The Black Art of HI-FI

G a f f e r

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I've had enough of reading about the Black arts of Hi-Fi, The arcane knowledge that allows a £1000 piece of rubber the size of a stamp to magically take you to nirvana. (HI-Fi + is the worst culprit imho)

You're having a giraffe.

Some hi-fi tweaks do make sense but fail to work (Sound Improvement Disc?)
Some Hi-Fi tweaks don't make sense but do work (Densen D Magic?)

MOST hi-fi tweaks are designed to part you with your cash, that's it.

Overall I've found the best way is to see if there is a difference, and worry about the physics later (as usually if I don't understand why it works, it probably doesn't - aaargh the dreaded placebo effect)

By now you're thoroughly confused and wondering why I'm dribbling on about it.

Just wanted to see if anyone had any interesting stories out there about hi-fi accessories which were quite funny or just plain daft.










goto www.drg4.fsnet.co.uk
click on the 'links' button and go into the (new) Hi-Fi page
 
snake oil had a spell...... freezing cds, drawing green lines round their edges.... (admitted these last 2 should and will work in certain situations)

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I still use snake oil to this day. My best improvement (apart from buying decent speakers) was to make up some FFRC speaker cables. Certainly in terms of bang for your buck, it's the best value upgrade out there. I have now done a blind test on it and got 100% results over QED SA Biwire and mains flex (couldn't tell those two apart at all).
 
I'm still a big fan of the green pen.
I've run countless blind tests to convince myself and anyone who's been interested.

A dedicated, filtered and smoothed power supply makes a noticable difference too.

Buy quality cable and plugs @ Maplin and make your own interconnects for a fraction of the cost of branded ones.

(is this starting to sound like something out of Viz??)

. . . and always have ready supplies of Blue-Tack and squash balls :D
 
The green pen hides a track which messes up PCs - it is this use you mean isn't it?
 
the best tweak I've done was to purchase a dvd / cd cleaner (allsop carbon), now my cd player is over 4 years old and its the first time the laser was claned- the results were great! but less so on my 15 month old dvd player...
 
green pen will help....... helps with the stray laser reflections as suggested (i think)

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The Sound Improvement Disc I have is the same principle as the green pen (meant to have less laser light difraction/reflection).

When I first bought it I swore I could hear a difference....but not too sure now.

PS Snake Oil? hi grade or lo grade?:D
 
This is where russ andrews 60 days return policy comes in handy ;)
 

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