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Snake Oil Department, Top This
- Thread starter Ron Texas
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dougi
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Only tangential to snake oil, but the 'Phile's latest opinion piece "in defence of sticker shock" seems to not bother with actual researched costs of product development and retail, only vague theories. Plus a sideways dig at this forum in the statement "Anger, Smugness, and Rigidity found on certain objectivist audio forums"!
"In defense of sticker shock"
"In defense of sticker shock"
BeeKay
Major Contributor
However, not a totally bad take by that editor. Sometimes it serves one (us) well to take another perspective. Can’t hurt.
I laughed out loud at this paragraph in the Stereophile article ...
"We don't flinch when a car costs 50, 60 grand or more. It's useful, and it can be a joyous purchase. But a car only gets you from A to B. The right stereo can take you everywhere else—into memory, emotion, time."
.... mostly because my car goes from A to B and also has a stereo
It's also the idea being pushed that you need to spend $00000s to be able to have an emotional connection with music. That is just absurd.
"We don't flinch when a car costs 50, 60 grand or more. It's useful, and it can be a joyous purchase. But a car only gets you from A to B. The right stereo can take you everywhere else—into memory, emotion, time."
.... mostly because my car goes from A to B and also has a stereo
It's also the idea being pushed that you need to spend $00000s to be able to have an emotional connection with music. That is just absurd.
Alexander Gödde
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That's exactly it:
The constant pushing of "more expensive is better", the constant "it's unfair to compare this very good not atrociously expensive component to something that costs five times as much" is the problem, not the existence of luxury goods by itself.
No, it is not unfair to compare them. Digital sources, DACs and amps are solved problems. There is no "more transparent than transparent". And as their own measurements show, sometimes more expensive has audible issues which especially goes for a lot of the speakers.
The funny thing is that, just as their measurements all too frequently ... are a bit at odds with the subjective impressions of their reviewers, their recommended components include sanely priced gear that they obviously consider to be equally good as the overpriced "audacious audio" jewellery, completely contradicting their claim that you need to spend megabucks to get great sound.
IPunchCholla
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Also, the majority of people do flinch at those car prices. Most people buy used. Most people never consider a new car as an option even.I laughed out loud at this paragraph in the Stereophile article ...
"We don't flinch when a car costs 50, 60 grand or more. It's useful, and it can be a joyous purchase. But a car only gets you from A to B. The right stereo can take you everywhere else—into memory, emotion, time."
.... mostly because my car goes from A to B and also has a stereo
It's also the idea being pushed that you need to spend $00000s to be able to have an emotional connection with music. That is just absurd.
By analogy, does one need to be sitting on the balcony of a five star hotel sipping an expensive glass of wine to fully experience an emotional connection to the beautiful landscape ahead?
I would assert that any basic well designed chair will provide the necessary functionality to access that lovely view in comfort.
The waiters, oversized wine glasses, marble countertops, bespoke artwork, Italian porcelain tiles, thick pile carpets - well they are just expensive embellishments to make one feel like the whole experience is somehow superior ....
I would assert that any basic well designed chair will provide the necessary functionality to access that lovely view in comfort.
The waiters, oversized wine glasses, marble countertops, bespoke artwork, Italian porcelain tiles, thick pile carpets - well they are just expensive embellishments to make one feel like the whole experience is somehow superior ....
Petrushka
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Snake oil refers to claims of superior function. Beauty and luxury are different category.
Just my POV, each to their own.
Devnull
Active Member
Seriously? I don't think I know anyone over the age of 25 who hasn't owned a new car. In the 50+ age group I would estimate 90+% of recent purchases are new, including summer use only toys.
BeeKay
Major Contributor
Certainly depends on your neighbourhood. As a general statement it fails to match reality in every country on this planet.
IPunchCholla
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Devnull
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Yup. But that doesn't support your statement that "most people don't even consider a new car". If you look at planned car purchases around a third of the people plan used, a third to a half new and the remainder undecided, it's been that way for decades in the North American market. A quick Google search turned up a survey that showed around 10% of the car owners had never owned a new car which means 90% had. Even if the 90% is double the actual rate of new car owners, it's not a stretch to theorize that 5% considered a new car
Anecdotal experience only: I am over 50 and have purchased three new cars in my lifetime. I have purchased six used cars for me and my family.
My habits extend to my audio gear. Of the thirteen components I currently use across two systems (counting a pair of speakers as one component), only one component was purchased new.
One way I avoid overpriced audio "snake oil" is to buy well-regarded, well-kept used components with the expected depreciation that comes from that. That way, even if the functional aspects are not inherently superior, I have paid less of a premium to acquire the unit.
When Stereophile made the false equivalence with hi-fi.
I suppose the bulk of their readership probably do buy new cars that cost $50K plus.
That's the point really - high end is aimed at people who do have the money for it, their problem is convincing them to spend it on hi-fi as opposed to some other Veblen good. Or just investing it.
They have to counter the thinking rich man's instinct that tells him a hundred grand DAC or amp probably doesn't do anything a much cheaper one does. Even at ten grand you can get all the luxury finish and after sales care possible.
They can't with measurements, so we have 'emotional connection' as the heart of the sales pitch. Plus the back story, the cult of the designer and so on. Many of their reviews will have 500 words just about the designer, his background (usually exotic, but at best only tangentially related to audio), his philosophy, and his 'secret sauce' that, miraculously, no-one else has come up with in the hundred previous years.
IPunchCholla
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The data on this does suck. That 90% number seems highly skewed compared to the number of new cars actually being sold. I would love to see the methodology. I also don’t give credence to people planning to buy new as the majority of Americans believe they will be in the 1% of top wage earners some day. And people also don’t flinch at being told something can be reduced in price by 600%.
What we really need to know is the median new car price, not the average as there is a hard floor to new car price and no ceiling, meaning the average should be significantly higher than median.
Regardless, even average is below the low end 50k stereophile mentioned meaning most people become sensitive to car prices before that point.
Given the differing engineering tasks involved, and differing economies of scale, I’ll. Just say I don’t know how many people buy new cars, but it is an apples to oranges comparison regardless.
It's pretty rich from people who apparently believe that power cables, USB cables, and boxes of dirt affect sound accuse those who want to see measurements of being smug.
And rigidity? Ya gadda be kidding me! Nobody has been more rigid in their beliefs as those who hold to them against all reasonable measurement or qualified physical explanation.
Rick "knows gaslighting when he sees it" Denney
Alexander Gödde
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They think we are smug because we reject the majority of their idiocies-du-jour without bothering to listen to them. How can we be so sure if their ears tell them there are clear differences, and other audiophiles (and their wives listening from the kitchen) concur?
It all starts with the mistaken belief in the absolute validity of their sensual perception and the invalidity or insufficiency of measurements. A curt but correct "digital cables cannot have a sound because that's not how any of this works" then appears as a refusal to engage with what they consider to be their arguments, and as rigidly believing in something they consider constantly disproven in their own experience. They think we are the idiots and lunatics.
It all starts with the mistaken belief in the absolute validity of their sensual perception and the invalidity or insufficiency of measurements. A curt but correct "digital cables cannot have a sound because that's not how any of this works" then appears as a refusal to engage with what they consider to be their arguments, and as rigidly believing in something they consider constantly disproven in their own experience. They think we are the idiots and lunatics.
