"Super SATA" for moar bettar audio! (not)

[unixronin]

* cough * cough * BULLSHIT * cough *

"I have disabled Comments on this post so that respectable visitors do not have to read the remarks made by a small number of extremely ignorant, rude, malicious and disingenuous individuals who cannot tolerate people expressing opinions that do not concur with their own."

Here's one of those "extremely ignorant, rude, malicious and disingenuous individuals":

How on earth can a SATA cable delivering 0s and 1s to their respective destination have any effect on those 0s and 1s?  The answer is, it can’t.  Unless it’s a magical one made of pixie shoes.  After all, if a SATA cable was so poor as to cause errors in the transmission of data, you wouldn’t be able to listen to the music in the first place: your operating system wouldn’t boot, and in the case of a NAS device, well, it just wouldn’t work.

(Via slashdot)

Comments

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

perhaps if you have a bandwidth limited system, you can't deliver 9.2 super ultra digital enveloping surround sound at 4096 bits per channel?

#

[vetpsychwars.livejournal.com]

That's a real facepalm moment.

I got the best feedback from my stereo tinkerings from musicians.

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

Heheh.

My ex who is somewhat humour-challenged, compiled a whole wad of press clippings of articles like that and hung them on a nail next to the toilet in the house we were renovating.


He designs speakers for THX home theater systems for a living, so I suspect he knows of what he speaks.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Heh. That's an interesting kind of bathroom reading, I guess. :)

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

It wasn't intended for reading!

There are other uses for paper products in a bathroom :D

[glitch25.livejournal.com]

"Mr Steward,

Your recent blog entry was brought to my attention today, and I wanted to comment on it, since you felt the need to block/remove comments on the original post.

I assume you've read the rebuttal at http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2010/08/18/can-sata-cables-make-your-music-sound-better/

While you may have considerable knowledge and experience in the hi-fi audio field, your ignorance of how computers and associated technology works clearly shows through in your article, and as such, is very misleading to individuals who might not, like you, be as well informed.

Given that you haven't stated on your entry WHY specifically you disabled and removed comments (I can only imagine the ruckus your article generated), and I don't for a moment buy your excuse of keeping your article friendly to the "respectable visitors", I thought I'd take a moment to point out that true consumers appreciate feedback from other people no matter what it is. When you deliberately hide it, it taints the quality and integrity of your work. It speaks to the possibility that you know your article is incorrect, and rather than either defend it, or perhaps accept criticism, learn from it, and correct it, you'd rather push away the dissenting voices and pretend they don't exist.

Were that to be true, then YOU sir, would be the "extremely ignorant, rude, malicious and disingenuous individuals who cannot tolerate people expressing opinions that do not concur with their own." You would also be a coward.

Sincerely hoping for the sake of your regular readers you learn something from this,

-Marcos Duran"

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Nice letter. :)

[mrakg.livejournal.com]

I should hope that he only uses these:

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=110-439&vReviewShow=1


If you're going to go for audio-woo, a $150 duplex outlet is the place to start. :)

[glitch25.livejournal.com]

Love the reviews!

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

So, uh, I guess that means I can just forget about asking Monster Cable to come out with 1" thick copper mesh jacketed Cat 5 cable to improve my network media player sound quality. Darn.

[guppiecat]

You're analyzing along the wrong dimension. It's not that the cable makes it easier/faster to deliver the 1s and 0s. It's that when they're delivered over appropriate cabling, the 0s are rounder and the 1s are pointier, resulting in (respectively) more mellow and sharper tones.

Or, you know, not.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Heh. :)

[vetpsychwars.livejournal.com]

Hey, that can actually happen. Imagine the joy of pulling 6000 feet of RG62A/U and finding out that, yes, the spec meant what the spec meant, and having to replace it with RG62B/U.

And so it continues!

[glitch25.livejournal.com]

Yay slash-dot effect.

"Posted by Malcolm Steward on 8/20/10 • Categorized as Audio

I have withdrawn the article that appears to have upset so many computer enthusiasts.

I realise that the opinion I expressed in it was contentious but the reaction from some individuals was way too extreme. I think that wishing death upon someone because they wrote how they witnessed a change in the way their hi-fi sounded when they swapped a cable in a NAS is a bit of an over-reaction. Anyone in my office, including my wife and children, can read my email and they were not impressed by this and the volume of similarly aggressive correspondance.

I know full well that it is ‘scientifically’ not possible for a data cable to exert such influence but I know what we heard and hoped that maybe someone might be able to throw some light on what might be going on. While a couple of people kindly wrote and did just that most people simply said “It’s just ones and noughts, you stupid (expletive),” which wasn’t especially helpful."

To which I say, if you stop talking out your ass, more of us will be less inclined to assist Darwin on your behalf, Mr Steward. :-)

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

actually, the quote you gave, I would have also judged to be rude. If I was speculating about the cause of an actual perceived change in one of my systems, and someone, without any ques of humor (and without a rapport with me that made that obvious and/or appropriate) compared my speculation to "magical pixie shoes"... yeah, I'd pretty much throw that commentator into the "asshat" bin.

Add to that all of the net-dorks who were making (alleged) death threats? yeah, I'd probably be stifling an urge to punch that asshat in the face (which I have no problem suggesting is what that asshat deserves -- a swift punch in the face).

Whether or not the audiophile in question was being an idiot is irrelevant to whether or not the collective flame happy citizens of the net are actually a bunch of immature asshats. That seems to be the default level of maturity in contentious discussions around the net.

I haven't read anything there nor here to suggest to me that the "quoted commenter was an asshat" theory isn't well supported.

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

Oh, and, yes it is possible that cable quality could allow you to boot your system and have a working NAS device, while also not having a full and rich music listening experience. It's not about the quality of the 1's and 0's, it's about the latency in the delivery of 1's and 0's as they are error corrected, and how it is perceived by an OS (slow but fully useful) or an ear (choppy and poppy).

Improving cable quality == reducing error rates == less latency spent in error correction == less choppy/poppy sound as the music player isn't always waiting on new data segments.