Cables, Power, Tweaks, Speakers, Accessories (DBT-Free Forum)Discussion of cables, power (the electric kind), tweaks, & accessories. I, Objectivist: The Objectivist Audio
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1) Why can you not capture a 10K square wave ?, my understanding was that a square wave is effectively an infinite set of sine waves , but is it that much harder to capture one at 10K rather than 1K ?, that is a genuine question.
2) They are just undergrads so we ought to cut them some slack and as for technical report well it doesnt claim to be a technical report in the sense that it doesnt claim to exhaustively test the product. It is a comparison study.
Yes your understanding is correct. A 10KHz square wave has frequency component up to 100KHz. So to capture or transmit a square wave you will actually need a bandwidth of 100KHz or more. The sound card is band limited to 22 KHz. In order assure proper operation of the DAC an anti-aliasing filter at 20KHz is used. So after the filtering the square wave will be transformed into a sine wave.
If you read closely at the report, the report is published by a contracted agent and is not affliated with the University of Toronto. So what you have is a guy that hire 4 UT student (probably not even fulll time) and claim this is a UT report.
If I go out and hire some Stanford liberal art major and publish a report. Can I claim the report is a Standford study?
Actually I have no problem with the report, careful reading will show it is not really relevant. But I have problem with the misleading statement "University of Toroto Test" and "Walters Forensic Lab" (the actual study) never comes up.
You also got to look at what they used to measure these parameter. What they are using is Adobe Audition which is actually Cool Edit. This is actually an audio editing software. I don't believe there is any calibration that can be done on it.
To do a proper test with a PC, you can easily rent a National Instrument's Data acquisation card (instead of M-Audio sound card) and use NI's Labview.
The major difference between an instrument grade DAC and an audio grade DAC is the absolute linearity and accuracy. Audio DAC's requirement is only monotonicty. Testing audio DAC for absolute would be cost prohibit for consumer.
This research exercise is like attempting to measure the thickness of a hair with a ruler.
Hello Everybody, I am Rick Schultz, President of Virtual Dynamics.
First of all, Virtual Dynamics is owned by another one of my companies but Virtual dynamics is my main business.
It was brought to my attention that my presence would be welcomed and maybe even appreciated, so here I am.
I’ve made a pretty strict rule over the last 6 years about staying far away from forums but I have to hand it to Jude and all you guys here at Head-Fi because I do think this is a wonderful and profitable place for audiophiles to come and hang out in their spare time.
I have read through and enjoyed quite a few chuckles, as I watch the arguments and banter and the comedic spin that is ever present in these forums.
Virtual Dynamics recently authorized a new young salesperson Matt Carter, to have the opportunity to come and share his thoughts on the Head-Fi forums. Matt has been with us for about 3 months, and I must say, the young fella really grows on you.
Some of the questions that have been brought up in the forum as I have read through question the legitimacy and accuracy of information that are in the audio forums here at Head-Fi, placed by Matt. Matt has had the opportunity to pretty much discuss as he pleases. My biggest rule for Matt was “do not comment on other manufacturers products.” There has been a few exceptions, and all of them okayed by me.
There has however been some mis-information. Not on purpose, by any means. If you know Matt, you would know that he is deeply concerned with credibility, quality and what people think. I on the other hand, am only really concerned with the first two. I will let what people think be up to them.
The only information, as I read through very briefly, that I thought was relevant or important and would require my attention is one topic, but before I address it I want to clarify that forums are what forums are, they are a place for people to play as well as learn. The learning can sometimes be highly impeded due to the fact that play is a heck of a lot more fun, and definitely more common.
For anyone reading an audio forum, and wondering about the legitimacy of anything that is said I would have to question the sanity of that. Not to pick on anyone, but as you read through you can see the wide variations of what people are saying they perceive as truth.
We are an audio cable manufacturer, at least on the surface, because our products are designed to replace conventional audio cabling product. But from day one I would have hoped that people looking at our product could see that our ideas are very different.
Commonly people in forums argue about the legitimacy of cables, and whether or not they could make a difference. To be honest, this is not an argument I care to get into. I’m only interested in those who are interested in finding out, and clearly not everybody is.
Where I feel the need to come and speak with you is that I know that Matt had shared at one point in time that Virtual Dynamics was struggling and that that was the reason why we were giving away cables and creating sales. As Matt was quite new with us, in his defense, I realize first he panicked, as a young fella might, and second I think maybe it might have been Matt’s perspective, because what is struggling? If struggling means you don’t have office walls, and your business doesn’t have a million dollars in the account, or for that matter even a hundred thousand just sitting there as backup, then yep, we’re struggling, however in 2007 Virtual Dynamics broke 1 million dollars in sales. Out of the one million in sales Virtual Dynamics did profit about 20% over our production costs.
So, are we struggling? No struggling is when you lose money, we have been doing this for 6 years and business is profitable. I might note that business must be profitable or what is the point?
So, I think we did quite well, but it also means so did you. After I pay my business expenses, insurance, people products ect., when I sell you a cable for a hundred dollars, I make, on average, 20 dollars of real profit after expenses. It means my business is successful enough to stay around, grow and you are only paying a very reasonable markup when you buy from Virtual Dynamics. But what do we do with our profits?
Well, last year pretty much every penny went back in to try to further develop our products and further expand our services.
To continue to be competitive and offer even more value to our customers I put my money where my heart is, Virtual Dynamics and High-End audio. So how did Matt get the perspective that we were hurting? Well in December we did 160 thousand dollars in sales in approximately 3 weeks, we were a humming machine with an 8-10 week backorder on our products.
January is usually very strong months for sales, but it was much slower, and resounding off our Virtual Dynamic’s walls you could hear a little the sounds of disappointment from me to our sales department that things were slow.
Perspective, I guess as a sales person when your boss is hounding you to make it happen it may communicate exactly what Matt communicated to you, because even as my sales person the financial part of my business is none of his business, is it?
Let’s hope for audio’s sake that companies thrive and do well. When I see a company in high-end audio who builds a good product that I like to listen to I reward them with my purchases and my hope that they do well. I used to try real hard to get the best deal I could possibly get, but now I’m starting to realize, because I am on the other side of the fence, that this is not beneficial all the time.
Audio, specifically high-end audio, is a luxury product. Buy only what you can afford to spend on your hobby, and guys it is a hobby. How much you spend on your audio system has nothing to do with who you are.
I think the only reason that a person should spend more money on their audio system is if they enjoy the hobby of listening, have enough expendable cash to put towards the hobby, won’t harm anybody in their household by doing it, or deprive them of their wants and needs, especially our wives and children, and are not so addicted to it that it is all they talk about or do. I have met a few who, like I have been in the past, needed to spend some “dry out” time.
If all of these things are in place and you feel assured that the money that you spend will increase your enjoyment of listening to music, then please, all of us as audio manufacturers welcome you to come and talk with us. But if you really have a question about Virtual Dynamics, and it’s important to you to know that we will give you a real honest effort without any play then call us, or email us. Forums are not the place to get serious.
One last thing, to be on topic finally, you have a beautiful cat. I am sorry that he tore up your Power Three and if you wish we will replace it for you under warrantee. Do Power Threes cost a billion dollars? No. But we do hope that you will find, regardless of what you think of the cable when looking at the particles that have likely ruined your floor, your vacuum, and maybe our reputation with you, we built a nice affordable product that increases the enjoyment of listening to music far more than its modest price. All in all, I am very proud of my Power Three.
If you knew the heart and care that goes into every one of our products you might realize when I saw the picture of the torn up power three, my heart sank just a little. Each of these is handcrafted with care, patience and attention. It’s because of this, my love of the product, that I really would love to help you and replace it for you.
You know I don't like to look at myself as a sales person, or some kind of marketer. I am here to share my experiences and opinions with others.
As most of you might know I lived on this forum for about 5 years before becoming Acoustic Chef. I hang out here still because I adore this community.
I became a member of the VD team because I had too. After receiving one of their power cables to play with I fell in love and fought for ~6months to come hang out with the awesome crew here at VD, and I must say I am loving every second of it, while truly living the dream. Rick is the coolest guy you will ever meet and his cables are out of this world!
As I type this Rick is skipping around the room modeling his new artic cat gear showing off the advances in ass protection.
Now, Ragging on the cables is like ragging on my wife or kids because you think their ugly. And I REALLY don’t appreciate people hacking them to pieces and having their mutilated parts displayed in such a manner.
I’m honest, and a true member of the community. Appreciate it.
Last edited by Acoustic Chef : 02-07-2008 at 10:07 PM.
The fact that Rick offered to replace a cable the guy got for free, his cat tore apart and he chopped up to explore sits pretty well with me. In the end if people like the product and the customer service is that good you have given people what they really want when they buy something from you.
I guess I will keep an eye out for more rca giveaways as i do believe they make a difference.
Edit. Acoustic Chef, it's been said I am the coolest guy you could ever meet and my stables are out of this world but thats merely speculation as of this moment.
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Portable rig -->80gb gen 5.5 iPod w classic firmware ->Qables silvercab LOD->C&C XO-> HD 580/ Optimus Pro 25/ KSC-35/75 and soon AKG K601
Home --> Foobar->Pioneer SX-203(til I get my Sansui fixed)->AKG K240 Sextetts
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