[Lancelot]

I think there are two rather different types of audiophiles. Some *listen* to scientific textbooks and decide what is possible and then try to find a system that respects that belief system .

Others , within some confines, listen to their systems and decide whether a new component makes a meaningful contribution to their musical enjoyment and at a price they can afford or find reasonable.

Neither of these approaches is *right* because each involves a value system that is part of who the individual is.

Perhaps it would be best of we understood that it isn't all about the reproduced sound experience but our choices reflect more deeply held beliefs that make each of us uniquely human.

[orthobiz]

It's not so much about the IEC socket and the power cord. He simply spent way too much time yapping about it! Three or four sentences, maybe five or six if including his conversation with Frank. It just seemed to pop up all over the review. (or at least I think it did. I had a hard time wading through it!)

Paul

[TomW16]

I read the review and got the impression that he enjoyed the DAC.  He seemed to feel that an IEC and different power cord would improve the sound but without that option it is just conjecture on his part; I know that Frank and other engineers would argue the science of why it makes no difference but at least the reviewer expressed his bias.

Was there too much discussion in the review regarding his biases?  Maybe but I didn't find it offensive.  I don't necessarily agree with the reviewer's biases and, therefore, his opinions wouldn't hold much weight with me but then others would disagree with the double blind method of testing.   

Cheers,
Tom

[avahifi]

You know guys, that I think my manufacturer's comments regarding this mostly favorable review were pretty much on the mark and there was nothing said in the review to get so excited about, one way or another.  I am surprised at all the comments above.

One thing that did bother me a bit  - - - the response to my observations about the returned Insight DAC because it was "too clear" sounding.  Honestly that was the user's only negative response.  It just sounded too clear!  That pretty much amazed me as that is exactly what we are trying to design for.  Not hard or nervous sounding, not a music modifier, but clear as light.  We get different reasons for returns, including the obvious fact that the old stock folder is not performing too well right now, but never before because the sound was too good. My question was and still is valid, what should we design for to not make the equipment too clear?  I would like a discussion of this.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

[TomW16]

Only the person who returned the "too clear" DAC can answer what he or she meant but one possibility is that the music they listen to wasn't recorded well and the DAC highlighted the flaws that were previously obscured.  The DAC could have been taking away pleasure rather than adding it.

Cheers,
Tom

[pardales]

I think clarity is a fine goal, but may be defined differently by different people. I think of clarity as a "clear window" onto the recording, low distortion, and an accurate portrayal of the recording. From what I have heard of AVA gear, it does this.

[Panelman]

Frank,

your stated goal of reproducing the sound that comes form the source with as little alteration to the original, IMHO is the best and only design goal for stereo equipment. Trying to understand what "clear" or other subjective terms means is too difficult.   I want to hear what is on the recording or in the case of a turntable or cartridge what those parts of the chain are adding without having to view the sound through the filter of a design goal that I may not understand.

Sean

[rustneversleeps]

The definition of "clear" to a lot of people means "not enough bass", similiar to Sue Kraft's comment of being "bass shy". There are amps and speakers out there that are designed for this "pump up the jam" purpose. Maybe this particular person likes rap music, and needs a lot of punchy bass, and Frank's Insight DAC is not up to the task.

By the way, how many rappers are in this circle, we soon will be a rapping nation.

[TerryWI]

your stated goal of reproducing the sound that comes form the source with as little alteration to the original, IMHO is the best and only design goal for stereo equipment. Trying to understand what "clear" or other subjective terms means is too difficult.   I want to hear what is on the recording or in the case of a turntable or cartridge what those parts of the chain are adding without having to view the sound through the filter of a design goal that I may not understand.

Sean

I have also come to believe this is the way to go.   That is why I thought it important to seize the opportunity to actually hear the AVA components in the room and system of the guy who designed them.  Where could they possibly present what they do better than that?   It doesn't make sense to me why you'd want equipment that wasn't "clear" or changed/added/subtracted from the recorded signal as little as possible, but I wouldn't begrudge somebody buying as they wish.  We can never really know what the other person is hearing.

Terry

[stereocilia]

Regarding "too clear:"   sometimes I lack the vocabulary to say exactly what I mean.  This might simply have been the case.

[boead]

I put an IEC connector on my AVA preamp and it made a significant improvement despite what anyone believes. Different cords I tried had different effects. I found the soundstage grew in size with tighter focus and more weight and authority - overall just more musical. Quite frankly, if it wasn’t for the IEC connector and my choice of PC, I wouldn’t have kept the preamp for as long as I did.

I don’t know about you folks but I like some salt and spice on my meat despite what it should taste like without. Same for my music, in the raw it’s usually bland and uninviting. Besides, how can you know what it’s supposed to sound like anyway? Does anyone really believe that the ‘correct’ sound is what the producers hear in the studio? If that’s the case forget about AVA gear or any other audiophile grade equipment. Just go to Guitar Center or Sam Ash and pick up a Crown amp and a pair of Yamaha speakers, that’ll get you closer I’m sure. Oh and don’t forget the booze and smoke, maybe some nose candy too. That sure as hell makes a difference too.

Enjoy.

[rustneversleeps]

I don’t know about you folks but I like some salt and spice on my meat despite what it should taste like without. Same for my music, in the raw it’s usually bland and uninviting. Besides, how can you know what it’s supposed to sound like anyway? Does anyone really believe that the ‘correct’ sound is what the producers hear in the studio?

This is the best post I've ever read in this circle, exactly, "how can you know what it’s supposed to sound like anyway? Does anyone really believe that the ‘correct’ sound is what the producers hear in the studio?"

I am so sick and tired of a bunch of people gather in one thread and repeat the same thing over and over again and again, basically they all said " IEC cord doesn't do a thing for sound", so how many more times do we have to hear it? It's more like a mob mentality here.

PS, How many of you like rap music.

[avahifi]

The whole point, Boead, is to produce equipment that does not come "pre-salted and pre-peppered" to suit MY taste.  That piece of meat that comes already loaded with a half a pound of salt will be a bit difficult to deal with, as there are not too many "unsalt shakers" around.

One can always play with the equipment after the fact, tube rolling, adding high capacitive cables, microphonic magic capacitors, whatever, to flavor the sound in many ways. But if the pre-flavoring has already been overloaded to suit just a narrow range of tastes, it cannot be further helped very much.

It is interesting that the one more learns about electronic engineering, the less glamorous "good sounding" accessories seem to become.

A really nasty reality is the double blind listening test as we just demonstrated to the MIT cable folks at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest.  They wanted to show how good their $1500 a pair speaker cables were and offered to test them on our equipment after the show closed.  We agreed on a double blind test, and ran the reasonably well controlled listening session three times with about ten listeners, four from MIT, four from AVA and Salk, and a couple of interested bystanders.

The results of the tests, absolutely random.  Nobody picked the first session as being the best cables (they were MIT cables) about half (including me and half the MIT guys) picked the second session as maybe marginally the best and these also were revealed to be MIT cables.  The other half of the votes, including those from half the MIT guys, picked the third session as the best, and these were my $2.00 set of Home Depot plain old 16 gauge zip cords.

The differences if any were super marginal at best as the random results proved.  The one thing the test did prove was that if one purchased the Salk Songtowers, then they could either spend $1500 for a set of speaker cables and have no amplifier to drive the speakers with, or spend the money on the Insight Control Amp being used (also $1500) and have a working system (hey - I will throw in the zip cord speaker wires for free if you twist my arm).  Which is the better choice?

An IEC connector adds an additional unreliable set of electrical contacts to the system on the AC power line, allows boutique power cord artists to circumvent electrical protection by getting the wiring polarity wrong, and allows you to spend tons of money on useless power cords when the money could have been spent of better equipment, tons more CDs or records, or maybe best yet, tickets to the live performance.  Hey if you need a longer or shorter AC power cord, let us know and we will provide that, within reason.

Sorry, I will not accept as reality any listening test that is not done under true double blind conditions.  Sugar pills work far too well and in audio, are far too expensive.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

[Wayner]

In my town, when driving, people are actually starting to put their breaks on when there is a green light, only because everyone drives thru the red light. This is mob mentality. If everyone would stop running the red light, we could all start driving thru the green light without putting our breaks on or stopping.

That said, there is a mob mentality with the IEC socket. It wasn't originally put on equipment because that allowed someone to put a #2AWG cable on it, it was because it made the manufacturing easier and more cost effective in a mass production environment. The IEC socket still terminates into an equivalent 13 amp capacity metal contacts. So we then have 12 AWG wire going to the outlet in your home, then the 2 AWG wire going to the DAC (about 1/2 amp draw) and then to a 16 AWG connection point on the back of the IEC socket, then thru some 16 AWG wire to the contacts on the fuse block, then thru a little tiny fuse wire, then some more contacts on the fuse block then thru some more wire, then thru a metal switch mechanism and then finally to a 16-18 AWG wire on the toroidal transformer. I think that's close to the chain of events.

The real problem is science. Has anyone ever come up with solid scientific evidence, any kind of math formula that the community at large can accept as being FACT, insted of some one who thinks they have golden ears?

Wayner

[sueata1]

I'll take Hard Wired connections anyday over Plug Ins,,,

Just my 2 cents,,,,

Happy Listening,,,
Mel

[thunderbrick]

I thought everyone here already HAD golden ears.

[boead]

I won’t argue with anyone, been there – done that.

There is lots that can’t be proven or explained scientifically. Magic is science unyet discovered, right? We (well most) believe in god, ghosts, aliens from other worlds, hell even good will towards man. None of which can be proven or explained scientifically. Not yet at least. Scientist, some of histories most brilliant, imagine parallel universes and worm holes. All nonsense in terms of reality or proof yet few argue their theories. If Frank were to say that PC’s made a difference most will agree and go out and buy them. Lemmings? Well to some degree I believe.

Why don’t speakers come with hardwired cords? They can have a bracket on the back like my vacuum to wrap up the excess.

Double Blind tests? I’ve taken a number of them. I might not pick the most expensive cable or chord, I usually don’t but they all sounded different. How can that be? That’s certainly not a placebo. Hell even my ex-wife noticed the differences and she couldn’t care less. Oh and people have tried tricking me by not changing a chord and said they did. I mostly passed the test, only time I didn’t is when I was imbibing. Cold sober, relaxed and alert I can hear differences and I’m certainly NOT alone.
And NO I don’t have golden ears, not at all. If anything my hearing has degraded over the years.

I don’t encourage spending $1500 on a power chord. I also don’t encourage spending $95,000 on a car or $1,500,000.00 on a home or Apple stock but if you can afford it, all the power to you.
Point is, please don’t tell me how to spend my money and I won’t tell you.

I made my own speaker cables. I’ve bought dozens of spools of wire of varying types, HomeDepot stuff too and choose what sounded best to me, for me and the gear I use.
I’d do the same for power chords but the cost is too high and potentially dangerous. Personally I find that power cords have, by far, the most impact on the sound of the system - most profound really. Speaker cables had the least.

Enjoy.



BTW: I just had to add this. You want to know what’s a REAL Audiophile rip-off?

SPEAKERS!!!

Seriously folks.

Manufacturers put whatever price they want because it has Birdseye whatever. Oh but it has 10 coats of clear lacquer and weigh 275lbs – each. They must be good!

Some of the best sounding speakers you can buy are comprised of a sheet of plywood, a can of spray paint and $200 worth of paper speakers.

[miklorsmith]

Why don’t speakers come with hardwired cords? They can have a bracket on the back like my vacuum to wrap up the excess.

   That's what I did with my single driver BR boxes I built, these are the bottom two "vacuum cleaner cord winders".  You can't see it in the picture but they have 45 degree bevels against the speaker to make cord capturing easier. 

[TONEPUB]

BTW: I just had to add this. You want to know what’s a REAL Audiophile rip-off?
SPEAKERS!!!

Seriously folks.

Manufacturers put whatever price they want because it has Birdseye whatever. Oh but it has 10 coats of clear lacquer and weigh 275lbs – each. They must be good!

Some of the best sounding speakers you can buy are comprised of a sheet of plywood, a can of spray paint and $200 worth of paper speakers.

You obviously haven't been to any of the factories of the companies that make the world's best
speakers.

There's a lot more to it than a plywood box and some drivers. 

Anyone can build a speaker with that method, that's true. But it takes quite a bit more
than that to build a great speaker.

[boead]

BTW: I just had to add this. You want to know what’s a REAL Audiophile rip-off?
SPEAKERS!!!

Seriously folks.

Manufacturers put whatever price they want because it has Birdseye whatever. Oh but it has 10 coats of clear lacquer and weigh 275lbs – each. They must be good!

Some of the best sounding speakers you can buy are comprised of a sheet of plywood, a can of spray paint and $200 worth of paper speakers.

You obviously haven't been to any of the factories of the companies that make the world's best
speakers.

There's a lot more to it than a plywood box and some drivers. 

Anyone can build a speaker with that method, that's true. But it takes quite a bit more
than that to build a great speaker.

You misunderstood Jeff and LOL, that’s funny because you assume or are convinced  that the worlds best speakers are made of exotic woods with space age materials. I can understand why, being in the business you are in.

Did I say a plywood box? 


BTW: The same Placebo Frank and others talk about can apply to a speakers finish and bizarre design. I remember walking into a local (NY) audio boutique and commented on a most horrible sounding speaker. They ended up being some expensive Rodgers at like $5000 or more. Sales guy didn’t get it and never will.