Extreme Snake Oil

[rdenney]

Don't drop the box

Rick "AAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!" Denney

 

[egellings]

Great question.

If it did anything audible, it would be due to the vibration you mention, so could it add a bit of sonic excitement for someone? It seems it would be a monotonous thing to add, if it did anything that one could perceive. Perhaps some treble-ish sort of airy thing? I can't come up with anything very constructive.

They also make these babies...

Meow GR Pink Gold Edition

Meow GR Pink Gold takes a luxurious approach on both appearance and sound aspect. The Trio Meow shines brightly on the audio device contributing warmness and lush ambient to the sound system. The reference ground cable made of 6N OCC Single Crystal is prepared in the set. Install Meow GR Pink...

tombo-audio.com

It's easy to say mean things, the manufacturer may believe what he claims, but I have to say I'm not the target audience for this.

I saw that >$2000 price tag. Whew!

 

[JimBean]

Those aluminum alloy pink-gold meows are $2350 for a set of 3. But that does include a ground cable.

"Meow GR Pink Gold package comes in a clowder of 3 cats, a pair of Baby Meows and one Grande Meow. The package includes reference ground cable."

Where does the grounding cable attach to the meow? Do you shove it up its butt?

Kind of. Check the images on the website, there's a spike on back that the grounding wire connects to. They're a downright bargain, they are.

 

[sejarzo]

I actually did that once.

Reminds me of standing in front of the "Self-Service Card Readers" that sat behind the open top of Dutch doors in the basement of MathSci or ENAD at Purdue in the late 70s at weird hours, having walked there in the dark to avoid the long line waiting for a free keypunch. During the day, there was even a long line waiting for one of the "FIVE CARDS MAXIMUM" keypunches.

It was a near miracle when we got two CRT terminals in the Chemical Engineering building that ran at the blazing speed of 75 or 100 baud (no such unit as bps then) to edit and resubmit one's FORTRAN code after it failed to compile.

A management major down the hall from me had to complete a huge project in COBOL to graduate and hated it with a passion. Two full boxes of code. At the end of finals week, he opened his window on the 8th floor of the dorm and let just one box fly like a ticker tape parade. The maintenance manager quickly summoned all 8 custodians to get out there with their trash pickers to clean things up.

You already know what he did when one of the custodians picked up the last card and they turned the corner to come back inside.

I cannot with good conscience reveal all the different pranks that used the abundant supply of chad that was never hard to come by in those days.

 

[JaMaSt]

Dunce caps

I take it that you are unaware of the sonic properties of wearing Dunce caps while listening to music? That they can absorb reverb and 2nd and 3rd order harmonics?

 

[Brian Hall]

I take it that you are unaware of the sonic properties of wearing Dunce caps while listening to music? That they can absorb reverb and 2nd and 3rd order harmonics?

I strongly advocate for promoting and selling "audiophile quality" dunce caps to audiophools. Not any crazier that some of the BS items they are already buying. Maybe have a line of propeller beanies available too. I'm sure they could be convinced about the magical audio benefits of a propeller rotating above their head if the items had a crazy high price.

 

[mhardy6647]

I take it that you are unaware of the sonic properties of wearing Dunce caps while listening to music? That they can absorb reverb and 2nd and 3rd order harmonics?

It's like a phase plug for your brain.

 

[MattHooper]

Straight away I can hear how "live" the room is. There's maybe a 10-20ms reverb in there. Any assessment of the "system" will be colored by the room so the exercise would be pointless. If the speakers were placed in a room with adequate control, they would sound very different. This is what I love about the Audiophool, he will spend $10,000 on a power cable and $0 on room treatment!

Actually Jay, from that video did spend quite a bit money on room treatment a while back. He had some sort of accusation company treat his room. If it’s unwise to judge, the sound of speakers. on YouTube videos, it’s probably unwise to leap the judgements about room acoustics and how a pair of speakers sounds in a particular room in some instances, as well.

 

[Hatto]

I recently stumbled upon these before I even heard the "brand" called Synergistic Research:

Black Box

www.synergisticresearch.com

It's a black box (LITERALLY!!!) that magically transforms sound just by placing somewhere in the room. They won't even bother explaining how, it just does after paying $4K for a pair!

I just witnessed a used pair sold for $2K. It really pains me knowing people this stupid can earn enough to spend upwards of $2K into any one thing.

 

[JaMaSt]

The Blackbody v.2 can be placed anywhere within the context of a sound system and does not require much space. The optional organic glass stand, custom made to your specific latitude, ensures highest efficiency and best sonic results. Optional C-MARC™ grounding cables further enhance effectiveness.

Number of Blackbodies recommended: one or two per component. For elaborate systems, include number of loudspeakers in this total.

https://www.lessloss.com/blackbody-p-200.html

 

[MattHooper]

I recently stumbled upon these before I even heard the "brand" called Synergistic Research:

Black Box

www.synergisticresearch.com

It's a black box (LITERALLY!!!) that magically transforms sound just by placing somewhere in the room. They won't even bother explaining how, it just does after paying $4K for a pair!

I just witnessed a used pair sold for $2K. It really pains me knowing people this stupid can earn enough to spend upwards of $2K into any one thing.

That company’s products alone could keep this thread going in perpetuity.

 

[rdenney]

The Blackbody v.2 can be placed anywhere within the context of a sound system and does not require much space. The optional organic glass stand, custom made to your specific latitude, ensures highest efficiency and best sonic results. Optional C-MARC™ grounding cables further enhance effectiveness.

Number of Blackbodies recommended: one or two per component. For elaborate systems, include number of loudspeakers in this total.

https://www.lessloss.com/blackbody-p-200.html

God help me, I opened the link. Now, Google will bury me in ads for crap like this.

This one actually makes me angry. The preposterous nonsense in their web page is an affront to intelligence, but worse, it is a fraud. The EM fields it supposedly eliminates weren’t a problem in the first place, and doing unneeded things is bad enough. But this can’t possibly eliminate EM fields at all, so it doesn’t even do what it claims to do, unnecessary as that is.

At least anybody buying a box of dirt knows in their heart (because we know they are not using their heads) they are being conned.

These things would be snake oil if they cost a dollar (and bottles of “snake oil” were usually 1-5 cents, so it’s not about being merely overpriced), but they cost enough to be actionable, it seems to me. The expert testimony would be entertaining, to say the least.

Rick “mourning the credulousness of wise fools” Denney

 

[Mart68]

Actually Jay, from that video did spend quite a bit money on room treatment a while back. He had some sort of accusation company treat his room. If it’s unwise to judge, the sound of speakers. on YouTube videos, it’s probably unwise to leap the judgements about room acoustics and how a pair of speakers sounds in a particular room in some instances, as well.

There's an old saying in the British army about the American troops which I think dates back to the desert in WW2 - 'All the gear, and no idea'. That sums up Jay pretty well I think.

You're right we can't judge from Youtube but would not surprise me if the system sounded bad, almost always the case with the super-audiophile, I can only think of one exception and even he'd spent a lot more money than he needed to.

Recently listened to a diabolically bad system, it was the speakers, nasty, shouty things which owner was trying to fix with DACs, cables, supports and other foo. Did not know him well enough to tell him the solution was to take the speakers out in the back yard and torch them.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Actually Jay, from that video did spend quite a bit money on room treatment a while back. He had some sort of accusation company treat his room. If it’s unwise to judge, the sound of speakers. on YouTube videos, it’s probably unwise to leap the judgements about room acoustics and how a pair of speakers sounds in a particular room in some instances, as well.

He sent his room dimensions to GIK and they did some CAD modeling and recommended a starter kit based on the CAD model. And that is all that he has done.

Better than nothing? Yeah. Fitting for a million dollar+ system? I’m going with no ****ing way.

Jay seems like a nice guy. I actually met him a couple times at audio shows. But he confuses buying and selling extremely expensive gear and casually evaluating it as it comes and goes with actual expertise in audio.

He has never bothered to measure his room to see how well the starter kit worked and what he had left to do.

 

[er|κzvio1in]

I recently stumbled upon these before I even heard the "brand" called Synergistic Research:

Black Box

www.synergisticresearch.com

It's a black box (LITERALLY!!!) that magically transforms sound just by placing somewhere in the room. They won't even bother explaining how, it just does after paying $4K for a pair!

I just witnessed a used pair sold for $2K. It really pains me knowing people this stupid can earn enough to spend upwards of $2K into any one thing.

They claim it's based on patented technology so it should be possible to dig up the patent and understand the principles they're trying to sell.

 

[egellings]

I recently stumbled upon these before I even heard the "brand" called Synergistic Research:

Black Box

www.synergisticresearch.com

It's a black box (LITERALLY!!!) that magically transforms sound just by placing somewhere in the room. They won't even bother explaining how, it just does after paying $4K for a pair!

I just witnessed a used pair sold for $2K. It really pains me knowing people this stupid can earn enough to spend upwards of $2K into any one thing.

That 2K may not be extra money at all. Some necessity may end up being slighted in order to pay for the devices, whatever they are, such as kids running around in other people's clothes, to use a John Prine expression.

 

[Punter]

Actually Jay, from that video did spend quite a bit money on room treatment a while back. He had some sort of accusation company treat his room. If it’s unwise to judge, the sound of speakers. on YouTube videos, it’s probably unwise to leap the judgements about room acoustics and how a pair of speakers sounds in a particular room in some instances, as well.

Whatever money was spent on the room treatment has not taken the reflections out of it! I'm not an acoustics engineer but I tend to think that a room that live would not be the best environment for evaluating a pair of stereo loudspeakers. Just one man's opinion

 

[DSJR]

Those aluminum alloy pink-gold meows are $2350 for a set of 3. But that does include a ground cable.

"Meow GR Pink Gold package comes in a clowder of 3 cats, a pair of Baby Meows and one Grande Meow. The package includes reference ground cable."

Where does the grounding cable attach to the meow? Do you shove it up its butt?

View attachment 354943

We no longer have feline friends living with us, but one from a neighbour does come to visit every few days just to check this part of her 'manor' is still there and she can have a good fuss when calling. My wife saw these things pictured and wondered if we shone one up our feline visitor's backside, if it might make her purr louder - or something.....


...And people with money actually buy into this sh*t?

 

[Jaxjax]

Crazy......

 

[Palladium]

Crazy......
View attachment 355449

I mean if they are so anal about getting the best signal then why aren't they using balanced interconnects...