Slashdot Mirror

These are the same guys that say a $10,000 audio cable produces "warmer" sounds than a $5 one.

Just don't say nothing bad about my $200 Shakti Electromagnetic Stabilizer Stone.

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-7...

That site... it's hurting my brain. I don't know whether to laugh, or cry, or huddle in a corner and start sucking my thumb. Carbon HDMI cable

There are significant, audible differences between HDMI cables. We're not sure how this is possible, since HDMI is purported to be a purely digital interface, however, the sonic differences are repeatable and consistent from system to system. A better HDMI cable makes a better digital audio cable, period. This is as true for music as it is for movies.

But then this is for people that buy those Monster HDMI, Ethernet and other digital signaling cables.

Don't you dare make fun of my $120 cable elevators.

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-9...

No, no, no! It's exactly the same problem that only true audiophiles can appreciate. Clearly, they are using some inferior cable that is incapable of accurately reproducing the highs and lows of the electrons. Are the cables make of oxygen-free copper? With gold-plated connections? Are those cables decoupled from the ground? The last thing you would want is to run those precious electrons across a cold ground. In a pinch, you can use these cable elevators to improve the fidelity of your power... http://www.musicdirect.com/p-971-cable-elevators.aspx It worked for my $7000 HDMI cables...

The linked article features $500 for some simple cables. But people can spend MUCH MORE MONEY than $500 on simple cables. For example:

$699 for 3M of speaker cables: (look for STEREOVOX Firebird Speaker Cables, 3M): http://www.gcaudio.com/products/steals.html

Ironically, the products are labelled "steals". Very true indeed.

But there's more. Not all products are "steals". "The next step up is the LectraLine cables priced at $295 for the 1M" http://www.gcaudio.com/products/newArrivals.html

But it gets better. At musicdirect.com you have power cords for $2,699.99 !!! Obviously it's "The Absolute Sound Golden Ear Award Winner!" Of course. http://www.musicdirect.com/c-650-power-cables.aspx

But it gets better, again. At nordost they build power cables made out of "99.99999% oxygen free copper conductors." I let you imagine the cost of production. A mere 1.25M of power cord is 8,795.00 (and these are UK pounds, worth more than a dollar). For 5M count 20,495.00 pounds. Yes, that's about $31K !!! http://www.highendcable.co.uk/Nordost%20ODIN%20Power%20Cords.htm

But it gets better, so much so that it gets boring. But still. Can you spend more than $31k on a simple pair of wires? Well, yes, you can. Look at the bottom of that page, 6M of speaker cable for only $50k. A bargain, really. http://www.audiofederation.com/dealership/prices/nordost/index.htm#prices

It is astonishing to say the least. That said, it some people have the money...

I'll sell him some top-o-the-line speakers wires *cough-lampwire-cough* for half what these guys charge.

The sad thing is that this whole discussion is just going to spiral into a flamewar about how people with fancy stereos are idiots and how Anonymous Coward #1 can't tell the difference between a CD and a 256kbps MP3, while the people with fancy stereos defend themselves saying they just want a good setup and aren't out buying $500 CAT5 cables.

And it's unfortunate that people who are really into the sound system stuff and who like having well-tuned systems/rooms/whatever get lumped into the schmucks who would drop $500 cables and crap like cable elevators.

Someone has just pointed me to this CD Demagnetizer.

I do hope this is a joke.

in those test if they were properly elevated from the floor.

but who's ever going to see your speaker cables?

Actually, I disagree. Only an audiophile would, because audiophiles are the only ones with the specific fringe religious belief that "sounding better" is both a reason to, and can be achieved by spending $17200 on a CD player.

You might as well try convincing an indoctrinated suicide bomber that the Koran doesn't actually say that suicide bombers live forever in Heaven with however many virgins they're advertising this week. You'll get about as far in bringing the audiophile around to your position, but admittedly, you're probably less dead.

you forgot http://www.musicdirect.com/product/74583 , a 200$ talisman from music direct that removes magnetic fields for video clarity

Oh. My. God. One of the items in there is some sort of box for processing your disks:

"New! Featuring four beams, nearly twice the rotation speed and improved timing processing, the Quadri-Beam is an ultra cool disc treatment. This patented process reduces the noise floor allowing far more information to be retrieved from the disc. It also works great on DVDs, giving you a picture that is brighter, sharper, crisper and cleaner. For those of you who have never experienced the sonic benefits of the Bedini Clarifier, it significantly reduces high frequency glare and increases retrieval of information, enhancing dynamic range. Detail and resolution are improved dramatically."

I won't comment. This is Slashdot, so I guess you have some entry level knowledge to know why this is the most ridiculous thing you've read in months.

I'm in my late forties. Most of the young whippersnappers in my office have never even seen a record player outside of movies. So, to listen to those "indie" vinyl records they're going to have to do some shopping.

First they need a turn table. But that low, low price does not of course include the required phono cartridge. The output of a phono cartridge is measured in micro volts and must be amplified before to "line levels" before it can be fed into an ordinary preamp. So last the aspiring vinylphile will have to collect that change that fell behind his couch cushions and get a phono preamp.

Sure beats overpaying for DRMed music.

No it doesn't. Once a sale is made, it is final. Reread what you just quoted: the sentence you emphasize applies to the service not the sale.

The guy in the article was trying to use the service of reauthorizing his music (after he deleted his authorization keys by reinstalled his computer from scratch) from a credit card he changed to a Canadian billing address (which Apple makes very clear during the sale cannot be used as a billing address for access to iTMS--not in fine print as the author implies).

Had he done any of the following, he wouldn't have any problems:

1. not deleted his authorization key from his computer by reinstalling from scratch;
2. backed up his hard drive with a tool such as Carbon Copy Cloner (this is very easy because a Powerbook can be mounted in target disk mode or you can back up to a bare 3.5" HD via a Drive Dock)
3. not changed his billing address to Canada; or
4. changes his billing information/credit card to one in the United States (having a friend forward mail, for instance).

Right now Apple uses the "technology" of billing address verification to verify compliance. The agreement is worded such that they have the freedom to use another technology whenever you try to use iTMS service (authorize or deauthorize a computer constitutes a service, listening to music sold to you, by my guess does not). They obviously will use this "technology" as long as they are not allowed to sell iTMS music in Canada.

This article sounded too pat to me. It's obvious from the agreement that iTMS is designed to behave the way it did. The writer seems to have gone to great extremes to find a scenario in which he couldn't listen to his music and is the internet equivalent to buying a CD, having it damaged by movers, and then being "shocked" when the music store he bought it from won't send him a new one. Because of this, I checked out the author's homepage: what do you know, it says he's a vice president of MusicDirect.Com (which seems to be a website making money from referrals to Amazon.Com music downloads)--an unfortunate conflict of interest. (I also noticed that he worked for Microsoft, but I believe this to be a red herring: it was their internet division and he left them during the internet boom.)

BTW, I must complement him on a well done homepage! A wiki and blogger: he's a pretty talented guy--talented enough to have a backup of his hard drive and worldly enough to scam a US-based credit card somewhere, no doubt. :-)

The guy that complains about Apple's restrictice licenses not only USED TO WORK FOR MICROSOFT, he also developed MusicDirect.com, a direct competitor to the iTunes Store. (Read it yourself on his Home page.

As the french say: honi soit qui mal y pense. ("shamed be he who thinks evil of it")