Podcast #1241: Expensive Audio Wires are Bananas!

On this week's show we review the Aqara FP2 Presence Sensor and ask are expensive audio wires bananas? We also read your emails and take a look at the week's news.

News:

• Netflix is about to stop working on some older smart TVs and consoles
• Another Cable TV Network Announces It Will Shut Down in April
• Broadband Usage Jumps by 9.9% in Q4
• Peacock Strikes Gold With Outsized Olympics, Super Bowl Audiences

Other:

• Neil Blanchard "transmission line"Designs

Aqara FP2 Presence Sensor Review

The Aqara Presence Sensor FP2 (Buy Now $83) is a game-changer for smart home enthusiasts. Its standout feature is the ability to divide a room of 40㎡ or ~430 sq ft into multiple (up to 30) distinct zones using advanced mmWave radar technology. This allows for some really cool home automations like triggering kitchen lights when someone enters the boundary. This effectively allows one sensor to act like up to 30 allowing personalized scenes based on exact positions far beyond what standard motion sensors can do.

Features:

• 𝐌𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢-𝐙𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 - monitor areas up to 40㎡ (430 sq ft). Create up to 30 zones (e.g., sofa, bed, desk) and assign custom automations to each.
• 𝐌𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢-𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 & 𝐅𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐃𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 detect up to 5 people at the same time and trigger different scenarios and automation.
• Ultra-high Precision with More Privacy You can define interference areas in the application, exclude objects such as plants, curtains, or pets, and set the filter height to ignore fan movement, ensuring that human presence is accurately detected. With an IPX5 waterproof rating, FP2 is also ideal for humid environments like bathrooms.
• Multi-Ecosystem Support The Aqara Presence Sensor is exposed as multiple sensors to HomeKit, Alexa, Google Home and Home Assistant.
• Built-In Light Sensor & Local Automations The Aqara FP2 has a built-in light sensor, which provides greater flexibility and enjoyment when creating lighting automations (Only available in Aqara Home, HomeKit, and IFTTT).

I set one up in the family room which has line of sight to the kitchen. For the review I set up two zones, one in the family room and one in the kitchen. It's straightforward to do in the Aqara app. Once you set up a zone you name it and it appears as a new sensor in your preferred automation app. If there is motion in the zone you just defined the sensor moves to the triggered state. In my house the lights in the kitchen dim to 40% at 8:45PM. Now when someone goes into the kitchen after 8:45PM the light goes to 100% until they leave. And the response is almost instantaneous. The sensor connects to your home via bluetooth so no wonky wifi issues either.

Highly recommended for anyone wanting precise, creative control! However the price is a little on the steep side.

Expensive Audio Wires are Bananas!

Quite a few years ago there was a post at Audioholics that was eventually picked up by members of AVS forum that showed in blind testing, audiophiles could not tell the difference in sound quality between expensive speaker wire and coat hangers. This was back in 2008 and most of the links are dead but we will include what we can at the end of this post. This week we received an email from a listener, Ray, pointing us to an article by Tom's Guide which piggybacks on this concept.

A moderator (username "Pano") on the diyAudio forum conducted a blind listening experiment to test whether audiophiles could distinguish audio signals passed through unconventional "conductors" versus standard copper wire. The test compared four recordings of the same audio track. While not exactly the same as the original Audioholics experiment. The results are pretty astonishing. This is how the recordings were made:

• Direct/original CD file.
• Sent through ~180 cm of professional audio copper wire.
• Sent through ~20 cm of wet mud connected by 120cm of old microphone cable soldered to US pennies.
• Sent through a ~13 cm banana connected by the microphone cable and US Pennies.

Results:

• Participants listened to sound clips in a blind ABX-style format and attempted to identify differences or match them to the original.
• Listeners (experienced audiophiles and forum members) could not reliably tell the difference between the signals, even when comparing high-end copper wire to absurd alternatives like a banana or wet mud.
• The experiment creator noted: "The mud should sound perfectly awful, but it doesn't," highlighting the unexpected lack of audible degradation.
• Explanation for results: All tested materials (including wet mud and banana) had sufficiently low resistance for short lengths to pass the audio signal with minimal measurable or audible alteration at typical speaker-level or line-level voltages; resistance differences were too small to impact perceptible sound quality in the setup.
• The article frames this as evidence challenging extreme audiophile claims about expensive cables/speaker wires making significant audible differences, as even highly conductive everyday/organic materials performed indistinguishably in blind conditions.
• Implications: Reinforces arguments from audio science communities that many perceived cable differences are placebo or expectation bias rather than objectively audible when properly controlled for.

Links to the original Hanger Stories:

• Audiophiles Can't Tell The Difference Between Monster Cable and Coat Hangers
• Speakers; When is good enough, enough
• Audiophiles can't tell the difference between Monster Cable and coat hangers
• Audiophile Deathmatch: Monster Cables vs. a Coat Hanger