Snake Oil Department, Top This

[tvrgeek]

Even sadder, a member here complained a $350 power amp that performs phenomenally does not have $15 binding posts. If he would buy one and send it to me, I will gladly install them for $1000.

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

Do people at Shunyata or Nordost really believe their bullcrap or are they just making things up to just earn money?
Are they real firm believers that their products do have a benefit?

My favourite is a Crystal Cable 1 metre USB cable at £6,500. Took part in a HiFi Choice group test and was rated as being slightly better than a Chord Co. USB cable at £40. Then there are the bits of wood you place under your speaker cables.

 

[Killingbeans]

Then there are the bits of wood you place under your speaker cables.

AudioQuest swears by fishing line: https://www.audioquest.com/accessories/audio-enhancements/fog-lifters

 

[voodooless]

Then there are the bits of wood you place under your speaker cables.

Can I have some of the 32 bit wood, please?

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

Can I have some of the 32 bit wood, please?

I’m in the position to save you thousands. Prepared to send you a 2 metre length or 60mm x 60mm pine for €500 + post and packing, with a free saw thrown in.

 

[Sal1950]

One does have to wonder about the customers. But if you can spend 3K on a power cord, well the wealth does need to be distributed. Where I get upset is the salesman selling $300 cables to the lady buying $250 speakers. He should be selling $500 speakers and tossing in some zip cord.

That reminds me of an old girlfriend of mine, about 15 years ago she went to the store to buy her first flat-screen TV without me one day. When she came home she proudly showed me the receipt for a very nice Sony 42" TV and a number of fairly expensive cables the salesman assured her she needed to get the best picture from her satellite receiver, XBox, and DVD player. I don't remember the exact cost of the items but no matter how hard I tried to convince her to return the cables, saying I could get her the exact same performance for 10 - 20% of what she paid, nope. She was convinced the salesman knew more than I and kept the cables which came in somewhere around half or more than the price of TV alone...
Oh well, her money not mine.

 

[KeenObserver]

Does Bob Stuart believe what he talks about?

 

[antcollinet]

I think I'm in a language barrier here. Can anyone native English speaker take a glance at this article and tell me if I'm getting it right and the author is mocking the 7n high purity snake oil with a sense of humor, or he is actually admiring the BS?

NPS 1260 3D Enhancer Solution - Positive Feedback

NPS 1260 3D Enhancer Solution

positive-feedback.com

Poe's law strikes again. Or doesn't - depending on how you look at it.

 

[antcollinet]

Sorry mansr, ;-) but regarding « KEF HYDRO BLASTER: IMPROVED WIRELESS AUDIO EXPERIENCE IN A CAN »,
there is a tag on the page indicating April Fools, and the date is the day just before april 1st
« Hydro Blaster Wireless Audio RF Wifi Bluetooth April Fools »

That'll be Poe's law again.

 

[Germinal]

I think we just need to accept that the vast majority of the so called "audiophile" industry is snake oil. It is akin to homeopathic remedies and about the same size. There is no science and the industry has not desire to police itself and it needs useful idiots to survive. What value is there to audiogon to be anything but a parade of lunacy? None. Their whole existence, financial and otherwise is premised on wilful ignorance and yes, intentional deception. Any number of companies and websites are no different. It is shameful, it is dishonest, it is what it is.

I find this a bit difficult to believe. Because it seems like you are saying : a DAC is a DAC, an amp is an amp.. they all sound the same. Ofcourse this isn’t the case. In case they measure exactly thesame they should sound exactly alike but can you measure everything relevant to the characteristic of the sound ?

If, on the other hand, you mean : there is no correlation between price and performance then to a certain extent that statement might hold some truth to it.

Although I have my doubts.. any company selling well above market price will go out of business asap. And you can fool some people but you can’t fool em all.

I did my due diligence and bought an amp which I thought sounded better than everything else I tried. I also preformed some blind AB testing and actually preferred a much cheaper one.

That is not to say all is snake-oil.

I guess the main problem is : sound is an almost ephemeral thing. You can’t see it, you can’t register it. It’s difficult to talk about and thus the opinions vary wildly.

Compare this to the world of still camera’s and the proof is right there. I don’t care which camera measures best. I only care how the RAW files look when coupled with decent glass. But even in that world preferences vary wildly..

I would love to live in a world where a 100 dollar DAC sounds exactly as a 10k DAC or a 100 dollar speaker sounds as a 10k speaker.. but alas then I wake up

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

I find this a bit difficult to believe. Because it seems like you are saying : a DAC is a DAC, an amp is an amp.. they all sound the same. Ofcourse this isn’t the case. In case they measure exactly thesame they should sound exactly alike but can you measure everything relevant to the characteristic of the sound ?

If, on the other hand, you mean : there is no correlation between price and performance then to a certain extent that statement might hold some truth to it.

Although I have my doubts.. any company selling well above market price will go out of business asap. And you can fool some people but you can’t fool em all.

I did my due diligence and bought an amp which I thought sounded better than everything else I tried. I also preformed some blind AB testing and actually preferred a much cheaper one.

That is not to say all is snake-oil.

I guess the main problem is : sound is an almost ephemeral thing. You can’t see it, you can’t register it. It’s difficult to talk about and thus the opinions vary wildly.

Compare this to the world of still camera’s and the proof is right there. I don’t care which camera measures best. I only care how the RAW files look when coupled with decent glass. But even in that world preferences vary wildly..

I would love to live in a world where a 100 dollar DAC sounds exactly as a 10k DAC or a 100 dollar speaker sounds as a 10k speaker.. but alas then I wake up

The wholesale condemnation of the HiFi industry is unwarranted. All consumer products have a degree of misinformation when it comes to selling. Look at the cosmetic/beauty industry and please don’t mention ‘snake oil‘ to them or they’ll be selling it tomorrow as a cure for all perceived imperfections in Women’s appearance. Our shelves in the bathroom can’t take any more!

 

[audio2design]

I find this a bit difficult to believe. Because it seems like you are saying : a DAC is a DAC, an amp is an amp.. they all sound the same. Ofcourse this isn’t the case. In case they measure exactly thesame they should sound exactly alike but can you measure everything relevant to the characteristic of the sound ?

If, on the other hand, you mean : there is no correlation between price and performance then to a certain extent that statement might hold some truth to it.

Although I have my doubts.. any company selling well above market price will go out of business asap. And you can fool some people but you can’t fool em all.

I did my due diligence and bought an amp which I thought sounded better than everything else I tried. I also preformed some blind AB testing and actually preferred a much cheaper one.

That is not to say all is snake-oil.

I guess the main problem is : sound is an almost ephemeral thing. You can’t see it, you can’t register it. It’s difficult to talk about and thus the opinions vary wildly.

Compare this to the world of still camera’s and the proof is right there. I don’t care which camera measures best. I only care how the RAW files look when coupled with decent glass. But even in that world preferences vary wildly..

I would love to live in a world where a 100 dollar DAC sounds exactly as a 10k DAC or a 100 dollar speaker sounds as a 10k speaker.. but alas then I wake up

1) You conflate sound with signals, and yes, some $100ish DACs will sound like some $10K DACs in most systems if they have the same design goal, i.e. transparency.

2) Many high end speakers are quite questionable w.r.t. performance and hence value, but no one is suggesting a top notch speaker can be built for $100 as in most mechanical things.

However, to easily prove my point. Pick almost any audiophile product today. Now find me on the suppliers website full technical specifications including performance graphs. Good luck on that one. You can't even find a manufacturer published response curve for a cartridge these days, and even things that should be readily available, i.e. response versus impedance matching .. nada. This was not always the case, and consumers are not better for it.

HOWEVER, what is the issue is claims versus reality. While many vendors, probably the ones that can afford lawyers, will just settle for total bullshit word salad so that you can't really say they are wrong, since they are not saying anything, other either overly, or indirectly lie. False claims, made up science for many are more standard course of action as opposed to rare instances. My favourites is the ones with inferior products who make claims of superiority, technically, of their implementations.

And last, the nail in the coffin. If the claims of the suppliers were factual, then they would be jumping over themselves performing public blind tests to prove the "obvious" nature of their claims. They do not. They are selling Louis Vuitton bags, and claiming they hold 10 times more stuff than a bag the same size made by others.

 

[FrantzM]

I find this a bit difficult to believe. Because it seems like you are saying : a DAC is a DAC, an amp is an amp.. they all sound the same. Ofcourse this isn’t the case. In case they measure exactly thesame they should sound exactly alike but can you measure everything relevant to the characteristic of the sound ?

If, on the other hand, you mean : there is no correlation between price and performance then to a certain extent that statement might hold some truth to it.

Although I have my doubts.. any company selling well above market price will go out of business asap. And you can fool some people but you can’t fool em all.

I did my due diligence and bought an amp which I thought sounded better than everything else I tried. I also preformed some blind AB testing and actually preferred a much cheaper one.

That is not to say all is snake-oil.

I guess the main problem is : sound is an almost ephemeral thing. You can’t see it, you can’t register it. It’s difficult to talk about and thus the opinions vary wildly.

Compare this to the world of still camera’s and the proof is right there. I don’t care which camera measures best. I only care how the RAW files look when coupled with decent glass. But even in that world preferences vary wildly..

I would love to live in a world where a 100 dollar DAC sounds exactly as a 10k DAC or a 100 dollar speaker sounds a10k speaker.. but alas then I wake up

Welcome
You are a lucky person: you do live in this world where $11.oo DAC sound the same as a $15,000.oo one … You don’t need sleeping aid or mind altering substance or a portal .. For speakers … the ratio is not so lopsided … but $500 (or less) can bring some speakers that will wipe the floor with some 10 K speakers …
Peace

 

[Killingbeans]

In case they measure exactly thesame they should sound exactly alike but can you measure everything relevant to the characteristic of the sound ?

Yes. The only problem is finding out what's relevant in a specific case.

And you can fool some people but you can’t fool em all.

That's how countermovements like ASR came to be

That is not to say all is snake-oil.

Of course not. It's just very, very prevalent.

I guess the main problem is : sound is an almost ephemeral thing. You can’t see it, you can’t register it. It’s difficult to talk about and thus the opinions vary wildly.

I think you're talking about music. Sound itself is a different thing, and it's not that complicated (other than acoustics).

 

[Germinal]

1) You conflate sound with signals, and yes, some $100ish DACs will sound like some $10K DACs in most systems if they have the same design goal, i.e. transparency.

2) Many high end speakers are quite questionable w.r.t. performance and hence value, but no one is suggesting a top notch speaker can be built for $100 as in most mechanical things.

However, to easily prove my point. Pick almost any audiophile product today. Now find me on the suppliers website full technical specifications including performance graphs. Good luck on that one. You can't even find a manufacturer published response curve for a cartridge these days, and even things that should be readily available, i.e. response versus impedance matching .. nada. This was not always the case, and consumers are not better for it.

HOWEVER, what is the issue is claims versus reality. While many vendors, probably the ones that can afford lawyers, will just settle for total bullshit word salad so that you can't really say they are wrong, since they are not saying anything, other either overly, or indirectly lie. False claims, made up science for many are more standard course of action as opposed to rare instances. My favourites is the ones with inferior products who make claims of superiority, technically, of their implementations.

And last, the nail in the coffin. If the claims of the suppliers were factual, then they would be jumping over themselves performing public blind tests to prove the "obvious" nature of their claims. They do not. They are selling Louis Vuitton bags, and claiming they hold 10 times more stuff than a bag the same size made by others.

Its indeed very strange that they dont make technical details available.. on the other hand.. neither does a car manufacturer..

That’s a good point.. maybe there’s the need to make a distinction between the signal and the sound.. I suppose different DAC’s and/or amps threat the signal differently so this in turn creates a different sound.. but whether different is better.. that’s another question and whether more expensive gear - in general - equate to more musical, more transparant.. That’s something I honestly don’t know..

From albeit limited experience I can say that in some cases at least there is a hughe difference between a 2-3k speaker and an 8k speaker.

A few months ago I listened to someone’s system costing around 150k.. He had the system set up in an apartment and always had to play it really low volume..

It didn’t sound bad but in that case ( apartment ) it’s just a waste of money.. maybe also in other instances but big speakers in general cost much more than small speakers.

He was rambling about only playing from CD because streaming wasn’t up to his standards.. when I asked why… He said : “well those data centres they pollute the signal” to which. I replied : “ how can you pollute bits and bytes ??? “ let’s say he didn’t know what to say anymore.. he also had his speaker cables up from the ground..‍

I don’t believe in all that crap and some people really seem nuts BUT it’s a bit too cynical to call a whole industry basically snake oil.. no ?

PS Just as speakers are mechanical so are DAC’s and AMP’s ( just to a lesser degree )

 

[Germinal]

Yes. The only problem is finding out what's relevant in a specific case.



That's how countermovements like ASR came to be



Of course not. It's just very, very prevalent.



I think you're talking about music. Sound itself is a different thing, and it's not that complicated (other than acoustics).

Yes, was talking about music.. sorry..

Suppose I have a budget of 10k..

Is the general consensus on ASR to spend 9k on speakers, 500 on an amp, 300 on a DAC/streamer and get cables from a general
Store for 50 ?

 

[Killingbeans]

that’s another question and whether more expensive gear - in general - equate to more musical, more transparant.. That’s something I honestly don’t know..

In terms of (measured) transparency, you can get a bit of an overview by looking at the reviews on this site.

For instance, this:

Topping D10s USB DAC and Bridge Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Topping D10s USB DAC and S/PDIF plus Toslink bridge. It was kindly sent to me by the company for testing. The D10s has a retail cost of US $99. Let me start by confessing that the original D10 was one of my favorites with its cute orange...

www.audiosciencereview.com

...wipes the floor with this:

Review and Measurements of Totaldac d1-six DAC

This is a review of the Totaldac d1-six DAC and headphone amplifier. It was kindly shipped from europe to me for testing by a member at a high shipping cost of over 200 euros. The d1-six costs 13,500 euros including VAT in Europe and $12,400 for export. The latter translates into US $13,816...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Whether it's "musical" or even audible is a completely different subject. That discussion ensues every time a big bucks piece of gear shows embarrassing measurements.

PS Just as speakers are mechanical so are DAC’s and AMP’s ( just to a lesser degree )

Susceptibility to vibrations? Nahh, tube amps maybe(?), the rest is pure myth.

Suppose I have a budget of 10k..

Is the general consensus on ASR to spend 9k on speakers, 500 on an amp, 300 on a DAC/streamer and get cables from a general
Store for 50 ?

Pretty much, yes. At least the part about spending the vast majority on the speakers. You don't want cables with cold solder joints that fall apart after a week, but... yeah.

EDIT: Forgot to put room treatment, room correction (DSP/PEQ) and calibrated measurement mic in the budget. A handful of subwoofers probably also would be a good idea in some situations, but I guess that goes under 'speakers'.

 

[rdenney]

Yes, was talking about music.. sorry..

Suppose I have a budget of 10k..

Is the general consensus on ASR to spend 9k on speakers, 500 on an amp, 300 on a DAC/streamer and get cables from a general
Store for 50 ?

It depends on your goals and situation. $500 on the amp might not get you a new one.

But let's postulate: A pair of Revel Performa F226Be towers ($7700), plus a Buckeye NC502MP ($649), plus (just picking something from the review database--I don't do streamers) a Audiophonics RASPDAC MINI LCD KIT Streamer ($200). Good quality interconnects and 12-gauge speaker wire.

Now, set it up in a room properly. With the money left over, you might need to find a subwoofer to help with that, plus a coupla hundred for a calibrated mic. Use REW with the microphone to place the speakers in the room properly and EQ for appropriate response.

I think you'd get 99.8% of what's possible for humans to hear, in terms of performance. Is it state of the art? No. That's the other 0.2%, but you'd need training to hear that difference--maybe a lot of training. And youth.

Add $3000 and go with the Revel Performa F228Be and get a system that will play louder and deeper.

You could certainly do a LOT worse for that amount.

Rick "you may not like how it looks, of course, or the way it makes you feel when looking at it" Denney

 

[audio2design]

Yes, was talking about music.. sorry..

Suppose I have a budget of 10k..

Is the general consensus on ASR to spend 9k on speakers, 500 on an amp, 300 on a DAC/streamer and get cables from a general
Store for 50 ?

I would spend

4-7,000 on the speakers (including at least 2 subs)
2-4,000 on room treatment
500 on DAC
Nothing on streamer if I could (use a PC) but budget for USB isolation just in case, or a Bluesound NODE purely for software support ($500).
PC gets you enough DSP if needed for room correction but also for changing tone for preference if desired, but if not something else to do room correction.
$1000-1500 for an amp.

 

[Galliardist]

Yes, was talking about music.. sorry..

Suppose I have a budget of 10k..

Is the general consensus on ASR to spend 9k on speakers, 500 on an amp, 300 on a DAC/streamer and get cables from a general
Store for 50 ?

For me, it would depend very much on your situation - whether you are sat on a stash of LPs you want to play, if you will have a dedicated room or are setting up in a living room, bedroom or some other space: the physical setup of that space, including its size: your own biases: who else will use the system and the room: the possiblity of annoying neighbours: your preferred interface with the music and system. There will probably be other factors as well.

There's no magic set of prices.

Having said those things, I'd assume the ASR concensus would be looking to include DSP for equalisation, so budget for a measurement microphone and accessories unless you can borrow one for setup.

In a dedicated room, certainly, a multi channel system would also get a fair amount of support here (I wouldn't say consensus though). That may change the budget division a fair bit.