...and the Jukebox Blows a fuse
I've long been convinced that high end audio / home cinema enthusiasts are a bit thick. I know the human ear is actually lot more sensitive than than it is often given credit for, but some of these products are just taking the piss.
I come from an electronics background, actually specialising in high frequency amplification :- not audio but radio and satellite so I am very familiar with the kinds of distortion that you get from propagating signals down pieces of copper wire.
My suspicions about the idiocy of top end hi-fi were first aroused when I discovered that people were paying £500 each for patch cables. WTF? Now, I don't reckon there is any way that anyone on this earth can hear the difference between an electrically well made, shielded, cable (costing at most £10 with gold plated plugs) and a £500 cable.
Then we move on to speaker cable where a similar farce is playing out. There are speaker cables priced at hundreds of pounds per metre. OK, cheap speaker cable is a false economy, but not (directly) because of the quality of the copper, rather it's ability to handle the current. I'd be astonished if a proper double-blind test revealed any appreciable audio difference between £700 speaker cable and 100amp welding cable.
I am an open minded sort, however, so even given my extreme skepticism I wasn't going to go lambasting Hi-Fi nuts for wasting hundreds of pounds just in case there was something in it.
Today, however, I was reading a review of HDMI cables. Geeks might want to skip forward a bit right now...
HDMI, of course, is a digital protocol. A poor interconnection with an analogue signal can lead to all sorts of nasties but as long as there is a physical electrical connection you will get some sort of picture. Digital is a bit different. Basically instead of transmitting the actual sound or picture, what's sent are instructions about how to build it. Think of it like flat pack piece of furniture.
Analogue is like having the completed, built, piece shipped to you. If the shippers aren't careful with it you end up with a piece that's battered and dented around the edges, but still basically a book case, or whatever.
Digital is like you had the parts all along, but had to have the instructions sent to you. Instructions are much more difficult to damage, but if they do get damaged (coffee spills, tears, etc) there might be whole parts that you can't build. If they never get to you then you're right up the creek.
This is what you see if you have a bad digital connection. Instead of the whole picture getting fuzzy, or snowy, bits of the picture go weird, freeze, pixelate. What you don't see is a uniform degradation in picture quality.
GEEKS STOP SKIPPING HERE
The review was claiming that they could actually see improvements in the tonal quality of the picture with a more expensive HDMI cable. Claims about expensive patch cables and speaker cable may be tenuous, but this is plain ridiculous and shows total ignorance of the nature of HDMI. Unlike an analogue signal where the quality of the connection can affect tonal balance, with HDMI it cannot. Fullstop. End of story.
As I said above, I have long suspected that the high end AV market is based on bullshit, ignorance and gullibility, but until now I haven't been able to prove it. Now I have a review that I can prove is bunk, I feel a lot happier about my position regarding the entire industry.
I come from an electronics background, actually specialising in high frequency amplification :- not audio but radio and satellite so I am very familiar with the kinds of distortion that you get from propagating signals down pieces of copper wire.
My suspicions about the idiocy of top end hi-fi were first aroused when I discovered that people were paying £500 each for patch cables. WTF? Now, I don't reckon there is any way that anyone on this earth can hear the difference between an electrically well made, shielded, cable (costing at most £10 with gold plated plugs) and a £500 cable.
Then we move on to speaker cable where a similar farce is playing out. There are speaker cables priced at hundreds of pounds per metre. OK, cheap speaker cable is a false economy, but not (directly) because of the quality of the copper, rather it's ability to handle the current. I'd be astonished if a proper double-blind test revealed any appreciable audio difference between £700 speaker cable and 100amp welding cable.
I am an open minded sort, however, so even given my extreme skepticism I wasn't going to go lambasting Hi-Fi nuts for wasting hundreds of pounds just in case there was something in it.
Today, however, I was reading a review of HDMI cables. Geeks might want to skip forward a bit right now...
HDMI, of course, is a digital protocol. A poor interconnection with an analogue signal can lead to all sorts of nasties but as long as there is a physical electrical connection you will get some sort of picture. Digital is a bit different. Basically instead of transmitting the actual sound or picture, what's sent are instructions about how to build it. Think of it like flat pack piece of furniture.
Analogue is like having the completed, built, piece shipped to you. If the shippers aren't careful with it you end up with a piece that's battered and dented around the edges, but still basically a book case, or whatever.
Digital is like you had the parts all along, but had to have the instructions sent to you. Instructions are much more difficult to damage, but if they do get damaged (coffee spills, tears, etc) there might be whole parts that you can't build. If they never get to you then you're right up the creek.
This is what you see if you have a bad digital connection. Instead of the whole picture getting fuzzy, or snowy, bits of the picture go weird, freeze, pixelate. What you don't see is a uniform degradation in picture quality.
GEEKS STOP SKIPPING HERE
The review was claiming that they could actually see improvements in the tonal quality of the picture with a more expensive HDMI cable. Claims about expensive patch cables and speaker cable may be tenuous, but this is plain ridiculous and shows total ignorance of the nature of HDMI. Unlike an analogue signal where the quality of the connection can affect tonal balance, with HDMI it cannot. Fullstop. End of story.
As I said above, I have long suspected that the high end AV market is based on bullshit, ignorance and gullibility, but until now I haven't been able to prove it. Now I have a review that I can prove is bunk, I feel a lot happier about my position regarding the entire industry.