As you know, here at Hackaday we take our audio equipment very seriously indeed. We’ve seen it all over the years and have a pretty jaded view of a lot of the audiophile products that come past our door, but once in a while along comes something that’s a bit special. That’s why today we’d like to introduce you to a new product, The Hackaday Passive Aligned Ferrite Active Quantum Crystal Nanoparticle Reference Sticker.
Here’s the problem: we’re surrounded by electrical noise. You can’t see it, you can’t touch it, and you can’t hear it, but your audio equipment can, and when that happens it will degrade your listening experience without your realising it. You might have shelled out your life savings on a top-end Hinari amp, Marc Vincent surround sound processor, Friedland carillon wire cables and a set of Saisho floor-standing speakers, but if you haven’t dealt with your system’s magnetic compatibility they’re never quite going to reach their potential and you’ll always be left wondering why your broader soundstage just doesn’t zing. You need an HPAFAQCNRS.
Magnetic Compatibility
This is where the Hackaday Passive Aligned Ferrite Active Quantum Crystal Nanoparticle Reference Sticker comes in. Unlike other stickers they contain not ink, but rare-earth-doped ferrite quantum crystal nanoparticles from our Japanese laboratory, and it is the role of these particles in activating the background noise floor to achieve magnetic compatibility that produces their effect on your hi-fi. The ceaseless electromagnetic interactions and oscillations between all the items in the room such as speaker stands, wiring, CD racks and furniture are absorbed, and the problem is solved.
The results of applying the HPAFAQCNRS are astounding, and quite unlike any you will have heard before. There is simply no comparable product on the market. Bass tones are lengthened and softened, treble reaches a harder climax, and the inner coherence of the soundstage is congealed in a rich, dark, chocolatey presentation. Structural and spatial resonances disappear entirely, the audible colour of the holographic soundscape changes beyond recognition as you place the stickers around your system, and it simply gets better at mopping up the overall clarity the more stickers you bring to the auditorium. Merely reproduced sound from recordings becomes experienced sound, as though you were actually there. You are left prostrate before the altar of a sonic cathedral, and the fat lady is singing right behind your ear.
Transcendental Experience
How can it possibly be that a simple sticker, merely positioned on active and passive components of your listening room, change the quality of the sound you perceive so much? How can a sound so richly and effortlessly detailed come from such a seemingly simple adjustment? It doesn’t seem possible, or at least it won’t until you’ve tried it yourself. We certainly approached them with our usual skepticism, but were blown away by the transcendental experience. Less is more, and the less you interfere with the signal path and the more you adjust the resonances of your surroundings, the more astounding will be the result.
We’ve put the Hackaday Passive Aligned Ferrite Active Quantum Crystal Nanoparticle Reference Sticker in our shop, such is our confidence in it. It’s a snip at only $99, or $899 for a pack of ten, but if you find us at one of our many events, then you may even be able to secure one for free. Its use isn’t restricted to hi-fi, if you stick one on your laptop it’ll also work on your productivity.
captain obvious
And is that the best you can do?
What did you want? Higgs@home with a benchtop 3D printed subquantum interferometer plus common household products?
I have one stuck on my ultrasonic bath, it reduces head splitting nausea caused by rapid oscillations in the occipital lobe.
Not even funny for an April Fool day…
It´s the Dumb April Fools Day from Captain Obvious of Wrackaday, aka DAFCOW
LOLWUT
Each one comes with a free Faraday cage to assist with the functionality.
Is on Pinterest! Wish there was a coupon code though.
Meanwhile bonchoff is preparing his “The Most Popular Use Of Raspberry Pi Is Running Emulations And I’m only Saying This To Troll People” post/spam as his contribution to this site.
The next logical step of course is a project that makes a Raspberry Pi emulate … drum roll … a Raspberry Pi.
What about emulating a MEAT PIE on a Raspberry Pi Made from real Food and displayed on an osillyscope.
What about a Raspberry Pi emulating an always-on LED?
Emulation could be hardware accelerated too, just wire the LED between power and ground.
I’m having trouble installing mine, every time i turn it 90 degrees it’s upside down…well not everytime.
+1 to this. I’ve got a call into tech support.
If the sticky bit’s on top, turn it through 180 degrees.
I thought I saw one of the USB patents referenced so may need to turn it 180 degrees three times.
Just use the ethernet port – it fits both ways in that!
I did that and now it’s sideways.
I tried that, and it did something wrong to my keyboard!
Just a stupid unicode html trick, nothing malicious.
https://xkcd.com/1137/
It seems ungracious to criticise a workmanlike effort which does wax lyrical in the “fat lady” sentence.
Something like the TV broadcast reporting failure of the spaghetti harvest, due to infestation by spaghetti worm, complete with vision of bushes bearing black-cored damaged spaghetti, was a masterpiece pulled off back in the black & white TV days, and we can’t expect one like that every year.
That said, I feel that something along the lines of a 2D phased array of ferro-resonant active elements, powered by near-field electromagnetic radiation from the audio equipment, based on early work by Nikola Tesla, might have performed better than a “sticker”.
The sad thing is, some of the high-end audio black magic stuff is comparable to a sticker with fancy marketing mumbo-jumbo
YEP… what about the absurd amounts of money some type of cables cost without actually solving any problems. Gas filled cables that don’t reduce your digital signals quality… blabla… HDMI cables are a great example.
And the most funny part is that sometimes these cables are so bulky that they don’t fit properly behind your TV unless you move it a few inches forward (gone are the benefits of an ultra flat screen) or that are so sturdy that they (almost) break the HDMI connector from your device if you try to bend the cable. So as long as there is a marked for such silly stuff, because people tend to believe what’s written on the package (or fall for what the shop owner tells them), I’m sure that these stickers will be selling like hot cakes. That is if the price is right, unreasonably expensive that is.
So… yep, I liked this April fools joke (although obvious, I don’t like surprises so hackaday, a job well done)
Many times when I am short on $$ for some gadget or tool I feel a rush of jealousy for the dorks who somehow got into the supply chain for these >10,000% markup audophile products. Somehow selling tiger stones to those who I imagine to be wealthy ignorant and highly superstitious individuals seeking a magic charm made powerful by the exchange of national currency seems better than hard work for far lower margins on quality bespoke work.
Well then your competitor would boast of using aerospace grade tooling, and then you’d be $$ short for some gadget or tool again.
If you follow the world of silly reviews of hi-fi woo, you might even recognise the passages from which I got my inspiration.
Maybe I can afford one soon, I have to save more money though…
I spent all my spare cash on the new Google Gnome.
Does it come with Google Crombie™ preinstalled?
Thank you so much for selling one for me in advance the autonomy is really good
I am planning to use one of these to prevent cosmic rays from damaging my DNA when I next travel to Mars.
You’d probably need the radiation hardened version for that, it’s still in development but it’ll cost $4999.99.
Does it have free shipping?
Only if shipped to continental Mars
That’s sad, I live on the Sun…
Well, well, well…. you’re at the bottom of one for this system. How’s your winter been, much snow?
So what makes it better than other, established and proven, ferrite quantum crystal nano-particle stickers? Not that I’d use any given the artificial, constructed audio that results – natural granite and salt crystals will always be better.
Ah, it’s passive aligned active, and it’s a *reference* sticker. The other stickers haven’t got that, they don’t even come close.
Granite produces excess distortion in the Higgs field at the quantum level.
Also, most competitors’ products are really “ACTIVE Aligned Ferrite PASSIVE Quantum Crystal Nanoparticle Reference Stickers”. These suffer from having an excessive percentage of quarks with incorrect spin.
Yah, with granite you’ve got fossilised piezoelectric stresses causing femtocurrent loops in the crystal lattice. So if you LIKE having a random noise component baked in, by all means use granite.
And so it begins…
Is this like squant? Cuz I installed that and my gray’s absolutely pop on my monitor.
HAHA got me for the first paragraph, I forgot it was April fools.
> Its use isn’t restricted to hi-fi, if you stick one on your laptop it’ll also work on your productivity.
What will happen if I stick one on my Arduino? Will it become a HaDuino?
Too bad you didn’t embed some, Mpingo Wood, into the eyes.
Or was that already patented?
Perhaps a “zero ohm resistor” across the teeth would have been even more transcendental?
You jest, but people will try and sell you absolutely *anything* for hundreds of dollars with claims of improved audio performance.
http://pwbelectronics.co.uk/product/paeip/paeip.html
Does “anything” also include completely unrelated stuff?
What about food? “Eat this chocolate and you’ll hear chocolatey sound!”
I bet you could sell a fancy version of Gatorade to promote optimal listening hydration and neural conduction levels…. With gurana for upbeat stuff or chamomile for smooth jazz.
I must say i kinda liked this one :) but it was to obviouse to the name: “PASSIVE ALIGNED FERRITE ACTIVE QUANTUM CRYSTAL NANOPARTICLE REFERENCE STICKER” who the hell would use such a name? gg
They probably just hired the same product consultant responsible for …
https://youtu.be/cvaRGiMWRaE
Say it with me, Passive Aligned! Ferrite Active! Quantum Crystal! Nanoparticle-Reference-Sticker!
I can’t! That one is a real tongue-twister.
Or:
“I’m not a pheasant plucker, I’m a pheasant plucker’s son – but I’ll sit here pluck pheasants til the pheasant plucker comes”
Should print it on a lead sheet and sell it for damping case panel vibration and buzz.
Lead is harmful, while rare-earth-doped ferrite quantum crystal nanoparticles aren’t.
Also, Real Audio Things™ make no vibrations. They don’t use vibrations to make sound. They use black magic.
Nice spoof, in particular “the trebles climax harder” bit got me laughing hard.
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/264/200/acb.jpg
Yeah, like vinyl records mastered on digital equipment. Remember those CD codes. DDD was best, now DDA! With that ’80’s sound mastered in vinyl for pure listening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ytCEuuW2_A
Many years ago I worked for a company developing an audio amplifier for commercial use.
When researching other amps in the market the amps from a certain segment of the market read just like this.
If only I could get some solid gold speaker terminals that had passed through the digestive tract of a Pygmy Himalayan Sock puppet I could have made the company a fortune.
I used on on my quasi nuclear phase locked loop synthesized equalizer and it improved the ‘Q’ by a factor of one.