Stupid mistakes big companies make on specs, brochures or websites. Doh!

[restorer-john]

I see it all the time. Absolutely dumb mistakes nobody picked up. Post them all here.

Here's a beauty from Yamaha for their top of the line integrated amplifier, the A-S3200!

On the Australian website and on the US website. Same text, same image.

They get two Dohs! from me.

 

[restorer-john]

An oldie from Amazon, but a goodie:

 

[Blumlein 88]

So impressively low noise or impressively low noise to signal ratio would have been okay.

I need to dig out my Pierra Verany test disc. The manual seems to have been translated from French to Chinese and Chinese to English. Plenty of examples.

I remember one pair of safety glasses from one of the worlds largest suppliers of such. One of their low end sets had advantages printed on the box. Someone must have said, "put 4 advantages on the box". 3 of them were "negative advantages" and very honest. The two that stick in my mind were:

NON-Scratch resistant lens.
LOW-Impact resistance.

And boy was it the truth. The plastic was so soft putting it in a cotton shirt pocket scarred it up. Almost one use throwaways.

Oh, and if you ever see a VHS copy, I once had a copy of The Holy Grail (Monty Python). It was translated from English to Japanese, from Japanese to Chinese, and then a pirated copy translated to English from Chinese. It made some scenes of what I considered possibly the funniest movie ever made even more funny.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Not quite the same thing, but maybe close enough. How did this ever make it thru to be used as the cycling uniform for the Columbian women's team.

Well after some criticism, the team defended the design. It was designed by the lady in the glasses for the team.

And these were maybe the 2nd worst ever for a cycling team of women to wear.

 

[restorer-john]

I need to dig out my Pierra Verany test disc. The manual seems to have been translated from French to Chinese and Chinese to English.

I've got the original two disc Pierre Verany here. Which part of the booklet- I'll look it up?

 

[Blumlein 88]

I've got the original two disc Pierre Verany here. Which part of the booklet- I'll look it up?

It has been awhile since I looked at it. I just remember multiple funny translations.

 

[Veri]

Not quite the same thing, but maybe close enough. How did this ever make it thru to be used as the cycling uniform for the Columbian women's team.
View attachment 101999
Well after some criticism, the team defended the design. It was designed by the lady in the glasses for the team.

And these were maybe the 2nd worst ever for a cycling team of women to wear.
View attachment 102001

.

 

[whazzup]

Oh this is fun. Have a recent one:

https://www.jbl.com.sg/loudspeakers/JBLA130BLK.html
The JBL Stage A130 apparently has a powered 8" subwoofer somewhere inside its cabinet. Amazing engineering and value!

Note: So does the A120. Even more astonishing value.
https://www.jbl.com.sg/loudspeakers/STAGE+A120.html

 

[sweetchaos]

Not really stupid mistakes...but more funny...
Moukey M20-1 on amazon.com shows

1. Frequency Response: 20-20kHz
"For $50, we're defying physics."
2. Complex structure, do not open
"We don't want you to look inside to see how bad this is!"
or another way of looking at it
"Good luck opening this bad boy, we've nailed it shut!"

 

[Beave]

On the back panel of the Parasound HCA-500 stereo amplifier from the early 1990s:

"To Prevent Fire or Shock Hazard, Unit To Rain or Do Not Expose This Moisture"

 

[Mnyb]

Not really stupid mistakes...but more funny...
Moukey M20-1 on amazon.com shows

View attachment 102003

1. Frequency Response: 20-20kHz
"For $50, we're defying physics."
2. Complex structure, do not open
"We don't want you to look inside to see how bad this is!"
or another way of looking at it
"Good luck opening this bad boy, we've nailed it shut!"

No 1 is always true you just don’t qualify the deviation in dB at +- 60dB every speaker in the world is 20-20kHz
That’s actually sadly how this specs are made , but they are not usually that bold 35-20kHz with -10dB in the fine print , in room ofcourse, oh and level should it also be on any usable level

 

[Sir Sanders Zingmore]

Actually removed: was more an unusual design choice than questionable marketing

 

[ShadowFiend]

I see it all the time. Absolutely dumb mistakes nobody picked up. Post them all here.

Here's a beauty from Yamaha for their top of the line integrated amplifier, the A-S3200!

On the Australian website and on the US website. Same text, same image.
View attachment 101986

View attachment 101988

They get two Dohs! from me.

That is not mistakes. It is called marketing. First, there are no official rules or laws to specify what is a threshold of signal-to-noise ratio to be considers as impressive low signal-to-noise ratio in audio/video, so what they called here is not wrong or big mistakes by any means.

Second, in the "flat" world/market, manufactures, not just in AV industry, must find a way to sell their products, and overrating their products and tell the half truth is always a common way. An example, is the CPU/GPU industry with all the big names, Intel/AMD/Nvidia. Nvidia told us that the 3070 is better than 2080Ti, but in test, it is better in 1-2 test and lost around 5-10% in others.

If you want honest marketing, it can only be happened in critical products, which can be government related, or effect health and survival condition of people. Or products are components to manufacturing industry. For mass consumer products, you will not get that. Period.

 

[pozz]

impressive low signal-to-noise ratio

Low SNR = Bad
High SNR = Good

Louis Fielder published research on this: https://secure.aes.org/forum/pubs/conventions/?elib=11981 The number he gave was 118dB SNR.

 

[renevoorburg]

I just came across a consumer-to-consumer ad of an amp with this photo attached. Wonder how that will sound when it is demoed:

 

[pozz]

If you want honest marketing, it can only be happen in critical products, which can be government related, or effect health and survival condition of people. Or products are components to manufacturing industry. For mass consumer products, you will not get that. Period.

Also, I happen to work in this intersection of industries. The practices are the same other than in documents or media covered by disclosure regulations. Much of the experience in the field when making new partners or assessing products is in learning to ask penetrating questions about represented capabilities or the like. The same kinds of conflicts of interest are around (think lobbying). It usually comes down to people pushing for more honest disclosures and the company or government entity suffering unless they make those.

 

[LTig]

Anyone remember the ads of tiny pc speakers claiming 1000 W PMPO and more? I always said that this is the short time power they emit when you burn them down.

 

[Atanasi]

I just came across a consumer-to-consumer ad of an amp with this photo attached. Wonder how that will sound when it is demoed:
View attachment 102086

It's a mono filter.

 

[LearningToSmile]

The only thing I remember catching(and I'm only 99% sure it's a mistake, hey, maybe they're using new lightweight technology) is Dynaudio stating on their website their 22Hz - 175Hz studio subwoofer weighs only 10.5kg:

I was interested in maybe buying it at some point but that just seemed unbelievably flimsy. But EVERYONE seemed to list the same weight - Amazon, Thomann, other retailers, bunch of reviews etc.

Only places that list what I think is the correct weight was the only review that also included measurements, and Sweetwater - both putting it at a lot more reasonable, if still not substantial ~18 kg/40 lbs.