audio product reviews can be discarded as such it is totally RUBBISH, because we as individuals precept things differently, also age and fatigue steps in. That's the sad part actually... audio reviews are dead these days and done by amateurs. Headphone reviews lulz... we each have different sizes of a skull and ear shapes, it totally changes how the headphone chamber works and sound stage, basic things... yet yea... subjective audio listening... like it is needed at all... things like hearing some distinctive instruments, added sounds... like a drug addict story sometimes.

The worst part is marketing. It pushes such uneducated reviews and often promote a bad product. Marketing monetizes everything. These snake oil products are same thing. There will be no end for them. We have the same thing in pharmaceutics, that's even worse. Bad products will exist.... they are made to make profit... marketing wraps them up in shiny paper and delivers it with church attitude like the next best thing since Jesus.


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## Valantar (Feb 26, 2020)

robot zombie said:


> It's all a bunch of bullshit... just a cult mindset. There is some mysticism to how we experience music. Nobody quite knows how that magic works on us. I can say from passing stuff around and going to demos, that different gear does sound different. Without a doubt there is a huge variation. Nobody really knows exactly why that is, but most people know when they're enjoying music drastically more, or when it is unpleasant to them.


Well, it's not mystical, it's just (as anything) dependent on a lot of complex and interdependent factors, some of which are difficult-to-impossible to quantify, especially as the relationships between them matter a lot too. The source audio, the equipment it's played on, placement of said equipment, the room it's played in, how many people or other large objects are in the room and where they are positioned (particularly if they're moving, like people often do!), your mood/state of mind (yes, your mood affects your senses - some times quite dramatically so), etc. Of course some factors matter more than others (the acoustics of the room likely affect the sound 10000x more than the quality of your cables!), and subjective taste plays into this too. I mean, ideally one would expect an anechoic chamber to be the ideal listening environment if perfect audio reproduction was the goal, but I have an inkling that any music would sound _really really weird_ if you played it in one as you'd lose all the harmonics of being in an actual room. As such there is obviously some truth to there being more to a good audio setup than just equipment with good specs/measurements, but there's also a point of significantly diminishing returns that kicks in quite low in the price range.

Beyond that I agree entirely that anybody - including most audio enthusiasts! - trying to tell you what makes music sound good is ultimately trying to sell you something, either because it's their job or because they're indoctrinated into an ideology of hyper-materialist competitive audio-equipment ownership where status is derived from a) the ownership of status-inducing equipment, and b) talking about stuff in an assertive manner while using the accepted lingo of this subculture (which has, as you say, largely been defined by marketing teams and other bullshit artists).



GamerGuy said:


> My friend did show me a liquid that helped clean and remove oxidation from connectors (RCA ports and plugs)


Vinegar? Electronic contact cleaner? WD-40? Neither of these are particularly expensive, and most should work depending on the material in question (though WD-40 leaves a greasy residue and should be cleaned afterwards, and vinegar also needs rinsing off as it can otherwise accelerate oxidation).


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## R-T-B (Feb 26, 2020)

The only case of a solution like this I have ever used was with my uncle in the preservation of 78RPM records, it was supposedly some kind of liquid protective polymer that went into the grooves.  Even that was questionable, but seemed to work, and old composite 78RPM records wear out fast so you'd know if it wasn't working (we're talking records made around 1920 and earlier).

Obviously completely different principles at work there though.


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## silkstone (Feb 26, 2020)

GamerGuy said:


> What about a joint venture? We can both strike it rich, MuAhAhAhAh!





GamerGuy said:


> What about a joint venture? We can both strike it rich, MuAhAhAhAh!



Acoustic Ear Oil Sliver $50 for 10ml
Acoustic Ear Oil Gold $250 for 10 ml
Acoustic Ear Oil Platinum $1000 for 2ml

We need to come up with some pseudoscience to justify the prices. . . "After 10 years of development in our Acoustic Ear Audio labs, our scientists have developed the ultimate formula for your ears. The Acoustic Oil Platinum ear drops not only ensure your ear canal is in the peak physical health, but also aid transmission of you favourite music directly to your ear drums. No more echo on your bass! No more distorted mids! Hear your music at full fidelity. Upgrade your ears today at these retailers . . ."


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## Tatty_One (Feb 26, 2020)

As we have managed to move the topic onto Ears it appears timely to shut up shop at this point - thank you.


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