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Extreme Snake Oil

Mart68

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Actually, current is the movement of electrons, not protons, and protons are massive, when compared to electrons.

iu
A massive Proton, yesterday:

 

egellings

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What has happened concurrent with evolution of Internet is so many companies getting in the game of producing useless audio products. Back in the day there were only a handful of "high-end" audio cables. Now? There are hundreds of not thousands. Each one is using the power of Internet for marketing which is cheap and available to them. In the last decade, they have also benefitted from informercial youtube videos to promote the same.

It was rare to run into subjectivists audiophiles in 1980s. Today, they are everywhere. And it has gone way beyond people with money. Even people with limited budget are spending a ton of money on non-effective tweaks, high-end gear that doesn't perform, etc.

It is so bad that their views is considered the standard, and ours the outlier! They even call us the flat-earthers!!! We let them run so wild that their message is has overpowered logic, science and engineering. Thankfully, collectively we are putting up one hell of a fight. :)
Amen! I agree wholeheartedly.
 

egellings

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Wel, i designed quiet a few speakers of all kind, and are often (without advertising) asked to advice on systems or install systems. But at the end for my own personal joy i prefer the very bloated by ASR norms fullrange single driver systems driven by a low damping factor amp that has a lot of harmonic distortion. So that is why i have tube amps, class A transistor amps and a lot of single driver fullrange speakers (that i make myself). Are they the most neutral? Certainly not. Would they do good in the standard tests here? Certainly not. But they bring me more joy when listening to music. I know all the technical "faults" in the design, i know how to build a speaker that is fairly neutral (and i did, for others, and soon also for myself). But neutral is not what i enjoy the most.

And no, this is not everybody's cup of tea. I would not often recommend them to others when they ask my advice. Because i know it's a niche martket and only some love it. The general mainstream public wants a fairly neutral speaker, from the type that is popular here and get high ratings in the tests from Amir.

And it's true that many just got caught in the story that expensive equals good, and dig all the snake oil that is served to them by those companies. Even high educated do. I also don't know why, and altough my subjective preference is very coloured, i don't like to spend money, so i try to do it on the cheap side (which is possible if you know how).

And things like status, braging on "how much i spend" and looks play also a very important factor in the succes of those extremely expensive audiophile stuff.
It may not be accurate, but it has Big Tone, and that's what matters.
 

ahofer

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I think many have an evangelical zeal in their beliefs that many of us would call delusional.

I say live and let live but try to help your friends not waste their money even though this can be difficult. Magic is more exciting than boring old facts.
In my opinion it has reached the level of "inward apologetics" as defined here:

We can signal loyalty to a group by showing our confidence in its beliefs. And our ability to offer many reasonable arguments for its beliefs suggests such confidence. But sometimes we can show even stronger loyalty by showing a willingness to embrace unreasonable arguments for our group’s beliefs. Someone who supports a group because he thinks it has reasonable supporting arguments might well desert that group should he find better arguments against it. Someone willing to embrace unreasonable arguments for his group shows a willingness to continue supporting them no matter which way the argument winds blow.

Subjectivists are entirely surrounded by scientific arguments, and have almost no research or controlled tests to muster to their cause. The remaining people, most importantly those who sell to this dwindling audience, have to circle the wagons and show loyalty to the group by parroting obvious nonsense.

It's important to remember that people do this *instinctively*, usually not knowingly. So I'm not saying they are being insincere, but it comes naturally with human tribalism to embrace these types of ideas to show one's affiliation. It also explains why apostates must be punished or exiled as thoroughly as possible.

Another important psychological observation is Jon Haidt's. He likens humans to riders on elephants. The elephant (our emotion) goes where it wants. Our brain/frontal lobe (the rider) hastily invents rationalizations for the direction chosen by the elephant. We know we want our ears to be the ultimate judge. In order to do that, we have to invent all sorts of fake science and sciency-sounding justifications for why blind tests are bad and measurements are somehow incomplete.

It's a toxic combination. We need emotions to make decisions, and we long to be in the 'in' group. Reasoning is a better way to act, but is often forced into the backseat. Of these basic ingredients is decision science made.
 
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fpitas

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In my opinion it has reached the level of "inward apologetics" as defined here:



Subjectivists are entirely surrounded by scientific arguments, and have almost no research or controlled tests to muster to their cause. The remaining people, most importantly those who sell to this dwindling audience, have to circle the wagons and show loyalty to the group by parroting obvious nonsense.

It's important to remember that people do this *instinctively*, usually not knowingly. So I'm not seeing they don't think they believe it, but it comes naturally with human tribalism to embrace these types of ideas to show one's affiliation. It also explains why apostates must be punished or exiled as thoroughly as possible.
That's a good point. Also I think, to the average person, the technology isn't as "real" as to us electron-pushers.
 

preload

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Since the advent of ubiquitous ABS, wet stopping distance is a function of the tire, not the car.
Really? So the weight of the car doesn't matter? Only the tire?

pulled the NTSA reports on all the vehicles I was interested in. They tended to cluster for the most part, as I would have expected.
I'm willing to bet that the majority of car buyers do not pull the actual NHTSA report with the numeric data when evaluating a car's safety prior to purchasing.
 

DonR

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Really? So the weight of the car doesn't matter? Only the tire?


I'm willing to bet that the majority of car buyers do not pull the actual NHTSA report with the numeric data when evaluating a car's safety prior to purchasing.
Most of the cars I look at are in the same class, small SUV, so the weight is the same. Tires make a HUGE difference. Most people aren't engineers who like to obsess over numbers. :)
 

Mnyb

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It does seem to be almost exclusively restricted to audio. No one doubts the engineer's calculations when driving over a bridge, living in a highrise or using a computer but audio... the audiophile knows better.

Not really ? I think , look no further than healthcare food and beauty products , there are entire store chains selling you food supplements. Or your latest trendy training regime you enjoy at the gym it’s everywhere.

But it’s important to stop this even in such a niche as audio .

as people that are into one conspiracy theory or crackpot belief system are prone to accept other such things more easily and spiral down to what we have nowadays in just about every Facebook posts or you tube video comment section.

On a positive note if you start to think critically in general and start to unravel some of the woo in your life you seems to get better at it and fine tune your bs detector to unravel even more bunk and get rid of that :)

But to repeat myself ( a bit to much ) a product is much more than its raw performance, so I would not think a more science based approach would give us boring and bland products rather the opposite.
 

Mnyb

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What has happened concurrent with evolution of Internet is so many companies getting in the game of producing useless audio products. Back in the day there were only a handful of "high-end" audio cables. Now? There are hundreds of not thousands. Each one is using the power of Internet for marketing which is cheap and available to them. In the last decade, they have also benefitted from informercial youtube videos to promote the same.

It was rare to run into subjectivists audiophiles in 1980s. Today, they are everywhere. And it has gone way beyond people with money. Even people with limited budget are spending a ton of money on non-effective tweaks, high-end gear that doesn't perform, etc.

It is so bad that their views is considered the standard, and ours the outlier! They even call us the flat-earthers!!! We let them run so wild that their message is has overpowered logic, science and engineering. Thankfully, collectively we are putting up one hell of a fight. :)
Oh thank you :) it’s far to easy to create the next nutty cable company buy some nylon mesh fancy connectors and som bulk wire and your in business, you can fold it two years later when spent your bulk spool of wire and got tired of soldering in your basement :D
 

Plcamp

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Why?

I have recently picked up a fascination with watching YouTube videos where patient folks recondition mechanical wristwatches.

Inside them are expensive decorations and finishes nobody ever sees, industrial jewels coloured red like rubies and many have extensive features beyond simple timekeeping on top of glass windows to observe gyroscopic works.

It’s a far cry from fidelity of the timekeeping.

In fact, folks spend way way more for everything except the timekeeping.
 

bkatbamna

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So back on the subject. I do always find myself WANTING the high end stuff to work. I want scrappy engineers who innovate and make better stuff (March Audio is an attractive story WITH good measurements). I want the incredible solidity of appearance in that Threshold amplifier to produce better sound. I want the huge speakers to impose a concert hall experience on me. I want to put a cable in and have veils lifted.

I WANT it. I also want all my investments to double and my impressions of the CEO and market growth to always be right.
Can't help you with anything else but if you put your funds into an S&P 500 index fund and don't panic sell, it will double.
 

mhardy6647

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Can't help you with anything else but if you put your funds into an S&P 500 index fund and don't panic sell, it will double.
Eventually, yes.
If, of course, in the same time frame, the cost of living's quadrupled... oh, well.
 

bkatbamna

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Not really ? I think , look no further than healthcare food and beauty products , there are entire store chains selling you food supplements. Or your latest trendy training regime you enjoy at the gym it’s everywhere.

But it’s important to stop this even in such a niche as audio .

as people that are into one conspiracy theory or crackpot belief system are prone to accept other such things more easily and spiral down to what we have nowadays in just about every Facebook posts or you tube video comment section.

On a positive note if you start to think critically in general and start to unravel some of the woo in your life you seems to get better at it and fine tune your bs detector to unravel even more bunk and get rid of that :)

But to repeat myself ( a bit to much ) a product is much more than its raw performance, so I would not think a more science based approach would give us boring and bland products rather the opposite.
Its funny to watch roided up "fitness" influencers like the Liver King claim that they have the body they have just by diet and exercise(and of course, the supplements that they sell).
 

Jimbob54

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My ex-dentist was a big believer in "trusting his ears" and that "we can't measure everything". Education, even a science-based one, doesn't seem to be an impediment.
I prefer my dentist put his trust in his hands and eyes. I certainly do every time he gets the drill out.
 

DonR

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I prefer my dentist put his trust in his hands and eyes. I certainly do every time he gets the drill out.
Just before my previous dentist passed away in 2020 I noticed his hands had a slight tremor in them. Not very confidence boosting but at least he had no opinion on the merits of vacuum tube colouration in music.
 

ahofer

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My ex-dentist was a big believer in "trusting his ears" and that "we can't measure everything". Education, even a science-based one, doesn't seem to be an impediment.
I bet he used X-Rays though, he didn't just root around where he sensed there might be some tooth damage.
 
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