Video

I don't go around making attacks but the sheer quantity of rubbish expressed here has overloaded my BS detector. BTW I am a career metallurgist as well as a lifetime audiophile, and I am here to tell you that almost none of this makes any difference. Copper wire, braided, 14AWG, neat connections and gold-plated connections and you are good. Heck, you can make excellent speaker cables out of CAT-6 ethernet cable.

I am an actual metallurgist and I certify that the statements made in this video are bonkers. The concept of silver for speaker cables has been debunked some time ago. OCC will not help the characteristics of silver very much, but what it definitively does is prove that audio insanity is contagious. Most of the audio assessment statements made are better suited for wine tasting. The prices quoted here are completed unrealistic for true (non-SKW brand!) OCC cable. You want 6N purity, you will pay a lot. Do we need to do a lab test to prove it? Like this one? czcams.com/video/XVLR9EuCkgo/video.html

I definitely preferred track B with the internal DAC, much more sound stage, I can hear reverb echoing out further, the vocals were more present and an overal inprovemt in detail. Leading edges if attacks were better. It was no hesitation beteeen the two which one I preferred. But like you said, the differences are muddied by CZcams, but even then I could hear it on my inexpensive JLabs ear buds when I'm at work masking and having ambient sounds going on. 11k worth? I have a hard time justing that difference.

Omg, can´t anyone just BUY some ancient blueprints from the 80s and just start building DECENT walkmans again? Or a shoe box recorders. Some of them were pretty decent. These "New" Chinese ones are just terrible. We are Rewind my ass. Everything sounds the same - like crap. The wow and flutter are just unbearable.

Career metallurgist (and also coincidentally UW grad) here: Your description of the metallurgy in the intro was messed up. Grain size, which is structure, has nothing to do with purity, which is about chemical composition. You can have a small number of crystals in an impure copper, and vice versa. I never expect civilians to get it right, but thanks for making the effort! The investigation answered the key question, determining that the copper was polycrystalline -- not as advertised!! I have to question the technique of using etchants to determine composition -- that is totally clunky. When polished (but not etched), copper has a colour that cannot be confused with any other metal, including copper alloys like brass and bronze. A few minutes using X-Ray Fluoresence in a scanning microscope would have confirmed whether the wire strands had a compound structure. Copper surrounding an aluminum core is common practice and yields poor characteristics for speaker cables. The marketers of such products usually do not declare this 'feature'. So basically the claims made for SKW cables are fraudulent (and Amazon needs to be told). I would have done this investigation a little differently; actually any commercial met lab could have done the same report. The work here was actually performed by a grad student and did not require any exotic knowledge. The discussion about bending the cables was a distraction, and you incorrectly concluded that flexible cables should never be bent. If the cable returns to its original shape then you likely have done zero harm. Kinking it is another matter, but even then, once or twice probably does no harm. p.s., all you really needed to know that China will tell you whatever you want to hear and then do something else. I thought everybody understood that. If you want a true OCC cable (and if you truly believe it has benefits for your listening experience), it will cost you considerable money, because there are no shortcuts to making such an exotic product. Personally I would put my money first into optimizing the room characteristics and maybe an upgraded phono cartridge and phono pre-amp.

Sometimes other boomboxes have aux to aux so make sure u get aux to aux or make it bluetooth

Cool videos! (The Argentinian)

Guido thanks for showing my video and the kind words of encouragement. Jeff from Columbus

Hey,, it’s nice to have the LP but music is music and sometimes hard to get lps are on cd two four etc on one cd ken from England.

Just got one of your cool T-shirts Guido🤗. Very cool.

nice videos and systems! btw Guido, I've heeded your advice and bought the Holo audio cyan 2, fantastic dac

Great vintage setup from Seattle. I love the old stuff and especially the Superscope tape. Can‘t find them in Germany, too sad😢. And the prices make me cry, too😂. What an Eldorado for vintage stuff the States are. Great✌🏻.

So we were conned

Get the crossovers replaced with modern one's, (Crites audio) and place on stands, bet they would be much better.

I’m still reconing and recaping my technics SB-6000, and can’t record video for you. I hope the refurbishing will bring a new life to my system. Hope to see this series going long!

From $100 to $100,000 everyone enjoys their audio setup, so great to see.

Very honest review, Guido, unlike most of the stuff audiophiles tend to post here. The only thing in which a CD transport can influence is jitter, but that’s a problem we solved more than 30 years ago. That being said, if you take the digital output of two distinct players in working condition, one really cheap, and other really expensive, record them (digitally) to audacity and compare the files, you’re going to see they are completely IDENTICAL, down to every single bit. That being said, the only thing that can influence the sound that comes out of any kind of CD player is it’s analog components, like the DAC’s power supply, amplifier or low pass filter. The whole transport thing is just snake oil, mathematically proven. Get a CD transport that you know that will last long, or just something you find aesthetically pleasing, hook it up to a good DAC, and enjoy perfect digital sound without having to sell your two kidneys. As to why people tend to hear differences between two transports, even when the same DAC is used, it happens because they WANT to hear these differences, maybe not deliberately, but subconsciously. The best way to prove it sounds identical is to perform an all digital recording (hook it up optically or via the coax cable to a PCM recorder at 16-bit 44.1khz and then check the files later). They should be exactly the same.

Hmmm... I don't know. I don't think the tip of the stylus is what wears off (except maybe in extreme cases, where I think the damage to the stylus and my records is extreme. I think it's the sides, that contact the grooves. And I still don't know how to tell if the stylus shape has become too worn to accurately and safely track record grooves.

ok thank You . who cares if one is lost in the audioph .... ?

Very nice video! Thanks for it!

grazie for that!

I am so sorry guys I only realized after sending it that I had spoken in Italian!! Hope you enjoy it anyway, keep on rocking! ❤

you could have lowered the volume and translated the italian guy

Speakers placed on the floor - that was a tough one😂

Regards from HiFi Serbia.

None of it my music 🤢

Thx for the info maestro😊

Wow. The Heresys are 50 + years old and still are going along!

Italian is easy

I've just gotten into DVD Audio and SACD I have a Sennheiser AMBEO MAX sound bar and a Sony UB-800 M2 4K blue Ray player. Everything works fine , am I missing anything?

The rack is a no-name rack bought second hand, the shelves is IKEA Aptitlig bamboo cutting boards. //The swede :)

Some would say these people are very foolish, spending that kind of money for such good equipment and then putting their speakers close to side walls & the walls behind the speakers. They are!. Imaging could be 3 or 4 times more spaciousn if they put their speakers 4 to 6 feet out into the room; less coloration too. Some people do not have a big enough room to do that; and spatiality wise, they end up with sound no more spacious than a well chosen $1,000 system where the owner has room to place his speakers where they can breathe. Also I always see cables touching the floor in these videos. Another thing that hampers soundstagibg and other things. For the price some of these people paid for their equipment, they could have easily paid a few hundred dollars more per month in rent rent, for a bigger place with a bigger listening room, where their equipment could realize its great potential. If compromised set ups like this is the norm, its no wonder that audiophiles are always trying to upgrade their sound. They're not satisfied and don't realize how badly their room is holding back their sound quality. You can't change physics. A $400 preamp will sound more open than a $4,000 preamp if the speakers are enough feet away from room boundaries. My speakers are 6.5 feet from the wall behind them, and at least 3 feet from side walls. The sound is more open than you would believe it is possible to get. It's still fun to see other people's set ups. Great video series.

Not sure I can agree. I have the h190 I only listen to digital. I am going to listen again based on your comment. Okay just critically listen Schubert cheaper music. The first piece was violin and piano, and I have to say is the left and right hand separation is perfect and so realistic the violin pull that my heart. I think I’m a pretty critical listener . And I just don’t find the presentation from my Hegel to be inorganic. I don’t think that it’s analog, but I don’t think it’s old-school digital either. It’s something new. I never compare stereos one versus another. I always compare them to live performances. I’ve heard these particular Schuber pieces several times in person and I can only tell you that they are presented as close to as I have heard. I don’t care if Luxmann a little this way or if accuphase a little that way. How does a sound system sound compared to live performance of actual instruments that are acoustic and human voices? How does this sound versus the real thing? That incredible damping fast factor allows it to touch out details that virtually no other system does. And the dark background allows you to hear it better I think your mistaken respect. I don’t think you’re right. Forget about Luxman and go listen to live music and then compare. This stereo versus that stereo this one has a bit more of this. This one has a bit more that this is an endless rabbit hole that sucks every dollar out of you. You can only attain satisfaction if you compare it to real music it’s not about your taste of music it’s about what’s real.

Interesting, thx for sharing 👍

That was fun 🙂👍

Hey, I don’t speak Italian but that’s perfectly fine,

These videos are the coolest.

🙋‍♂️ THANKS GUIDO ,FOR SHARING AUDIOPHILE’s PERSONAL SYSTEMS , they put a lot of work into them😅💚💚💚

Awesome, thanks Guido

My favourite one is without a doubt the Washington seattle One.

Digital data is ones and zeros that's it, the DAC should iron out any issues. It shouldn't come as a surprise that there will be very little differences.

In the VRDS era, Teac had solid aluminum platters, good steel, and the machines weighed over 10 kilos, like the VRDS25, for example, which was a marvel of construction ! 😉

Just got a cheap Thinkya JA-310R ordered via AliExpress and hooked it up via the included optical fiber to my Technics SU-GX70 streaming amp. Works like charm! That little piece of plastic spins absolutely noiseless and is likely the cheapest and smallest CD Transport you can get new.

The thing about a transport is it's one of the main areas that use use to interact with the hifi, a smooth CD draw and nice actions on the buttons add to the experience.

46:00 So you're telling me all my old records are probably tainted with lead??! Damn.

I believe it's much more the MFSL mastering that improves the audio, not the golden CD.

hi , well i am not trying the be a show off here but , i could depict both units without to much difficulty . After listening the first transport sample without even experiencing the 2nd one , i knew it was the $$.one i think usually costlier gear have some " traits " that are more common to them when you know what listen to on both examples i preferred the $$ unit. I would still invest in a good transport in the $2000 range i listened to this with Chord Mojo2 + Grado R1X thx

snaaake oiiil