HiFi snake oil or is it?

Coming back to AV: modern HDMI cables are certified.  If it’s got the hologram (and it’s not counterfeit) then a £5 Amazon Basics “Ultra High Speed” HDMI cable will perform exactly the same as a £500 one with the sheathing hand-rolled on the thighs of Filipino virgins.

Not sure this is correct, or there’s a lot of counterfeit cables out there. Had a lot of trial and error getting my Oculus Rift working reliably with USB and HDMI extension cables. Finding reliable DisplayPort cables for high refresh rate displays has been difficult too, even when they meet the spec on paper.

Still, those are issues of high bandwidth requirements and i’m sceptical that would be an issue with audio even with cheap cables.

Well, USB is a whole other dumpster fire of protocols, vaguely-met standards and cabling from AliExpress.  I’ve been tempted more than once to purge the entire drawerful and start again.

I’ve never had issues with DisplayPort but I’ve never really had a reason to push it to its limits.

Apparently ‘Owner of a lonely heart’ by Yes is the go to track to weed out snake oil upgrades.

because you need to give your ears chance to acclimatise

Brilliant!

I’ve never had issues with DisplayPort but I’ve never really had a reason to push it to its limits.

in a simmilar fasion to HDMI, you do need a certain standard of display port cable (and compatible hardware each end of the cable) if you want to see super high refresh rates and stuff like that.

For example I can’t run my gaming monitor at 1440p/165hz with HDR unless I use a DP 1.4 or better cable.

All of this ∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆\

Is mosty why I sacked off working with audio snobs I’ve seen Harry potters spells make more sense than some of the HiFi geeked out equipment.

If you need better power supplies to stop interfering with the music enjoyment. You need to have a word with the amp/audio manufacturer as they have put rubbish shielding or non into the unit.

In the days of old people using L/R audio leads with terrible plastic ends and rub off gold paint then yes spending $$$$  made a difference.

High speed HD leads that are cert are more than good enough.

I genuinely did see a scart lead on a B&O TV that gave as good as  720p once hd into dvi connection if your old enough to remember those.

Oh and cat5e definitely falls off a cliff over 100mts for HD video transfer.

But if it makes you happy then fine I think old cars drive better than new ones and obviously that’s just wrong

We spend a lot of time blinding our experiments, because placebo works.

@batfink the reason for having placebo is that it does not work. It does however make it possible to measure the variability of the ‘no treatment’ influences [edit- on the endpoint measure(s)] to which all participants are exposed to varying degrees. this is composed of many variables. This may be what you meant with the shorthand ‘placebo effect’. I expect it is what many folks mean. Well, until an RCT shows that their putative drug has limited effect in the study. Then they start believing that filler or vehicle has a mysterious and variable benefit.

My, harsh, conclusion when folks claim that ‘the placebo effect was strong in our study’ is not that, say, steroids as standard care were unusually efficacious or that the placebo was remarkably effective but just that the control arm did OK. If this is in line with past variability measures of standard care then the conclusion that the investigational product is not a drug is just that bit easier.

This editorial on placebo makes for fun reading. https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/190/1/2/5876955?login=false

As for the amazing digital coax cable. Hey, OP if it sounds better to you that sounds like a win. Keep it

As part of your comparison testing Why not compare it with your old cable but wrap £100 around your old one? Then do the blinded test with an impartial assistant. When you finish the test and tally the results hold the cables and see which one you prefer.

Your blinded test will come nowhere near the standards of a clinical, or even psychology, study but it might be enough to persuade you either way.

Your blinded test will come nowhere near the standards of a clinical, or even psychology, study but it might be enough to persuade you either way.

Surely it doesn’t need to as the only relevant effect is that on a particular person?

If your amplifier is not especially well shielded then maybe it’s picking up interference from the cable. Perhaps a better cable picks up and radiates less RFI. Dunno.

Have you got your DAC on a concrete slab?

Not exactly practical in my case; it’s attached to the back of my phone using a MagSafe case. Which has me wondering, do the magnets in the case and the cut-down piece of case the DAC is attached to have any effect on the audio information going from the phone to the wired headphones?

Which are studio grade Røde ‘phones.
I’m being slightly facetious, but magnets do affect audio, as indeed they affect light, so the curious side of my mind does wonder if there might be some very slight interaction or interference caused by the magnetic field.

Mostly. Speak to these guys and ask: https://www.vdctrading.com/ Digital I have never really noticed any difference, it either works or doesn’t. Many pro’s won’t touch the branded consumer hifi jewellery style cables, sticking with Van Damme or similar.

I have noticed the difference between silver and copper speaker cable, copper always sounding better to me.

Don’t ever break open a set of speakers or any of your components to see what they are wired internally with, usually junk.

DACs are all so good these days you can get to 90% performance for £1-200 now.

Speakers are where you really notice a difference either spending £££ or finding some old classics. I’m still running Van Damme and Amazon Basics cables with some high end gear. Just picked up a pair of old Usher Audio second hand for £120 that don’t embarrass themselves against a pair costing 10x.

Apparently ‘Owner of a lonely heart’ by Yes is the go to track to weed out snake oil upgrades.

I always listen to the opening of Floyds Wish You Were Here if I want to gauge the quality of the source.

Audiophiles might tell me this is a useless track to gauge anything, I dunno

Many pro’s won’t touch the branded consumer hifi jewellery style cables, sticking with Van Damme or similar.

All my (analogue) interconnects are home made using Belkin mic cable off a big reel. It’s good enough for recording studios so it’s good enough for me.

I always listen to the opening of Floyds Wish You Were Here if I want to gauge the quality of the source.

Audiophiles might tell me this is a useless track to gauge anything, I dunno

I always think listening to a particular track tells you how good the system is for reproducing that particular track (or genre at best). I have yet to find one set of speakers which are the absolute best for all kinds of music (to my cloth ears at any rate).

So true, I switch speakers for different music. Metal cone for well recorded accoustic and jazz stuff, poly cone for anything with twangy guitar or poorly recorded.

Well I just compromise by going with what adequately suits my broad taste in music. Currently (well for the past 20 years or so) ATC.

I think the best I have ever heard for rock were a pair of huge Klipshhorns. Built like old fashioned stadium rock folded horns they are an obvious choice. For small scale acoustic and vocals I haven’t heard better than Quad ESL63s. I don’t have room or the pocket for both.

I always listen to the opening of Floyds Wish You Were Here if I want to gauge the quality of the source.

Audiophiles might tell me this is a useless track to gauge anything, I dunno

My personal preference for “auditioning” gear would be any song you know really, really well.  If it’s something you’ve heard a thousand times over, and actually sat down and properly listened to rather than singing along in the car, you’re going to notice if you hear something different (and if you can’t then either it doesn’t matter or we’re into the realms of serpent lubrication again).

But that’s, like, just my opinion, man.

@batfink the reason for having placebo is that it does not work. It does however make it possible to measure the variability of the ‘no treatment’ influences [edit- on the endpoint measure(s)] to which all participants are exposed to varying degrees. this is composed of many variables. This may be what you meant with the shorthand ‘placebo effect’. I expect it is what many folks mean. Well, until an RCT shows that their putative drug has limited effect in the study. Then they start believing that filler or vehicle has a mysterious and variable benefit.

My, harsh, conclusion when folks claim that ‘the placebo effect was strong in our study’ is not that, say, steroids as standard care were unusually efficacious or that the placebo was remarkably effective but just that the control arm did OK. If this is in line with past variability measures of standard care then the conclusion that the investigational product is not a drug is just that bit easier.

There are plenty of clinical applications where there is a very real placebo effect – particularly in patient reported outcomes, which is essentially what we are talking about here:  an entirely subjective and unvalidated measure of sound quality….. in which placebo absolutely will work.  Thats the point – it’s not objectively doing anything – but it’s having the desired effect on the subject (ie:  it’s “working”).

There’s a whole “audiophile” industry built on it.  “buy these reassuringly expensive magic beans sir – of course they work, look at all the acronyms and waffle we’ve used, observe the awards that we’ve paid magazines to give us – and they wouldn’t be so expensive if they didn’t work!”.  It’s the equivalent of giving a patient a laser-guided injection using a gold-plated syringe, after promising them that this cutting edge new drug is going to definitely make them feel better, but in really vague, immeasurable ways.

But the good news is that nobody’s getting hurt if it doesn’t work – just a few pseudonerds(tm) getting ripped-off.  Does it sounds better?  If you think it does, then it does – if you think it doesn’t, then it doesn’t.

A blinded trial…. no, I don’t think anyone wants that – leave the pseudonerds their hobby.

I always listen to the opening of Floyds Wish You Were Here if I want to gauge the quality of the source.

Audiophiles might tell me this is a useless track to gauge anything, I dunno

Peter Gabriel’s stuff is a good shout. He always has strived for perfect reproduction.

Isn’t that a bit like cracking a walnut with a sledgehammer?

What you did there, I see it.

My personal preference for “auditioning” gear would be any song you know really, really well. If it’s something you’ve heard a thousand times over, and actually sat down and properly listened to rather than singing along in the car,

But that’s, like, just my opinion, man.

Absolutley this, but for posterity, i’d always use 3 songs, First one as you say, something you are very familiar with and you know had decent production quality when it was recorded.

But also throw in two curve balls… so if your fave song is ‘wish you were here’ , throw in a classical music song, a hard dance/techno/disco type track and something else…some crazy heavy metal or maybe a rap song so you get an overall picture.

This is usefull as the bass can get ‘wolly’ and ‘muddy’ with certain tracks, like hard techno if the woofers can’t keep pace… equaly at the trebble end…you want crystal clear jingly trebbles rather than ear piercing high pitched noise…

To answer the OP: snake oil is not really the issue but I’d say no, as it’s doing something for the purchaser. There’s a tacit assumption on this thread that the purpose of Hifi is to produce great sound (though what that is is entirely moot – duplicating a live experience? Not with most of these examples .)

But that’s like going on the watch thread with the with the notion that it’s all about great timekeeping. It’s basically about the pleasure of ownership, having something that makes you feel good, that you identify with, that makes you part of a likeminded club, that’s bleedin’ expensive… You have to assume they get what they’re paying for. Obviously I don’t get it, as with so many things

which is essentially what we are talking about here

Not quite. Much of the placebo effect can be thought of as regression to the mean, particularly when a threshold for trial entry is reuiqred. All those just over the threshold get in, but those below are left out. Guess what happens? Those who just made it into the trial regress to the population mean and get a positive response. The Ig Nobel for medicine this year showed that side effects improve the placebo response even more. Maybe cable sticker shock price is the side effect akin to that pain study!

I always think speakers make the biggest difference and add the most colour to reproduction. The Cambridge Audio DacMagic (£100) DAC on my desk feeds some Class D Chi-Fi (£100) that drives the classic LS3/5 inspired Rogers J149’s to modest levels. Normally I feed it BBC Radio 3 or Tidal High. Also it makes Teams voices come alive :-). Was thinking of upgrading to a nice integrated new Leak (well a Quad really), but desk real estate is a little too much and it won’t quite sit under the monitor.

Cables? Whatever. Nothing silly expensive, but not bell wire either. The Rogers still have their original hard-wired grey cables. So I use them.

It’s basically about the pleasure of ownership, having something that makes you feel good,

I take your point, but I’m struggling with the notion of dropping £200 on an ornamental phono lead.  I think I’d rather spend it on a painting or something.

Never “auditioned” gear in my life as unless it’s in my room then it tells me nothing, Personally I’ve always went for verifiable measurements of the equipment when making a choice, especially monitors and if they have directivity plots such as klippel measurements then all the better.

Saying that I’ve only bought 3 types of active studio monitors over the previous 20 years (KRK, Adam and now using Dynaudio LYD 48) and have no need to ever buy again in my lifetime, unless I win the lottery in that case it’ll be a pair of Genelec 8361A or Kii Three with Kii BXT subs

I always think speakers make the biggest difference and add the most colour to reproduction.

Of course it does.  It has to.  It’s the interface between hi-fi and your ears, it’s literally pushing air into your face.  If that’s off then all the platinum-plated oxygen-free   isn’t going to make the blindest bit of difference.

Cables? Whatever. Nothing silly expensive, but not bell wire either.

I’ve heard tell that the absolute best cable for speaker wire is plain old mains flex.  Hi-fi grade cable may well match it but not beat it.

I dissagree here slightly… the amp is the most important part with speakers being a very close second.

A weak amp will always sound weak and distort a lot at high volume.

A good amp with mediocre speakers gives you a lot more control as long as you are not silly with it and overdrive the speakers.

Well the dogma used to be source first, because you can’t put signal in with any other component. When I tested my Sonus Faber speakers with a cheap Marantz cd player and amplifier, it debunked that immediately. The amp was a rather niche Music Fidelity A1, which is now remade and ridiculously expensive. I still have mine. It needs recapping. So I run a Class D Chi-Fi instead. And those speakers are in a 5.1 system with the other set on the wall with a Sonos Amp. Sounds great though. And it’s only a “u/o” difference in name :-)

Class D has been a game changer. The biased Class A of my A1 has a lovely tone, but it won’t go loud. The Sonos amp is a beast.

Well the dogma used to be source first, because you can’t put signal in with any other component.

Are we not back here to applying analogue thinking to digital systems?

A cheap turntable is always going to sound garbage.  An expensive turntable – my own personal opinions on vinyl aside – should sound good.  Whereas a CD transport’s job is to accurately read 1s and 0s off a shinydisc and throw it at a DAC.  Assuming the disc isn’t sodded, a Supermarket Special player can do that so long as it has a Digital Out to hand off the complicated part.

The Ig Nobel for medicine this year showed that side effects improve the placebo response even more. Maybe cable sticker shock price is the side effect akin to that pain study!

makes perfect sense….. ‘if I’m getting all these side effects, it must be doing something, right?!?!”

Just like:  “this cable must be great, look at it’s girth, and the price!  It wouldn’t be so expensive if it wasn’t better that these cheapo ones”

LOOK AT THE G I R T H !!

Well I put the aforementioned interconnect on Ebay.

In less than 24 hours I received an offer of £90, as the interest was so quick, I got cocky and submitted a counter offer.

It was rejected!

Wish I had just took the money! Sellers remorse!

There will always be other buyers.

Well the dogma used to be source first

The dogma is bullshit, because its dogma, and dogma doesn’t update to match the facts, as the facts change.

The CD engineered out the need to have expensive pressing facilities, expensive needles, expensive turntables and all that large unwieldy unreliable crap, and replaced it with a simple device with perfect, repeatable, reproduction of source data.

Still need a good DAC, but, they are solid state low power electronics – that isn’t expensive to achieve.

Still need a good amp, but, they are also solid state low power electronics, that isn’t expensive to achieve, either (apart from the output device(s) which are rated for higher power).

speakers make the biggest difference

Speakers introduce distortions in order of tens of percent. Rest of audio chain pales into insignificance. THD on power amps at regular levels can be sub 1000th of a %. Spend most money on good speakers.

Still not sold the bloody thing!

Wish I had took that offer!

Still not sold the bloody thing!

Wish I had took that offer!

Up the price, add some snake oil waffle about it being the finest grade unobtainium directional pre burned in cable of the gods.

Profit.