I had a friend who was in the crowd that Blizcon he almost lost his shit when he said that
Audio has attracted a crazy fringe of snake oil peddlers and scam artists since long before I developed an interest in it. Weirdly for many years the headphone segment was an island of sanity but over the last 15 years or so the same more expensive = better hype train has really become embedded in headphones too. That said, even the good companies well grounded in good design love buzz words and techno-babble.
That’s the thing… in some cases its not just “snake oil” or stuff like that, its just that the marketing people have no idea what the product does, like headphones that are v-shaped but marketed as “balanced and natural”, or an amp that is built to be fun-sounding but marketed as “clean”…
It kinda feels like at no point did they read the memo from the design team stating what the product actually is meant to sound like…
That’s some heavy audio shit right there
Clearly too much fiber
1080P audio… wow that one hell of frequency response
Audiophile ethernet cables, when i see one being used in a setup, i just can’t deal with them.
It take less than 3 brain cells to know this wont change A SINGLE THING about how your equipment sounds.
Got to love how they use connectors for tool-less assembly to look less shitty.
Gotta make 'em look sturdy so people think they’re worth more.
I bet the Nexans patches i make in 30 seconds perform as good, if not better.
Ill be the first to admit that I have fallen for some of these claims in the past. ehem 7.1 sourround sound headphones… ehem razor. But i view stuff like audio cables as a visual feature only. For example I use HartAudio Cables on all my gear, only because I think they look nice. I have yet to hear a difference in power cables/ interconnects/ headphone cables…etc. The only thing I know that does have an effect in that market are poor construction or contact corrosion.
That is called isolation, sir. /s
$200,000…oh dear.
Oh my mistake good sir. twas my butler responding prior. I simply must have such an exquisite isolation cableau.
In terms of a good idea which is being missold I would nominate the Harman response curve for headphones. To be clear I am not criticizing Harman’s research and the idea of evaluating preferences and developing a response curve which appeals to the greatest number of people is very sensible from the perspective of a manufacturer looking for high volume sales. However, tuning is entirely a subjective personal preference. Whether people like the Beats bass heavy sound, the very neutral and analytical sound of Etymotic or the Beyerdynamic treble peak is entirely a matter of preference. There is no right or wrong. To be honest I don’t like Grado tuning but they clearly have a defined house sound and I am glad about that as it would be a poorer hobby without them. I love my AQ Nighthawks but fully understand why some hate them. However, there is a large, seemingly growing, body of opinion on websites, reviewers and such like which thinks the Harman curve is the “right” FR tuning and dismisses headphones with different tuning as having been badly designed and can get really rather objectionable in the way they dismiss any heretics not just embracing the Harman curve. If you love the Harman curve then great, buy headphones tuned to it or use EQ to apply it. But it is no more right or wrong than other FR curves and if you like an oddball FR then there is nothing wrong with that.
Another way of thinking about it is that the Harmon Curve is like finding the perfect fit for a pair of jeans for 1,000 people and averaging the measurements to determine the ideal size.
Then you should be able to sell that one size of jeans to all 1,000 people and everybody should like them.
Yup. And people with big asses or people with small asses are complaining it doesn’t fit well and get criticized for being different because they don’t use nOrMaL jeans. Nope.
Even if you’re going for 100% hi-fi objectivist “give me the truth, I want to feel like I’m in the studio”:
Not everyone hears things the same way when “speakers” (drivers) are right next to your ears. Look at your ears. Look at “google image search” for ears. Look at how different all these ears are. Sound bounces there. And I’m not even talking about the inner ear and the possible damages or the personal differences (some people can hear 15khz, others 25khz, some people are treble-sensitive, some people are bass-sensitive, some ears hurt when X sound is played, some don’t even know what “ears hurt” means, etc).
Two years ago I was a “harman neutral” bitch, now I know why: I did not knew better… and I want to feel like I’m in the studio. Harman neutral headphones, for me, sound broken now.
Yeah. And I haven’t even talked about subjective preferences (i.e.: “I don’t want to feel like I’m in the studio, I want more bass, mids, etc.”)
In the immortal words of Jay-Z “can’t wear skinny jeans cuz my knots don’t fit”