Sound and Vision on my Quad Z1: “A litmus test of a great speaker is cymbals, and the Quads made the most of them, from the gentle taps that start the dynamic ascension of “Careful with That Axe, Eugene” to the smashes that accompany its multiple screaming climaxes. The Quads practically spattered the walls with blood.“ Guess I had to buy them! ( j/k)
The name has different connotations -at least I thought- but I do happen to have a fascination with things that are beyond crap and this piece of fine equipment fits the bill. Like some movies that are so bad that could be good to watch.
Wilco - Sky Blue Sky, a fine album. But probably not related to this quote. I've seen lightning from a blue sky... Maybe a little more realism than I need?
I always cringe looking through their catalog and seeing the power cables. They look like zip lock bag type plastic see through with the electric copper on the other side with no dielectric material. Very scary
Folks! This is may be the overall Winner!!!! Even a $25,000 phono preamp 'punches above its weight!!!!'. Lol!! Okay. This may be the exception. But; damn near every other review that I've read in the past 2 months, mentions that the preamp 'punches above its weight'
The stuff is junk. I made the mistake of buying some interconnects a long time ago and they broke. I took them in to my electronics professor at the time and he just laughed at it. I also had speaker cable that just became a jumbled mess.
Some previous posters on this thread have mentioned DAK, whose catalogues I started receiving unsolicited when I was in college. I have no idea why, and I was pissed off when I saw the parade of junk they sold. I am glad I didn't cancel it, because it soon became my monthly audio comic relief. Reading some new posts on this thread today, I was thinking that maybe they were even more egregious offenders that the high end magazine reviewers. The gear was rather crazy looking with lots of colorful lighted displays, colored buttons, little switches. It looked like it was designed off world and required a Phd to use. The catalog was filled with hundreds if not thousands of words describing a piece of gear in the most flowery and outrageous terms. Features weren't just "a Feature", they had these incredible names that just sent your BS meter off the scale. But I was thinking: I wonder who actually earned more profit for the gear manufactures? Companies like DAK using over-the-top descriptions and feature set lists for cheap gear of questionable value or use, or reviewers of high end gear spouting flowery BS, sounding like a wine tasting about perceived qualities of high end gear. I suspect the one thing they both had in common, was the person writing the copy for either the low or high priced gear were the only people who could "hear" these attributes.
I heart this thread. Bad reviewing doesn’t go away unless you discourage it... and pointing it out and laughing at it is a very valid way to do that. .
I actually liked some of their recordings, some of which were so remarkably dynamic I used them for evaluations..
Jesus are these guys serious? How can they not be embarrassed selling stuff like this! And I quote "The difference you hear is a startling tribute to how much sonic improvement can be gained from only three inches of first-rate conductor". Brilliant!
The weirdest are "balanced interconnects", which basically 3 naked ribbon copper wires, terminated with pins. No XLR connectors needed!
Of course! The industry standard, tried and tested solution can be bettered by jamming wire in the holes. And I'm sure it's cheaper too!
As I said, it is a shame, as there recording now really on a backburner - but they actually were very interesting.
This is also a nice one: "Also striking here was the perceived resolution of spatial information. This is of course part-and-parcel of resolution of detail in general—space is a matter of perceiving micro-structure of reflections."
I'm not apologizing for some reviewer's embellishment of language but in all fairness it is sometimes difficult to verbalize audio perceptions. That fact, IMO, forces some reviewers to go off the verbal deep end.
And there we have it at last: A concise explanation of the quantum nature of audio experience and the influence of perception on the resolution of spatial information. That should also explain the importance of cats in all things related to audio.
There's a good one in this month's HiFi News. A review of a stereo amp says it is "for the masses" - the retail is about $15k.
