• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Extreme Snake Oil

thought try some , dire straits the videos , pal digital pcm uncompressed audio laserdisc not sort of into them heard their music on radio with colour tv during the 80's oh it still is the 80's

we got to install microwave ovens, custom kitchen deliveries with extreme snake oil
we got to move these refrigerators, we gotta move these colour oled TVs with laserdisc


35014.jpg
 
Punter said:
It's a 70 Watt amplifier fed by an oscillator.

View attachment 411002


It would appear that the cable gravy train never runs out of steam...
Click to expand...
It's pretty inside. That's gotta count for something (right?).
:cool:

antcollinet said:
I'm thinking of starting a "can anyone explain the laserdisc revival" thread. Just for you. :p
Click to expand...
There is an immense Laserdisc thread at the Polk Audio forums -- driven almost entirely by one poster. :p

Laserdisc-The godfather of ALL consumer optical disc media

Anyone still holding on to theirs like I am? What players are you using? I finally got my hands on a Pioneer Elite DVL-91 after waiting a decade and a half.
forum.polkaudio.com

Truth be told, I wouldn't mind having one (an LD player, that is) to play with*. They are too expensive to pick one up as a toy, though. :facepalm:

______________
* I wouldn't mind having an Elcaset analogue audio tape deck to play with, too -- but I digress. :facepalm:
 
Punter said:
It's a 70 Watt amplifier fed by an oscillator.

View attachment 411002


It would appear that the cable gravy train never runs out of steam...
Click to expand...
Normally i would say, it's fine with me, people who want to buy into such a SHAM, let them, not my money right?, but this is different, this is so shameless, 25.000$ for this? , a cable burner? companies who produce this kinda BS should be prosecuted.
 
AdrianusG said:
Normally i would say, it's fine with me, people who want to buy into such a SHAM, let them, not my money right?, but this is different, this is so shameless, 25.000$ for this? , a cable burner? companies who produce this kinda BS should be prosecuted.
Click to expand...
Yes and no. The device is designed to perform a function that is unnecessary and superfluous based on any understanding of the electrical or material properties of audio cables. However, if the purchaser believes the fairy story attached to the operation and effectiveness of the device, they are getting exactly what they paid for.

It speaks volumes about the confidence the manufacturer has in the ignorance of its customers that they have made enough information available on the thing to determine what's actually inside it.

So it's a fancy box with a bunch of connectors on it that takes the output of an oscillator, amplifies that signal then passes that signal through a cable to a load resistor. This achieves nothing more than to slightly warm the cable and ultimately increase the owners power bill for absolutely no practical outcome.

However, thanks to a lie that's been repeated loud and long enough to become the "truth", the numpties actually believe that this operation is somehow improving a length of cable by a process dubbed "burning in". Like many of these specious claims and blobs of jargon, "burning in" is a legitimate expression lifted from the valve era when it was good practice to energize the grid on new valves and leave them to soak without applying a signal.
 
Punter said:
However, thanks to a lie that's been repeated loud and long enough to become the "truth", the numpties actually believe that this operation is somehow improving a length of cable by a process dubbed "burning in". Like many of these specious claims and blobs of jargon, "burning in" is a legitimate expression lifted from the valve era when it was good practice to energize the grid on new valves and leave them to soak without applying a signal.
Click to expand...
Good to know, and they must call it break-in once in a while because of forcible entry by deception (theft)!
 
Killingbeans said:
It has a connector named OUT_COIL and the PCB is named Field Generator.

Wouldn't be surprised if the only thing it actually does, is mess up your wifi. Or maybe you can use it as a wireless phone charger.
Click to expand...
its probably an amplifier that drives some sort of an coil, i bet that if i plugged in a speaker to the coil out id hear the sound from the input,
or maybe its an am/fm transmitter? something like this.
 
AdrianusG said:
Normally i would say, it's fine with me, people who want to buy into such a SHAM, let them, not my money right?, but this is different, this is so shameless, 25.000$ for this? , a cable burner? companies who produce this kinda BS should be prosecuted.
Click to expand...
It is BS, but what if someone buys one and is completely satisfied with it? It's like the food supplement industry selling unless pills, some of which could be harmful, since the FDA has no oversight over that industry. People buy the usually useless supplements and swear by them. Maybe, like the labeling requirement on supplements that requires them to state that the product does not cure any disease, a similar warning should be required on dubious audio products, such as exotic cables. The warning would read, in part, that the product is not scientifically proven to have any beneficial effect on the audio equipment or experience.
 
egellings said:
It is BS, but what if someone buys one and is completely satisfied with it? It's like the food supplement industry selling unless pills, some of which could be harmful, since the FDA has no oversight over that industry. People buy the usually useless supplements and swear by them. Maybe, like the labeling requirement on supplements that requires them to state that the product does not cure any disease, a similar warning should be required on dubious audio products, such as exotic cables. The warning would read, in part, that the product is not scientifically proven to have any beneficial effect on the audio equipment or experience.
Click to expand...
A good idea,:)

And if cable manufacturer refuses or doesn't agree with such a warning label on their products, he/she/they have to deliver measurable proof of their claims.
 
They’ll probably hire some 'Mad Men‘. :)

AudioQuest - it‘s toasted


 
AdrianusG said:
A good idea,:)

And if cable manufacturer refuses or doesn't agree with such a warning label on their products, he/she/they have to deliver measurable proof of their claims.
Click to expand...
..and that those differences are large enough to be audible. If the cable or whatever rolls off the response with a corner at 200kHz, I'm not able to hear that and wouldn't consider that a deficit.
 
Galen Carroll Audio is a prominent high-end dealer in San Antonio, Texas. His ads have appeared in Stereophile for years. He has this info about cable break-in posted on his site. This is the kind of idiocy a customer has to deal with in a high-end audio salon... :facepalm:

"Most all cable manufacturers agree that break-in is a result of changes in the conductor and/or dielectric. According to one manufacturer: 'The insulation (or dielectric) will absorb energy from the conductor when a current is flowing (i.e. when music is playing). This energy-absorption causes the dielectric's molecules to re-arrange themselves from a random order into a uniform order. When the molecules have been rearranged, the dielectric will absorb less energy & consequently cause less distortion.'

Cardas has, for years, included a Cable Break-in Guide with their cables. In it they state: 'All cables need a break-in and warm-up period. Better cables require longer break-in. With all cables, the more you play them and the less you move them, the better they will sound.' The unique geometry of Cardas cables require that '...the strands be of equal tension... Current flowing through the cable during break-in, and each warm-up period, will relax the structure of the strands.'

Another prominent cable designer believes that during the break-in process electrons are establishing new micro pathways through the conductor material and these changes in the conductor is the primary reason for the improvement realized through break-in. They believe that most of the signal travels across the surface of the conductor. Viewed under a microscope the surface that appears smooth to the naked eye is really a series of peaks and valleys. The irregular surface forces electrons along a circuitous path to their destination. When a cable is bent or twisted, new tears and fissures form, disrupting existing pathways and requiring new ones to be formed. This explanation lends credence to reports that cables need to be re-conditioned after being handled. I've seen this in a very real way.

Years ago, when break-in first became realized, we decided to complete the process before shipping our cables and advertised the service as a value-added benefit. It didn't take before we started hearing back from customers who questioned whether we'd done what we promised since their cables indeed improved after a week or two of use. We believe that, at least in part, the act of coiling the cables for shipment and then uncoiling them after arrival, was the culprit.

While there is no hard data (that I am aware of) to prove to the engineers among you that break-in in exists, I'm sure 99.9% of audiophiles have heard the benefits of the process and believe strongly in its importance."

He has several pages of 'tips' on his site that could be used to constitute the squares of an audiophile snake-oil bingo card. :rolleyes:
 
It's funny how all of these effects, that supposedly cause cable sound, are something that should be relatively easy to measure.

But if you then ask people to actually do some measurements, they change their mind. Now the effects are suddenly something unknown to science, that can't yet be measured
:facepalm:
 
Last edited:
MoreWatts said:
I'm sure 99.9% of audiophiles have heard the benefits of the process and believe strongly in its importance.
Click to expand...
Actually not audiophiles, but certainly scientifically uneducated people or liars. Clearly people who could learn from Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit. Smart people can learn from mistakes (and others don't).
 
I see this bullshit as part of the continuum of science denialism. Once you place anecdote over data anywhere you are on a slippery slope. Vacchine "skepticism", climate catastrophe denial, "healing crystals" instead of chemotherapy, all these types of truly dangerous beliefs move a little closer, become a little easier to get into with every other bit of shared, understood reality that you give up. So while being convinced that audio cables improve sound with use is not in itself harmful, the mindset that leads there and that it in turn strengthens is.

(My partner, who is training as an oncologist, becomes furious at any mention of "alternative medicine" because she sees first hand the damage this does. For example, this year she told a patient that they needed a blood transfusion before being released home, else they would die very soon. The patient refused unless the hospital could guarantee that the transfusion did not contain any "vaccinated blood with spike protein". Since this is, of course, not something the hospital could guarantee the patient left without a simple life saving, or at least prolonging, measure.)
 
Last edited:
Alexander Gödde said:
I see this bullshit as part of the continuum of science denialism. Once you place anekdote over data anywhere you are on a slippery slope. Vacchine "skepticism", climate catastrophe denial, "healing crystals" instead of chemotherapy, all these types of truly dangerous beliefs move a little closer, become a little easier to get into with every other bit of shared, understood reality that you give up. So while being convinced that audio cables improve sound with use is not in itself harmful, the mindset that leads there and that it in turn strengthens is.

(My partner, who is training as an oncologist, becomes furious at any mention of "alternative medicine" because she sees first hand the damage this does. For example, this year she told a patient that they needed a blood transfusion before being released home, else they would die very soon. The patient refused unless the hospital could guarantee that the transfusion did not contain any "vaccinated blood with spike protein". Since this is, of course, not something the hospital could guarantee the patient left without a simple life saving, or at least prolonging, measure.)
Click to expand...

In the case of alternative medicine, natural selection might eventually resolve the issue. :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom