Recent posts

[Engineers have the graphs audiophile brands don't want you to ask for.]

#1

News Updates / Industrial Power Filters Beat ...

Last post by Tranquility Bass - November 13, 2025, 12:40:59 PM

Not what the audio file industry wants you to know, but if they could sell you a bit of dirt off the floor, they would too !

Engineers have the graphs audiophile brands don't want you to ask for.

For years, audiophile power conditioners have been sold as essential upgrades for better sound. Yet when independent testers compared them to industrial filters used in laboratories, the results were hard to ignore.

What makes this gap even more striking is how little data high-end brands share about their products. Once you see how industrial engineers approach the same problem, the luxury price tags start to look strange.

Let's dig into what the numbers actually reveal.

Industrial Power Filters Beat Audiophile Power Conditioners 30x the Price, According to Engineers

#2

News Updates / Re: Are audio shows good for t...

Last post by Tranquility Bass - September 09, 2025, 10:15:28 AM

Wasn't long before the meme's started popping up

#3

News Updates / Re: Are audio shows good for t...

Last post by Tranquility Bass - September 08, 2025, 11:16:05 AM

And a regular poster on a very well known audio forum made the following comment



In other words, it's just a day out. It's not what exhibitors would want to hear. Priceless !!

#4

Performance and Measurements / Re: NEW Jitter tests showing t...

Last post by Tranquility Bass - August 23, 2025, 10:01:25 AM

An excellent article

New Test Reveals How Vintage CD Players Outperform Modern Models Thanks to One Forgotten Design Choice

The study shows how overlooked testing methods hid the true performance of both vintage and current models.

Lab tests have long been the final word on how CD players perform. Yet those tests rarely went beyond a few single-tone checks, leaving out the kinds of stresses that music actually creates.

Recent testing by NTTY filled in the gaps with a method that looked at clipping, distortion under load, and how digital filters behave with shaped dither. The results changed the story of how older non-oversampling and newer oversampling players really compare.

#5

News Updates / Re: Introducing the Ultimate A...

Last post by Tranquility Bass - August 13, 2025, 05:20:51 PM

Rather than use some obscure general-purpose mass-produced single board computer (SBC) designed for set-top box and HTPC apps (like this $79 USD VIM3L Chinese-made SBC from Khadas used in someone else's prospective DSP product**), our custom-built DSP hardware was built from the ground up specifically for hi-end audio applications, and the measurements speak for themselves. The payoff is that we fully integrate all peripherals, such as DACs, ADCs, and custom hardware, onto the same board as the DSP and using the same ultra-low-jitter clock distribution network, thereby ensuring they are tightly coupled together. Not only that, we don't rely on a third-party operating system along with all of the bloatware that comes with it, which just slows everything down; instead, we wrote all of the code from the ground up to be highly lean and efficient.

** as well as going to great lengths to hide the actual DSP/CPU used for fear of identifying this board, which kind of makes it a diyaudio project disguised in an expensive case using a similarly specced Raspberry-Pi board and thus very hard to justify the 14k USD price tag ! Tsk,tsk,tsk...not a good look for the price charged

#6

News Updates / Re: Are audio shows good for t...

Last post by Tranquility Bass - August 10, 2025, 10:31:20 AM

Case in point from a visitor to a show

#7

News Updates / Are audio shows good for the i...

Last post by Tranquility Bass - July 26, 2025, 10:09:13 AM

Not according to this article

https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/07/elitism-lazy-marketing-killing-audiophile-hobby/

Audio shows are everywhere now. During the first half of the year, there's one almost every month. But for at least one longtime dealer, they've become more of a drain than a strategy.

    "The amount of shows is stupid and the results from shows is even stupider," he said bluntly.

To be clear, he isn't against shows completely. He's done plenty of them. But in his experience, they rarely bring in new customers or deliver truly impressive demos. Most visitors aren't there to buy. They're just passing time.

He called it "audio tourism." People poke their heads in between errands or while waiting on their partners, with no serious interest in gear. And even when they do sit down to listen, the sound usually isn't anything special.
"Most of the sound at audio shows is just average," he said. "I don't think most people go to an audio show and get their doors blown off."

Some of the industry's frustration now comes from logistics. In 2025, several major events like AXPONA, SIAV in Shanghai, and Kaohsiung Hi-End Show all happened on the same weekend. This forced brands to pick sides on where to spend money and manpower.

And that money doesn't go far. Booth costs, labor, shipping, and lodging have all gotten more expensive, yet most companies still have no clear way to track return on investment.

Even shows that report big turnouts aren't necessarily bringing in the right crowd. AXPONA 2024 hit over 10,000 visitors, but the new Gen Z ticket tier, despite some growth, still made up a small slice of attendees.

    "It's the same thing over and over and over again," he said. "There's nothing unique about any of them."

He doesn't think shows need to disappear. But if the goal is to grow the customer base, this isn't the way.

IMO the only benefits appear to be for the organizers who make a killing from renting out pint-sized hotel rooms with poor acoustics, and for a few days only whilst all of the exhibitors have to pay extra staff to do the heavy lifting and grunt work !! It's literally money for old rope for the organizers

#8

News Updates / Re: Introducing the Ultimate A...

Last post by Tranquility Bass - July 25, 2025, 06:32:48 PM

We must have redesigned this Active Speaker Integrated Controller (ASIC) sub-system at least a hundred times with many major and minor changes along the way. Whilst doing so, we have come up with numerous breakthroughs designed at perfecting loudspeaker reproduction. Some are even worth patenting ! These are not useless things like using bits of expensive speaker wire, expensive mains cables, milling out expensive bits of metal or changing out DAC's etc. These are things that make real-world differences in addressing the flaws in current loudspeaker technology ! This is only possible when you have total control over all facets of the design process.

#9

News Updates / How to build a linear-phase cr...

Last post by Tranquility Bass - July 17, 2025, 07:00:10 PM

Using Audioweaver, the Ultimate Preamplifier, and rePhase, we were able to implement a linear-phase crossover on the onboard SHARC DSP running at 192 kHz without much effort at all. For this example, we chose a simple 2-way crossover centered at 1 kHz and a response that mimicked an 8th-order Linkwitz-Riley filter, in which both sections exhibited an in-phase response of -6 dB at the crossover point.

To see the whole article please click here.

#10

Crown Prince (PCL-1000) / Re: Model Information

Last post by dtximages - May 25, 2025, 11:01:13 AM

Hey I'm interested in your thoughts on this speaker. I just picked up a pair and found them VERY lacking in the bass region. Drivers all all moving but I feel there should be more on the bottom end. My Crown Princes don't hardly need a subwoofer, but the Prince sounds is nothing like that.

Could I need a woofer replacement? If so which ones?
Could the crossover be bad? How do I figure that out.

60hz and up, they sound AMAZING like all Duntechs but gosh this whimpy bass is giving me fits.