There's a difference. I don't sell my opinions for money in a widely read magazine. I don't pretend to be the Ralph Nader, Consumer Reports, Wine Spectator Magazine, or Robert Parker of audio equipment. IMO you should skip my postings if they bother you. Some people just don't like it when others disagree with them. BTW, I agree with your point that my opinion is equally irrelevant as MFs. Thank you for concession. It also demonstrates that his opinion is no more relevant than mine is except perhaps for influencing decisions to purchase or not purchase certain merchandise his readers are considering. That mutually equal irrelevance may be a consequence of what you said that you overlooked. IFAIK there is nothing that distinguishes MF that makes him any more qualified to pass judgment on this kind of equipment any more than I am except that he has access right now to more of it than I do. How much live music do you thinks he hears every year? Every month? Every week? Does he have live musicians in his house practicing, taking lessons, playing in groups he uses as a reference or does he just compare one piece of audio equipment with another to decide what strikes his fancy?
The Fremer lays an ostrich egg thread
- Thread starter DaveyF
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There's a difference. I don't sell my opinions for money in a widely read magazine. I don't pretend to be the Ralph Nader, Consumer Reports, Wine Spectator Magazine, or Robert Parker of audio equipment. IMO you should skip my postings if they bother you. Some people just don't like it when others disagree with them. BTW, I agree with your point that my opinion is equally irrelevant as MFs. Thank you for concession. It also demonstrates that his opinion is no more relevant than mine is except perhaps for influencing decisions to purchase or not purchase certain merchandise his readers are considering. That mutually equal irrelevance may be a consequence of what you said that you overlooked. IFAIK there is nothing that distinguishes MF that makes him any more qualified to pass judgment on this kind of equipment any more than I am except that he has access right now to more of it than I do. How much live music do you thinks he hears every year? Every month? Every week? Does he have live musicians in his house practicing, taking lessons, playing in groups he uses as a reference or does he just compare one piece of audio equipment with another to decide what strikes his fancy?
There's a difference. I don't sell my opinions for money in a widely read magazine.
Thats indeed the difference , there are people willing to buy the magazine to read his among others .
Thats indeed the difference , there are people willing to buy the magazine to read his among others .
Keep in mind what Amir said on the other thread, golden ears get it wrong about 80% of the time. If I knew nothing else, whatever this one said, I'd do the exact opposite and have four times the chance of making the right choice.
One of the many points that MF brings to the table in his rebuttals over at the A'gon thread, is the point that he writes for entertainment value. While I believe him on this point, it would seem to me to be a little disingenuous on his part as he must ( or should be) be aware of the power of the pen. MF must know that a 'negative' review can break a product and a manufacturer when it is expounded in a magazine that has the following of S'phile.
As I said before, I applaud him for telling it likes he hears it. I actually wish that others would do much more of this. However, what concerns me is his seeming inability to also see why all of the "accommodation" pricing and other "perks" he is getting could lead one to question his findings and his lack of bias. This applies to all 'reviewers' and 'dealers' who are receiving the same 'perks', BUT at least, IMO with a 'dealer' I suspect that the consumer understands that the 'dealer' has a built in bias and can accept of that fact. My 2 cents.
As I said before, I applaud him for telling it likes he hears it. I actually wish that others would do much more of this. However, what concerns me is his seeming inability to also see why all of the "accommodation" pricing and other "perks" he is getting could lead one to question his findings and his lack of bias. This applies to all 'reviewers' and 'dealers' who are receiving the same 'perks', BUT at least, IMO with a 'dealer' I suspect that the consumer understands that the 'dealer' has a built in bias and can accept of that fact. My 2 cents.
I dont know 100 % , but i think MF speaks pretty much his own opinion, if it not correlates with yours is another matter .
And if that opinion is bad for a manufacturer , too bad back to the drawingboard , if every review is positive , it would be even worse ,besides that buyers should make their own purchase decisions , as far as they are above 18
I quite like SE tube amps , i even prefer them over SS , you obviously dont , opinions differ so to speak.
I do kinda agree with you on the High end cable / CD player thing ,others opinions differ
And if that opinion is bad for a manufacturer , too bad back to the drawingboard , if every review is positive , it would be even worse ,besides that buyers should make their own purchase decisions , as far as they are above 18
I quite like SE tube amps , i even prefer them over SS , you obviously dont , opinions differ so to speak.
I do kinda agree with you on the High end cable / CD player thing ,others opinions differ
I dont know 100 % , but i think MF speaks pretty much his own opinion, if it not correlates with yours is another matter .
And if that opinion is bad for a manufacturer , too bad back to the drawingboard , if every review is positive , it would be even worse ,besides that buyers should make their own purchase decisions , as far as they are above 18
I quite like SE tube amps , i even prefer them over SS , you obviously dont , opinions differ so to speak.
I do kinda agree with you on the High end cable / CD player thing ,others opinions differ
"I do kinda agree with you on the High end cable"
IMO the evidence is piled a mile high against these people. Why should I take their advice and spend thousands of dollars on an unadjustable distributed parameter filter network when I can build one that performs identically for $15? Should I consider these people technically incompetent or just lying because they make some of their money advertising these sorts of products? That's the problem with being an electrical engineer, you can't be so easily tricked. So what does the term "objectivist" mean, technically competent and telling the truth? Right more than 20% of the time?
You got a point , but remember stereophile takes pretty much a neutral standpoint in the cable thing .
Case closed, they haven't told the whole truth to their readers. Do they accept ads? Of course they do. How could they hold on to their cable advertisers if they said...if you want the same result as this cable here's the telegrapher's equation and these are the values of the resistors, capacitor, and inductor you'll need to build the same filter network and do the same thing?
Soundminded
I never said Fremes opinion was irrelevant. I said he might view you opinion as irrelevant as you do his . As far as I know he never heard of you or read your opinions
Yes Fremere should adhere to a professional standard. I do'n't see any evidence that he has not. Many have taken his advice and obtained excellent results. You might want his videotape on turntable setup
Thank you for stating that you regularly attend live concerts and use live music as a reference. When I claim to use live music as a reference I am widely attacked . It's nice to have an ally. Fremer claims to regularly attend live concerts.
It is difficult to ignore someone when they quote your post. You have said many things that am diametrically opposed to. I view them as your opinion and move on. Besides everyone has something of value to say.
I never said Fremes opinion was irrelevant. I said he might view you opinion as irrelevant as you do his . As far as I know he never heard of you or read your opinions
Yes Fremere should adhere to a professional standard. I do'n't see any evidence that he has not. Many have taken his advice and obtained excellent results. You might want his videotape on turntable setup
Thank you for stating that you regularly attend live concerts and use live music as a reference. When I claim to use live music as a reference I am widely attacked . It's nice to have an ally. Fremer claims to regularly attend live concerts.
It is difficult to ignore someone when they quote your post. You have said many things that am diametrically opposed to. I view them as your opinion and move on. Besides everyone has something of value to say.
Well, one of the lower range networked cables i took apart had only a ironcore coil in series with the signal.
With lets say a first order speaker X over this coil value can be added to the coil value in the filter and therefore will distort the intended speakers balance , so will indeed sound different, likely a gap at the X over freq if the balance was neutral to begin with , with a bulb at the X over freq the cable " may" flatten it a bit , but without measuring this is guesswork
With lets say a first order speaker X over this coil value can be added to the coil value in the filter and therefore will distort the intended speakers balance , so will indeed sound different
, likely a gap at the X over freq if the balance was neutral to begin with , with a bulb at the X over freq the cable " may" flatten it a bit , but without measuring this is guessworkWell, one of the lower range networked cables i took apart had only a ironcore coil in series with the signal.
With lets say a first order speaker X over this coil value can be added to the coil value in the filter and therefore will distort the intended speakers balance , so will indeed sound different
andromedaaudio, time for a little AC electricity theory 101. Long before the first radio or phongraph, even before the telephone there was the telegraph. Just how long a wire could you have between repeater stations? What happens to the signal when wire gets longer. How long before it's too long to work. Designers of the telegraph system had to find out. And so they set about the task of mathematically modeling wire. And we use their model to this very day because when we measure what wire does and compare it to what their equation predicts it will do, we get the same answer. There's been a lot of electrical engineering since then but we can always come back to wire and see what role it plays in an electical circuit depending on how it is constructed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegrapher's_equations
Look at the simple schematic. Only four elements in it, a capacitor, an inductor, and two resistors (one called G is actually the inverse of a resistor, it accounts for the resistance of the insulation between the two wires. We can make the model far more elaborate but the answers we usually get are pretty much the same. So a wire has these parameters which depend on its length. Resistance per foot, inductance per foot, etc. As soon as you cut a specific length of it you can imagine that they are all just one simple little 4 element network, build that network and it will do exactly the same thing. BTW, if you have DSL, this is why you have to be within about a mile of the Central Telephone office. The shunt capacitance of the twisted pair is so high that there's a severe limit to how high a frequency it will carry and how far. Much worse than an RG-6 coaxial cable. So that's why phone companies had to go to a FIOS fiber optic cable system if they wanted to be able to continue to compete with the cable companies. BTW, here's something you can try. If you have a DVD with a composite video output (yellow jack) and a TV with a yellow jack video input, install your high end audio cable between them and see what it does to the picture. The $1 Dollar Store and $1 Radio Shack cable....work perfectly. The required bandwidth is at least 7 mhz, 350 times what an audio cable needs.
"And of course he might view your opinion as equally irrelevant."
"I never said Fremes opinion was irrelevant."
That's right, I'm the one who said that. But you'll be happy to know that I've reconsidered especially in light of Amir's posting assuming he's right and Fremer is part of the basic trend. Where else can you get odds that a particular opinion will be wrong 80% of the time. I like those odds. I'd make billions if I could get the same on buying and selling stocks.
Which high end audio cable , the most expensive i use is profigold , i know i am a sinner
No, you're an audiophile.
You really should check out Teresa's weird forays into Computeraudiophile before you use her as your go-to testimonial to the integrity of the subjectivist POV.
Do your really expect me to take a guy who buys? and recommends a machine to demagnetize vinyl phonograph records seriously?
BTW my favorite "weird" audio person is May Belt (and her husband Peter) in England. You'll hear the strangest things from her. For example one way to improve the sound of your audio system is to water your plants with distilled water. You can't make stuff like that up. I wish I could find the link to the guy who was selling $500 a piece wooden volume control knobs. I had one just like it in my own first phonograph when I was 5 years old. I wonder if he didn't get it out of my parent's trash. Oh if I'd only known then what wonders it would have done for me decades later. Live and learn....and never throw anything out.
Well soundminded , this demonstration must get your approval then, switching real instruments for electronic recorded ones ,in real time for an audience .
http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/zanden/zanden.html
Minor problem , they did hear a swap of the powercord
http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/zanden/zanden.html
Minor problem , they did hear a swap of the powercord
Well soundminded , this demonstration must get your approval then, switching real instruments for electronic recorded ones ,in real time for an audience .
http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/zanden/zanden.html
Minor problem , they did hear a swap of the powercord
These are always a lot of fun but often less than successful. I attended two at audio shows conducted by Acoustic research back in the 1960s. The sounds were surprisingly close to the real thing but not quite. Yet I was very surprised by the similarity. I thought Lingdorf was supposed to have done something like that with Steinway for gimungous megabucks. I heard VMPS tried it but it didn't work out very well. I think only an independent account can possibly be relied on to give you the whole truth. I've posted JA's account of his own less than successful attempt at duplicating the sound of a Steinway D Grand piano. Of course no matter how successful these demos are they do not indicate that you will get similar results from commercial recordings (you never know how their own recordings were hoked up to get the desired results) and of course none of them can reproduce the effects of concert hall acoustics which is most of what you hear at a live performance.