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Furutech NCF Clear Line Review (AC Optimizer)

Rate this product:

  • 1. Waste of money (piggy bank panther)

    Votes: 268 96.4%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 1 0.4%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 2 0.7%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 7 2.5%

  • Total voters
    278

Spkrdctr

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Honestly with that remark there is just no way he did any university-level academic psychology study. Unless it was 70 years ago.
In fact the writing is so "out there" and idiotic, I think after reading it I popped a heart valve. Or, maybe a stroke? I can't tell, but my cat now looks like SantaClaus. I can't shake the view!
 

BDWoody

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But they leave out the other 10 biases affecting their decisions.

I saw this some time ago, and whenever I see people try to boil down bias as if it is one or two or a handful of things, it comes to mind.

The_Cognitive_Bias_Codex_-_180+_biases,_designed_by_John_Manoogian_III_(jm3).png
 

DonR

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I saw this some time ago, and whenever I see people try to boil down bias as if it is one or two or a handful of things, it comes to mind.

View attachment 271022
From a purely scientific point of view, bias is formed by demons dwelling within the most inner reaches of your soul, scientifically speaking of course.
 

pseudoid

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I saw this some time ago, and whenever I see people try to boil down bias as if it is one or two or a handful of things, it comes to mind.
Thank you for the chart... I think.:oops:
I am afraid that the knowledge of my specific and existent biases (per your chart) will have a significant impact to my enjoyment of music.
So, I intentionally did NOT review your chart. Ignorance sometimes (but most definitely for enjoyment of music) seems to be bliss.
 

Spkrdctr

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I saw this some time ago, and whenever I see people try to boil down bias as if it is one or two or a handful of things, it comes to mind.

View attachment 271022
BD, I had that chart in mind when I posted that. The chart is to my mind over the top to get the point across. But, even if you cut the biases in half, it would still be a crowded chart. Thanks for putting it up.
 

Agitator

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The current state of the NCF Clearline thread on SHF has turned into a house-cleaning excuse for Steve and his moderators. The last post that I read and replied to was one by Steve himself in which he publicly panicked pointedly about the litigious nature of “some of these companies” and then publicly requested his moderators to ”clean up the thread” and ban some of the participants.

So now I’m banned! It’s like a badge of honour. No reasonable argument, no reiteration of the results of my own listening tests methods (as usual, conducted either singe or double-blind with a couple of different music listening gangs), and no amount of respectful, patient technical reasoning was successful in that thread. Not by me; not by anyone. Not untypical. So bye-bye Agitater on SHF. Ciao. Aufwiedersehn. So long.

That level of scam product persistence by what in my opinion is a rotating group of SHF members leads me to conclude that they’re all either massively duped to the point of militant persistence in the promotion of obvious nonsense, or that some part of SHF has been co-opted by the audio industry in some equal part for use as a promotional vehicle for all manner of accessory nonsense products - cables, ‘filters’, ’audiophile’ network switches, etc., etc.

I mean, how else do I explain the fact that, in various threads on various audio scam products, the individuals touting roundly and singing the praises of the goofy products persisted in their own unsophisticated but enthusiastic voices in their OP and the first couple of days of their thread, but then changed voices (or a different member with a more sophisticated voice stepped in to pick up the defence) to that of a glib pitchman making use of all the tropes in semi-clever attempts to demonstrate skepticism of the skeptic. I think we’re being naive if that sort of rhetorical switch doesn’t tweak us to the presence of industry influence at the root of many such threads.

Guerrilla marketing has been a fact of life since the days of Usenet and the earliest major BBS‘s. Small back then, but present nonetheless. That guerrilla marketing began polluting the major social networks years ago, beginning with MySpace and jumping platforms as each new and larger one came online, is an unsurprising fact. Why should we be surprised (much less offended) that segments of the audio industry have recognized SHF (with its touted 110,000+ members) as a perfectly reasonable target for guerrilla marketing campaigns? Other major audio discussion forums have to affected too. Somebody tell me I’m dead wrong.
 

voodooless

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The current state of the NCF Clearline thread on SHF has turned into a house-cleaning excuse for Steve and his moderators. The last post that I read and replied to was one by Steve himself in which he publicly panicked pointedly about the litigious nature of “some of these companies” and then publicly requested his moderators to ”clean up the thread” and ban some of the participants.

So now I’m banned! It’s like a badge of honour. No reasonable argument, no reiteration of the results of my own listening tests methods (as usual, conducted either singe or double-blind with a couple of different music listening gangs), and no amount of respectful, patient technical reasoning was successful in that thread. Not by me; not by anyone. Not untypical. So bye-bye Agitater on SHF. Ciao. Aufwiedersehn. So long.

That level of scam product persistence by what in my opinion is a rotating group of SHF members leads me to conclude that they’re all either massively duped to the point of militant persistence in the promotion of obvious nonsense, or that some part of SHF has been co-opted by the audio industry in some equal part for use as a promotional vehicle for all manner of accessory nonsense products - cables, ‘filters’, ’audiophile’ network switches, etc., etc.

I mean, how else do I explain the fact that, in various threads on various audio scam products, the individuals touting roundly and singing the praises of the goofy products persisted in their own unsophisticated but enthusiastic voices in their OP and the first couple of days of their thread, but then changed voices (or a different member with a more sophisticated voice stepped in to pick up the defence) to that of a glib pitchman making use of all the tropes in semi-clever attempts to demonstrate skepticism of the skeptic. I think we’re being naive if that sort of rhetorical switch doesn’t tweak us to the presence of industry influence at the root of many such threads.

Guerrilla marketing has been a fact of life since the days of Usenet and the earliest major BBS‘s. Small back then, but present nonetheless. That guerrilla marketing began polluting the major social networks years ago, beginning with MySpace and jumping platforms as each new and larger one came online, is an unsurprising fact. Why should we be surprised (much less offended) that segments of the audio industry have recognized SHF (with its touted 110,000+ members) as a perfectly reasonable target for guerrilla marketing campaigns? Other major audio discussion forums have to affected too. Somebody tell me I’m dead wrong.
Welcome :cool: Looks like you’ll do just fine here!
 

MoreWatts

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A new SHF thread about the "Puron Power Plug In" begins 1 hour before the SHF Gorts lock the Furutech NCF Clearline thread. Gotta keep the arguments going somehow. :facepalm:

BTW, welcome Agitator. I believe your last comments at SHF were actually about the incorrect use of a voltmeter, correct? Talk about being banned for telling the truth...
 

pseudoid

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So, I intentionally did NOT review your chart. Ignorance sometimes (but most definitely for enjoyment of music) seems to be bliss.
Curiosity killed the cat... and I had to study that chart.
It ain't just a codex!
It's a damning thesis-material (or a ChatGPT output) of a thought-genome project, which comes inside its own kitchen-sink.
I was not able to find the Rumsfeld syndrome, the Žižek dilemma or the Mencken fallacy, anywhere in that exhaustive chart.:oops:
I am more biased toward the Latin version of the logical-fallacy 'codex', which is concise and more relevant. And I am not even fluent in Latin!
 

dogberry

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Agitator, I'm surprised you got banned and I didn't. My comparison with the empty Macintosh box might have been a bit close to the bone for SH, unless he is no longer such a fan of all things Macintosh.
If you like pointing out silliness, the Pron filter has a thread at Audiogon (here) that is even worse than the Furutech one. And the Puron is being sold by a man with a very shady history (the mods deleted my references to his criminal record of scams in the hi-fi world).
 

NormB

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Agitator, I'm surprised you got banned and I didn't. My comparison with the empty Macintosh box might have been a bit close to the bone for SH, unless he is no longer such a fan of all things Macintosh.
If you like pointing out silliness, the Pron filter has a thread at Audiogon (here) that is even worse than the Furutech one. And the Puron is being sold by a man with a very shady history (the mods deleted my references to his criminal record of scams in the hi-fi world).

THAT is SO funny.

There’s likely a cause for a liability/slander suit over on Audiogon from several guys who keep posting how EVERYBODY knows Amir took payola money from his Chinese Communist Party (or audio companies, but since all companies are state-owned…) and how it was scrubbed from the innerwebs, dErP!

The Puron guy seemed to be inventing language to explain the method/mode of operation of the Puron gadget. “Timing.” Yeah, I used to adjust that by loosening a set screw and twisting the distributor on my Harley back in the day, but what did that have to do with putting something into the other half of a duplex outlet to [highly paraphrased] “clean up stray voltage and noise and improve timing”?

Oh, but you CAN return it in 30 days for a refund.

Except I haven’t yet read of anyone doing that. Haven’t seen a poll of users, HAVE read several note from people writing how there wasn’t a perceptible difference.

Whole thing sounds fishy and my skeptic-o-meter has been pegged since about 1972…
 

dogberry

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Maybe I'm a 'non-U' person? Apologies to Nancy Mitford. One cannot correct a typo after a short while if unnoticed.

Even so, I'd rather make a typo than buy a device with no possible mode of action from someone with a criminal record of scamming audiophiles.


As I said on Audiogon, he may have reformed, and be acting totally honestly. I cannot say otherwise. Presumably potential buyers should be allowed to know this before buying, although the mods at Audiogon seem to think not.
 

Spkrdctr

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