Stereophile doubles down on the snake oil!

[kemmler3D]

Depreciation is greater, too: Cables are almost a consumable.

This is actually great news. We've finally found the limit of the greater fool "theory" of investing.

not least, dynamics and rhythm: Are your feet tapping unconsciously in time to the performance?

At some point in my life, I assumed these guys were referring to an entirely different concept of rhythm when discussing gear because it doesn't make sense to mention it, phase distortion severe enough to register as a change in rhythm is almost a conceptual nonstarter even with speakers, let alone electronics.

But this seems like he means it literally. Like the few nanoseconds of delay the cable might introduce at 20khz is actually audible as a change in how the song is played. This would require time distortion (of some kind) of at least a millisecond, probably several, (and I'm being generous here) to start or stop someone tapping their feet.

Leaving aside that I don't know how this could even happen, that's about a (literal) million times more distortion than you get from a bad cable.

So there's two possibilities, one is this guy and people like him hear music vastly differently from me, to the point that the timing of the music can actually seem entirely jumbled based on his mental state... (Which would be fascinating to hear)

Or... He's completely full of it. Which is depressing, because it's just another example of brazen lying with no consequences.

These "audiophools" used to be amusing because their angry refusal to engage with reality was so wacky and strange.

Now you see the same tendency all over the place. Declining ad revenue for real journalists, and social media where any grifter or lunatic can reach millions have not only handicapped truth in the race against lies, but slashed its tires and stolen its alarm clock on race day.

Grateful for ASR, makes me wish there were comparable fact-committed channels for the public in medicine, politics, etc. Unfortunately I think you can find a "cable controversy" in every sphere these days.

 

[Cote Dazur]

Wow. And there went what integrity was left at Stereophile, lame

It does seem deeply weird even by Stereophile standards.

Stereophile integrity and standards? Really?

Stereophile has always been in on the scam.
I was a reader, back in the days in a far away galaxy when I was fumbling in the dark.
They have always been part of the problem with constant lies and misleading.
An enabler for the charlatans engaged in exploiting the misinformed seeking better sound.

 

[Esprit]

Out of curiosity, has anyone read his book? Is it worth reading?

[…]Acknowledged industry-wide as the definitive work on speaker design and analysis, High Performance Loudspeakers,Seventh Edition is essential reading for audio engineers, speaker designers, equipment designers and students of acoustic engineering, electronics and electro-acoustics. It will also prove invaluable to students of electronics, broadcasting and recording techniques, but will also be of interest to authors and journalists in audio, and not least, amateur loudspeaker builders and enthusiasts.[…]

 

[klettermann]

Several years ago I was bumming around in Sedona Arizona, the undisputed mother ship for energy channeling, paranormal phenomena and New Age gobbledygook in general. There was guy there offering "tachyon therapy." A tachyon, as I understand it, is a postulated and controversial faster-than-light particle that (not surprisingly) had yet to be observed.

Imagine my delight at finding a guy promoting Tachyon Therapy for treating numerous ailments! He developed a tachyon capture chamber to concentrate them in therapeutic quantities. 30 minutes, $2000- so I took a pass. Still, it seems to me we should try treating cables with it! Or, for that matter, using it to precondition electronics and accelerate break-in. You just never know....

 

[Speedskater]

At the end of the article John Atkinson refers to a 1995 article by Malcolm Omar Hawksford entitled, "The Essex Echo 1995: Electrical Signal Propagation & Cable Theory".

The major errors in the Hawksford paper were covered 3 decades ago.

 

[Kremmen]

This is actually great news. We've finally found the limit of the greater fool "theory" of investing.



At some point in my life, I assumed these guys were referring to an entirely different concept of rhythm when discussing gear because it doesn't make sense to mention it, phase distortion severe enough to register as a change in rhythm is almost a conceptual nonstarter even with speakers, let alone electronics.

But this seems like he means it literally. Like the few nanoseconds of delay the cable might introduce at 20khz is actually audible as a change in how the song is played. This would require time distortion (of some kind) of at least a millisecond, probably several, (and I'm being generous here) to start or stop someone tapping their feet.

Leaving aside that I don't know how this could even happen, that's about a (literal) million times more distortion than you get from a bad cable.

So there's two possibilities, one is this guy and people like him hear music vastly differently from me, to the point that the timing of the music can actually seem entirely jumbled based on his mental state... (Which would be fascinating to hear)

Or... He's completely full of it. Which is depressing, because it's just another example of brazen lying with no consequences.

These "audiophools" used to be amusing because their angry refusal to engage with reality was so wacky and strange.

Now you see the same tendency all over the place. Declining ad revenue for real journalists, and social media where any grifter or lunatic can reach millions have not only handicapped truth in the race against lies, but slashed its tires and stolen its alarm clock on race day.

Grateful for ASR, makes me wish there were comparable fact-committed channels for the public in medicine, politics, etc. Unfortunately I think you can find a "cable controversy" in every sphere these days.

After reading your fabulous and eloquently written response, I felt that a mere 'like' was insufficient to express how much I enjoyed reading it. You are so on the money with what you've said. Thanks!

 

[kemmler3D]

Several years ago I was bumming around in Sedona Arizona, the undisputed mother ship for energy channeling, paranormal phenomena and New Age gobbledygook in general. There was guy there offering "tachyon therapy." A tachyon, as I understand it, is a postulated and controversial faster-than-light particle that (not surprisingly) had yet to be observed.

Imagine my delight at finding a guy promoting Tachyon Therapy for treating numerous ailments! He developed a tachyon capture chamber to concentrate them in therapeutic quantities. 30 minutes, $2000- so I took a pass. Still, it seems to me we should try treating cables with it! Or, for that matter, using it to precondition electronics and accelerate break-in. You just never know....

There's a business model for you. Watch an episode of Star Trek and sell something you saw as a wellness product/service.

If he had an actual tachyon concentrator, 1) he'd get the nobel prize in physics, maybe they'd have to give him two, and 2) he could do a lot better than charge people $4K/hr for nonsense, he could probably travel back in time and take over the world.

After reading your fabulous and eloquently written response, I felt that a mere 'like' was insufficient to express how much I enjoyed reading it. You are so on the money with what you've said. Thanks!

Thanks for saying so!

 

[oleg87]

Maybe unfair, but to me it seems Martin Colloms has been muddying the hi-fi waters for long time.

At the end of the article John Atkinson refers to a 1995 article by Malcolm Omar Hawksford entitled, "The Essex Echo 1995: Electrical Signal Propagation & Cable Theory". That article seems to deal with the speed of propagation of signals within cables, arguing that aspects of the cable, e.g. diameter, can adversely affect transmission.

Since I'm no electrical engineer, scientist, or mathematician it's all gobbledygook to me but might be comprehensible to other people. The question is -- allowing for its from validity -- is it relevant to audio signals?

The wavelength of audio signals in electrical cables is measured in miles. Unless you are intending to run signals from your amp to another city, transmission line effects can be safely neglected.

 

[Keith_W]

[…]Acknowledged industry-wide as the definitive work on speaker design and analysis, High Performance Loudspeakers,Seventh Edition is essential reading for audio engineers, speaker designers, equipment designers and students of acoustic engineering, electronics and electro-acoustics. It will also prove invaluable to students of electronics, broadcasting and recording techniques, but will also be of interest to authors and journalists in audio, and not least, amateur loudspeaker builders and enthusiasts.[…]

I can read the marketing print as well as anybody else I was under the impression that Colloms was heavily invested in snake oil. Am I wrong on this? The person who recommended that book to me said that it is better than Vance Dickason's book.

 

[pjug]

There's a business model for you. Watch an episode of Star Trek and sell something you saw as a wellness product/service.

If he had an actual tachyon concentrator, 1) he'd get the nobel prize in physics, maybe they'd have to give him two, and 2) he could do a lot better than charge people $4K/hr for nonsense, he could probably travel back in time and take over the world.


Thanks for saying so!

Or sell orgone accumulator boxes. Willhelm Reich died in jail for violation of FDA but i doubt the current government would mind if you use them or sell them.

Orgone Accumulator Box - William Reich Handbook Summary

In the 1940s, an Austrian immigrant to the USA and refugee from Nazi Germany, Dr. Wilhelm Reich made the scientific discovery of a previously unknown energy existing within living organisms, in space, and in the atmosphere. Orgone energy as Dr. Reich discovered was synonymous with “life energy”,

www.orgoneenergy.org

 

[JeffS7444]

As a class, boutique cable makers are hugely important because they can afford Stereophile's pricest ad space.

 

[olieb]

If he had an actual tachyon concentrator, 1) he'd get the nobel prize in physics, maybe they'd have to give him two, and 2) he could do a lot better than charge people $4K/hr for nonsense, he could probably travel back in time and take over the world.

Nah, the problem is not so much about the concentrator, but about the tachyons. From what we know (our not know), my egg cup could be a tachyon concentrator and he will not get a Nobel Prize for stealing my egg cup.
But what in the world to do with all these tachyons?
One idea of course would be to use them to burn in those cables. If you see egg cup shaped cables in one of the next audio shows you will know what's going on.

 

[Purité Audio]

I don’t understand why Stereophile just doesn’t sack those old buffoons.
Get rid of the lot of them Editor down.
Surely they must realise that no-one believes their BS anymore.
Keith

 

[Talisman]

Surely they must realise that no-one believes their BS anymore.
Keith

If it were as you say there would be 610 sites like ASR and only one like stereophile, instead it is the opposite

 

[MoreWatts]

Colloms then posted a subjective review of a "complete loom" of Fraudioquest cables (~$6K) so he could somehow illustrate his points. Of course, the cable that made the most difference was the silver-plated Ethernet cable....

At least the first few comments tried to bring some sanity to the discussion.

BTW, Fraudioquest Ruby interconnects from the 90s are the only cable I have ever had physically fall apart to the point of being unusable....

 

[mns3dhm]

Stereophile has always had significant advertising content placed by cable manufacturers and nearly all of their beat writers do seem to have expensive cabling disclosed in the ‘associated equipment’ segment attached to equipment reviews. I give them some credit - they’re not hiding anything, even if I think this latest article is nearly entirely nonsense.

 

[Thighsofsteel]

I don’t understand why Stereophile just doesn’t sack those old buffoons.
Get rid of the lot of them Editor down.
Surely they must realise that no-one believes their BS anymore.
Keith

Many obviously do as it is still going, like many other sites and mags around the world.

 

[mns3dhm]

I don’t understand why Stereophile just doesn’t sack those old buffoons.
Get rid of the lot of them Editor down.
Surely they must realise that no-one believes their BS anymore.
Keith

Pretty sure the real ‘consumers’ of Stereophile are the advertisers. That is who the magazine is devoted to and the reader is just a secondary consideration. The advertisers must believe advertising in Stereophile has a positive ROI or they wouldn’t be doing it. As long as ad revenue is steady, I wouldn’t expect any big editorial changes. Tariffs and politics must have them on edge though - pretty hard to forecast ad revenue in this environment.

 

[Mart68]

Colloms then posted a subjective review of a "complete loom" of Fraudioquest cables (~$6K) so he could somehow illustrate his points. Of course, the cable that made the most difference was the silver-plated Ethernet cable....

At least the first few comments tried to bring some sanity to the discussion.

BTW, Fraudioquest Ruby interconnects from the 90s are the only cable I have ever had physically fall apart to the point of being unusable....

I have a set of Fraudioquest 'Topaz' from the same era. Still in service, connecting a Topping E30 to a NAD C320BEE in my TV system.

That system is probably not expensive/resolving enough to reveal their magical powers, but they are still going without any fall-apart.

 

[kemmler3D]

Pretty sure the real ‘consumers’ of Stereophile are the advertisers. That is who the magazine is devoted to and the reader is just a secondary consideration.

Yes, I was going to say something similar in response to @Purité Audio ... whether people in general believe the BS is irrelevant, what matters to Stereophile is whether advertisers believe that consumers believe it.