Think photo gear is expensive? Read this.

Discuss non-DSLR models (e.g. Coolpix cameras), other camera brands, your latest cool photography gadget, computer stuff and other photography related issues that don't fit in the Vintage Kodak and Nikon DSLR forums.
Post Reply
NikonWeb
Site Admin
Posts: 1029
Joined: Fri May 20, 2005 4:12 pm
antispam: No
Location: Norway
Contact:

Think photo gear is expensive? Read this.

Post by NikonWeb »

How about a $16,000 one meter audio cable - making the $7000 Leica M9 sound like a cheap bargain.

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.co ... worse.html

Be sure to read the comments too.

Jarle
Stan Disbrow
Posts: 601
Joined: Fri May 20, 2005 7:33 pm
Location: Raleigh, NC USA

Re: Think photo gear is expensive? Read this.

Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

Oh, one can use a 1 Gs o-scope connected to a PC and grab all the sound running over any cable and then analyze it all one wants.

What one would find between the $20 cable and the $16k one is a bunch of little things that only the 1 Gs o-scope could detect.

But, then, those pieces of o-scope data would be the proof to point out that the $16k cables really are better than those POS $20 ones!

Of course, I'd have to then buy the $20 cables because I just spent my $16k on that 1 Gs o-scope I used to prove that the $16k cables really are better!!

The high-end audio world is, always has been, and always will be, the source of some of the largest piles of BS to be found in the world of electronics. Ain't it great? ;)

Me, I'm hopelessly stuck in the audio world of the late 1970's and early 1980's. When things were decent solid state yet made from discreet parts and no integration with all their crosscoupling issues. What was high-end then is dirt cheap now. Nice.

I know. Real audiophiles want tubes. But while I can work with tubes well enough, I hate the constant aging issues that come with the high voltages and heat.

Later!

Stan
Amateur Photographer
Professional Electronics Development Engineer
Ashley_Pomeroy
Posts: 119
Joined: Fri Aug 08, 2008 10:04 pm
antispam: No
Location: England
Contact:

Re: Think photo gear is expensive? Read this.

Post by Ashley_Pomeroy »

Are you aware of the "Intelligent Chip"? It's a piece of plastic with some dots on it; and when you rest this on top of your CD player, it improves the sound of the CDs:
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/phot ... nnons.html

"The Intelligent Chip works by having one to three quantum dots depending on the type of IC. The dots are encapsulated by the visible metal discs on the green wafer when you open the orange container. When coherent light from a laser hits the quantum dot, the dot will react by emitting photons. These photons hit the CD in the player and there they do their work. Besides this explanation, Geoff now also advised on taking the green wafer out of the container and putting it in the CD player while activating the laser for two seconds. This makes far more sense than the 'old' way of putting the chip in its container atop the CD player and relying on leaking light to do the trick. As it turned out, putting the naked dots in really close proximity to a spinning CD was a crucial piece to the IC puzzle."

The same article also recommends that if you rip your CDs to top-quality CD-R discs the sound will improve, and it also mentions this thing, an "optical disc finalizer":
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/nanotech/nespa.html

It's a box with a strong light that makes CDs sound better. The pattern with articles of this nature is that the discs sounded great beforehand, but were infinitely better aftwards; and by extension with a few more treatments they will become infinitely times a million times better when all the various different audio improvements are added up. Which would be beyond the ability of men in late middle age to detect.
Stan Disbrow
Posts: 601
Joined: Fri May 20, 2005 7:33 pm
Location: Raleigh, NC USA

Re: Think photo gear is expensive? Read this.

Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

Excellent! And, here I am doing it the hard way!

I use a CD player with active analog filtering to remove the switching transients from the D/A converters. That, being a fancy way to make the CDs sound smooth like a half-speed vinyl analog disc.......

What a hoot!

Later!

Stan
Amateur Photographer
Professional Electronics Development Engineer
Ross_Alford
Posts: 105
Joined: Tue May 16, 2006 1:10 pm
Location: Australia
Contact:

Re: Think photo gear is expensive? Read this.

Post by Ross_Alford »

The web site articles are hysterical. A great example of why scientific research is done using "blinding" when observer bias might be important--they keep saying things along the lines of "the measurements could not reveal a difference, but X sounded vastly better than Y". Right.

Some time ago, someone pointed out this film to me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs1aUws0Lrs

It's just wonderful, if your nearest and dearest ever give you grief for wasting money on camera equipment, just tell them they're very lucky and get them to watch this. A $250,000 stereo set, if memory serves me right, and maybe even more expensive ones.

Cheers,
Ross
Stan Disbrow
Posts: 601
Joined: Fri May 20, 2005 7:33 pm
Location: Raleigh, NC USA

Re: Think photo gear is expensive? Read this.

Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

250,000 bucks? What? Made out of unobtanium?

Sheese. This is worse than messing with airplanes! Well, no. You can easily spend that on an old Cessna, actually.

I do love the chuckles, though. I bet I can do better with my ancient Pioneer junk that I have to repair before I can even power it on. I get my crap from yard sales, see.....

I built my Home Theatre audio out of such yard sale crap. I bet I have $250 into it, tops. Not 250 Thousand!

I have 200 watts per channel, and six channels, although I decided to use *two* four-way speakers for the center channel, one on each side of the plasma display panel. The room is rather wide, so I decided to widen the center channel to match. The corner speakers are only 3-way at this moment until I scarf up a couple more 4-ways.

I use an old dedicated sound processor, so I get DTS as well as DD out of it. That part is sweet. The processor has independent leveling control for each channel, so adjusting it was a breeze. I just use the final amps on the old Pioneer gear, as they had pre-out and main-in jacks for using equalizers and whatnot in the day. Easy.

I even picked up this 300 watt 18" subwoofer with it's own built-in amp. 20 bucks.

My youngest daughter's boyfriend went out and spent $3k on his all-in-the-box Bose HT audio system and was *so* proud. We had to go over special to experience it, you know. Well, it's OK, but I said nothing.

Until, that is, he came over on Christmas and wanted to know what all that stuff racked under the plasma panel was for, and all those large speakers. I put in Pearl Harbor in DTS mode and started on the run-in for the attack. He was whipping his head around as DTS is far more discreet in their audio channel programming than DD is. When the first torpedo hit, the sub went off - the only way to describe 18" of driver with 300 watts RMS behind it - and the whole house vibrates like *it* was hit by that torpedo!

He about had a heart attack when I told him the whole mess was around $250 bucks from yard sales. Of course, he can't fix busted old audio equipment, so that's really quite unfair. ;)

Oh, and I use 14 ga copper wire from the amps to the speakers, and the cheapest nickel plated RCA copper coax jumpers from the processor to the amps. Shocking! Just shocking!

Later!

Stan
Amateur Photographer
Professional Electronics Development Engineer
Post Reply