Snake oil and fraud in the professional audio community

[Cbdb2]

A dedicated snake oil post might help people who are boderline see the light. As in https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/the-lounge/234829-funniest-snake-oil-theories.html

If we start with a list that we can add to people can start with a look at that. Heres a couple doozies I ran across this morning.
https://www.audiogon.com/listings/a...rator-demo-unit-2017-07-09-power#&gid=1&pid=1
https://www.audiogon.com/listings/l...ce-audiophile-amp-stand-cabinets-racks-stands

 

[Cbdb2]

Can they tell the difference in the 2 cables after they squash the f out of the dynamics and turn the mix to mud?

 

[pozz]

Just to show the kind of views held by less well-known people making music. From Gearslutz, all on familiar topics:

• https://www.gearslutz.com/board/high-end/1280962-prism-dac-vs-mytek-dac.html
• https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-...868-192khz-96khz-48khz-i-hear-difference.html
• https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mas...eaky-he-can-hear-difference-power-cables.html
• https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mas...-your-favorite-headphones-mastering-room.html
• https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/1278001-expensive-gear-still-worth.html

The further you read into the threads, the more viewpoints emerge. There is outright informative stuff like this as well: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/659500-digital-audio-sampling-rates.html The subforum on studio construction/acoustics also tends to have good info (several studio designers/architects are members).

Point is that the musicmakers need help and perspective too.

 

[JohnYang1997]

Pro audio is nothing less than consumer HIFI. It's just full of a different kind of BS.
Actually to think of it it's quite understandable. Most of them aren't professionally trained engineers. And even when they are engineers they aren't scientists. There is a huge gap between the two fields. They are fond of specs but don't really understand what the spec means. And they use their ears to be the judge at the end of the day.
In some ways, recording is half art half science. It does allow room for subjectivity. And it's mostly the more important aspect.
But the market is just full of BS nonetheless.
How important is DNR? How important is 50khz of high frequency reproduction? How important is the vintage gears? The coloration of vintage components?
It's highly based on experience. When they work it does work. But with a price. There is room for improvement too.

 

[GrimSurfer]

Pro audio is nothing less than consumer HIFI.

It's designed with a different use in mind.

 

[sergeauckland]

Pro audio is nothing less than consumer HIFI. It's just full of a different kind of BS.
Actually to think of it it's quite understandable. Most of them aren't professionally trained engineers. And even when they are engineers they aren't scientists. There is a huge gap between the two fields. They are fond of specs but don't really understand what the spec means. And they use their ears to be the judge at the end of the day.
In some ways, recording is half art half science. It does allow room for subjectivity. And it's mostly the more important aspect.
But the market is just full of BS nonetheless.
How important is DNR? How important is 50khz of high frequency reproduction? How important is the vintage gears? The coloration of vintage components?
It's highly based on experience. When they work it does work. But with a price. There is room for improvement too.

It's designed with a different use in mind.

The Term 'Pro-Audio' covers a wide range of activities.

It includes those who create the recordings, and therefore is an artistic endeavour, where anything is valid if it meets the needs of the artists. There is no attempt, necessarily, to try and capture a real performance, rather the recording IS the performance. People engaged in this activity are creatives, not necessarily engineers, (albeit their job title may be 'Recording Engineer'). As such, they may know how to create an effect, not how the electronics works.

Then there are the operational engineers in TV and radio and PA who generally don't engage in BS, and take a dim view of Consumer HiFi. They don't need to know what's inside the boxes they're using, but generally have a good working knowledge of the electronics. Unfortunately, there are a dying breed as they're being retired and replaced largely by more IT biased people.

Finally there are the equipment designers, those who do (or should) understand the technicalities of the electronics, how to make measurements and what they mean. In broad terms, these can be divided into those who are pure engineering, and those who also are part of the 'marketing' of the products and therefore may come out with all sorts of guff, typically subjective, that makes little sense in pure engineering terms, and is seldom backed up by strictly conducted listening tests.

All can be thought of as being audio professionals, but the amount of BS does seem to depend on how close they are to the customer.

S.

 

[pozz]

All can be thought of as being audio professionals, but the amount of BS does seem to depend on how close they are to the customer.

Yup. A lot of the huge mains speakers are used just to impress clients, for example.

The "engineer" part for creatives comes in with their expertise in managing the signal processing chain. There is A LOT going on at the same time. Somewhat of a misnomer, as anyone can pick it up, but not many can handle the work necessary for really good productions.

 

[GrimSurfer]

There's good stuff and bad stuff in BOTH pro and consumer audio. Neither are immune from bad engineering or cheap hucksterism.

 

[pozz]

Interview with Big Mick Hughes (Front of House engineer for Metallica)

Oxygen-free cables... @25min. Otherwise a really interesting interview.

 

[pozz]

Interview with Dan Lavry of Lavry Engineering (famous pro DAC/ADC company)

Strange response to a question about ideal sample rates and bit depth, where frames it around humans being able to hear 126dB of dynamic range and 25kHz-30kHz.

 

[Tks]

We need to Bench some of these folks' mastering setups lol. I'd wager anything Pro Audio devices in the majority of these' folks homes/studios perform FAR worse than the devices we've been testing here.

 

[majingotan]

We need to Bench some of these folks' mastering setups lol. I'd wager anything Pro Audio devices in the majority of these' folks homes/studios perform FAR worse than the devices we've been testing here.

Given that many mainstream music today just sound loud overall with all the instruments mashed up and turned all the way up, I'd wager they're mastered that way to hide those elevated noise floor but at the cost of more distortion and clipping in their mixes. I use a VB ASIO Bridge to look at the sample and bit rate that are sent to the DAC and all of my mainstream music that I have are turned up to 0 db (max volume) in the dynamic range

 

[pozz]

Another thread on ASR has discussed Katz' Innerfidelity article on distortion. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-adventures-in-distortion-nuvista-hypex.5304/

I haven't read Katz' book yet either. I'll probably get to it at some point.

More of Katz' articles here: https://www.innerfidelity.com/category/katzs-corner

 

[ahofer]

Hard to resist this thread over at Audiowobegone:

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/how-science-got-sound-wrong

Here's a snippet from our old friend Teo, as full of improvised fiction as ever:

the human hearing system was designed, from the ground up, over millennia, in the realm of natural selection, to hear through and past noise and wow & flutter. We filter out of our hearing....the rushing of our blood and heartbeat - in every second of being alive. And much much more.

It was designed to do these complex things via it’s temporally sensitive and aligned comb filter ’multi thousand point’ amplitude triggered system. All tied to the most complex and potent bit of computing power known to exist ---the human mind.

Where those powers of cognition vary between individuals, to the tune of 300,000:1 in cognition speed, when we go from 100 to 200 IQ. Where.. what it takes a person with 100IQ a year to cognate, a person with 200 IQ can cognate in 3 minutes. This is a theoretical calculation put forth from a member of the Prometheus society, which requires an IQ of 169 at a minimum, to become a member. There is much to show that this is hewing close to the reality, otherwise the member would not have put forth the musing.

According to the calculation itself, others may take quite some time to catch up to the obviousness of the proposal of this thread... being tied up in, well, emotional reflection of internal issues when presented with the proffered data point.

Intellect is an afterthought and the brain is designed to be transient with respect to intelligence and musing..or.. mostly an ego loop and unconscious. This is by design and by reality.(proven in modern sciences on subjects of intellectual/brain function) (don’t demand the articles, please go look for them, ie not my job to bring detractors up to date)

Hence my nicely rude line about how people wear their consciousness. (where I do not exempt myself, and.. as this post comes into focus for the reader...it is seen as frighteningly close to the truth)

Intelligence was designed from the ground up to rise, use bodily energies, find the first answer.... and then fade until the next time it is called to the forefront. The moment to moment thing you like to think of as your conscious bubble is mostly an ’emotions first as permanent filter’ - ego loop on standby. The brain at full pop requires too much of the body's energies, and like a muscle, was designed to only be in transient operation and use. Elastic. Flexible.. but mostly at rest. (this Machiavellian world seems to take great advantage of these aspects, does it not?)(how does a parasite work, again? Oh yes, by staying out of conscious awareness)

Next comes the idea of hearing, and rumination via hearing.

the idea that It follows the same path in individuals as does basic intelligence. That the variations in hearing capacities (as a complex system) may also follow this range of at least 300,000:1 in fine resolution of brainpower tied to sensitivities.

After all, half the population is at and below the 100IQ median line used in the calculation and that half remains untouched in the numbers used. So the truth is that it is ..likely worse than the ruminations and theory - as realities go.

A good set of hearing/ear qualities may be tied to a very fine mind or some average hearing may be tied to a very fine mind...

...or.. a set of poor ears might be tied to a middling level mind.

Where that middling level mind may insist that it knows everything about digital audio and human hearing... and that others who hear and think differently are wrong.

The question is if the middling mind can hear, can it ruminate, and can it even reach the answer in a reasonable enough level of time to be effective in the conversation, at all.

digital audio has the whole answer and problem set put on --completely backward, or in a way that has nothing to do with how the ear works. Or, in total contrary aspect to how the ear works.

Digital audio makes terrific engineering and mathematical sense, but very poor sense, with regard to how the ear works. This has been covered multiple times in this thread.


Something about time, and cognition, If I recall correctly....

 

[maxxevv]

Hard to resist this thread over at Audiowobegone:

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/how-science-got-sound-wrong

Here's a snippet from our old friend Teo, as full of improvised fiction as ever:

A complete page of rubbish ! Obviously someone with a greater ego than intellect which he/she seem to be implying he/she has.

 

[pozz]

Recent thread on gearslutz: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mas...ence-between-quot-itb-quot-quot-otb-quot.html

ITB is "in the box", an all-digital (implication: cheaper, lower quality) approach to production and mixing. OTB is "outside the box", with outboard hardware used mostly or at a few stages.

It's mostly a thread of opinion. You could say there are differences in workflow and so on in ITB/OTB, but I'd bet that part of the debate would dwindle when analysis and measurement becomes the norm for making assessments.

 

[Hypnotoad]

I thought I'd seen everything but it seems there is always some new trick to take peoples money and they obviously haven't heard of Good Vibrations like the Beach Boys have:

"these vibrations are passed from your power system to your electronics, and from one piece of electronics to the next, it is picked up, amplified, and played. Our vibration dampening technology stops these vibrations in their tracks by providing an absorbing material: the viscous silicone gel. The gel picks up the vibrations and eliminates them, lowering distortion. The effect is quite dramatic."

https://www.highfidelitycables.com/speaker-cables/ultimate/
.

 

[Darkweb]

While we tend to focus on snake oil and outright fraud in the world of high-end audiophilia, there seems to be a fair amount of it in the pro audio realm as well, especially in the mastering business. Consider, for example, this little video with the well-known mastering engineer Greg Calbi of Sterling Sound:

If you get to 0:40, he says that the first thing he does is to listen to a track through two different sets of audiophile interconnects. He maintains that the two sets of interconnects sound totally different and that there is no way of predicting whether a track will sound better through one set or the other set.

Either Mr. Calbi is delusional, or he has found a very simple way to waste a lot of time in mastering his clients' projects--convenient when one bills by the hour, as elite mastering engineers usually do. I genuinely do not know if this is a well-intended but pointless practice, on the one hand, or a fraud perpetrated on Mr. Calbi's clients, on the other.

Do I think that Mr. Calbi is particularly accomplished or competent in his field, in light of all the hit records he has mastered? I do not. The measure of a mastering engineer's competence is how good his work product sounds, and I don't think very many of Mr. Calbi's records sound good. I think Mr. Calbi is good at impressing his (technically very unsophisticated) clients and bringing in business.

I don't lump all mastering engineers with Mr. Calbi. I think Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound has done good work, and I think Bob Ludwig is good at what he does, though he is no stranger to snake oil.

In addition to calling out the guys who write for The Absolute Sound and other high-end consumer rags, perhaps we should spend more time calling out professionals for this nonsense.

The fact you feel you need to "CALL OUT" a guy for having an opinion on Youtube says a lot more about you than it does him.

 

[RayDunzl]

The fact you feel you need to "CALL OUT" a guy for having an opinion on Youtube says a lot more about you than it does him.

How does that differ from what you are doing here?

 

[Darkweb]

How does that differ from what you are doing here?

I'm certainly not creating any threads calling Ray Dunzl a fraud.

This sort of thing breeds toxicity and hate. Perhaps next time I'll just report it.

Good Day Ray