Audio absurdities Options

[thesurfingalien]

Hi All,

I have been active in the (high end) audio world for about 25 years. My main interest has always been loudspeakers and design. As such, together with a friend of mine, we have created some pretty decent loudspeakers. We did this just for fun.

Contrary of what you might expect, I have not invested in expensive equipment myself, mainly because there is only so much money I am willing (or able for that matter) to spend on it , and I like to listen to the music and not to the equipment.

However, during this time I have run into what I would like to call "Audio Absurdities". By that I mean things that people do (usually this involves spending a lot of money) to make their setup sound better.

One thing you should know of me is that over the years I have become a very skeptical person with regards to audio. But that does not mean I have lost my sense of humor. Hence this tread...

I would like to invite you to post your experience with this type of things. Be it for either generate a good laugh, or warn other readers for costly "audio improvements" that can be categorized being scams.

Have fun or be warned :-)



My first contribution: The Magic Woodblocks

About four years ago I heard from a to remain unnamed person that he had obtained little pieces of wood, about 2" square, varying in thickness depending on application, that should be placed under the equipment's feet. According to the vendor, the wood was from a rare species of trees only to be found in the Amazon. The audible results were claimed to be like "upgrading your equipment to a model twice the price". And that for only US$250 to US$375 per set of three...

[Wombat]

With digital audio coming to streaming devices like the Squeezeboxes tons of digital Voodoo comes up on the net.
Sometimes even not funny anymore when you have to read that stuff and see how it turns loose a mass hysteria!
Here is a nice one but much to read. The developer of software based tunings does his magic to a Squeezebox Touch.
While one or two of the changes like switching off the display may indeed change the output signal of a device several other "improvements" are simply silly.
One change that he did in the code is a volume level fix to 100% and his "Core-Team" of "choosen" beta listeners clearly heard the improvement against the max volume setting of the GUI. Some developers of the software caught him there cause it does NOT make a difference if the volume is changed here or there.
Some other things like a Windows server sounds better as Linux cause of better network protocol usage from the PC to the router, half duplex from PC to router sound sbetter also and so on.
We talk about changes at the digital out here btw.
You can read about it here and may start in the middle of the thread. The forum itself lately has gone downhill since some Trolling or Pinheaded members joined but there are some nice guys with a sense of humor

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.p...742&page=41