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[–] 183 points 10 months ago (7 children)

I once had a Best Buy sales person tell me "the improved shielding helps with magnetism". I stared at him for a sec and said "if there is enough magnetism in my house to bend light, how my stereo sound really won't be one of my main concerns"

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  • [–] 27 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    I used to sell TVs for Best Buy back in the day. The Video Department manager, my boss, set up a display side by side to show the difference between $40 Monster cables and the normal cables that came with a DVD player.

    When there was no noticable difference, he went into the TV settings and adjusted the settings for the normal cables to make the picture look like shit. Not all customers are that gullible though, so usually one of the more savvy ones would fix the settings. So my boss would have to go in and fuck the settings up again once or twice a shift.

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  • [–] 143 points 10 months ago (23 children)

    My favorite story along these lines...

    Someone compared Monster cables to un-bent coat hangers.

    https://gizmodo.com/audiophile-deathmatch-monster-cables-vs-a-coat-hanger-363154

    "Seven songs were played while the group was blindfolded and the cables swapped back and forth. Not only “after 5 tests, none could determine which was the Monster 1000 cable or the coat hanger wire,” but no one knew a coat hanger was used in the first place."

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  • [–] 25 points 10 months ago (14 children)

    That's a classic and I am glad it see it passed around again. The best part is the people that start delving into the snake oil absurdity that is "audiophile cables" before, you know, getting better actual speakers/headphones. Like for fucks sake, your $200 fancy cable isn't going to make your bullshit bargain bookshelf speaker into the voice of god. Just get some half way decent equipment and listen to your actual music.

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  • [–] 25 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    Yup, there is a lot of snake oil in the audiophile world. The worst instance I saw was someone posting about an intermittent buzz in their system. Multiple people were recommending a full rebuild, (which would cost thousands of dollars). From what they described, it was pretty obvious that OP just needed a ~10¢ ferrite bead on a power cable, to make it stop acting as an antenna.

    I was like “okay, you could try rebuilding your entire system like everyone else is suggesting… But maybe start with a ferrite bead. Here is a link for a multipack on Amazon. Worst case scenario, you’re only out like $5. And even if it doesn’t fix this specific case, the multipack is handy to have around anyways, because manufacturers often cheap out and skip adding them when their devices really do need them.” Like three days later, I got a “holy shit this actually worked. You just saved me thousands of dollars (and a ton of time) on a complete rebuild.”

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    I'm curious about other cases where ferrites are actually useful. I have done some access point installations where I was required to loop a patch cable through a ferrite for each. The majority of APs I install don't get this treatment. Is it bullshit? I assumed it was, but of course I used them anyway.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

    Was this in a radio station (or was someone nearby acting as a radio operator, like a police station or dispatch center), by chance? Or maybe in a lab setting where they may have gear that is affected by interference? They tend to be picky about RF interference, and Ethernet can be fairly noisy on certain RF bands. In that case, the ferrite bead was likely to do the exact opposite; They wanted to stop the Ethernet cables from acting as an antenna and broadcasting RF interference.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    Classic issue and I am a bit shocked they hadn't run into it before, I had figured that out when i was a teen with my first stereo setup. I am also not surprised at all that they were recommended to fully rebuild lmao

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  • [–] 19 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    I have friends that are hardcore record collectors of obscure 70s punk, power pop, glam, etc. They have Marantz receivers and top of the line turntables, setups that approach like 10 grand. Then they listen to some of the most poorly recorded, cheaply pressed vinyl you can imagine.

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago

    Um you mean greatest music ever made vinyl SIR. The hiss and pop is part of the experience!

    Seriously though, I love old punk records, especially when you can find self pressed shit from the 70s. Yea the quality sucks but god damn I’d rather hear that than overproduced, built by focus group crap today /rant

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

    I admit there's a part of me that wants a custom turntable, but you know what? I spent enough on what I've got. The whole system was just a few hundred bucks, and it sounds, plays, and looks perfectly fine for me. My ears ain't calibrated. I'll never spend that much on an audio system. I'll just keep sinking stupid money into records.

    I should stop.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    Makes sense, I like vinyls for the deliberate retro experience of putting on the record and listening, but I have never agreed that they actually sound better. When CDs became mainstream I was personally thrilled.

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    I worked at a big box electronics store back in the day. Problem was we only sold two kinds of cables.

    1 - shitty cables with the ends crimped on that will fall off after three uses.

    2 - way overpriced gold plated cables that cost 10x or more.

    I'd love it if we sold something in-between, but you absolutely could tell the difference between those options. Mostly cause the RCA ends didn't make an actual decent connection to the equipment, so it wiggled around and induced static into the signal.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    I am sure it was no coincidence that those were the two options. I fell into that trap when I was a teen and had my first stereo. I had to buy some cables I couldn't really afford because they literally didn't offer RCA cables longer than 6' in the other brand.

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  • [–] 19 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    This is a classic.

    A few years back in a HiFi - fair there was a seller who pushed these fist sized wooden blocks that were meant to raise the cables off the ground and therefore "prevent the Earth itself from tampering with the signal".

    So he was basically trying to sell very expensive magic wood.

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  • [–] 18 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Installing cable TV at a man's house, ripped his Monster coax connector off. He was appalled! (I was appalled!) Showed him what I was replacing it with. Parts guide.

    "The shield is quad-woven steel. Yours was 1x of angel hair copper. The dielectric is solid, not a noodle. See? (bendy, bendy) Foil shield? Uh, did yours have one? Oh, I see the shredded bit right there!"

    Bent the center conductor on his Monster cable with my pinky. "Try that with mine." Stopped him before he hypodermic-needled himself.

    tl;dr: Whatever the cable guy cuts for you is miles above Monster grade.

    It's like Yeti gear. "So you paid $35 for a cup that's simply a vacuum sealed canister? I got a 6-pack off Amazon for $25. Cute colors too!"

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago

    Been 15-years ago, but I bet an audiophile coworker, who had a physics degree, he couldn't tell the difference in a coat hanger and proper wires.

    "Well, yeah, but, bla, bla, bla..."

    Now I wish I could shove that article up his butt! 😈

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  • [–] 90 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Ah yeah, you know the gold plated connections make all the difference for the fiber optic connection

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago*

    I like to head on over the auto zone, get me some of that dialectic grease and dip all my dac cable ends. Just feels good going on ya know?

    /s

    Edit: onlyfans? Like just me greasing up different terminations and inserting them.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Just as important is what they connect to. You know the plastic part it connects to inside whatever device you are connecting to. Same concept when monster cables were a thing, the gold plated connectors that connect to the back of your tv using plastic and undefined metal.

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  • [–] 89 points 10 months ago* (11 children)

    Those 128kbps are going to be well delivered, that's for sure.

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  • [–] 24 points 10 months ago (9 children)

    FWIW toslink supports up to 125mbps theoretically

    Much lower in practice of course, but it's a bit better than 128k

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  • [–] 62 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

    Yeah but my mp3's from Kazaa are all 128. I want to hear them perfectly as the original ripper intended without distortion from the cables. The gold connector adds warmth to the sound.

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  • [–] 24 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    now that's a name i haven't heard in a while

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago*

    I wondered why the PS5 didn't have optical out when the PS3 did, then thinking back on it, I probably never owned content/speakers that were good enough to really tell the difference. I had routed the PS3 audio to a receiver with 5.1 surround, and video to a projector via HDMI. Then just played media from an external/had a dual boot to yellowdog Linux at the time. Was fun for young me, hell the projector was probably only 720p at the time

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Wait its actually worth something? I thought it was 2mbps limit.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

    Oh yeah for PCM it's CD quality on everything and capable of 24bit/96khz on most hardware made in the past decade (I think there's some high end stuff that does 24bit/192khz, but funnily enough I imagine you need a somewhat higher grade than typical cable for that, since most are made of super cheap plastic fibre, which is usually fine)

    You can also send bitstream over it for most pre Blu-ray multichannel formats if you have a compatible receiver

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  • [–] 250 points 10 months ago (45 children)

    Is that an optical cable with gold plating to improve the electrical connection?

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  • [–] 172 points 10 months ago (7 children)
  • [–] 74 points 10 months ago (4 children)
  • [–] 20 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    You gotta pronounce it schweaty science… Source: My ex used to lug 50lb buckets of mud up 3 flights of stairs several times a day…

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  • [–] 51 points 10 months ago (18 children)

    Yes.

    It's also for digital signals, so interference doesn't matter (up to the point it stops everything).

    But hey, it also has a silver ABS grip.

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  • [–] 30 points 10 months ago (16 children)

    I do kinda see some point in gold plating electrical cables. Gold doesn't tarnish so much and is also often used on computer edge connectors.

    The issue has always been "audiophiles" telling you they can tell the difference with a gold or gold plated digital connector. Of course you cannot, you either are getting bit errors or not with digital audio. But they do generally provide a more reliable connection overall.

    Now don't ask me about my opinion, you're talking to the guy that makes radio antennas with speaker wire. I am truly uncultured in terms of electrical connectivity.

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  • [–] 25 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    TOSLINK is an optical cable though.

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  • [–] 35 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    The photons gain a richer sound when traveling past the gold.

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Gold doesn't make an external oxide layer when exposed to air. So, any bit of the plug that touches your contact will conduct well, instead of being a toss up on how much insulating oxide is between them.

    But again, that's only important in electrical cables...

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    I mean technically you can hear the difference if it’s a mobile setup that has been plugged and unplugged 9000 times. The gold contacts will fare better because of the lack of oxidation. So for analog signals, I guess you technically could hear a difference.

    Thing is, at that point the wear and tear could also be hard on the cable core itself and not the connectors, so you will have functional connectors on a cable with a literal break in the signal wires. But I’ll always feel like a cable is ever so slightly less shit if they’ve decided not to spare the great expense that is 0.00004$ of gold plating.

    OP is hilarious though. Gold plate my wifi next please.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    Gold plate my wifi next please.

    There's a non-zero chance the wifi antenna traces are gold plated, although IIRC it's mostly connectors using it so maybe your m2 slot wifi module still has gold somewhere

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    With a digital cable (the electrical kind) you don't hear the difference. Either the connection is good enough to get the data stream error free, or it will be dropping in and out and you'd need to clean the contacts or get a new cable.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Depends on cable type and speed. Sometimes it will limit maximum bandwidth available, but yeah if there's enough noise it will simply kill the connection

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    Well. If it negotiates a lower bit rate I'm pretty sure the audiophile level kit will tell you it's no longer 24 bit 96khz or whatever the cool kids use now.

    But I'm pretty sure most High bitrate systems will have some level forward error correction, when the cable cannot deliver the snr needed to repair errors the signal will usually completely drop out. It will be perfect then gone.

    Without error correction, random bit errors in digital audio are seriously jarring.

    Having high quality (in terms of screening and contacts) won't have the kind of subtle change it can have with analogue signals. With analogue you're fighting things that can be minor like induced noise.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    Technically you're still hearing the difference. If it makes contact, you're hearing the music, if it doesn't make contact, you're not hearing the music.

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  • [–] 25 points 10 months ago* (7 children)

    Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I would think it’s to resist corrosion, but there are plenty of cheaper metals to plate with that don’t corrode, so even that’s a stretch.

    Or, you know, plastic.

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  • [–] 23 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Regular toslink is just plastic

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago* (3 children)

    That's what I was thinking, it's not even a glass fiber-optic. Works fine for audio though and lasers are cool, so it all balances out

    Edit: I am aware that mostly anything works good for a digital signal.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago

    If you wanted to make a high quality plug, you'd use a stainless steel guide. It has to be steel because it's elastically deformed during insertion, and any plating will be scratched with enough use.

    Most plugs don't work that way, but this one model does.

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  • [+] -8 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    See depends how you look at it. Will it make the cable perform better? No. But then neither do the diamonds around the edge of an expensive watch.

    The gold is just there so you know it's a quality cable. It's like a rolex fibre cable.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Does the Rolex do the chief function of a watch (keep time) better than a $30 Time ?

    So you're saying what it really does is communicate that you're a superficial asshole and/or sucker.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    Well. I wasn't really thinking of a rolex specifically. Just comparing the use of precious metals or gemstones on a watch that doesn't increase the functionality in any way, in the same way the gold plating doesn't increase the functionality of the optical cable. But it sure looks good.

    So I guess, yes. Lol.

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  • [–] 71 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    ABS Silver Shell

    silver-colored plastic

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