Ask an Audio geek

[Alex K]

A few post back AFTT47 mentioned that Vinyl was "snake oil".  I disagree with that since vinyl does sound different from digital, and turntables do sound different from one another.  It's up to the listener to determine if the sound difference is worth the fiddly nature of vinyl.

I do agree that there is snake oil being peddled, and is one of the reason I no longer consider myself an audiophile.
    
My short list of snake oil products : Aftermarket power cables (always), speaker cables (to a point), and interconnects (to a point).  Any digital cable including high priced HDMI cabled.  I would even throw in Phono preamps, headphone amplifiers, and DAC's to a point.  Of course all the silly items like speaker cable elevators/risers are included as well.  
 
DACS and Phono preamps require some discussion.  There are differences, but I feel most of the sound quality differences are totally overstated.

So what's your opinion on current Class D models (see my post above)?

I've spent some time at High End trade fairs (in particular HIGH END in Germany), and there's every imaginable addition being peddled - there are no limits for what people will claim can improve sound. It's really hard to separate fact form fiction. I once sat in on a presentation of tiny golden half spheres you had to put on the walls behind listeners to improve the room - I swore it made a difference of some sort, one person in the audience dared disagree and was immediately told by the presenter that he probably didn't have enough experience

How about power conditioners? I once convinced myself that they make a difference many years ago in what can easily be a psychological effect since I never did a blind test.
And CD drives (not DACs)? I've always thought that spending the equivalent of a small car on a pure drive was silly -- yes, jitter, clocking, blah blah, none of that seems to be justified if you have a proper DAC.