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[Daniel Asti]

danlavry wrote on Fri, 02 June 2006 16:08

is it legal to misrepresent such facts?

Yes, unfortunately! All that must be proven is that they were selling it "conceptually" and not "factually". The burden is on the consumer, not the courts, to make the determination of whether the company in question is selling antibiotics or snake-oil marketed as antibiotics.

The patent office is no better with common sense or consumer protection. It's possible in this case that a patent was granted for something that doesn't exist and couldn't exist. He could have patented a "phrase".

[danlavry]

AndreasN wrote on Sat, 03 June 2006 16:58

Hi Dan! There seems to be a minimum length issue at least with some cabling. Stumbled upon this while building a new computer: SCSI: .. "The shortest cable must not be less than 30 centimeters (12 inches) between each device. For example, if you have 3 device connected to the host adapter, the minimum lenght of the cable should be 1 meter (3 feet)."  http://www.technick.net/public/code/cp_dpage.php?aiocp_dp=gu ide_scsi IDE: .. "80 wire cables also can't be any shorter than 254mm (ten inches), by the way." http://www.dansdata.com/rcables.htm Both are ribbon cables with simple unshielded parallel conductor/earth/conductor/earth wiring to avoid crosstalk. This has probably little or nothing to do with SPDIF, but it would be interesting to hear your view as to why there is a minimum length on these cables. Andreas

I read it and I do not know why the writer says what he says. I wonder if there is some mechanical reason, where a short wire is difficult to bend. It would be good if one would state what they say such stuff. I do know that electrically, jitter, cross talk, skin effect, series resistance, radiation, noise pickup all benefit from SHORTER.

And then, maybe the crystaline structure of the half naked SCSI interaction with the inert coneheads makes the audio transmitted via a 1.666 meter $600 SCSI cable sound warmer

Regards
Dan Lavry
www.lavryengineering.com

[danlavry]

Daniel Asti wrote on Sat, 03 June 2006 17:33

danlavry wrote on Fri, 02 June 2006 16:08 is it legal to misrepresent such facts? Yes, unfortunately! All that must be proven is that they were selling it "conceptually" and not "factually". The burden is on the consumer, not the courts, to make the determination of whether the company in question is selling antibiotics or snake-oil marketed as antibiotics. The patent office is no better with common sense or consumer protection. It's possible in this case that a patent was granted for something that doesn't exist and couldn't exist. He could have patented a "phrase".

There is huge amount of snake oil in audio cables. One does not need to go far to find it. For example, much of the speaker wire out there has arrows pointing out which end is to be connected to the speaker, and which end to the power amp.

Not only any claims about directionality of the cables a total and complete crock, the signal itself goes in both directions audio is AC, not DC.

As an EE I can tell you it would be really if one could make a cable that conducts differently in one direction. Such behaviour would cause distortions. Lucky, the cable is symetrical.  and those arrows are non sense.

But even well some known and well to do cable companies have been selling that BS. I do not see anyone putting a stop to that either.

Regards
Dan Lavry
www.lavryengineering.com

   

[Jon Hodgson]

slwiser wrote on Sat, 03 June 2006 16:25

I would guess from the responses that I need to be more careful in what I read as being actually "technical in nature".  From the response here this article is more advertisement than technical therefore by definition this thread could be removed if anyone finds this line of questioning inappropriate for this forum.

Actually the question was a technical one and therefore I would say completely appropriate. Dan just gets understandably irritated by people who portray themselves as his fellow professionals using pseudo technical BS to sell things to people.

So don't worry about it, and the short answer to your question is that longer SPDIF cables aren't better.

[Jon Hodgson]

This is my favourite bit from that site so far

Quote:

Holophonic-PC's simply bring the music to life, even mediocre recordings. The highs are like a breath of fresh air and the bass is tight, articulate and punchy. If you don't feel the bass guitar and kick-drum in your gut now, you will with these interconnects. CD's, DVD's and SACD's simply sparkle with clarity. Those lyrics that you never could understand in your favorite recordings will become highly intelligible, even the lyrics that the backup singers are singing. No more need to pull-out the CD jackets to understand the lyrics anymore. Holophonic interconnects are so spectacular that it is difficult to put it into words. Holophonics will unlock the performance potential of your components!

So guys, don't worry about getting the mix right, your recording quality probably doesn't matter much, don't spend any money on a mastering EQ and whatever you do don't waste it sending the mix to a mastering engineer... all you need to do is pass the mix through a couple of Emperical Audio's PC interconnects and everything will sound better.

If this man told me Wednesday came after Tuesday I'd find a calendar to check.

[trevord]

The only thing i can think of is..
If a cable interface is designed for a particular impedance
(or some other specification)

maybe a short version of a particular cable manufacturer violates the impedance (or other specification) the interface is designed for.
(pardon my dangling )

But (as was said before) the range of dimensions where this becomes relevant is way beyond the "typical" setup.

As a matter of fact I remember some "pro-sumer" devices, which provided access to different sections had a U shaped piece of metal between adjacent RCA jacks.

OR
Straight wire circuitry should be terrible then.. those direct connections with thick wire should make the sound awful. You have to add some length to make the sound good

[Gunnar Hellquist]

Just for the fun of it -- here is a page with links to other "audiophile" inventions that supposedly makes you live a happy and prosperous life ever after.
http://www.ilikejam.dsl.pipex.com/audiophile.htm

There simply seems to be no end to what people are prepared to believe, which of course is OK for the general public.

Gunnar

[Jon Hodgson]

Gunnar Hellquist wrote on Sun, 04 June 2006 09:20

Just for the fun of it -- here is a page with links to other "audiophile" inventions that supposedly makes you live a happy and prosperous life ever after. http://www.ilikejam.dsl.pipex.com/audiophile.htm There simply seems to be no end to what people are prepared to believe, which of course is OK for the general public. Gunnar

Thanks Gunnar, I needed a chuckle

Actually, two of the things on that page are by someone who frequents this forum.

[audioengr]

Jon Hodgson wrote on Sat, 03 June 2006 19:15

This is my favourite bit from that site so far Quote: Holophonic-PC's simply bring the music to life, even mediocre recordings. The highs are like a breath of fresh air and the bass is tight, articulate and punchy. If you don't feel the bass guitar and kick-drum in your gut now, you will with these interconnects. CD's, DVD's and SACD's simply sparkle with clarity. Those lyrics that you never could understand in your favorite recordings will become highly intelligible, even the lyrics that the backup singers are singing. No more need to pull-out the CD jackets to understand the lyrics anymore. Holophonic interconnects are so spectacular that it is difficult to put it into words. Holophonics will unlock the performance potential of your components! So guys, don't worry about getting the mix right, your recording quality probably doesn't matter much, don't spend any money on a mastering EQ and whatever you do don't waste it sending the mix to a mastering engineer... all you need to do is pass the mix through a couple of Emperical Audio's PC interconnects and everything will sound better.

Now you ARE on the right track.  If you boneheads in the recording business would have any sense you would start using the decent cables and electronics that audiophiles are already using to improve their playback.

I am 100% certain that the quality of the playback chain is now superior to the best recording chains in the industry.  If it were not for innovative companies like Lavry (I give you some credit even though you are bad-mouthing me) and Benchmark media systems, we would still have the quality of 8-track as our best recordings.  Pro-sound digital improvements like Pro-Tools have only served to normalize the quality of recordings, eliminating many of the good studios and recording engineers that were able to get the most out of the equipment they had - many of these used better cables and even modded their equipment.  The quality of the average recording has improved over time due to innovations like Pro-Tools, but the really good recordings are getting very hard to find.  I have recordings of Ella from the late 50S that are better than 99% of what I can buy now.  There are only a handful of studios that get the most out of the CD format, such as Northernblues.com and Redhouse records.

To get an idea what is possible in the studio with decent cables and modded gear, read these reviews of remastered CD's from reel-to-reel tape that were done using studio gear that I modded and converted to battery power and using high-end cables (not mine this time).  These CD's are written on the best CD-R media one at a time at 1X recording speed:

"I have long believed that vibration control, as well as other so-called "high end audio" signal enhancement disciplines, is beneficial not only for CD playback, but would also be of great benefit in the process of manufacturing CDs. Bob has helped to demonstrate this with his HDTT mastering process, and the results prove that there's more - perhaps much more - to be extracted from the ordinary Compact Disc than anyone may have suspected. HDTT transfers sound significantly more alive, spatial, and pleasantly detailed - in other words, just plain more musical and enjoyable - than nearly all other Compact Discs - including SACDs - that I have heard. In short, one of the best things that's happened to the CD in a long time." - Peter Bizlewicz Symposium Acoustics

"Thanks for the sampler which you, or somebody, slipped me at CES. The disc is fascinating and, while it retains the balances I am familiar with on the older LPs, the increase in clarity and detail is remarkable. I was especially impressed with the Strauss (Klemperer), Bach (Richter), Beethoven (Prohaska) and Wagner (Munch)."
Kal Rubinson "Music in the Round" Stereophile Magazine

"Loved the tones, especially the string tones and highs. Violin and cello were particularly vivid and alive. I feel very strongly that your recordings exhibit outstanding transparency due to the fact that you burn the individual discs instead of stamping them." The ultimate in disc sonics can only be achieved when the disc played has been burned. Stamping is a cost effective but music destroying method of making a CD." Overall, I would rate your efforts as being very successful and kudos to you for going to the extra effort to individually burn each CD, an effort that must be expensive and time consuming. As for the $30 price tag, they are worth every penny of the asking price and more.

In the case of HDTT, a well preserved reel to reel tape is played back over a highly modified and tweaked tape player with the line out being burned to a master disc; the master disc being used to direct burn the CD-R in my hand. At least that’s how I understand it works, I may find myself corrected on exactly how the feed from the tape deck is burned, but as I learn how it’s done, you’ll learn how it’s done.

I wouldn’t go over the explanation with you were it not for the superb quality of the sound. Part of that obviously goes to the quality of the original recording; part of it to quality of the tape deck and playback equipment; and part of it to the CD-R burner and blanks used by HDTT. These are not inexpensive CD-R blanks. All put together, the results are impressive ... especially the strings, yummy. While the present recordings are from reel to reel tapes that were commercially available a few years back, HDTT hopes to soon have access to first generation original tapes in the future. If that happens, I think it very possible that a direct CD-R burn could be sonically superior to the original LP. That’s an exciting prospect.
Martin DeWulf Bound for Sound Audio Report

“These classical music CD's are the best 16 bit digital audio we have heard on our system. They are incredibly dynamic, open and transparent. They sound very close to our reference analog setup in tonality, especially the violin pieces. Musically the pieces are excellent interpretations, as good as or better than mainstream releases. We look forward to your future releases!” John Hughes VRS Audio Systems

I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed the amazing sampler disk you gave me at the CES. Some of the cuts have so much detail I could hardly believe I was listening to a CD. Also, the sound on the 50-year old Scherchen Scheherazade was truly remarkable. Again, thanks for the disk, which I listened to on a straight out-of-the-box Denon 2910 connected to a Dodson DAC. I can just image what the disk would sound like played through modified equipment.
Saul Sokolsky

and here is a review of many of the CD's:
http://www.audaud.com/article.php?ArticleID=1443

So after reading this you still think that the recording chain cannot benefit from high-end cables and modded equipment?

Steve N.

[slwiser]

SteveN

The first question that I have then is why do your sell cables with lengths right in the middle of the keep out zone?  1 meter? 0.5 meters? and 6 feet?  All of which fall into that zone if I am not mistaken.

These can be found under your special cables.  

The Bitmeister 1 meter length can also be found on your digital interconnects.

Is there a contradiction here?

audioengr wrote on Sun, 04 June 2006 22:55

It is obvious that you did not read the analysis that I did for the article that leads to the conclusion that 1.5m is a "safe" minimum length for a S/PDIF cable.  I also do not state that less than 1 foot is also a "safe" zone for most applications.  In other words there is a "keepout" zone of 1foot< X < 1.5meters for most consumer gear. And BTW, my Bitmeister is one of the best, if not the best sounding S/PDIF cables on the planet.  ...... Steve N.

[audioengr]

As I said:

“The Bitmeister uses a patented technology that allows the conductors to be 50% bare. Bare conductors cause less dispersion (smearing) in the digital signal” than fully insulated conductors, reducing jitter in the digital signal".

This is a non technical BS, and saying so is not a rant.

This is certainly technical. Dispersion and losses are real effects in real physical digital transmission lines as opposed to ideal textbook lines.

“Pure 99.99% Perfect Crystal Silver conductors in
a custom stranded configuration enhance high-frequency response
by minimizing skin-effect and stranding effects”.

"crystal silver"? That is a made up non technical BS.

Silver is certainly a crystal in it's perfect state.  It is not an amorphous material like glass.  I suppose you didnt know that perfect crystal glass, or pure silicon is also a crystal?  My brother, who is a degreed matallurgist assisted me with the metallurgy on my silver wire.  The crystal lattice in silver, gold and copper has an effect on its behavior at high-frequencies.  I have TDT and TDR plots posted on my website that demonstrate how this affects signals at high-frequencies.  I did an experiment with liquid nitrogen where I "damaged" the crystal lattice by fast immersion.  Then I assembled two identical sets of interconnects, one with the damaged silver and one with intact crystalline silver wire.  The LRC measurements were identical on the two sets, BUT the TDT showed that the broken crystal lattice definitely affected signal transmission at high frequencies.  This is incontestible.  The damaged crystal lattice impacted the performance at high frequencies.  Incidently, they also sound terrible in the audio system.

The are a lot of other comments in that "writeup" that are non technical or technically incorrect. He talks about impedance matching, which is a problem that grows with cable length, contrary to his conclusions.

Now this is complete BS.   Transmission-lines are constant impedance no matter how long they are.  If the line is so short not to exhibit "transmission-line effects", then this is different.  It is merely behaving as a lumped element of LRC.  This is the different between circuit-analysis and field analysis.  When the signals are at very high frequency or on long lines, then the equations of circuit analysis fail and one must use field analysis. If you look at the many computer simulations that I performed on models of my cables posted on my website, you will understand the results.  It is not good to throw mud at something that you do not understand or even bother to take the time to read.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

[audioengr]

slwiser wrote on Sun, 04 June 2006 17:31

SteveN The first question that I have then is why do your sell cables with lengths right in the middle of the keep out zone?  1 meter? 0.5 meters? and 6 feet?  All of which fall into that zone if I am not mistaken. These can be found under your special cables.   The Bitmeister 1 meter length can also be found on your digital interconnects. Is there a contradiction here?

Certainly not.  The digital cables I sell are 1.0m, 1.5m and 2.0m, no 0.5m lengths.  I recommmend the 1.0m digital cables only to those customers that have mods from me on their transports to speed-up the S/PDIF risetime.  If you read the white-paper, it speaks to this I believe.  In my Off-Ramp computer audio converter products, I use a 9 inch S/PDIF or AES/EBU cable.  Completely consistent.

As for the analog cables, the transmission-line effects also occur on these, but it is usually of small consequence.  However, it turns-out that terminating analog cables as if they were digital can have benefits for some components.  The output drivers do not see reflections on the cable if it is properly terminated and therefore some behave more linearly.  IF you dont believe me, then just put 75 ohm resistor in series with the output of your preamp or DAC before it drives the cable.  You will experience a reduction in sibilance, not roll-off, assuming that your interconnect has low capacitance.

Steve N.

[audioengr]

Daniel Asti wrote on Fri, 02 June 2006 09:42

slwiser wrote on Tue, 30 May 2006 18:57 What does everyone think about this article! http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue14/spdif.htm Is it correct? Did you know that there is no government regulation that holds them accountable for what they claim? They can say whatever they want when "describing" the product. This is very similar to the herbal supplement industry. The reason there are $5,000 power cables is because someone will buy them. There is no science backing it up whatsoever, you see. All of it is based on belief. The company will invent terms and vividly describe something and someone will believe what they say. They buy this cable and, like many studies have shown, will not be able to tell their own cable from a well built but much less expensive cable. (Unless they rig the test - which is awefully common.) Audiophiles and snake oil companies alike will claim that science is just not far enough along, you just can't measure it... So, you gotta believe them and take their word for it. Dan is not ranting and you must understand that. His writings and theory are scientific and the community accepts him because it can be backed up with a step by step reproduction and verification. As he pointed out in the paper; they are bluring the lines of fact and fiction. Some things, like the cable length "concept", just fly in face of plain old-fashioned common sense. Dan is not being subjective.

BTW - other independent publications have verified by experiment that my conclusions are correct.  I had other skeptics come into my suite at CES in Jan 2006 with their publication and give me a copy with the article including the experiments demonstrating that longer than 1.5m is better in most cases with consumer gear.  These were double-blind tests done by another independent testing group. They wanted to prove me wrong too, but ended up believers instead.

[trevord]

audioengr wrote on Sun, 04 June 2006 22:55

danlavry wrote on Sat, 03 June 2006 16:29 Daniel Asti wrote on Sat, 03 June 2006 17:33 danlavry wrote on Fri, 02 June 2006 16:08 is it legal to misrepresent such facts? Yes, unfortunately! All that must be proven is that they were selling it "conceptually" and not "factually". The burden is on the consumer, not the courts, to make the determination of whether the company in question is selling antibiotics or snake-oil marketed as antibiotics. The patent office is no better with common sense or consumer protection. It's possible in this case that a patent was granted for something that doesn't exist and couldn't exist. He could have patented a "phrase". There is huge amount of snake oil in audio cables. One does not need to go far to find it. For example, much of the speaker wire out there has arrows pointing out which end is to be connected to the speaker, and which end to the power amp. Not only any claims about directionality of the cables a total and complete crock, the signal itself goes in both directions audio is AC, not DC. As an EE I can tell you it would be really if one could make a cable that conducts differently in one direction. Such behaviour would cause distortions. Lucky, the cable is symetrical.  and those arrows are non sense. But even well some known and well to do cable companies have been selling that BS. I do not see anyone putting a stop to that either. Regards Dan Lavry www.lavryengineering.com     As an EE with 30 years design experience at companies including Unisys, Storage technology, Siemens, and Intel. I can say based on your responses above that you don't know much about transmission-lines and high-speed digital signal transmission.  I was one of the pioneeers in massively parallel scalable computing at Intel corp and hold 15 patents on this and other technologies.  I patented source-synchronous digital signalling. I was a design deam lead on the Pentium 2.  What is your experience that you believe you can challenge my findings? Where is your analysis that disproves my length conclusions? I want to see it on paper. Steve N.

I am not a "dan fan" but what you say is completely irrelevant. Dan merely pointed out any effect occur at frequencies NOT involved in any aspect of audio or digital audio (200KHz max) at the typical characteristics of audio/digital audio cable. Claiming expertise in MHz frequencies in this area is like saying you know  about stressed concrete architecture so you should be able to build a lean-to. The problems are of a different scale, expertise in circuits which operate in a different frequency range does not help.
As a matter of fact I would say your other statements verify the incorrect application of high-frequency digital system clocking theory to a completely different field.

[slwiser]

SteveN

I find it interesting that on your web site you attribute the signal getting to the outboard device on time for the + and - sides to the cable instead of your modifications in the devices themselves for better performance rather that how you explain it in answer to my first question.  Nor did I find in the ad copy  anything concerning the requirement to have the modifcations your noted below.

The following is a portion of add copy from SteveN's web site:

"Bitmeister AES/EBU interconnects take special care to insure that the signals arrive at the same time and are treated identically during their transit time in the cable."

Another interesting statement about the signal in a cable:

"It is like a microscope that needs focusing and the Bitmeister does the fine focus for you."

So your cable is an active element in this context.

Again is there a contradiction?

audioengr wrote on Sun, 04 June 2006 23:47

....The digital cables I sell are 1.0m, 1.5m and 2.0m, no 0.5m lengths.  I recommmend the 1.0m digital cables only to those customers that have mods from me on their transports to increase the S/PDIF risetime.  If you read the white-paper, it speaks to this I believe.  In my Off-Ramp computer audio converter products, I use a 9 inch S/PDIF or AES/EBU cable.  Completely consistent. As for the analog cables, the transmission-line effects also occur on these, but it is of small consequence.  It turns-out that terminating analog cables as if they were digital can have benefits.  The output drivers do not see reflections on the cable if it is properly terminated and therefore behave more linearly.  IF you dont believe me, then just put 75 ohm resistor in series with the output of your preamp before it drives the cable.  You will experience a reduction in sibilance, not roll-off, assuming that your interconnect has low capacitance. Steve N.