[Amps] Relative influence of components to tonal quality (Was: Wrong Business)

[R.Measures]

On Aug 5, 2005, at 6:46 AM, Karl-Arne Markström wrote:

> In the words of a lesser known competitor to the late P.T. Barnum:
> "There is a sucker born every minute..."

Indeed, Karl-Arne, indeed.
>
> It appears that the audio industry can make claims that would make 
> used car salesmen blush.
>
chortle

> This reminds me of an acquintance from my University radio club 
> (SK6AB) days in the late 70's,
> that made part of his living by custom building audio electronics to 
> discerning audiophilic buyers ("Golden Ears") .
> There was a belief that the color of components could affect the 
> "sound", so quite often a customer would specify that all capacitors 
> should be blue or green, but not yellow or red...
>
> To say nothing of the pure silver power cords that some specified.

Gold connectors are apparently required to get the "best sound" out of 
silver wire.  I recall an audio magazine job opportunity ad for a 
"creative ad-copy writer" by a company that manufactures expensive 
audio cables  (Monster Cable, Inc.)
>
> A blow was struck to the "Golden Ears" when a Swedish electronics 
> magazine published (about 1980) a
> throughly made scientific study to show if it really was possible to 
> identify the quality of components by listening
> to the sound from speakers. It was conceived and conducted by a 
> veteran motion-picture sound engineer
> that had grown tired of trying to answer more or less silly questions 
> from audiophiles about the tonal qualities of different components.
>
> The study was conducted as blind tests, where selected audiences (in a 
> cinema theater closed for vacations I seem to remember) listened to 
> records played through either a network with gain = 1 composed of a 
> collection of the most disgusting components known to audiophiles 
> (color or otherwise), or a straight piece of wire, and graded the 
> sound quality.
>
> Whether the signal path went one or the other way was selected by a 
> random number generator,
> and the configuration for each run was known only to the conductor of 
> the test.
>
> After statistically evaluating a large number of trial runs (to 
> average out any "lucky guesses"), it was found that
> no systematic preferences could be found for the "better" signal path.
>
> The publication of the results caused several previously very 
> opinionated audiophiles to keep a very low
> profile for some time, and also sent a rocking wave of laughter 
> through the ranks of the "infidels".
>
> 73/
>
> Karl-Arne
> SM0AOM
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Will Matney" <craxd1 at verizon.net>
> To: <amps at contesting.com>
> Sent: Friday, August 05, 2005 11:51 AM
> Subject: [Amps] Wrong Business
>
>
>> Folks, I am definately in the wrong business. I was doing some 
>> research on audio transformers over a discusstion I had with another 
>> membor of this mailer a while back. Oh yea, Rich those windings I 
>> spoke about are called interleaved windings. Anyhow, while reading 
>> about them at sevral places using google as the search, I came across 
>> the website below. I knew I was in the wrong business as look at the 
>> audio amp and the price! The website is kind of neet too, especially 
>> the toolbar at the top.
>>
>> I swear I'm strongly thinking about building these to sell. I didn't 
>> know there was that many idiots out there who would blow that kind of 
>> money. The only part I'd hate is lying to the customers about all the 
>> claims they have on capacitors and transformers.
>>
>> http://www.vintone.com/clipper.html
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Will
>>
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>
>
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Richard L. Measures, AG6K, 805.386.3734.  www.somis.org