Audiophile
These are some of the worst 'audiophile' products I can find. They amuse me greatly.
If you know of any more, leave a comment. Feel equally free to comment if you need to inform me that I, in fact, have no idea what I'm talking about.
All prices are ridiculous in US Dollars. I'll update the prices if I see them change.
CD Tweaks
AUDIOPRISM CD STOP LIGHT PEN
The most requested tweak of them all. A certain Jesse Morris emailed me with the name of the thing, so I no longer have an excuse for not putting it in.
This is the legendary 'CD Pen' - you're supposed to colour in the edges of your CDs with it.
That's what you're supposed to do.
I have this mental image of middle-aged men, with beards and tank-tops, really carefully colouring in the sides of all their CDs. One after another. For hours on end. Then I imagine the hollow feeling they must get when they listen to their carefully prepared disks, only to find they sound exactly the same as they did before.
And now their hands are covered in ink.
And they're $20 poorer.
Marigo Labs Signature 3-D Mat
Have a look. Nice, isn't it? Not just for decorating the tops of your CDs though, no sir - those wee triangles "...get the least significant bits that get lost and never get off the disc" we're told. An amazing feat under any circumstances, but especially so when performed from the label side of the CD.
As if that weren't enough, "...the mat create[s] a very specific energy spectra that mechanically dithers the laser...". I can only imagine that by 'mechanically dither' they mean 'wobble'.
Your CD player laser, made wobbly by mysterious energy spectra - who could ask for more? I'm sold. Ching! $200.
Link found on the most excellent Dan's Data.
BEDINI - QUADRI-BEAM ULTRA CLARIFIER
Seriously, this thing is amazing: not only is it able to reshuffle the data on your (MPEG encoded) DVDs to give you a picture which is "...brighter, sharper, crisper and cleaner", but can also improve the 96dB dynamic range offered by audio CDs.
This is no small achievement, and at only $199.99 you too can disregard trivialities such as 'mathematics', 'physics', and 'information theory'. This is, after all, "...an ultra cool disc treatment".
Spotted by (the totally spam-free) Paul Architetto.
Nanotech Systems NESPA #1
The tweaks, they keep on comin'.
This one's right up there with Bedini's efforts above: more DVD video enhancements to be had, we're unreliably informed, along with the "ambient background" improvements and "far greater smoothness" we have come to demand from our CD treatments.
It's even won an award, "in the optical finalizer category". The competition must have been stiff...
Regardless of your opinion of the thing itself, any review with the words 'piss', 'shit' and 'explosion' within 5 lines of each other has to be worth a read, hasn't it?
No, maybe not.
From a healthily sceptical Bruno Putzeys. Ta.
Furutech RD-2 Demagnitizer
The mind boggles.
I can feel it right now. My mind. Boggling.
No, but seriously, I've been looking for a way to demagnetise my (plastic and aluminium) optical media for, oh, ages; and now Furutech have given me just that opportunity for a measly $417.92. Cheers guys!
I recommend you read the 'Principles' PDF - it's both highly amusing and deeply disturbing. Enjoy in particular the SNR figures which show a decrease in signal to noise ratio for treated discs. 'Superexcellent'.
CD Sound Improver
So you're listening to your CDs one day, and "Then you get that overwhelming feeling that soundwise, there has got to be more than this". It's OK, I feel like that too sometimes. Generally I solve this problem by drinking heavily, but that leads to other overwhelming feelings, and is therefore no solution.
There is another way, though: you can chop a bit off the edge of your CDs! That should sort it, and a CD Sound Improver should be just the tool for the job.
I should hope so anyway, 'cause at $495, I'd have no money left to implement my normal solution.
The GSIC-10 Intelligent Chip
Pure shite. That's all I have to say.
A special mention has to go to Machina Dynamica, really (the GSIC above's one of theirs).
Some days I wake up and the sun is shining, birds are singing, coffee is brewing downstairs. There's hope for world peace, and an end to poverty.
Then I check my email, and someone has sent me another link to a Machina Dynamica page.
Go forth into Machina Dynamica. Laugh. Cry. Despair. Drink. Heavily.
Other Tweaks
Ultra Tweeter from Golden Sound
Surprisingly cheap for audiophile snake-oil, but still nonsense nonetheless. Somehow these 'ultra tweeters' generate signals in the gigahertz range from the output of your normal audio amplifier. OK,
1) How?
2) Why?
3) Uhn?
The Altmann Acoustic Panel
How much for an 80x50cm plank of wood? Two bucks? Maybe three? Hell no, this is audiophile wood. Yours for $240.
At least it was $240. "Attention: This product is currently not available due to manufacture capacity limitations." I think they ran out of wood.
The Altmann Tube-o-lator lacquer
Magical resin which removes only mystical 'overtones'. All other specifications remain unchanged. Amazing.
Other wisdom from this page: "If we were able to reproduce a recording without any distortion... ...It would make us sick." I can see it now: projectile vomiting at Hi-Fi shows across the land.
Update: Mr Altmann has (assuming it's him) posted a comment on an article on Music Thing about this web page. I have responded.
The Hallograph Soundfield Optimizer
By popular demand, we bring you the Shakti Innovations Hallograph Soundfield Optimizer. I won't insult you with the details of how these "activated panels generate a musically complimentary reflective energy..." mainly because we're not told, so I don't know. What I do know is that "RENOWNED MASTERING ENGINEER STEVE HOFFMAN" endorses them.
Thumbs up and everything. Outstanding.
Thankfully "only one set is required per system". I say thankfully, because they'll set you back a deeply depressing $1000 a pair. Ouch.
Cable Elevators Plus
God forbid your insulated speaker cables should touch anything as audiophilically damaging as your carpet.
audiodharma CABLE COOKER™
"Although it is not yet fully understood scientifically, the phenomenon of "cable break-in" has been experienced by many audiophiles."
Hmmm.
"Although it is fully understood scientifically, the phenomenon of "gullibility" has been experienced by many audiophiles."
That's better. It's not all bad, though - you don't even have to buy one to experience its incredible sonic influence. You can rent one instead! A snip at $95 per cable. As an alternative, give me the $95 and I'll tell you your cables sound better. Same effect, no 5 day wait. What's not to like?
Were it not for a Mr Don Mainfort I would still be in the dark about this incredible audiophile development. I am indebted, sir.
Cable
MIT Oracle cables
This is great. $9,000 for speaker cable? Apparently, these cables measure well in 'articulation response', and balance the 'holy trinity' of electrical properties. For $9,000, I would certainly expect my cables to 'measure well', even in ways which no-one has heard of before.
And make sure you allow 'ample break-in' time should you find yourself in the unfortunate situation of having actually bought some.
I'm only keeping this product here because I love the review; we in fact have a new winner for the most ridiculous speaker cable...
OPUS MM Speaker Cables
Apparently, "OPUS MM unleashes thrilling levels of performance...". That may well be so, but OPUS MM also unleashes thrilling amounts of cash from your obviously overfull audiophile wallet. Your shiny new speaker cable will set you back a truly outstanding $30,750.00. I'll say that again: thirty thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars, and no cents.
Cheers to Ramon Hernandez for sending me a link to this. Top work.
Genesis 1.0 Digital RCA Interconnect
Unsatisfied with the abysmal performance of your current digital cable? Virtual Dynamics have just the thing.
The product's page is sadly lacking in the rhetoric we have come to adore from our purveyors of dubious wire, but I think the price says all that needs to be said.
$5,800
Genesis 1.0 Power Cable
I have to say I'm impressed. Virtual Dynamics have successfully blown every other kettle lead out of the water in terms of price, cost, and outlay.
The details of this fine, fine product are a bit thin on the ground, but I'm sure it won't be long until they find enough superlatives to justify an utterly astonishing $13,400.
I could continue to list Virtual Dynamics 'Genesis' stuff here, as it's all preposterous, but this page is getting long. For a good laugh, just have a look at the whole lot. Be sure to read about 'Level 4 Speed of Light' and their other outstanding contributions to the science of audio reproduction - it's complete shite incredible technology.
TARA Labs The Zero interconnect
"A 1m pair of Zero interconnects will set you back $14,900. I am sorry." says our reviewer.
I bet TARA Labs aren't sorry.
They probably should be, but I bet they're not.
Knobs. Yes, knobs.
Silver Rock Potentiometer
Can you spare $6,820 for a volume control? A volume control? Well, OK, you do get two knobs for the price of one. That's nice, but it means you have to adjust the volume for each speaker individually. This must be the audiophile way. Also note that once you've bought it, you can't send it back - not for any reason.
Silver Rock Signature Knob
I've saved the best for last. This is the famous 'Silver Rock Signature Knob'.
A piece of pure... wood.
Shaped into the form of... a knob.
For... a volume control.
I could be wrong, but I think it's just a wooden volume knob.
You can have the pleasure of personally twiddling this audiophile essential for a positively insane $485. But wait, there's more! Or maybe less, because they're made for the 'Silver Rock Potentiometer' linked above. So you'll need two of them. $970. Bargain.
I seem to have irritated a few people with this fine list of dubious products, so I should probably describe where I'm coming from:
I am very much ashamed to say that my own speakers are bi-wired and spiked onto concrete plinths, my PC's sound card is hooked up to a 20 bit DAC/ADC, and years ago I could be found polishing the mains plug pins on my amplifier with Brasso. I am a reformed audiophile, and as such, I reserve the right to laugh at anyone who buys or defends the products listed above.
If you'd like to see some of the claims made by audiophiles about their wondrous wares debunked, have a look at Audioholics Education.
Another interesting read about cables (regarding the manufacturer of the OPUS MM above) is Lies, Damn Lies, and Cables (thanks to Wayde Robson of hometheaterfocus.com fame for the link).
And here's some essential reading on audio CDs and DVDs for those who cling to the belief that they're not getting their least significant bits:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Book_(audio_CD_standard)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed-Solomon_error_correction
http://www.martinreddy.net/gfx/cd.info
http://www.opticaldisc-systems.com/2002NovDec/DVD82.htm
http://www.magnani.net/~al/DigitalWireLabTest.html
I´m sorry you laugh about your ignorance.Have you ever tried some of the tweaks you listed?I have, and many people i know .Believe or not some work or do you think the people who buy such devices are stupids idiots masoquists or rich guys?I know among this devices some are snake oil but before testing i don´t conmdened them.So for your pleasure i do a list of some i have tested:Audioprism light pen,works an ordinary pen does the same
Bedini Very good
Nespa also
Furutech RD2 idem
Cable elevator anything who put cables in the air works
Cable cooker just leave new cables connected to a FM receiver 24 hours a week and do the same job
Great list buddy, you made my day :)
And about the above poster, well i read carefully your post, so about the question
"do you think the people who buy such devices are
a) stupids idiots masoquists or
b) rich guys?"
the answer is a) without a doubt, because
1) not all the rich guys believe in ancient magic
2) there are some poor guys out there that do some really stupid things
Wow, what great products! My radio has never sounded better, and my wallet has never felt lighter! what did I ever do before I found these great products!
Thanks for the good laughs.
The light pen. A CD is a digital medium. It contains many hundreds of bytes. These bytes streamed together can be interpreted as a waveform. The Marigo Labs Signature 3-D Mat supposedly retrieves the long lost least significant bits from a single byte. If there was no other way of retrieving these cleverly hidden bits, then I am quite certain computers would not function. At all. It's like saying that if you buy my $500 pinky ring you will suddenly and for the first time ever be able to use your pinky finger! Buy two, one for each hand!
I have far better ways to blow money instead of getting suckered into any of this nonsense.
Some people believe L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology religion, too.
Is this why audiophools and their money are so soon parted?: http://www.ethanwiner.com/believe.html
Seems plausible to me.
(Note to self: Must remember to plug my interconnects in with the printed arrows pointing towards the amp. Those pesky electrons just refuse go the other way.)
Great page by the way Mr ILikeJam, it's given me a good few belly laughs! Thanks for attempting to show that the emperor really does have no clothes...
Sometimes, maybe, there might be more to this universe than our partially-evolved monkey-brains are not able to comprehend. It is difficult, for some, to think beyond what they know, and especially beyond what they can imagine.
The Emperor has no clothes, but in the case of the VD Genesis, he has a 2 meter shlong with your name on it. So while you are laughing at things that you have no knowledge of, no knowledge beyond that it doesn't make sense to you, so much so that it sounds ridiculous to you, just be careful that you don't bend over to pick up the soap.
Virtual Dynamics, you say? That wouldn't be the same Virtual Dynamics that make the Power 3 power cable, would it?
It is?
Well, in that case, perhaps you should read this:
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f21/my-cat-tore-up-my-virtual-dynamics-power-3-a-293165/
The Machina Dynamica site is beyond nutty; I especially enjoyed the audiophile electrical outlet covers, a steal at only $99 for a four pack.
They remind me of P.W.B. Electronics http://www.belt.demon.co.uk/priceus.html - surprised you didn't mention them yet. They'll sell you colored pens too, but at $175 they obviously must work much better, and they treat vinyl records too. Read the description of the "Inside Foil" or, for that matter, any of their other products for more fun.
I work for a large electronics organisation as training manager. I use presentations featuring the 'products' listed on this site to demostrate how utterly absurd and disconnected from reality some sections of the audio industry are. Training doesn't always have to be serious - a presentation showing these ludicrous items is always good for a few laughs.
learn the difference between "your" an "you're" idiot.
Thank's for you're advice. You might want to get you're 'Shift' and 'd' keys looked at, though.
grammar nazi:
Learn the difference between "an" and "and", idiot.
BURN!
Not an audiophile, always was curious about the "hobby". I was floored by the wall sockets, really floored by everything. Somehow a digital medium is loosing bits left and right! And those lasers are flying around my room! Man, i never knew my stereo was such a sloppy piece of machinery. My computer must be really good since it functions so well with only 90% of its bits... its just a good guesser i guess.
Funny stuff.
I have an amplifier I built with small quantities of Jena Labs wire, but that doesn't mean I didn't choke a bit when reading their catalog entry for the Awakening Ultra RCA Absolute Statement interconnects.
http://www.jenalabs.com/interconnects/cableprice.html
$18,000 for a 3-foot nine-inch pair.
Top honors for not making absurd claims, though.
Try reading up about how the EMF decays (or persists) over distances and then you'll understand the reason for lifting the cables off the floor and carpets. Air is the best in terms of dielectrics and that's what helps when the cables are raised or put at 90 degrees when they cross each other.
This is just one example. Alsmot all the tweaks that you have listed above do have a reason behind them and work. You have to have ears to make them out and obviosly the material.
Quoto from above:
"Air is the best in terms of dielectrics"
O really?
Then please explain why electric sparks jump trough air very easy, and not trough glass or plastic.
Are you sure that you know what you are talking about.
http://www.audioholics.com/education/cables/dielectric-absorption-in-cables-debunked/
I speak to everyone from empirical knowledge (I've heard systems in all price brackets, and have been to many an AV show). My intention is to help and enlighten, not to dispute so here goes:
Room acoustics, amplifier power and speaker design are the sole contributors to the way a system sounds - the former having the most impact on sound. Additionally, the quality of a musical recording is much more important than the design of the source i.e CD player. How come? Even budget CD players/PC Soundcards perform fine with today's standards with no audible distortion - which is people worry about. Cables? Any old shielded cable will do fine (termination makes no difference, believe me, just use bare wire), and the same goes for mains cabling. Don't waste your hard-earned cash on overpriced snake-oil, the AV industry and market are designed to suck as much money out of your wallet as possible. Instead, invest in acoustically dampening your room to avoid reflections, vibrations and such distorting elements. Future-proof yourself and buy a big-ass amplifier, speakers with minimal resonance and distortion, a decent source, shielded copper cabling, a lot of well-recorded CDs or MP3s and you're set!
Caveat Emptor :)
c'mon, Machina Dynamica is clearly an amusing piss-take of everything you detest...give him some credit. that the audiophile publications take him seriously enough to bother to test and review is very funny.
Hi,
Thanks! I had some sad fun.
In Italy we have a special category of food experts called gastrogonzi. Those are the ones who will like any sort of ugly food if expensive and well put in a nice dish, they also like a lot fancy menus where the food is described with some poetry and magic (regardless of what it actually is) ... I guess is the same thing. It seems there are a lot of audiogonzi around!
Once I've been a gonzo too and bought a Monster Cable CD stabilizer (it was long ago and the product has long ago be discontinued). The sound did change and became dull, I wondered why and removed the top cover to look at the cd while spinning: with the stabilizer on it was tremendously unstable! The sound was duller because the error compensation was working much more I guess.
But, I have to admit some once strange tweaks have now a scientific explanation and works. One example: bi-wiring, under certain circumstances has a reason to be used.
A few things are more obvious: some contact cleaners may be effective on oxidated contacts (not on new clean golden ones, and if it works on them it means the connections were crap), a good cleaning and some scrubbing works as well, but good contacts cleaners are a bit oily and may prevent a new oxidation. There's no reason to pay a lot for those anyway, they are common tools for car mechanics for example.
Some things are strange: a lot of expensive cables use PVC in the external sheat, well PVC is piezoelectric, thus it may get electrostatically charged with vibrations and transmit it inside ... Thus, some may hear a difference using cable suspenders. Maybe it is easier to buy PVC free cables: it is also healthier.
I think that it is important to point out that some things are really crazy, like you're doing. I haven't seen any Harmonx products (they are really magic and thus really expensive), I think they deserve a review here.
Ending this post: it seems that a lot of audio stuff has great project and building errors (it is made for audiogonzi) and may not work properly in a variety of different environments (the reasons may be magnetic fields, electric pollution, vibrations, etc...), those gonzi instead of buyng well made equipment will try to fix major project mistakes by buying strange things, those same strange things may work (well, produce a different sound, if it is more correct is doubtful), but they work because the equipment had great problems ...
Go on
The link to harmonix, that I quoted on my previous post. This item is especially noteworthy: http://www.combak.net/roomtune/roomtuning.htm
They sell for more than 1000 euros (1500$ roughly). The claim that those little pills will affect the reproduction of low frequencies is absurd, their size is so small (one inch diameter, one tenth of an inch thickness) that the long wave lenghts will obviosly ignore them totally ... besides if they have an effect that will be on high frequencies only, they may act as diffusors and/or (mild) absorbers depending of the material they are made of, BUT only using a LOT (REALLY A LOT) of them this effect could be noticeable...
And at the end be the same as having a MUCH cheaper normal absorbing- diffusing device. And more, any, ANY, room furniture or different position of the furniture itself will affect the sound much more than those little pills.
I suggest people buying those devices to buy and hang to their walls my artwork instead, the special carefully selected and professionally used materials and the skill of the artist will clearly enance the pleasure of staying in the music room... one for just the price of 3 harmonix sets (for MUCH more wall surface covered)! In this way they may also contribute to the noble cause of an artist living and have better dreams knoving the value will increase in time.
Also noteworthy are their disc clamp TU812 (clamps on vinyl do affect the sound, for better or worse it depends) for the very high price (1000$, roughly) and their disc mat TU800 (1500$).
Price mentioned are reffered to Italy.
You've missed this: http://www.vandenhul.com/p_IXXX.aspx
The miracle bracelet! It's really worrying that someone of this reputation (and somehow also ernest, his prices are high, but not as much as others) is a magician. Wasn't he well known as an engineer?