Real TrainWreck mojo!

[Justin Thomas]

I'm willing to admit that there may be differences in wire insulation colors. Am I willing to care? Nope. I do not think it's something that is scientifically provable, and so cannot be asserted as a postulate or consistent theory. So, as often has been brought up with tubes, "THIS particular piece of wire of THIS color in THIS specific amp on THIS given day with THIS guitar being played by THIS player," etc. May be plausible or possible, but is utterly and absolutely qualitatively unverifiable.

So when someone makes such outrageous claims, I don't doubt them. But I also don't make it a law, either... Nor do I try to reproduce their results. And there are MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY factors of MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MORE IMPORTANCE to worry about first!

Justin

[FalderGuitars]

And there are MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY factors of MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MORE IMPORTANCE to worry about first!

Justin

True, but that's kind of the point. Once you've nailed all the obvious stuff, where do you go next? I'm playing devils advocate - I'm a total novice and I'm not going to waste my time worrying about such nuances. But, given this thread is addressing the 'magic' that makes Trainwreck amps special, maybe we need to reconsider what is outlandish. We're through the looking glass here

[Justin Thomas]

I'm not a total novice, and I still don't care! :P
I think maybe we (as a building community) get WAY too obsessed with what That Guy did instead of focusing on what This Guy (ourself) is doing... personally, I think my amps have a fair bit of the intangible Trainwreck "mojo," but I think it's more because my builds are unpredictable. Or I'm m lazy. Probably all the above!

STOP TRYING SO HARD, PEOPLE!

All in good fun...

Justin

[FalderGuitars]

I think maybe we (as a building community) get WAY too obsessed with what That Guy did instead of focusing on what This Guy (ourself) is doing...

Well said. I don't have much personal interest in Trainwreck amps, I only found my way into this thread by chance, having just re-read the interview a day or two before stumbling accross this.

That said, I probably spend too much time wondering what X or Y amp might do for me, or trying to shoe-horn bits of Vox circuits into a Marshall clone, for example, time I'd be better spent with load lines and Ohms law!

Matt.

[Enzo]

Ah yes,the human capacity to rationalize anything. He SAYS the wire colored matters, but has anyone heard identical amps wired with different color wire to demonstrate the effect? I suspect not.

There is a famous book - The Hidden Persuaders - about the advertising industry. It is old, 60 years ago it came out, but the concepts are timeless. One illustrative story was about some marketing tests. They gave laundry detergent to houswives to test. There was no name on the boxes, just three types of soap. One had a predominantly red box, another largely yellow, and the third a blue design. They asked them to do their laundry with the three products and later report on which product they liked best. Results were pretty consistent. Most thought the blue box detergent was rather weak and did not clean quite as well. The red box detergent was too harsh for their clothes, and hte yellow box detergent seemed to be a good product for the laundry.

Yes, of course, it is later revealed the exact same detergent was in all the boxes.

We see and hear what we want to see and hear.

[Gnobuddy]

That said, is it definitely nonsense?

There is something wired deep into our superstitious brains that makes it tempting to ask these sorts of questions. What if I win ten million in the Lotto? What if there really are ghosts? What if today is my lucky day? What if red wire somehow sounds better than blue?

The thing is, following these questions leads a person down the rabbit-hole of escalating superstition. Pretty soon the "What if's" turn into "What if sacrificing a lamb to the Gods made me a better guitarist?", or "What if I was Alexander The Great in a previous life?"

So when that starts to happen, it's time to wake up the logical left-brain, and and start asking some serious questions. Such as, what happens to societies that follow superstition rather than science? Have they progressed as much as societies that chose to follow the scientific method? If we want to build a bridge that doesn't collapse, should we be doing finite-element modelling to look at stresses in the structure, or should we simply find a virgin to sacrifice, or maybe paint the bridge with lucky red paint rather than unlucky blue?

Some smart person (it might have been G.K. Chesterton, but attribution seems uncertain) once said “Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.” I think that is a really good slogan to live by!

In this particular case, we have known exactly how electromagnetism works since the mid 1800s, when Maxwell's equations were first formulated, and we know what insulators do, and what conductors do. We have had pretty good measuring equipment since at least the mid 1900s, so we can easily measure any differential behaviour of red vs blue wire insulation. We know that our test and measurement equipment is far more objective and trustworthy than the unreliable human ear ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzo45hWXRWU ).

So we can declare with complete certainty: "Yes. It is definitely nonsense!"

Perhaps part of the reason his amps are so desireable is that, whilst we're all laughing at the idea of tuning an amp using the colour of the wire, he actually tried it and got results?

It would be a complete waste of your time, but you can quite easily test the hypothesis that different-coloured wires transmit audio signals differently. Get a few equal lengths of different coloured wires, make sure they're about the same length as a typical wire in a Trainwreck, feed an audio frequency signal into one end, measure frequency responses, distortion spectra, what have you. If you can find a 1 dB or bigger difference in frequency response within the guitar frequency range, or a 1% or more distortion increase, then you have the beginnings of a case supporting Ken Fischer's claims. Otherwise, no.

But: we have 150 years experience sending electricity down wires. If red wires were better at this, not only would we have to declare that Maxwells equations were wrong (and they have been used to study, measure, design, and build millions and millions of electronic devices), but also every electric utility company, every generator manufacturer, every electric motor, would be using nothing but red wires by now.

They all laughed at Christopher Colombus...

The guy who only made an error of 14,000 kilometres in his position calculation? Why would anyone laugh at him?

-Gnobuddy

[Gnobuddy]

We see and hear what we want to see and hear.

There was a similar experiment done by sociologists in the Yuppie eighties, when people were being trained by advertising to discard the responsible financial ways of their ancestors, and instead plunge deep into excess and debt.

In this experiment, sociologists divided cheeses in half, wrapped the halves individually, then marked up the prices on one half of each cheese, before putting them back on the supermarket shelves. In subsequent polls, a majority of customers rated the more expensive cheese higher. Simply paying more for it convinced them they had actually gotten a better product.

Nearly forty years later, most people in North America say "You get what you pay for!" with complete conviction, and without a second thought as to the obvious fallacy of the belief. The cultural brainwashing is nearly complete now.

Both Trainwreck amps, and Apple Corporations iThings, benefit quite a bit from this particular bit of brainwashing. I read a while ago that Apple has the highest hardware margins of any consumer electronics manufacturer - quite literally meaning that their customers paid far more than the product was worth.

-Gnobuddy

[bob p]

Most thought the blue box detergent was rather weak and did not clean quite as well. The red box detergent was too harsh for their clothes, and hte yellow box detergent seemed to be a good product for the laundry.

Is that why Tide is sold in orange-and-yellow boxes?

[bob p]

Both Trainwreck amps, and Apple Corporations iThings, benefit quite a bit from this particular bit of brainwashing. I read a while ago that Apple has the highest hardware margins of any consumer electronics manufacturer - quite literally meaning that their customers paid far more than the product was worth.

To be fair, every manufactured device has to be sold for more than it's worth (in parts cost) for the manufacturer to make a profit by manufacturing it. The most successful products are the ones that disconnect manufacturing cost from retail price.

I don't value an iThing enough to own one, but I certainly wouldn't want to build one out of parts to save money.

[Gnobuddy]

every manufactured device has to be sold for more than it's worth (in parts cost) for the manufacturer to make a profit

I certainly didn't mean to suggest otherwise.

IMO, the question is, how big a ratio (selling price/parts cost) is still ethical? At what point does it become gouging?

I know, I know, you will get very different answers to that depending on whom you ask, let's say the CFO of a large pharmaceutical corporation, and the kindly nun running the local Salvation Army thrift store.

I don't value an iThing enough to own one, but I certainly wouldn't want to build one out of parts to save money.

My eyesight has reached the point where soldering old-fashioned through-hole 0.1" lead pitch parts - especially ones with lots of pins - requires a magnifying lens and still causes eyestrain. I'm certainly not about to attempt to build any sort of modern fondle-slab, with its tiny SMD parts!

A family member recently bought a perfectly functional Android phone for $26, Canadian. It even has a real physical keyboard. And a real headphone jack, too.

-Gnobuddy

[bob p]

IMO, the question is, how big a ratio (selling price/parts cost) is still ethical? At what point does it become gouging?

I know, I know, you will get very different answers to that depending on whom you ask, let's say the CFO of a large pharmaceutical corporation, and the kindly nun running the local Salvation Army thrift store.

What constitutes "gouging" may depend on whether you want to live in a capitalistic society where there are not artificially induced boundaries against ROI, or if you want to live in a fascist or a communist environment where the state controls the means of production.

It wasn't all that long ago when it was in vogue to hate oil companies because they made a profit by selling an expensive commodity. When they made a profit nobody liked it and they were vilified. 99%ers complained that they had "excessive profits" that needed to be disgorged, as if an oil company should be run as a charity to benefit mankind. Now oil is cheap and nobody's complaining any more. Now the favored group that it's in vogue to hate are pharmaceutical companies.

I think it's human nature to vilify any company that sells something that we can't do without when that item sells at an expensive price. The funny thing is that I don't see people running to tar and feather Alex Dumble or Ken Fisher because their amps sell for so much money. It's funny how we're inconsistent that way when the expensive item is a discretionary purchase.

[Gnobuddy]

capitalistic
<snip>
fascist
<snip>
communist

Come on, now. Those three are the only possible choices, and capitalism automatically means zero controls on price-gouging?

Political discussions never go anywhere useful, so that's all I have to say on the subject.

-Gnobuddy

[Enzo]

I don't like the term gouging unless it really is gouging. Gouging occurs when you are the only source for something and you charge usurious rates, like the Skreli deal. Just having super high profit is not enough. No one HAS to have an attenuator or a fuzz pedal, you can do without or buy alternatives. So if I make a pedal for $10 and sell it for $1000, that isn't gouging. If however I am the only gas station in town that still can pump gas during a blackout and I sell it for $20 a gallon instead of $3, the people evacuating have no choice. That is gouging.

[g1]

What constitutes "gouging" may depend on whether you want to live in a capitalistic society where there are not artificially induced boundaries against ROI, or if you want to live in a fascist or a communist environment where the state controls the means of production.

Now I see the guy who complained about colour degradation in HDTV can only perceive black or white.

[Chuck H]

Now I see the guy who complained about colour degradation in HDTV can only perceive black or white.

Then he'll have a hell of a time identifying the best sounding wire colors for an amp circuit