[Odin412]

Not too long ago I attended a subwoofer demo where they had two giant REL subwoofers hooked up to a pair of Wilson Audio Alexandria XLF speakers fed by Audio Research amps, so pretty high-end stuff. First they demoed with the standard power cables and then they switched the power cable on one of the subs to an expensive power cable (don't know the brand, but it was as thick as the base of my thumb), which had been 'cooked'. (I assume this refers to some kind of burn-in procedure rather than actually placing the cable in a pot of boiling water...) My fellow demo attendees were oohing and aahing, praising the increased realism, transparency and natural sound. Sounded identical to me, but I chose to keep that observation to myself.

 

[caffeinated]

   
 
I think they might be out of production; they don't seem to be available on the Emotiva site any more.
 
Or at least I can't find it, even with Google site search help.

 
So, no comments on the producer of Schiit recommending a competitor's product shortly after someone saying they don't want people to recommend competitor products?
 
Sarcasm and Irreverence are the spices of life. 

 

[Letmebefrank]

   
So, no comments on the producer of Schiit recommending a competitor's product shortly after someone saying they don't want people to recommend competitor products?
 
Sarcasm and Irreverence are the spices of life. 

 
Oh man, first post in 12 years? We have found the ultimate lurker!

 

[zakkie13901]

Just wondering folks, what do you guys think about Devialet?
Total game-changer or decent-but-way-overpriced?

 

[jacal01]

Irony is thick.

 

[Pyrolistical]

I'd recommend the Emotiva Control Freak as well.

Problem is you can't buy them anymore. Schiit should make their own copy with a nice huge alps pot.

 

[watchnerd]

Just wondering folks, what do you guys think about Devialet?
Total game-changer or decent-but-way-overpriced?

 
I think you can piece together much of what it does well using other means for quite a bit less money if you're willing to shop for a best of breed solution.

 

[watchnerd]

   
So, no comments on the producer of Schiit recommending a competitor's product shortly after someone saying they don't want people to recommend competitor products?
 
Sarcasm and Irreverence are the spices of life. 

 
Too much spice gives me ring of fire.

 

[wink]

   
So, no comments on the producer of Schiit recommending a competitor's product shortly after someone saying they don't want people to recommend competitor products?
 
Sarcasm and Irreverence are the spices of life. 

That's not a post, that's a stauncheon.........   

 

   
Oh man, first post in 12 years? We have found the ultimate lurker!

The caffeine finally kicked in........  

 

 

[Zojokkeli]

   
This is what you need to truly expose the inner tonal palette of the music:
 
https://www.amazon.com/263-Audioquest-Diamond-Ethernet-Cable/dp/B0073HJVSK
 
You will hear the music just as the artist intended - naked angels of delight will personally deliver audio nectar to your eardrums via interpretive dance as you dissolve in a cloud of audio bliss.
 
Just be sure to plug it in with the correct directionality for the flow of the audio signal, because those electrons will 'feel' the difference.
 
EDIT - for those with time on their hands looking for some amusement - the comments associated with the Amazon item in the link above are very well done.

 
The reviews are excellent too:
 
"My husband recently upgraded his home office, and as an early fathers day gift I emptied out our daughters college fund to purchase two of these for his PC and Printer. For the first day everything was going great, and he was hollering out to me from his office that the internet speed had gone from 50mb to 500mb and was climbing every hour. He joked about downloading every torrent he could find to see how much he could get, and setup a list and went to bed.

This morning we wake up and find the computer is using the printer to replicate a phyical body, and has become sentient over night. We tried to pull the 8m (26'3") Audioquest Diamond RJ/E (Ethernet) Cable out of the wall but when my husband approached the cable the computer tazed him and theatened more violence. He's currently trying to turn off the cable modem but the data closet is mysteriously locked from the inside.

Going to call tech support to see if they know how to stop a sentient PC from taking over my house. I knew we should have purshased from Apple!"

 

[KoshNaranek]

Not too long ago I attended a subwoofer demo where they had two giant REL subwoofers hooked up to a pair of Wilson Audio Alexandria XLF speakers fed by Audio Research amps, so pretty high-end stuff. First they demoed with the standard power cables and then they switched the power cable on one of the subs to an expensive power cable (don't know the brand, but it was as thick as the base of my thumb), which had been 'cooked'. (I assume this refers to some kind of burn-in procedure rather than actually placing the cable in a pot of boiling water...) My fellow demo attendees were oohing and aahing, praising the increased realism, transparency and natural sound. Sounded identical to me, but I chose to keep that observation to myself.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ― Edmund Burke.

 

[Ableza]

re: audio trickery and things that happen at shows.  A friend of mine was the Halcro distributor for the West Coast and about ten years ago was demoing his high-end gear at RMAF in Denver.  I was shooting the breeze with him (and negotiating the purchase of some show demo gear) and he said he was going to do something fun.  So I sat back and watched.  There were five or six people listening to the demo when he stepped in front of the setup and introduced himself.  He produced a small screwdriver (a tweaker for those who know the term) and announced that Halcro has a new setting on the back called "Sparkle."  He invited everyone to listen carefully as he changed the setting.  He turned the volume down, went behind the preamp and pretended to make an adjustment on the imaginary setting, came back in front and with a smile and a flourish turned the volume back up.  I think it was playing "Rites of Spring."  The audiophooles in the audience oohhed and ahhed and said yes, they could really hear the difference, and started asking questions about exactly what was "sparkle" and why only Halcro talked about it.  I had to leave because I was laughing too much.
 
I did end up buying the gear by the way.  No sparkle adjustments I'm afraid.

 

[Odin412]

  re: audio trickery and things that happen at shows.  A friend of mine was the Halcro distributor for the West Coast and about ten years ago was demoing his high-end gear at RMAF in Denver.  I was shooting the breeze with him (and negotiating the purchase of some show demo gear) and he said he was going to do something fun.  So I sat back and watched.  There were five or six people listening to the demo when he stepped in front of the setup and introduced himself.  He produced a small screwdriver (a tweaker for those who know the term) and announced that Halcro has a new setting on the back called "Sparkle."  He invited everyone to listen carefully as he changed the setting.  He turned the volume down, went behind the preamp and pretended to make an adjustment on the imaginary setting, came back in front and with a smile and a flourish turned the volume back up.  I think it was playing "Rites of Spring."  The audiophooles in the audience oohhed and ahhed and said yes, they could really hear the difference, and started asking questions about exactly what was "sparkle" and why only Halcro talked about it.  I had to leave because I was laughing too much.

 
Expectation bias is a powerful psychological factor that's often overlooked. I almost fell in that trap myself when I was testing the Dirac room correction software on my laptop. After having made the measurements I sat down to listen to the sound with and without room correction, and while small I thought that I could hear a difference. After some more investigation I found out that the software wasn't configured correctly and the Dirac filter wasn't active, so the sound with and without the filter was identical! After a reboot everything worked fine and there was a significant sound different with the filter enabled, but for a while I thought that I heard a difference where there was none. Expectation bias at work.

 

[FrivolsListener]

   
Expectation bias is a powerful psychological factor that's often overlooked. I almost fell in that trap myself when I was testing the Dirac room correction software on my laptop. After having made the measurements I sat down to listen to the sound with and without room correction, and while small I thought that I could hear a difference. After some more investigation I found out that the software wasn't configured correctly and the Dirac filter wasn't active, so the sound with and without the filter was identical! After a reboot everything worked fine and there was a significant sound different with the filter enabled, but for a while I thought that I heard a difference where there was none. Expectation bias at work.

 
I have to watch that myself, but it's usually the social pressure "Doesn't this sound better to you?" that gets me.
 
When I bought my Gumby, and substituted it in for my Modi, the first couple albums I tried (Telarc Bach collections) didn't sound improved at all, and I wondered if I wasted my money.  It was from an unexpected place -- Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms -- that I had my "WOW!" moment.
 
I have to work hard, though, to keep my biases out.

 

[castleofargh]

I do 2 hours of breathing exercises before testing gear to protect myself from bias. it doesn't work.