All AX-1000z Units Recalled!

It was a joke! After seeing all of the excitement and pitches at the RMAF for expensive equipment running at ridiculous sample rates, I figured I should dream up my own version of the ultimate hardware piece. I honestly wonder how far readers had to go through the post before they realized that I was fabricating the whole thing. When I shared the post with some of my audio classes at the university, it took a while before they got the joke. I think many were with me until I completely lost control and started laughing out loud during the part about the gel being applied to your ears (thanks to Steve Davis of the AXPONA show for that one).

I’ll freely admit to the lies that I spun in the story about the AX-1000z, but sadly most of the people and sites selling similarly over-hyped products stick to their guns about their products not being overkill. The move to quad DSD or 384 kHz PCM is completely unnecessary. Moving to 384 kHz (or the rumored 768 kHz sample rate) does absolutely nothing to improve the fidelity of a recording…just like the application of substances to the surface or rim of an optical disc (more on this later).

The microphone cabinet here at the studio is pretty well stocked. We’ve got some very rare and expensive microphones from Telefunken, Neumann, Sony and B&K. However, none of them can output a frequency higher than about 30-45 kHz or well within the range of a 96 kHz PCM analog to digital converter. With state-of-the-art ADCs and DACs, that’s the most you’ll need to capture ALL of the musical fidelity. Even 192 kHz is unnecessary and overkill.

After my series of articles on audiophile teaks that are pure rip offs, I received a number of emails from purveyors of these types of products insisting that THEIR items are not “snake oil”.

I had a conversation yesterday with a gentleman that purchased our HD-Audio Blu-ray Sampler at the RMAF. He called and left me a message that the disc was defective. I returned the call yesterday and spoke with him at length about a range of things. The first thing I pointed out to him was that the Blu-ray disc that I sold him wouldn’t play in a CD transport. I nudged him to think about an upgrade to an Oppo BDP-105 or find an older BDP-95 so that he could play all formats.

Then we got around to a discussion of audiophile tweaks including one that he insisted works. The “lower end” will benefit from a light sanding of the edge of the disc with 150 grit sandpaper and then an edge coating with a black magic marker. I remained calm and polite as I asked how he thought this changed the binary information being read the optical pick up on his CD player. The same tired line about the “light leaking out the edges of the disc” reasoning came back. I did promise to try thing out on one of my discs.

I have the ability to do a quick shift between two identical players through my console monitor system. I will get out my Sharpie over the weekend and treat one copy of my latest sampler and leave another in the original condition. Stay tuned for a full report soon.