Extreme Snake Oil

[BeeKay]

How to design the next bit of expensive but useless woo audiophile upgrade:
Step 1: Buy random surplus electronic parts cheaply
Step 2: Design and build a non-working IC board and attach the random parts
Step 3: Place IC board into something, taking special care to make sure it doesn't actually touch anything useful
Step 3: Use chatgpt to generate a nonsensical description of the product. Make sure to have it include the words quantum, tensors and polymers
Step 4: Profit!

Mentioning "AI" helps these days.

 

[rockphotog]

One can elongate their lifetime by swapping the ends of the cables; when they reach their half-life expectancy.

Like with fresh flowers, should you cut a little off the ends?

 

[Speedskater]

How to design the next bit of expensive but useless woo audiophile upgrade:
Step 1: Buy random surplus electronic parts cheaply
Step 2: Design and build a non-working IC board and attach the random parts
Step 3: Place IC board into something, taking special care to make sure it doesn't actually touch anything useful
Step 3: Use chatgpt to generate a nonsensical description of the product. Make sure to have it include the words quantum, tensors and polymers
Step 4: Profit!

Already been done!
Bill Whitlock (Jensen Transformers retired) found a power conditioner with a complex digital circuit board. All the board did was to control the display panel.

 

[Truth Ness]

How to design the next bit of expensive but useless woo audiophile upgrade:
Step 1: Buy random surplus electronic parts cheaply
Step 2: Design and build a non-working IC board and attach the random parts
Step 3: Place IC board into something, taking special care to make sure it doesn't actually touch anything useful
Step 3: Use chatgpt to generate a nonsensical description of the product. Make sure to have it include the words quantum, tensors and polymers
Step 4: Profit!

Nah, not needed. Just do it like QSA (Quantum Science Audio):
Take an ordinary item worth a penny, slap a sticker/logo on (btw take a look how raggedly and amateurish that is done), and BAM! Sell it for thousands.

A couple examples:
Silver fuse - 5000 $
"Modified" qnap router - 15000 $
Network switch - 13500 $
Jitter power connector - 12500 $

From the description of the router:

"From the outside, this router looks pretty much like a standard QNAP QHora-301W Wifi router. There is a QSA logo sticker on the front along with one of QSA's stickers used to identify the level of treatment. On the back of the unit one can start to see what QSA has been up to. It is covered in their tuning crystals of many different colors. The ports are heavily treated, as is the DC input for the 12V 3.3 amp power supply that comes with the router."

 

[gluugsnergluug]

Nah, not needed. Just do it like QSA (Quantum Science Audio):
Take an ordinary item worth a penny, slap a sticker/logo on (btw take a look how raggedly and amateurish that is done), and BAM! Sell it for thousands.

A couple examples:
Silver fuse - 5000 $
"Modified" qnap router - 15000 $
Network switch - 13500 $
Jitter power connector - 12500 $

From the description of the router:

"From the outside, this router looks pretty much like a standard QNAP QHora-301W Wifi router. There is a QSA logo sticker on the front along with one of QSA's stickers used to identify the level of treatment. On the back of the unit one can start to see what QSA has been up to. It is covered in their tuning crystals of many different colors. The ports are heavily treated, as is the DC input for the 12V 3.3 amp power supply that comes with the router."

I'm a network engineer and wow. The idea that network cables are directional, that a network switch needs a 60 day break in period for best sound, that 10gbps Cat 8 network equipment will somehow make a 10mbps (1000x less bandwidth than the network max) stream sound better. It breaks my brain to think that there's a population of people who would rather throw $15k at snake oil instead of spending 2 minutes online or talking to a sane person about how networks work.

Are you familiar with the Lexicon scam of ~15 years ago?

Lexicon BD-30 Blu-ray Player (Oppo BDP-83 Clone) Review

We discovered the Lexicon BD-30 is an Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray Player with a $3k premium. We prove this with pictures, measurements and an official response from THX. Lexicon no longer sells this product.

www.audioholics.com

 

[Punter]

How to design the next bit of expensive but useless woo audiophile upgrade:
Step 1: Buy random surplus electronic parts cheaply
Step 2: Design and build a non-working IC board and attach the random parts
Step 3: Place IC board into something, taking special care to make sure it doesn't actually touch anything useful
Step 3: Use chatgpt to generate a nonsensical description of the product. Make sure to have it include the words quantum, tensors and polymers
Step 4: Profit!

I'm sure that the individual in the FB video, truly believes that it's performing some sort of "noise reduction". It just goes to show the level of understanding present in the people who promote and sell this junk. The MeanWell supply on that board needs a minimum of 115VAC to operate. So we have a mains powered component in a HiFi speaker cable... the power to operate the circuit is coming from where? The output of the amplifier? In addition to that, even if it did work (which it wont) as far as HiFi tragics are concerned, don't they avoid switch-mode supplies because of ......... noise?

 

[gluugsnergluug]

I'm sure that the individual in the FB video, truly believes that it's performing some sort of "noise reduction". It just goes to show the level of understanding present in the people who promote and sell this junk. The MeanWell supply on that board needs a minimum of 115VAC to operate. So we have a mains powered component in a HiFi speaker cable... the power to operate the circuit is coming from where? The output of the amplifier? In addition to that, even if it did work (which it wont) as far as HiFi tragics are concerned, don't they avoid switch-mode supplies because of ......... noise?

If we're being very, very generous, maybe the MeanWell component is somehow like Adrian Thompson's experiments in having AI design FPGAs to solve various tasks. One of the winning candidate had five gates that were completely disconnected from the circuit, yet disabling those gates broke the created machine. The theory is that the AI discovered that those disconnected gates somehow influenced the magnetic flux (subtle magnetic fields generated by the flow of electrons) of the circuit.

On one hand, maybe these devices impact magnetic flux which in turn improves fidelity. On the other hand, from what I can tell from my quick googlety-google, magnetic flux would be so subtle in speaker cables to likely be undetectable.

https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/

AI-designed chips are so weird that 'humans cannot understand them' | Hacker News

news.ycombinator.com

Further evidence of woo with the magnetic flux theory: Monster Cable produced speaker cables with Magnetic Flux Tubes™.

https://www.bestbuy.com/product/monster-xp-copper-clad-aluminum-cca-speaker-wire-14-gauge-cable-100-ft-spool-ideal-for-home-cinema-cables-red/JX4665589H

In this case, these sophisticated tubes appear to be a strip of plastic in the middle of the cable.

 

[xanalog]

How to design the next bit of expensive but useless woo audiophile upgrade:
Step 1: Buy random surplus electronic parts cheaply
Step 2: Design and build a non-working IC board and attach the random parts
Step 3: Place IC board into something, taking special care to make sure it doesn't actually touch anything useful
Step 3: Use chatgpt to generate a nonsensical description of the product. Make sure to have it include the words quantum, tensors and polymers
Step 4: Profit!

Alas, a Version3.0 will add another 3 steps:

Step 5: Add a surplus VU meter
Step 6: Jack-up price by +3dB
Step 4: Profit (+6dB?)!

 

[Pearljam5000]

Anyone understands what this does?

 

[MKR]

View attachment 503452View attachment 503454
Anyone understands what this does?

Steals your money

 

[mhardy6647]

Steals your money

With reference to post #6169 above, it seems like the top echelon of these products leverages the last letter of the alphabet as much as Mr. Musk leverages the "X"
So, I would, humbly, suggest that stealz your money might be more apt.

 

[gluugsnergluug]

View attachment 503452View attachment 503454
Anyone understands what this does?

Primary feature: it adds the letter 'z' to places where it doesn't belong.

Edit: sorry mhardy6647, I think we're on the same track here.

 

[Salt]

But "X" is not yet the Zeiling ... where would it have to go?

 

[Mnyb]

At a certain rezonance frequency, your money starts to tunnel to anzuz hq

 

[Alexander Gödde]

It breaks my brain to think that there's a population of people who would rather throw $15k at snake oil instead of spending 2 minutes online or talking to a sane person about how networks work.

They are talking to many unsane people about how audiophile networking works. That is something completely different from regular networking, based on a disparate set of basic axioms.

One of these is that the price tag of an item in an audiophile system strongly positively correlates with its performance while the applicability of the laws of physics correlates inversely. Once you cross 1 million system cost it automatically sounds so good that no poor mortal could ever imagine it and this happens irrespective of such mundane issues as room acoustics, speaker directivity or specific seating position.

...

Of course all of high end audiophilia is insane. It ignores all we actually know about how the equipment we use to play back recorded sound works, as well as how we perceive the results. Even basic logic is completel optional. It is at the same time extremely funny and deeply disturbing and, at times, "breaks my brain".

 

[xanalog]

To all of the expert snake-oil detectors in these 309 pages:

If you (or me) saw this cable, when would you (or me) become a sucker (or an audiophool):
If you (or me) paid more than a total of $50 for a half-meter version? or $35? $25? $15?

 

[voodooless]

https://www.meanwell.com/Upload/PDF/IRM-05/IRM-05-SPEC.pdf

It’s a Meanwell power supply, looks like IRM-05-15. Seems to cost $6-7 each. Not sure what purpose it serves - maybe powers some blinking lights so you know it’s on? What could this thing possibly be doing in a speaker cable?

You must be wrong. According to that video that @Pearljam5000 posted, it is, and I quote “another Audio Group Denmark Ansuz signature technology”

 

[gluugsnergluug]

You must be wrong. According to that video that @Pearljam5000 posted, it is, and I quote “another Audio Group Denmark Ansuz signature technology”

You mean "Anotherz Audioz Groupz Denmarkz Anzuz zignaturez technologiez".

Good to know that Zs are apparently indicative of how powerful the signature technology really is. I'm blown away. Really.

 

[gluugsnergluug]

To all of the expert snake-oil detectors in these 309 pages:
View attachment 503468
If you (or me) saw this cable, when would you (or me) become a sucker (or an audiophool):
If you (or me) paid more than a total of $50 for a half-meter version? or $35? $25? $15?

The immediate issue is that there's no indication of directionality. What if you plug it in backwards and all of the good sounding bits pour out of the interface and onto the floor?

 

[xanalog]

What if you plug it in backwards and all of the good sounding bits pour out of the interface and onto the floor?

I was willing to take that chance, when I spent $10.31
I was asking to find out what the threshold of being a sucker is.