Audio Mythology

Or "SNAKE OIL". Stuff that JUST AIN'T TRUE.
...as far as I know...

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"Digital-Ready" headphones - they're ALL ready for digital. They always WERE, even before digital. Digital is zero's and one's, which we can't hear. All digital must be converted to analog in order to be heard. All headphones are analog.

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Vinyl sounds "better" than cd - Nope, no scratches or motor noise. The recording industry would love us to go back to vinyl, so we could continue to re-purchase music once it had a tiny scratch...but they've been doing pretty well selling us the same music over and over on cd: mastered, remastered, remixed, restored, mono, stereo, surround, SACD...this is why I never bought the Beatles remasters. George Martin did a great job in 1987, there was never any real need to remaster them (besides profiting from a gullible public).

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Contact enhancers - Baloney, in fact "Tweek" (from the 1980's) actually CAUSED CORROSION on dissimilar metals.

PLUS, if you're sloppy applying your enhancing goop, you may make an electrical contact where there is supposed to be none: also known as a "SHORT".

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Special cd Cleaners:

"Cleaning the cd twice is said to produce best sound" = "Lather, rinse, repeat" = Buy more sooner.

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Great bass from small speakers - You need AT LEAST an 8" diameter woofer to reproduce frequencies down to 40Hz. Physics, dude.

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Monster Cables - Mega price inflation for Micro electron flow improvement...in fact, after a certain size electron flow DEGRADES.


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Headphone response lower than 20hZ - Frequencies below 20Hz can be important when actual speakers are involved, because you FEEL them in your chest...there's no use in paying to get those freqs in your ears!

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Ion zappers - static-y cd's...WTF?!?

Of course these make sense for vinyl lp's, static builds up and attracts dust which settles in the grooves (is that why vinyl sounds better?), but for cd's? How soon until they market an mp3 version? Until the warehouse is empty, I guess...

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Gold-plated plugs - Generally only gold-colored BRASS plating, which gradually oxidizes and reduces connectivity.

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M600 microphone clamp to reduce infrasonic vibrations - infrasound is, by definition, sound below the limit of human hearing. It cannot even be reproduced by regular speakers. This is the "sound" of tectonic plates, deep-flowing magma and cautious elephants, NOT the world of audio recording.

At least the poor economic climate has brought the price of these M600 clamps down below $200 (!).