Extreme Snake Oil

[mhardy6647]

So they were from the municipality of Viborg in Denmark? When did you visit or did you come from their planet?

I am not at liberty to disclose this information.

 

[Pearljam5000]

I don't know I kinda like the gold

 

[komhst]

Hehe, no i didn't knew about that scam. What a disgrace! I thought it is an honest and reputable company but that's a shame.

Goldmund did the same in the past, by putting a Pioneer DVD player in a fancy box and selling it at a much much higher price.

 

[mhardy6647]

I don't know I kinda like the gold View attachment 505250

I mean, de gustibus non est disputandum and all that, but... eww.

Goldmund did the same in the past, by putting a Pioneer DVD player in a fancy box and selling it at a much much higher price.

Goldmund.
Just sayin'.


In seriousness, though, and in fairness -- there's a longstanding tradition of manufacturers filling in gaps in their product offerings with 'badge engineered'/OEM products... and that is OK.
Nowadays, some of us grumble about rebadged version of generic turntables, mostly made by Hanpin or Yahorng -- but back in the '70s, many of the 'big brand name' audio companies had CEC in Japan build their tts. Marantz & Yamaha fairly leap to mind, although there were many others.

The bottom image's a rando internet photo (FB marketplace) of a 6100 sans counterweight -- I did have a dump-find 6100, a decent but unexceptional, bare-bones entry level CEC-made tt. I gave it to one of my daughter's friends who wanted to try vinyl back in their high school days. The "marantz" name and fonts on the 6100 make this model's street value way disproportionate to their quality.

Note the sophisticated speed change mechanism on the 6100.

 

[mps]

Badge Engineering.

While Badge Engineering is common, Lexicon jacked up the price by 700% as if it were a vastly superior and unique product. If Lexicon had charged a similar price, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

 

[mhardy6647]

Since I am already perched upon my soapbox -- That badge engineering thing can cut both ways. In the glory days of consumer hifi, it was sometimes possible to find relative bargains in the form of off-brand variants of well-known big name products of good and even very good quality. Nowadays, that same knowledge can still turn up a good value on the 'aftermarket', despite the crazy price points for many of the hifi darlins' of the boomers' past.

As Pasteur said*, Chance favors the prepared mind.

Here's an example:

The redoubtable hk 730 stereo receiver was available in (mostly) a cosmetically different form from now-defunct catalog merchandiser Montgomery Wards ("Monkey Wards" to those of us with a love/hate relationship with the vendor! ) as the '650'. Same innards, including the completely separate ("dual mono", if you will) power supplies.

see, e.g.,

dlucy's guide to Harman Kardon Twin Powered series 430, 630, 730 and 930 ... and Montgomery Ward 450

The fourth era of Harman Kardon's solid state stereo receivers were the Twin Powered series: This thread is a guide to those models, their specs, and pointers to schematics and restoration threads for each. Note: If you have additional information on any of these models or have a great...

audiokarma.org

another:

Here are a couple of other, earlier Monkey Wards/hk.

Another series of examples; The once-proud HH Scott brand name eventually was applied to good but somewhat generic l hardware made, if memory serves, by Inkel or perhaps another Korean OEM. The same components were marketed, mostly outside the US, under many different brand names.

_________________
* yeah, OK, OK... he said it in French. Work with me, here!

 

[mhardy6647]

While Badge Engineering is common, Lexicon jacked up the price by 700% as if it were a vastly superior and unique product. If Lexicon had charged a similar price, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

The phrase caveat emptor comes to mind.
Consider, e.g., the Cadillac Cimarron, a Chevy Cavalier with a Cadillac price tag. Less for more. Not one of GM's finer moments.

 

[mhardy6647]

And then again, and speaking of caveat emptor , we have products like this one.
Not sure who designed or manufactured it, but by the looks of things, one of both of those agencies was located downwind of Chernobyl.

This horrific chimera was sold in the US, if memory serves, by Sears, Roebuck (a contemporary and competitor of the aforementioned Monkey Wards). The "Audio Reflex" AGS-150 combines aesthetic cues from multiple sources, most blatantly Yamaha and marantz, to create an overall effect reminiscent of a bad psychedelic experience.

https://classicreceivers.com/audio-reflex-ags-150https://classicreceivers.com/audio-reflex-ags-150

actually, according to the reference above, it was made by Inkel. I am willing to believe that.

 

[scrubb]

It seems extreme snake oil and gullible subjective reviewers have been around as long as audio reproduction devices.

Review published in Gramophone for Oct 1923​

​

"WHEN we invited Scientific and Projections Ltd, of Crawford Passage, Farringdon Road, London, EC 1, to send a Flamephone to this office for our tests of portables we did not know that it was beyond the scope of the tests owing to its price and also because, though it is portable, it requires gas in order to obtain its especial effects, and is therefore hardl in the class of gramophones that can be carried and played anywhere. However, the makers very kindlv sent us a model of thc "semi-portable type" to see, and we are extremely grateful to them for having given us a chance of examining what is certainly a most interesting, and even exciting, invention. In a fine mahogany case it costs Ł17 lOs. and weighs 22lb, and when put together is a distinctly handsome machine. But the fittings which make it specifically a Flamephone can be put on to any ordinary gramophone for Ł6, and this fact removes the invention at once from the realm of fantastic gadgets. It deserves the serious consideration of all gramophonists." "To quote from the description of it, "the mica diaphragm in the sound box is associated on one side with the horn, the mouth of which is directed upwards, and at the other with a gas chamber leading to two small upright burners, which are perforated with a number of very fine holes, gas being led into the chamber by a small rubber-tube attached to a cock at the back. The gas jets are directed horizontally across the mouth of the horn." There are a hundred jets, and in a darkened room these are very pleasantly reflected in the aluminium shield which protects the woodwork and also acts as a sounding-board. By a simple balancing device the weight of the soundbox and horn on the record can be adjusted to suit individual taste." "Mr Kitchen's invention is founded on the fact that a gas jet is extremely sensitive to sound waves over a very wide range, and it is claimed that though the flame-phone without any gas has a quality of tone "comparable with that of the average gramophone" the effect of turning on and lighting the gas is not only to augment the sound but to improve the quality of the tone in a wonderful way. There can be no doubt about this improvement in volume and in tone. By many experiments of turning the office gas on and off as we tried the various records we satisfied ourselves that in some mysterious way the vibrations of the gas jets had a clarifying and strengthening influence on the soundbox." "The clearness of the tone was even more evident when the Flamephone was contrasted with the Orchestraphone in the office, which for the moment appeared to be almost woolly; and if a long length of tube were not required in order to have the Flamephone out in the garden, one would say that it would be at its very best in the open air at night, with the picturesque illumination of the gas-jets. On the whole, however, we felt that for normal purposes indoors it was slightly hard- not by any means harsh in tone; it was not so comfortable, for instance, as the Orchestraphone; but this must be largely a matter of individual taste, and it can at any rate hardly be doubted that the Flamephonc principle applied to one's favourite make of gramophone would improve it. It is the principle rather than the semi-portable model submitted to us which won our respectful admiration, and the fact that a demonstration before the Royal Societv was. we are told, greeted ·with unqualified approval, inclines us to recommend our readers to take an opportunity of judging the Flamephone if possible. Evidently this is one ofthosc inventions which cost a good deal to start, but which, if able to establish themselves, may be offered to the public subsequently at a much reduced cost." C. R . S.​

​

source: http://douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/flamephone/flamephone.htm

 

[mhardy6647]

^^^ Forerunner of the plasma tweeter!

EDIT:
PS I have never (?!) come across the word gramophony (to say nothing of gramophonists) prior to today and the above-reference advertisement. Having been made aware of its existence, I shall endeavor to use it liberally in the near future!

PPS We need to unearth one of these and get it shipped to @amirm to test, stat!

 

[sergeauckland]

When I was at school in the 1960s, one of our science books had a description of a gas flame 'loudspeaker' as one way of creating a 'massless' loudspeaker driver. There was a comment that the hissing noise of the gas flame was audible, but presumably considering the signal to noise ratio of early shellac disks, wasn't a problem.

There was also a 19th Century way of visualising an audio waveform using a gas flame projecting onto a screen. Called a Barometric Flame.

I'd love to hear what these weird things could do.

S.

 

[JaMmy]

Its reassuring to know that even early gramophony was plagued by trampolines.

 

[JaMmy]

‘trampolines’ was how my spellcheck rendered ‘gramophoolishness’. Maybe gramophonists were into keep fit.

 

[mhardy6647]

I was dismayed by the typos in the "OCR" transcribed review of the Flame-phone... so I hunted that sucka down!
I greyed out some irrelevant text from a previous article so as not to distract from the review of this epochal and slightly terrifying product.

source: https://reader.exacteditions.com/issues/33605/page/9

Here's what I like:

But the fittings which make it specifically a Flamephone can be put on to any ordinary gramophone for £6, and this fact removes the invention at once from the realm of fantastic gadgets.

"at once" ...

 

[JaMmy]

When I was at school in the 1960s, one of our science books had a description of a gas flame 'loudspeaker' as one way of creating a 'massless' loudspeaker driver. There was a comment that the hissing noise of the gas flame was audible, but presumably considering the signal to noise ratio of early shellac disks, wasn't a problem.

There was also a 19th Century way of visualising an audio waveform using a gas flame projecting onto a screen. Called a Barometric Flame.

I'd love to hear what these weird things could do.

S.

If I remember correctly the navy(?) experimented with transforming audio messages into light signals as an alternative to radio.

 

[mhardy6647]

ahem... oh, and speaking of Gramophone. Quite the redoubtable publication, and, by all appearances, still around, over a century on.

gramophone.co.uk

Gramophone – classical music magazine, podcast and reviews

www.gramophone.co.uk

Here's their Jubilee special from... 1973 (i.e., 50 years on), courtesy of World Radio History.
The Flame-phone does get a quick mention on pg. 19.

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/UK/Gramophone/The-Gramophone-Jubilee-Book-1973.pdf

Can you tell that I am avoiding tasks to which I should be applying myself?

 

[AdrianusG]

And then again, and speaking of caveat emptor , we have products like this one.
Not sure who designed or manufactured it, but by the looks of things, one of both of those agencies was located downwind of Chernobyl.

This horrific chimera was sold in the US, if memory serves, by Sears, Roebuck (a contemporary and competitor of the aforementioned Monkey Wards). The "Audio Reflex" AGS-150 combines aesthetic cues from multiple sources, most blatantly Yamaha and marantz, to create an overall effect reminiscent of a bad psychedelic experience.

View attachment 505559

https://classicreceivers.com/audio-reflex-ags-150https://classicreceivers.com/audio-reflex-ags-150

actually, according to the reference above, it was made by Inkel. I am willing to believe that.

Yes Yamaha and Marantz, I wouldn't call it ugly, but it is a bit much hahaha

 

[Mart68]

Can you tell that I am avoiding tasks to which I should be applying myself?

As am I by reading your ramblings so it's mutually beneficial

Newman Passage still retains its Dickensian charm:

 

[tony_ee]

Amir's gonna get a heart attack... I mean, I was laughing so hard I could barely catch my breath.

Mind you, I have deep fundamental disagreements with using measurements only to ascertain the quality of an audio component... but this... this...

I just had to post this on ASR because this is beyond ridiculous and preposterous... have fun reading..

Quantum Science Audio Fuses

Who knew something so insignificant could transform the performance of your audio components? We sure didn't, until we tried the QSA fuses. QSA's proprietary metallurgical treatment process makes their products very powerful component upgrades. One of our top tweaks!

tweekgeek.com

 

[tony_ee]

And.... more... I mean "It appears to have more crystals used in treatment".... I think I'll wait for the managed version - Platinum. It will allow us to configure the quantum spin of the quarks for a more homogeneous energy transfer in the ethernet frames. The MAC addresses become so much more clear!

QSA Audiophile Network Switch - Gold Version

Up your streaming performance with QSA's network switch. Incorporating QSA technology for incredible sound.

tweekgeek.com