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Dave Jones on Wire & Cables — Parallax Forums

Dave Jones on Wire & Cables

ercoerco Posts: 20,244
I sure hope all Parallax products use gold-plated, oxygen free, cryogenically oriented, polarized cables & wires. Yes, even the breadboard wires should be premium quality to ensure a deep, rich, deep, dynamic user experience. :)

Of course, the ever-rising price of simple copper wire already makes it feel like you're paying for a premium product.

IMO the best gag is when the audiophiles (audiofools) can't distinguish monster cables from coat hangars. https://gizmodo.com/363154/audiophile-deathmatch-monster-cables-vs-a-coat-hanger



Comments

  • A long time ago (Okay, early 1990s) there was a discussion about using mercury-filled tubes of some kind for some thing. There was talk of the fluid sounds you could obtain using them for speaker cables.
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    A long time ago (Okay, early 1990s) there was a discussion about using mercury-filled tubes of some kind for some thing. There was talk of the fluid sounds you could obtain using them for speaker cables.

    That is one of the most ridiculous proposals in the annals of "high fidelity" systems, and here have been a lot of ridiculous ideas and discussions on improving sound systems over the years. A lot of them were pure money grabbing scams by people who were abysmally ignorant of electronics, sound propagation, and human hearing. Good at separating fools from their money though.
  • I'm pretty sure it wasn't meant to be taken seriously. I liked it for the play on the word "fluid".
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    It can be hard to tell a joke from fact in the audiofool world sometimes.

    For example:

    http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina31.htm

  • Don't forget too that old tube tech, even with an output transformer gives you better "sound" or maybe they mean that "warm and fuzzy" feeling (no flame/heater wars). Vinyl of course is superior to CD but then CD is superior to MP3 etc. Ah, the good ol' days, they are much better now that we remember them that way.

    I think they still do this, but those gold-plated HDMI cables give you a better picture, and USB3 cables (and Flash drives) "give" you 10 times faster transfers.

    Someone says to me, aren't "LED" TVs better than LCD TVs? Whenever they want to get rid of some model they sell it as an "LED" TV just because they have an LED backlight which of course all LCD TVs these days do. But they are not OLED or QLED but who cares.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2018-09-08 06:37
    Ha, no flame wars from me over the tube sound. As much as I love tubes I am under no delusions about their supposed better sound.

    However...

    It turns out that a tube is still the most linear amplifying device ever created. Before applying feedback.

    If you happen to want an op-amp that can swing it's output to +/-500v then a couple 12AX7s is a good way to do it. With the bonus that it's pretty hard to inadvertently blow it up. More likely it kills you than you kill it :)

    Back in the old days, when my friends were downloading tons of MP3's from Napster, Vinyl was so clearly better than the mangled sound of those downloads. The old days were truly awful. In the old old days we had vinyl and is was excellent.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,244
    Vinyl of course is superior to CD but then CD is superior to MP3 etc.

    These days, most people care more about quantity than quality of music. That is, compress songs to fit as many in their iphone as possible. Real audiophiles are dying off nearly as fast as ham radio guys!

    My buddy's brother is the rare exception. So FANATIC about his audio equipment that he refusews to cook in his house for fear that cooking vapors would ruin his speakers. The nutjob lived alone so he could get away with it. But when he was convalescing after surgery, his Mom came over and cooked for him against his loud protests, "ruining" his speakers forever. :)



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  • Yeah, I know, when I cooked my subs they were never the same again :)
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