I am not interested in prosecuting snake oil salesmen for fraud. But I think sources like ASR are good for discussing whether $1000 amps actually sound better than $400 amps, in typical listening situations. Not to mention, $40,000 amps.
It information is available, for anyone interested in saving money.
There are videos of people breaking and blowing stuff up. Some people must find this entertaining. I’m not completely immune.
I think it’s fairly rare for manufacturers to outright lie about verifiable numbers.
Except for power ratings. That seems to be a lost cause.
Manufacturers of snake oil products often utterly eschew measurements and campaign against their use. You've heard my opinion of that, however difficult it would be to prosecute them for fraud. And it is very much what this site does to expose such for what it is using meaningful measurements.
But the real snake oil is a lie based on a lie. They lie that being expensive makes it more effective, and they lie that what they are selling has a salutary effect of any sort when it often had none at all. A box of dirt to be used as a ground? An audiophile power cable? Audiophile USB cables? These are cynical rip-offs, and they survive only on the testimonials of a willing press and severely biased customer testimonials. They make the lie stick by charging four figures for the box of dirt.
The people who are deluded by such are not the criminals, until they start aggressively expecting others to believe them or fix it when they discover they've been deluded.
It's not the old lady who thinks the eye-of-newt supplement will ease her discomforts who is at fault--she wants to believe even if she knows down deep that it's just a placebo effect. It's the "doctor" who claims special expertise and knowledge that everyone would recognize were it not for the FDA or Big Pharma or whatever "covering it up".
Now, let me identify three amps for consideration: A Buckeye NC502MP, a Benchmark AHB-1, and a Krell Duo 300XD. Prices are $750, $3500, and $13,000 (at the few retailers that still have them), respectively, based on my quick googling. The Benchmark is the least powerful of the three, but let's say they are all powerful enough not to clip at the desired listening levels. Would any of us be able to tell the difference between them reliably into the majority of speakers? Probably not. Are any of them snake oil? Absolutely not. All three deliver exactly what they say they deliver.
But the Krell...
Looks a lot cooler than the Benchmark...
Which looks a lot cooler than the Buckeye...
And the Krell might do it into 1-ohm Wilson speakers, and we all are pretty aware that the Benchmark is made better and more reliably than the Hypex module in the Buckeye. (I own the Buckeye, by the way, and am completely happy with it.) But from a purely functional viewpoint, we doubt anyone would be able to distinguish them in controlled subjective testing.
But if I was the kind of guy who hires an interior designer to help me arrange my Picasso collection around my $200,000 Fazioli grand piano, the Buckeye may well just not do.
None of these are in any way relatable to audiophile USB cords, cable lifters, or boxes of dirt which have precisely zero efficacy.
Rick "interior designers need to eat, too, as do the former workers in the Krell factory in Connecticut" Denney
www.usatoday.com
