What's your favorite purple prose?

[Alex2507]

"These speakers are well paced."

 

[lovinthehd]

There are people who swallow that "reference cable" Kool-Aid. After a day at one of the recent Capital Audiofest shows, Dennis Murphy and Jim Salk told me about a very serious audiophile they encountered. He dragged his $2,000 speaker cables with him from one room to the next, as he listened to various different speakers after insisting on using his cables. Dennis bit his lip so as not to laugh, but Jim took it all in stride – he's seen it all before.

LOL everyone knows you need the $10,000 cables for audio shows....due to all the stress of frequent changing and all the extra electromagnetic radiation from all those monoblocks.

 

[Bucknekked]

That's funny that there's a forum for shaving, will have to do some more looking around over there at how you can embellish it...there are shaving stores, too? Seriously would never have guessed at either being a thing. Then again I shave as little as possible, never liked shaving, grew a beard a long time ago to minimize it. I used to wet shave, still have my dad's nice hefty safety razor and a supply of blades, too but generally use an electric for cleanup.

lovinthehd:
Oh, there isn't just one forum for shaving, there's a herd of them. Badger & Blade is a "men's lifestyle" website of which the shavers are but a slice. They address men's issues from the bottom of your feet (shoes, socks, etc) to the top of your head (pomades for your hair) and everything in between. Its actually a very useful site for some very querky stuff. If you want to know what to wear, or how to smell when you go, Badger & Blade has you covered.

How can you embellish shaving? Let me count the ways. There are dozens of youtube channels dedicated to the art of wet shaving. There are shaving divas that shave on camera to give them room to wax eloquent on the manly art of shaving. For many of them, shaving is not a chore to be dispatched. It is a full blown hobby. I learned to shave with a straight razor on these forums. Yep, I scratch the scruff with a wicked piece of German straight steel.

 

[Bucknekked]

"These speakers are well paced."

"these speakers are well paced". Fits right in with the reviewer who was glad they weren't "zippy" or "hifi".
A meal at a restaurant can be well paced. There's an actual set of guidelines for professionals at restaurants. But speakers? Or audio equipment? gotta love stuff like this. It is a hollow platitude and that's what makes it work. It doesn't mean anything, but, people will nod their heads knowingly.

 

[Bucknekked]

I found out Musical Fidelity produces an apparatus for lack of better term, which consists of a tube. You slap it between your CD (or I guess any digital player) and your amp to make your CD sound analogue...

In short; think of it as women and shoes. Men inscribe a lot and I mean A LOT into technology. It always becomes the substitute for strong feelings. Content gets lost so easily it's silly.

I don't know, my cables can convey a female voice and her guitar and my heart can melt. If it wears out for you and you start chasing your first 'heartmelt' with higher buck, you start resembling a drug addict. It is not in your cable!!! It is in her art and in your heart!!!! How hard can this be?

It is sublimation pure and simple.

There seems to be no end to the "gadgets" that can be applied to hobbies or interests. Go to a vitamin store and feel the vitality. Go to a kitchen store and take a gander. Risk your neck at a shaving store. Where humans show an interest, PT Barnum and his fellows soon follow. The more esoteric or cerebral the hobby or interest, the more arcane and obscure the gadgets.

The day some guy took a spatula out of the kitchen and swatted a fly with it, he had a brand new target market. It was now a fly swatter. He could now sell the same tool (with a longer handle) again and again with a new name.

 

[Bucknekked]

LOL everyone knows you need the $10,000 cables for audio shows....due to all the stress of frequent changing and all the extra electromagnetic radiation from all those monoblocks.

lovinthehd:

In Scottsdale Arizona there exists a lot of excess money in peoples bank accounts. Accordingly, its where all the expensive car dealers are, and not without coincidence, the most expensive audio stores. The very fine English accented gentleman who showed me around on the day I wandered in one had a formula to avoid spending to much money on cables. Formulas are great because they sound scientific.

Spending $10,000 on a set of cables is of course not necessary if you only have $10,000 to $20,000 of stuff installed. That would be extravagant. He told me you should only spend 10% of the cost of your installed system on cables. No more. (and by implication, certainly no less). Nose in the air. sniff . sniff.

This of course means that if you aren't spending $10k on your cables, well, then your stuff must be worth a lot less than $100k and really, if its that tacky, why bother? Apparently, that line of scientific/formulaic snobbery must work because he could indeed show you some very, very expensive cables. I demurred.

 

[Bucknekked]

There are people who swallow that "reference cable" Kool-Aid. After a day at one of the recent Capital Audiofest shows, Dennis Murphy and Jim Salk told me about a very serious audiophile they encountered. He dragged his $2,000 speaker cables with him from one room to the next, as he listened to various different speakers after insisting on using his cables. Dennis bit his lip so as not to laugh, but Jim took it all in stride – he's seen it all before.

Its bad enough someone might own $2,000 speaker cables, but to drag them out in public? There's only one reason to do that : grand standing. Trying to impress the folks at the show with what you know and how serious an audiophile you must be. I won't place too much of a value judgement on the poor dude since it may have kept him busy and away from places where he could seriously foul things up.

When you meet a guy like that, is it appropriate to ask him "Have you ever been on a second date? One where you don't need a credit card?" I dunno my manners anymore.

 

[shadyJ]

That's funny that there's a forum for shaving, will have to do some more looking around over there at how you can embellish it...there are shaving stores, too? Seriously would never have guessed at either being a thing. Then again I shave as little as possible, never liked shaving, grew a beard a long time ago to minimize it. I used to wet shave, still have my dad's nice hefty safety razor and a supply of blades, too but generally use an electric for cleanup.

There's probably a lot of other people saying the same thing about home audio: "There's a forum for speakers?!"

 

[lovinthehd]

lovinthehd:

In Scottsdale Arizona there exists a lot of excess money in peoples bank accounts. Accordingly, its where all the expensive car dealers are, and not without coincidence, the most expensive audio stores. The very fine English accented gentleman who showed me around on the day I wandered in one had a formula to avoid spending to much money on cables. Formulas are great because they sound scientific.

Spending $10,000 on a set of cables is of course not necessary if you only have $10,000 to $20,000 of stuff installed. That would be extravagant. He told me you should only spend 10% of the cost of your installed system on cables. No more. (and by implication, certainly no less). Nose in the air. sniff . sniff.

This of course means that if you aren't spending $10k on your cables, well, then your stuff must be worth a lot less than $100k and really, if its that tacky, why bother? Apparently, that line of scientific/formulaic snobbery must work because he could indeed show you some very, very expensive cables. I demurred.

Oh now you're going to tell me you can't buy better and better audio quality the more money I spend on stuff? Geez you're taking all the fun out of shopping. LOL.

 

[lovinthehd]

There's probably a lot of other people saying the same thing about home audio: "There's a forum for speakers?!"

Now that you mention it, I do get some funny looks when I mention audio forums....or audio. LOL

 

[shadyJ]

At least "bass attack" or "fast bass" seem to have some basis in a real acoustic measurement. When some people use these terms, they refer to speakers designed with cabinets that produce well damped, or low Q, bass. Other people, including reviewers, do use such terms without understanding what it means.

If there is a single impulse in a speaker with low Q bass, the sound starts and stops quickly. There is no bass 'hangover' where a single impulse rings on and on, as happens with poorly damped, high Q bass. It comes down to speaker cabinet design that best suits the woofer being used (low Q) or speaker cabinets designed to over emphasize bass (high Q).

I guess another example of an overused poor review term is "musical bass".

The thing is you don't hear damping or Q. You hear frequency response. A high Q speaker can have a response where the majority of the spectrum of its frequency response is in deep bass, therefore it will emphasize deep bass, but that response is what will be heard, not the damping. "fast" bass is just mid and upper bass frequencies, almost at the expense of deep bass. A single impulse is just a description of the frequency response.

 

[Bucknekked]

Now that you mention it, I do get some funny looks when I mention audio forums....or audio. LOL

I look no further than my own blessed bride. She looked at me when I told her about the audio forum like I'd grown a third eye. Incredulous.

 

[Bucknekked]

The thing is you don't hear damping or Q. You hear frequency response. A high Q speaker can have a response where the majority of the spectrum of its frequency response is in deep bass, therefore it will emphasize deep bass, but that response is what will be heard, not the damping. "fast" bass is just mid and upper bass frequencies, almost at the expense of deep bass. A single impulse is just a description of the frequency response.

ShadyJ
I am sitting here laughing to myself as I read this response. If I were to post this response on Badger & Blade, and there are audio forums there too I believe, it would sail completely over the heads of the posters there. If I showed it to my wife she would say "I thought your hear music out of your speakers".

As a famous man on AH once said to me in a post:
There's only two kinds of people in this world:
1. Them's that use nouns
2. Them's that use adjectives

On this forum, we tend to center on nouns: defined words that have a meaning. They can be a subject unto themselves. On other forms of audio communication, they tend to focus around adjectives. Words that describe other words and don't have a definitive meaning by themselves. On an adjective based forum, anything is possible because the words can be flung around like dung in a cow pasture.

Shadyj, you center on nouns: using words that have definition and a point of view that centers around objective means where ever possible. Viewpoints like this are what make this forum tick. Its what makes AH what it is.

 

[Swerd]

The thing is you don't hear damping or Q. You hear frequency response. A high Q speaker can have a response where the majority of the spectrum of its frequency response is in deep bass, therefore it will emphasize deep bass, but that response is what will be heard, not the damping. "fast" bass is just mid and upper bass frequencies, almost at the expense of deep bass. A single impulse is just a description of the frequency response.

I guess my point was we find it useful if we use pairs of words to describe differences among speakers. These pairs of words imply that there is a spectrum of sound between two extremes. For example, to describe tonal balance, for speakers with emphasized treble we say "bright", on the other end of the spectrum we say speakers sound "dull" or "heavy", with "neutral" describing the middle.

For damped bass or the lack of it, resonant bass, I think of speakers that have "lean" or "dry" sounding bass. On the other end of the spectrum, speakers with high Q sound "fat" (the opposite of lean). No one seems to say a high Q speaker sounds "wet" . In that sense saying "fast" or "slow" bass can be useful.

 

[Swerd]

Badger & Blade

A forum about wet shaving ??!! I guess I live a sheltered life. Why would anyone make a ritual or fetish over that?

The cynic in me wonders if Badger & Blade is sponsored by the online store that sells expensive badger shaving brushes and imported straight razors? This sounds like a project from some MBA who got way too creative.

If I posted there to talk all about Gillette Foamy, would I get abused like someone here who bi-wired his Bose cube speakers?

Non-conflict of interest statement: I prefer wet shaving over electric (never blind tested this), I usually buy Gillette twin blade style razors (I forget their marketing name) and usually use one of the lower priced shaving foams or gels that come in a can. They all work, even on heavy beards, if you give them a minute or two to soak in after you apply it.

I was once given a shaving brush, probably cheap, and a jar of shaving soap. It was a mess to use; it splashed wet shaving cream all over the place. I used it once or twice, hid it under the sink for a few years, and eventually tossed it out. Ever since that, I've resisted any advertising trying to promote those premium badger shaving brushes.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

A forum about wet shaving ??!!



If I posted there to talk all about Gillette Foamy, would I get abused like someone here who bi-wired his Bose cube speakers?

That's funny right there



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[highfigh]

The thing is you don't hear damping or Q. You hear frequency response. A high Q speaker can have a response where the majority of the spectrum of its frequency response is in deep bass, therefore it will emphasize deep bass, but that response is what will be heard, not the damping. "fast" bass is just mid and upper bass frequencies, almost at the expense of deep bass. A single impulse is just a description of the frequency response.

Yes, you do hear damping/Q- it's usually called 'ringing', in the same way a drum head continues to vibrate after being struck. High Q rings longer, low Q makes the sound and its movement reduces at some rate over time via some means, whether it's the mass and tension of the head or outside forces, like an actual damper pad for the head (or the player's hand/elbow). Subwoofers with high Q are used for Rap/Hip Hop systems and they're sometimes known as 'one note wonder'. I would never advise using that type of enclosure for any other type of music, though. However, a well-damped sealed enclosure with drivers that can perform well at low frequencies does work extremely well for Rap & Hip Hop.

 

[highfigh]

I was once given a shaving brush, probably cheap, and a jar of shaving soap. It was a mess to use; it splashed wet shaving cream all over the place. I used it once or twice, hid it under the sink for a few years, and eventually tossed it out. Ever since that, I've resisted any advertising trying to promote those premium badger shaving brushes.

Ever been told that you need to be more gentle?

 

[Verdinut]

A few years ago, I happened to read, in a British Hi-Fi Magazine, a review on some speaker stands which I had purchased. They were steel stands manufactured by the Apollo Furniture Co. and they were quite decent. The legs were actually tubes which you could fill with sand to increase stability and weight.
Well, it's a good one: The magazine reviewer reported that those stands affected the detailed reproduction of the low frequencies.

 

[MrBoat]

"Aircraft grade aluminum." Yes, it is of great benefit if the otherwise cheap scales on your knife handle or the control knob on your electronic device can break Mach 1.

More accurately, and the reason most manufacturers use this common as Coca-Cola 6061/6063 alloy is for machinability and usually much greater cutter and bit life. "Machine Grade" would be much more applicable.