The Flat Earth Society undone...

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic. Read 9342 times.

dBe

  • Industry Participant
  • Posts: 2181
    • PI audio group, LLC
The Flat Earth Society undone...
« on: 27 Jul 2015, 02:01 am »
I though a curiously informative and fun topic would be the dichotomy between what we once thought and what we have learned to be a helluva lot more important than we believed to be true.

I'll start: power quality in general.

You go, people!!!

rjbond3rd

Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #1 on: 27 Jul 2015, 03:12 am »
May I ask what is a "flat earther" in an audio context?

I used to think that the -type- of speaker or amp is what mattered most, whereas now I've learned that there are great examples of all the various types, if you seek them out.

Early B.

Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #2 on: 27 Jul 2015, 03:59 am »
I used to think that paying more than a $100 on a power cord was a waste of money.

Folsom

Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #3 on: 27 Jul 2015, 04:05 am »
Little known fact... Christopher Columbus said the first guy to refuse him funding thought the world was flat and he'd go over the edge or such... However for hundreds of years no one believed the earth was flat. To simply put it, it was an insult to say someone thought the earth flat.

I too have found cables make more of a difference than my wallet generates...

dBe

  • Industry Participant
  • Posts: 2181
    • PI audio group, LLC
Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #4 on: 27 Jul 2015, 06:07 am »
Little known fact... Christopher Columbus said the first guy to refuse him funding thought the world was flat and he'd go over the edge or such... However for hundreds of years no one believed the earth was flat. To simply put it, it was an insult to say someone thought the earth flat.

I too have found cables make more of a difference than my wallet generates...
My friend, there you have it!

I also used to think that a "capacitor is a capacitor and a resistor is a resistor".  My ears are very happy I was wrong.

bside123

Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #5 on: 27 Jul 2015, 04:01 pm »
I used to think I could hear!  :duh:

Don_S

Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #6 on: 27 Jul 2015, 04:10 pm »
dbe,

Does this thread have anything to do with this thread?     :wink: :shh:
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=136240.msg1448367;topicseen#new

Guy 13

Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #7 on: 27 Jul 2015, 04:10 pm »
On planet Vietnam,
 I use to think that I could drink almost a liter of 7-Up a day
without any consequences....  :duh:
The earth is flat, depending where/what direction you look !  8)

Guy 13
Formerly from planet Vietnam.

dBe

  • Industry Participant
  • Posts: 2181
    • PI audio group, LLC
Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #8 on: 27 Jul 2015, 04:57 pm »
dbe,

Does this thread have anything to do with this thread?     :wink: :shh:
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=136240.msg1448367;topicseen#new
Nope.  Just about what we all have learned compared to what we used to think about audio.

mcbuddah

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 43
Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #9 on: 27 Jul 2015, 05:42 pm »
This thread brings to mind how much ridicule that Enid Lumley faced for her pioneering work in system setup and tweaking more than 25 years ago in TAS. Yet, she persevered in writing about her adventures and experiments. She was assumed by probably half of the audiophiles in the world to be crazy as a loon for claiming to hear improvements when putting her cables on cups to get them off the floor, hanging interconnects from ribbons to keep them separate. Using VPI bricks, AC plug orientation and phase, high-quality power cords, hearing sonic differences in different plating metallurgy and taking the dustcover off the turntable when playing records all got her more and more ridicule, but she persevered. She stuck her head out of the foxhole back when the audio world was still debating if amplifiers with similar specs all sounded the same. I nominate Enid Lumley as the Patron Saint of tweakers. 

dBe

  • Industry Participant
  • Posts: 2181
    • PI audio group, LLC
Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #10 on: 27 Jul 2015, 06:24 pm »
This thread brings to mind how much ridicule that Enid Lumley faced for her pioneering work in system setup and tweaking more than 25 years ago in TAS. She stuck her head out of the foxhole back when the audio world was still debating if amplifiers with similar specs all sounded the same. I nominate Enid Lumley as the Patron Saint of tweakers.
+1   :thumb:

I was one of THOSE GUYS that thought all of this was crazy.  I was using polyester caps for tweeter crossovers back in the 80s and a wise old guy gave me some caps that were only available to the nuclear industry at that time (teflon) and I tried them and was absolutely floored when teamed up with a visa D25AG aluminum dome.  The brittleness in them was the polyester cap.  I couldn't get teflon caps so he then said to try polypropylene and my road to perdition was set.  I met George Short a few years later and he taught me that not all PP is the same, resistors sounded different and on and on and on and...

SoCalWJS

Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #11 on: 27 Jul 2015, 07:32 pm »
This thread brings to mind how much ridicule that Enid Lumley faced for her pioneering work in system setup and tweaking more than 25 years ago in TAS. Yet, she persevered in writing about her adventures and experiments. She was assumed by probably half of the audiophiles in the world to be crazy as a loon for claiming to hear improvements when putting her cables on cups to get them off the floor, hanging interconnects from ribbons to keep them separate. Using VPI bricks, AC plug orientation and phase, high-quality power cords, hearing sonic differences in different plating metallurgy and taking the dustcover off the turntable when playing records all got her more and more ridicule, but she persevered. She stuck her head out of the foxhole back when the audio world was still debating if amplifiers with similar specs all sounded the same. I nominate Enid Lumley as the Patron Saint of tweakers.
I remember Enid well. Thought she was part of the lunatic fringe at first, yet I found myself trying virtually anything suggested if I  could. :thumb:

RPM123

  • Full Member
  • Posts: 632
Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #12 on: 27 Jul 2015, 10:16 pm »
This thread brings to mind how much ridicule that Enid Lumley faced for her pioneering work in system setup and tweaking more than 25 years ago in TAS. Yet, she persevered in writing about her adventures and experiments. She was assumed by probably half of the audiophiles in the world to be crazy as a loon for claiming to hear improvements when putting her cables on cups to get them off the floor, hanging interconnects from ribbons to keep them separate. Using VPI bricks, AC plug orientation and phase, high-quality power cords, hearing sonic differences in different plating metallurgy and taking the dustcover off the turntable when playing records all got her more and more ridicule, but she persevered. She stuck her head out of the foxhole back when the audio world was still debating if amplifiers with similar specs all sounded the same. I nominate Enid Lumley as the Patron Saint of tweakers.

Indeed! I wonder how much of the vitriol against her was based her gender and if she was a he, would that person have received so much scorn?

On topic then...initially I thought that there was no way that a power cord could make much of a sonic difference, until I heard for myself.  :?

mcbuddah

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 43
Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #13 on: 28 Jul 2015, 12:46 am »
RPM, I don't remember the criticism being any more sexist than today when she touched a nerve. In those days, I used to read TAS and Stereophile for the articles - not the pictures - and I was always fascinated with her reports. And, she didn't back down. She heard what she heard and that was that. For the younger readers in the crowd, in the time-frame of 25 to 35 years ago, there were no products on the market to address cable dressing. There were no fancy brass cones. Feet on most components were some kind of cheap rubber compound. There were a few lost voices in the wilderness claiming that different wire dielectrics changed the sound of AC cords. Racks were primarily furniture.  Worst of all, it was common knowledge that CDs could reproduce "perfect sound forever." There were arguments that all CD players must sound identical since they all read identical data and so must have identical-sounding output. Some of the biggest legacy fan magazines at the time were written by experts who proved month after month that only measurable differences between components could influence sound. The audiophile media at the time were responsible for maintaining an attitude that upgrading one's equipment frequently was the only path to an improved stereo system. Components were king and Enid challenged all that conventional wisdom as well and she backed it up with evidence based primarily on her own subjective hearing. Fortunately for her, and all of us in modern times, TAS provided her a platform and sufficient editorial support to change the audiophile world and launch an industry to fill the need to maximize the gear we already own.     

Don_S

Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #14 on: 28 Jul 2015, 01:58 am »
How could anyone know power cords made a difference when it was not possible (OK, not easy) to change them because they were captive?  My McIntosh 6100 integrated amp had a captive power cord.  It was a skinny thing with no ground.  RCA inputs were not plated so they tarnished. They were the color of aluminum but I can't swear to what metal they were. Speaker terminals were pushpin plastic things that only accepted zip cord. Hard to argue which brand of zip cord was best. :duh: We've come a long way baby.    :thumb:

RPM, I don't remember the criticism being any more sexist than today when she touched a nerve. In those days, I used to read TAS and Stereophile for the articles - not the pictures - and I was always fascinated with her reports. And, she didn't back down. She heard what she heard and that was that. For the younger readers in the crowd, in the time-frame of 25 to 35 years ago, there were no products on the market to address cable dressing. There were no fancy brass cones. Feet on most components were some kind of cheap rubber compound. There were a few lost voices in the wilderness claiming that different wire dielectrics changed the sound of AC cords. Racks were primarily furniture.  Worst of all, it was common knowledge that CDs could reproduce "perfect sound forever." There were arguments that all CD players must sound identical since they all read identical data and so must have identical-sounding output. Some of the biggest legacy fan magazines at the time were written by experts who proved month after month that only measurable differences between components could influence sound. The audiophile media at the time were responsible for maintaining an attitude that upgrading one's equipment frequently was the only path to an improved stereo system. Components were king and Enid challenged all that conventional wisdom as well and she backed it up with evidence based primarily on her own subjective hearing. Fortunately for her, and all of us in modern times, TAS provided her a platform and sufficient editorial support to change the audiophile world and launch an industry to fill the need to maximize the gear we already own.     

dBe

  • Industry Participant
  • Posts: 2181
    • PI audio group, LLC
Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #15 on: 28 Jul 2015, 02:45 am »
How could anyone know power cords made a difference when it was not possible (OK, not easy) to change them because they were captive?  My McIntosh 6100 integrated amp had a captive power cord.  It was a skinny thing with no ground.  RCA inputs were not plated so they tarnished. They were the color of aluminum but I can't swear to what metal they were. Speaker terminals were pushpin plastic things that only accepted zip cord. Hard to argue which brand of zip cord was best. :duh: We've come a long way baby.    :thumb:
Think about how many people that should know better still think a piece of zip cord is still a viable electrical connector to a piece of high performance audio gear  :roll:

The plating on those RCAs was nickel. 

My favorite zip cord was Carol cable  :lol:

Davey

  • Full Member
  • Posts: 1481
Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #16 on: 28 Jul 2015, 03:22 am »
Some of the finest audio gear ever built had zip-cord for AC power.

"Flat Earth Society."  What a silly-ass label to apply to some of your fellow audiophiles.

Pathetic.

Dave.

dBe

  • Industry Participant
  • Posts: 2181
    • PI audio group, LLC
Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #17 on: 28 Jul 2015, 03:37 am »
Some of the finest audio gear ever built had zip-cord for AC power.

"Flat Earth Society."  What a silly-ass label to apply to some of your fellow audiophiles.

Pathetic.

Dave.
True, but they always sounded better with better cabling and parts upgrades.

My Circle is a place where we exchange knowledge and experience with others that seek the best SQ possible from our systems.  Basically a place where experience trumps supposition.

Davey, you have been on this track for years and busted my balls at every opportunity.  Please take it elsewhere before people that know turn this into a flame fest.  We don't need this here.

Like you said: pathetic.  :nono:

Davey

  • Full Member
  • Posts: 1481
Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #18 on: 28 Jul 2015, 03:55 am »
Dave.

I don't know what track you think I'm on, but I've never "busted your balls."  That's just rhetorical nonsense.

I have always evaluated objectively AND subjectively.  I've raised my eyebrow numerous times reading postings from various folks but I've never mocked them and/or called them silly names.

C'mon.

Dave.

Tomy2Tone

Re: The Flat Earth Society undone...
« Reply #19 on: 28 Jul 2015, 04:22 am »
Here we go again...