Read all About it .. UFOs in the next issue

uzzy

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Wat hifi  "Generally speaking, glass shelves tend to encourage kit to sound forward, while wooden supports tend to result in a warmer and more rounded balance.”

— https://www.whathifi.com/advice/how-to-choose-and-set-stereo-amplifier  — https://www.whathifi.com/advice/how-to-choose-and-set-stereo-amplifier 

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“Some nice things happened in the upper octaves. Everything, even overbright recordings, had a top end that was more liquid and silky – not like classic tube sound, where the highs are actually colored to sound more sweet than real life, but the upper octaves were relieved of a little bit of dryness.”

A chunk of acrylic which you balance your Mac Mini on. Yours for a surprisingly cheap $349. 



[T]he problem with computers is that they were never designed with audio in mind. While there are improvements for USB-based playback available, the network controller part of a PC remains noisy. 

JCAT puts an end to imperfections of network playback with NET Card FEMTO – the ultimate network interface designed specifically for transferring high-quality audio over LAN.

— A €422 network card

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“Dark Matter Cable Elevators protect audio cables from the harmful effects of floor-borne vibrations and static interference. Our newest Dark Matter ESD XL Cable Isolators are made from the finest grade Electro-Static-Dissipative (ESD) Polyurethane. This unique design offers superb isolation from vibrations and enables a direct path to dissipate any static imbalance.“

I have to admit, they do look rather pretty.

“We gave the sturdy Supra LoRad MD06-BS/SP Otis Redding’s emotive and rich-sounding A Change Is Gonna Come to handle, and the Supra’s effect on the sound became noticeable. Vocal clarity increased and became more transparent, but the sound also became leaner, losing some of the depth and the characteristic punchiness of a good soul recording.”

— Spoiler: It’s a power strip

“Found that a function called memcpy was the culprit, most memory players use memcpy and this is one of the reasons why memory play sounds worse ie digital sounding. Fortunately there is an optimised version of memcpy from [x], using this version removes the hard edge produced by memcpy.”

— Apparently the way you copy memory affects the sound.



Due to the increasing amount of data and information being processed through music servers and hard-drive storage systems, as well as the rising popularity of high-resolution audio downloads, the use of hifi, audio-specific USB cables is critical to the fidelity of sound reproduction.

For the first time, Nordost is introducing a flat, twin-axial geometry to its USB cables. This innovative layout allows the two signal wires to run parallel, compared to the standard twisted-pair configuration, shortening the signal path and drastically increasing transfer speeds.

— Nordost Valhalla 2. Yours for a paltry $3,499 for the first meter, $1,200 per additional meter.

“Normal electricity just wouldn’t do anymore. To tap into what Mr. Morita calls “pure” power, he paid $10,000 to plant a 40-foot-tall concrete pole in his front yard. On it perches his own personal transformer…”

— “There’s a debate among audio enthusiasts about whether personal poles make any meaningful difference”, apparently.

“How can it be that physical objects, just by being in proximity to your gear’s circuitry, influence audio reproduction? How can the mere presence of a component’s lid, footers, or stand and the like, audibly color the sound—especially if it never touches the circuitry?”

— How indeed?.

“In my experience, TosLink softens the bass, adds treble hardness, and congeals the soundstage.”

— http://www.theabsolutesound.com/answers/204/

The above was posted on a hifi link I have in Facebook - I thought I would share it with you.   I have not included any of my own views which may or may not concur with the above 


:sofa:

 
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Cloth-Ears.

Censored Wammer
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What was the name of those stupid wooden things, looked a bit like candleabra or a bit of modern art, that you stuck in the middle of the room and it was supposed to change the sound. Were made of some kind of ' magic properties ' wood, like maybe mpingo. They cost an absolute fortune.  

Searched for it using a few keywords but couldn't see it.

I don't know how anyone could demo these with a straight face. 

 
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Snoopdog

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HiFi Trade?
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What was the name of those stupid wooden things, looked a bit like candleabra or a bit of modern art, that you stuck in the middle of the room and it was supposed to change the sound. Were made of some kind of ' magic properties ' wood, like maybe mpingo. They cost an absolute fortune.  

Searched for it using a few keywords but couldn't see it.

I don't know how anyone could demo these with a straight face. 
Shakti Hallograph!

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/hallograph.htm

 

Snoopdog

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Don't be too quick to dismiss the properties of certain materials and their effect on the sound of a hifi system!

When I bought my furniture for the listening room, I specified Mpingo wood for the feet of the sofas! They were hugely expensive, but isolate the listener from the deleterious effects of vibration and resonances within the listening environment!

As a result, the music sounds much more relaxed and glides along, with a firm foundation!

This is the same "mystical" wood that high-end record pucks are manufactured from!!!

image.png

 

uzzy

Grumpy Old Git
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When I bought my furniture for the listening room, I specified Mpingo wood for the feet of the sofas! They were hugely expensive, but isolate the listener from the deleterious effects of vibration and resonances within the listening environment!
Ah - well i chose these for my furniture - I did not notice any change in sound from the castors on before - but i castorated the sofas and chairs and put these on it  - saves digging holes in the carpet they slide nicely and the carpet stays intact lol   
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Nearly bewildered

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I run my amp from batteries..isnt that pure power?  It sounds ok...i can now go off grid ( sort of.) laptop off its battery, hrt dac drawing power from usb..amp from battery pack..i think i prefer amp powered by cb radio transformer.. Bit more dynamic? Its not night and day the difference between pure power and from the mains..in my opinion 

 
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uzzy

Grumpy Old Git
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Apr 16, 2006
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NN38TA Northampton
AKA
David
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
I run my amp from batteries..isnt that pure power?  It sounds ok...i can now go off grid ( sort of.) laptop off its battery, hrt dac drawing power from usb..amp from battery pack..i think i prefer amp powered by cb radio transformer.. Bit more dynamic? Its not night and day the difference between pure power and from the mains..in my opinion 
Visited a guy a worked with once - he lived in a place with no power (he used a generator) he had an old quad set up and it sounded fine (other than the drone from the generator)

 
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DomT

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Wat hifi  "Generally speaking, glass shelves tend to encourage kit to sound forward, while wooden supports tend to result in a warmer and more rounded balance.”

:sofa:
I agree that a lot of what you posted is of course nonsense but I have to declare that I typically don't like the sound of hifi sitting on glass and can quite easily hear the effect it has on the music. About 12 years ago I was in KJ West One to listen to some ARC stuff.  I had been in the week before and everything sounded great.  This week everything sounded 'forward' sound and harsh. After 45 minutes of unpleasant sounds I realised that the cause must be because they had replaced the wooden rack with a glass one.  Arif put the wooden rack back, great music returned, and I bought the ARC stuff.

When I bought my Hutter rack 14 years ago I compared it at a dealer directly to Quadraspire, IsoBlue, Mana and my target stand.  Big differences between them and the Hutter won so I bought two and will never part with them.  On the other hand I was speaking with a dealer friend the other day and he said well of course the problem that you have is that your Hutter rack is rubbish. And Audio Note use catering tables at Hifi shows. 

It's all subjective and anyway if you have actually been on a UFO then its possible to believe in all sorts of bollocks

 

Nearly bewildered

Well-Known Wammer
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I agree that a lot of what you posted is of course nonsense but I have to declare that I typically don't like the sound of hifi sitting on glass and can quite easily hear the effect it has on the music. About 12 years ago I was in KJ West One to listen to some ARC stuff.  I had been in the week before and everything sounded great.  This week everything sounded 'forward' sound and harsh. After 45 minutes of unpleasant sounds I realised that the cause must be because they had replaced the wooden rack with a glass one.  Arif put the wooden rack back, great music returned, and I bought the ARC stuff.

When I bought my Hutter rack 14 years ago I compared it at a dealer directly to Quadraspire, IsoBlue, Mana and my target stand.  Big differences between them and the Hutter won so I bought two and will never part with them.  On the other hand I was speaking with a dealer friend the other day and he said well of course the problem that you have is that your Hutter rack is rubbish. And Audio Note use catering tables at Hifi shows. 

It's all subjective and anyway if you have actually been on a UFO then its possible to believe in all sorts of bollocks
I havent been on a UFO but I have seen one...does that count! 👽 lol 

 
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