h a l f b a k e r yQuis custodiet the custard?
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Sound "Clarifier"
Simple to make. All music from your component sound system sounds "clearer, sharper, more distinct". | |
Consists of a simple distortion and passive EQ circuit
tuned
to cut out notches at 3 or 4 spots in the frequency
spectrum. How does it work? The "EFFECT ON/EFFECT
OFF" switch is reversed. Sounds like crap when it's off
(but
it's really on) and sounds great when it's on (off).
Seeing as
audiophiles are often easily suckered you could
probably make a mint selling these.
If you wanted to be really devious, you could have
various
switches labeled with things like "Audio Imminence",
"Bandwidth Multiplication" where if the user gets every
switch just right the unit will be completely turned off
and
everything will sound great. Or at least as good as it
sounded without the box in the first place.
Watch the hapless intellectual brag about how he's got
this
unit "Really dialed in."
Ludicrously_20expensive_20online_20store
The perfect marketplace for this component [hippo, Jul 26 2011]
Exciter:
http://en.wikipedia...xciter_%28effect%29
Same effect with steroids [piluso, Dec 12 2012]
[link]
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//Seeing as audiophiles are often easily suckered you could probably make a mint selling these.// |
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Build a small box with two pairs of left and right phono sockets, a switch, a battery, and an LED. |
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Connect the switch and the battery to the LED, so that it lights up in the "On" position. |
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Connect the pairs of phono sockets together, so that the input signal gets passed to the output unmodified - regardless of the position of the switch, to which the audio signal is completely unconnected. |
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Now invite your audiophile into your high end listening room and show him your box, explaining that it's a high tech "sonic enhancer" which will improve the "clarity", "definition", "fidelity" etc of the sonic signal. Invite him to listen to the difference as you switch the switch on and off. |
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Finally, tell him the price of the box. |
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With the appropriate mixture of cold reading and audiophile balderdash you might be surprised how many of them you can sell. |
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[Wrongfellow] That would never work - you'd need some clever electronics to add a brief interruption or crackle to the sound when switching to make it believable. |
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Quite the opposite; I was going to suggest that the LED in [Wrongfellow]’s idea was superfluous. |
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No, [hippo], just a couple of shiny labels that say things like "Isochronous zero-crossing switching" and "Atactic signal routing technology" or "Autosynchronised noise-free changeover with null-channel remodulation and zero insertion loss". |
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Perhaps a stack of these labels could also be used to lure the Monkeys from Marketing onto a deep pit-trap with spikes at the bottom. Big, sharp spikes .... |
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This idea is a morally-bankrupt, cynical and unethical scheme to exploit the gullibility of arrogant meta-techie poseurs with more money then sense. [+] |
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You could make even more money if they're not available in stores, but have to be ordered specially from the manufacturers, who send an engineer round with some impressive gadgetry to "install and calibrate" the unit, leaving the user with a thick, heavy ringbinder of printouts and graphs showing the exact position of every piece of audio equipment and the location of the perfect "listening spot". An expensive adjustable chair with a dentist-style headrest "included free" would add immeasurably to the mystique, along with big signs saying that "No part of the equipment must EVER be moved or adjusted, otherwise the guarantee is void". |
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The whole "package" must be stupidly expensive. |
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The box should contain a small mains powered heating element attached to a piece of 1950's paxolin, so it gets noticeably warm when running and emits a faint odour of warm electronics. |
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//That would never work// |
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I don't know if anyone's ever tried to sell them, but I know that listening tests - non-blind, of course! - have been conducted in exactly this way, with the audiophiles ending up convinced that the sound is hugely improved with the switch in the "On" position. |
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By the way, showing my age. Anybody out there
young enough to ask "What's a component audio
system? Is that like an early iPod or something? |
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I guess the updated version would be the "Sound
Clarifier Plugin" for iTunes. |
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Not that obscure ... we recognised it at once ... |
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My Dad is the perfect test market for this product. The
whole town's lights dim when he turns on his stereo. |
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I have one of his hand-me-down receivers, and it has so
many super-quadriphono- jizztastic functions you don't
even have to learn how to use them; you just plug in a
special microphone, select the function you want to
activate, and the unit optimises the settings for you. It's
insane. You could bludgeon somebody to death with the
remote. The sound is terrific once the thing's satisfied.
After it got done making funny noises and listening to
itself, we hooked it up to the blu-ray and watched The
Bourne Ultimatum; during the chase scenes, we kept
ducking because it sounded like the vehicles were coming
right at us. Music sounds like it's live. On actual live
albums, you can hear snippets of conversation in the
audience between songs. My point is, this was the one I got
for free because it wasn't good enough for my father the
audiophile. Show him a black box with a toggle switch and
a capacitor the size of your fist, and it's already half sold. |
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And don't even get him started on vacuum tubes. |
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I have been thinking about Audio Imminence. I wonder if really the good doctor meant Audio Immanence. The latter conept benefits from greater abstrusity, which can only help sales to the rarefied and cognoscent. |
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The "Exciter" effect [link] work that way, more complicated indeed. This already exist as hardware, and software (VST plugins) ( I did code a VST harmonic exciter by myself some years ago as well). This is used alot in studio for instruments audio tracks, and entire mix sometimes. But you can't go back; once applied the effect is not reversible. The effect could "clarify" the tone, but it's not HI-FI anymore. Anyway, if the consumer like the effect and pay for it; good for you :-) [+] |
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