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Mark Waldrep In Trouble AGAIN

Ron Party

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Points well taken. Maybe when the dust settles he will find his way here. Besides, it isn't like the only contributions he could make to ASR would be on this one topic.
 

Kal Rubinson

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Can someone who knows Mark invite him to join ASR and, in particular, this thread? I think we all would benefit from his participation.
This topic has gone viral and is active on many forums. I suspect that Mark is well aware of that.
 
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Sal1950

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This topic has gone viral and is active on many forums. I suspect that Mark is well aware of that.
Yippee, That's exactly what I was hoping for. ;)
Way past time to start exposing the power cord fraud for exactly what it is.
 

amirm

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But you can't make it a general policy that anyone can go around saying anything they like on the basis of 'suspicions' and then put the onus on the company to prove the suspicions groundless.
He didn't say he was suspicious. He actually made measurements that demonstrated that.

Regardless, even if a blogger says things on hypothesis alone, manufacturers can choose to ignore it, or respond. Either way, going and dumping on the show organizers is not right.
 

Blumlein 88

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There were comments earlier about exactly what was Mark Waldrep saying he found. 2. 5 db total, between each step up in price or what? You can go post a comment on his blog and he'll probably answer. He may have already since I last looked at it.
 

jhaider

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I didn't expect an event I was at to be talked about on here, especially like this. The venue (an audio store) has a headphone area for the younger crowd.

I apologize in advance for putting you on the spot, but I am genuinely curious: what would prompt someone to waste an evening letting somebody try to sell you on magic power cords? Was that just part of an event with some actually interesting programming? Was there a really well equipped and staffed open bar? Did they have a hot new chef doing the hors d'oeuvres?

I joined my local audio club - for a year. During that time I was spammed with "group buys" for various scam products, and invited to meetings that were mostly about similar topics. No mentions of open bars or James Beard Award nominated catering, either. So I never went, and did not renew that membership.

It's not libel if it is the truth.

Unfortunately that doesn't make the defense any cheaper. There are, unfortunately, plenty of dimestore mob lawyer wannabes out there. See, e.g. sad ol' Rudy.
 

Thomas savage

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I apologize in advance for putting you on the spot, but I am genuinely curious: what would prompt someone to waste an evening letting somebody try to sell you on magic power cords? Was that just part of an event with some actually interesting programming? Was there a really well equipped and staffed open bar? Did they have a hot new chef doing the hors d'oeuvres?

I joined my local audio club - for a year. During that time I was spammed with "group buys" for various scam products, and invited to meetings that were mostly about similar topics. No mentions of open bars or James Beard Award nominated catering, either. So I never went, and did not renew that membership.



Unfortunately that doesn't make the defense any cheaper. There are, unfortunately, plenty of dimestore mob lawyer wannabes out there. See, e.g. sad ol' Rudy.
I’d be intrested in a beer group buy, but only if it was fine beer..., then tbh I might overlook all the skullduggery.
 

svart-hvitt

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No, if i understand it correctly the vendor guy did not sell the 17000 $ cable, but was a representative for the two other "quite" expensive mains cables.

And for good reasons there is something like due process......neglecting it did already a lot of harm in the past. That people like to throw it out of the window because they strongly belief in something does not amaze but surely saddens me.

I use FABER ACOUSTICAL SOUNDMETER.

Calibrated for iPhones.

Highly recommended!

(Yes, this is a commercial from me for a product I think delivers at a reasonable price; the app may be free now).

And yes: 2 dB is well outside of margin of error.
 

andreasmaaan

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OTOH, which iPhone is it calibrated for? Surely there are differences in microphone response from model to model?
 

Cosmik

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What passes for an objective acoustic measurement now seems to be an iPhone surreptitiously hidden under a coat while sitting in the audience for a demo.
 

SIY

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What passes for an objective acoustic measurement now seems to be an iPhone surreptitiously hidden under a coat while sitting in the audience for a demo.

Where did you get the "hidden under a coat" part?

In July here, people don't tend to wear coats very much.
 

andreasmaaan

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The Soundmeter one is calibrated for all iPhones AFAIK.

Yeh, hopefully it autodetects the iphone model and calibrates accordingly. Couldn't verify this online though.

I'm using NoiSee which performed similarly to FABER in the test results I linked earlier.

I'd say looking at the test results that it would be overstating the accuracy to say the margin of error is less than 2dB. More like 3-6dB IMO. Have you got different data from the link I posted maybe?
 

svart-hvitt

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Having an enormous equipment collection and spanning many decades of service and sales, I can confidently say that speakers have always been the weakest link. Speakers definitely improved en-mass through the mid 1980s, but when we are converting less than a few percent of the electrical energy to sound, there is clearly a lot of room for improvement yet to come.

CD players were great from day one. Some of the content wasn't.

Laboratory grade amplifiers sometimes simply don't play well with tough loads- I have some that are flawless on my bench and unstable in the real world, including a few DC-Daylight power amplifiers from Denon with specs to die for.

This is off-topic, but you piqued my curiosity: Why did excellently-measuring amps flaw in real-life?
 

Cosmik

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Where did you get the "hidden under a coat" part?

In July here, people don't tend to wear coats very much.
I'm just saying what a lawyer would say. All I would have to do would be to show that such measurements would be heavily influenced by:
  1. Orientation of phone
  2. Proximity of phone to other objects
  3. Position of people in the room relative to me and the speakers
  4. Background noise, chatter, contact with hand, contact with clothing, etc.
  5. Settings such as averaging
  6. the exact timing of the music versus display updates, etc.
And that all of the above would be uncontrolled and applicable in the alleged demonstration. Not to mention that the person doing the measuring may be unconsciously affecting the results in line with his expectations by manipulating the above.

I would also make a point of asking whether the phone was a recognized, calibrated measuring instrument (of course not). I might even do a noddy demonstration with my own phone. I might even examine the small print of the app which, no doubt, says "For fun and education purposes only" or some such.

Really, this phone story is nothing more than an unsubstantiated anecdote. If people here are seriously thinking it proves something then that might explain a lot about why DSP/measurements-based systems sound so awful so often: the people setting them up haven't got a clue about the precautions needed when making meaningful measurements.
 

SIY

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Yes, that must be it, Waldrep hasn't got a clue about microphone measurements.
:rolleyes:
 
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svart-hvitt

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Yeh, hopefully it autodetects the iphone model and calibrates accordingly. Couldn't verify this online though.

I'm using NoiSee which performed similarly to FABER in the test results I linked earlier.

I'd say looking at the test results that it would be overstating the accuracy to say the margin of error is less than 2dB. More like 3-6dB IMO. Have you got different data from the link I posted maybe?

Sorry, you’re wrong. Soundmeter is within +/-2 dB:

https://acousticstoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2-faber.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4659422/#!po=53.2258

To me, it looks as if Soundmeter is serious shit.

Anybody, correct me if I’m wrong.
 
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