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Synergistic Research apparently at "war" against Gene from Audioholics

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David Harper said:
I once sat in the audience at a magic show in which I swear to God I saw a woman disappear. So did everyone else. It made me question everything I think I know. Did she disappear? I don't think so. But that's what I saw. He stuffed her into a box that was approx. 3ftx3ftx3ft. The box was on top of a small table with nothing around it but air. He rotated it 360 degrees, opened it up again, and she was gone. After the show I actually went looking for the magician. I was determined to find out how he did it but he was gone. The magic show was on a beach. By the time I returned there was nothing on the beach but sand. Not only can you not believe your ears , but sometimes you can't believe your eyes.
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It is said that the moment she disappeared, audiophiles in the area reported a widening of the soundstage, greater separation between the instruments, and a deepening of the bass.
 
MattHooper said:
As a "foodie" myself (yeah, I'll cop to the much maligned term), that's generally not what it means. "Foodie" generally denotes "a person with a particular interest in food; a gourmet" or "A foodie is a person who has an ardent or refined interest in food and who eats food not only out of hunger but also as a hobby." And many of course will follow food fads.

To be a foodie is not to claim Golden Taste Buds (though some may). It's just an ardent interest in food, restaurants etc. This is what for instance separates me from certain friends, or my wife's attitude towards food. For me the greatest thing in the world is an interesting/delicious meal at a great restaurant. It's where my disposable income goes (aside from audio). I hang out on food boards, exchange notes, learn about different restaurants and chefs etc. My wife couldn't give a hoot, nor some of my friends (though other friends are "foodies" and join me in these pursuits).

No claim to be a super taster, just a higher level of enthusiasm and time spent than the average person, just like being an audiophile.
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Which pretty much describes what "audiophile" meant 40 to 50 years ago. Just another term for "hi-fi enthusiast" when "hi-fi" was no longer in vogue. Not someone with "golden ears" but a person who has an "ardent or refined interest in [audio]...", specifically music, reproduction and the equipment associated with reproducing music at the highest fidelity possible.
 
PipHelix said:
I was reading around on Audiogon earlier today when I encountered this. I can’t help but wonder if Ted Denney is a troll having a giant laugh at everyone talking about him, a thief who is happy to take people’s money, a truly deluded fool, or all three

To prove I didn’t make this up, it’s the 3rd post down in this thread

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussi...=website&utm_source=sendgrid&utm_medium=email

His claim is:

“When building cables at the Synergistic Research factory, we listen to spools of individual conductor strands to determine their audible signal direction or, should the conductor run in the direction it’s pulled from the spool, or in the opposite direction when worked into a cable? The differences heard are the difference between a more solid and focused sound, and one that is phasy and incoherent. Other differences include, correctness in timbre for instruments, and the presents or a lack thereof of ringing in high frequencies.

Ted Denney

Lead Designer— Synergistic Research Inc.”

Are we to believe that those who work at the Synergistic Research factory spend time listening to giant spools of wire to find out whether the cable “sounds better” running right to left or left to right? How the hell are audio cables directional? How is this guy still in business?
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What a cushy job, just sitting around listening to music all day and pretending it's about product research - great con to write off paying a bunch of friends as "employee" business expense.
 
amirm said:
I tell you: he assembles some of the best sounding systems at shows with extremely well recorded content. He then choregraphs a half hour show where he cleverly shows before/after demos. He takes polls and just about everyone raises their hands that they heard a positive difference. I have had people chase me telling me how much they think his stuff makes a difference that I need to try them. This, without me knowing them!

It is an incredibly well done magic show and works its well, magic, at every show. :) Even I "hear' the improvement when I sit there. Fortunately I know better and only go to his room to collect playlist of good recordings. There is no hope for anyone else sitting there thinking this stuff is not real.
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A little over 30 years ago I briefly worked selling the first generation of Bose Music Wave Machines. They actually produced pretty decent sound for a portable system but were horribly overpriced. Anyway, they were sold then by doing in-home demonstrations. We had a whole script to learn and a demonstration, along with set music pieces, etc., and what to do with marks...er...perspective buys. First, they went out into an adjoining room where they couldn't see the setup. Then boxes were set up on either side of the Bose and the whole thing draped with black cloth. Then we played recorded grand piano piece with the people still out of the room. The script was essentially to lead them to say it sounded like there was an actual piano in their room. We'd then bring them in, play a few more tracks and they'd think the sound was coming from whatever those boxes covered up were Then, uncovering everything, they'd be "amazed" that all that sound came from that little device. If they were willing to listen to more after that, we pretty much knew we had a sale. It worked best on people who had a stereo system in the same room. Salesmanship and little "magic" go a long way.
 
amirm said:
I tell you: he assembles some of the best sounding systems at shows with extremely well recorded content. He then choregraphs a half hour show where he cleverly shows before/after demos. He takes polls and just about everyone raises their hands that they heard a positive difference. I have had people chase me telling me how much they think his stuff makes a difference that I need to try them. This, without me knowing them!

It is an incredibly well done magic show and works its well, magic, at every show. :) Even I "hear' the improvement when I sit there. Fortunately I know better and only go to his room to collect playlist of good recordings. There is no hope for anyone else sitting there thinking this stuff is not real.
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The audience/target for these companies are obviously the "Trust Your Ears" crowd, not people who put emphasis on the relevance of measurements.

The SR challenge to Gene said he could measure the gear, but then a listening comparison scenario would follow, that would all be recorded and made public so that audiophiles could make their own determination.

In other words, it ends with another appeal to the Trust Your Ears camp, who will likely "hear" differences, despite however the measurements turn out.
 
SimpleTheater said:
Sadly, even in a court of law, could you imagine trying to prove none of what Synergistic says is true? You and I would be like “Let’s setup a blind test.” Whereby Synergistic lawyers would demand the court rent out Carnegie Hall, supply the best equipment, make sure the cables sit untouched for 30 days (.
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I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that when it comes to matters of interpreting scientific and professional facts (at least in the US) , the court/jury can only consider testimony provided by expert witnesses. I was kind of hoping one of the lurking attorneys here would come out and educate us on this more, and I'm happy to be corrected. Anyway, in other words, the plaintiff/defender teams can't conduct a scientific experiment and allow the jury to draw conclusions. Rather the expert witnesses called would need to be the ones to give their opinion on whether xyz speaker cables made an audible difference.

Expert witnesses are not always scrupulous and even then, it shouldn't be hard to find a laundry list of credentialed "expert" engineers who would testify stating that xyz cables make a difference. Or they could come up with scenarios where it does. In fact there are AES papers that demonstrate measurable differences in frequency response just based on ordinary differences in inductance and DCR in available cables.

If it boiled down to a battle of experts it then shouldnt be hard to rally up the majority of the entire audio industry to help fund the team on the side of "cables make a difference." After all, how many millions of dollars are on the line across manufacturers and retailers if the idea that cables/electronics make almost no audible difference at all? They would never allow that to happen. And this would be a very closely watched case by a billion dollar industry.

Hopefully the relevant attorney is being honest about how it would play out, rather than billing by the hour.

Now harassment is completely different. If prank phone calls, excessive online taunts, and unauthorized use of family photos (a minor at that) don't qualify, I don't know what does. I can't imagine how distressing this must be for Gene. I'm upset just reading about the whole ordeal. And I happen to like the content offered on the AH website.
 
PipHelix said:
His claim is:

“When building cables at the Synergistic Research factory, we listen to spools of individual conductor strands to determine their audible signal direction or, should the conductor run in the direction it’s pulled from the spool, or in the opposite direction when worked into a cable? The differences heard are the difference between a more solid and focused sound, and one that is phasy and incoherent. Other differences include, correctness in timbre for instruments, and the presents or a lack thereof of ringing in high frequencies.

Ted Denney

Lead Designer— Synergistic Research Inc.”
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This is horrifying BS, plain and simple. I'll tell it right to his face if I had the opportunity.
 
scott wurcer said:
This is horrifying BS, plain and simple. I'll tell it right to his face if I had the opportunity.
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The fact that he utters such inane things with such abandon suggests he has total confidence in his hustle. I guess there are more people out there than we’d think who believe that cables and connectors can be listened to for directionality and that they can be improved with “quantum tunneling” and “quantum inductive surfaces“ using “air string geometry”. The SR website would be funny if it wasn’t organized around products designed to separate people from large sums of money.
 
PipHelix said:
The fact that he utters such inane things with such abandon suggests he has total confidence in his hustle. I guess there are more people out there than we’d think who believe that cables and connectors can be listened to for directionality and that they can be improved with “quantum tunneling” and “quantum inductive surfaces“ using “air string geometry”. The SR website would be funny if it wasn’t organized around products designed to separate people from large sums of money.
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There are tons of people dead set on the benefit of expensive tweaks and they think we're all a bunch of idiots because we can't hear the magnificent differences. And the intellectual divide will only worsen as time passes due to the way society receives information in the internet age. People no longer seek out trusted sources of information to learn the truth. Instead they seek out sources that affirm their existing beliefs. Tweakers frequent forums where there are like minded Tweakers that reinforce their beliefs and provide social normality to it. Similarly people who believe in science and measurements will tend to flock to sites like ASR where we can be around like minded people who believe same. This is the new reality we live in.
 
ta240 said:
Plenty of illegal things happen with zero enforcement. Even if their claims danced into the realm of the disprovable it would be a long shot to think that a government enforcement agency would bat an eye at such a tiny market with so many happy customers. As these companies continue to grow and multiply they may get on someone’s radar but not yet.
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One important factor to know about regulation enforcement in the US is that congress has been starving the personnel budget for decades. In most instances there is literally no one to do an investigation. It runs the gamut, whether it is consumer products or in my personal experience the SEC.

Every time I heard a politician beat their chests and announce regulation roll backs over the last few years I laughed because there was no one enforcing them anyway. After all it really is not important for children's pajamas to not be flammable or for jet planes to not constantly crash. I will never understand peoples fascination for wanting us to all live in the 1970's. Been there done that.
 
Along those lines, had a $3,000 engine stolen from my boat. Next day I see it listed on Craigslist (classified listing) with identical description of it! Call the police and they had zero interest in investigating it. Told me to go and meet the pawn shop that was listing it to see if they would agree it is stolen and give it back to me! I asked the cup what if it was a car? He said the same thing. That the district attorney was too busy with real crimes than worry about stuff like this.
 
True story ... a guy near me had his car stolen ... reported it. Car shows up in a nearby motel and the motel owner called a hook to get it out of his lot. (All this so far unbeknownst to the cars owner mind you.) A few weeks go by and the cars owner gets a bill in the mail from the towing place. They demanded he pay the fees for storage before he'd get his car back. Cops did nothing.

In my mind, the guy that towed it could have be considered the thief in the first place ... being in possession of stolen property.
Crazy world.
 
amirm said:
That the district attorney was too busy with real crimes than worry about stuff like this.
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What qualifies as a "real crime" up there?
 
amirm said:
Along those lines, had a $3,000 engine stolen from my boat. Next day I see it listed on Craigslist (classified listing) with identical description of it! Call the police and they had zero interest in investigating it. Told me to go and meet the pawn shop that was listing it to see if they would agree it is stolen and give it back to me! I asked the cup what if it was a car? He said the same thing. That the district attorney was too busy with real crimes than worry about stuff like this.
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The pendulum always swings, it seems. With DAs across the country prosecuting fewer and fewer crimes, and a loud social movement to limit law enforcement, its my view we're in for a bit of a ride the next few years. Its simple "physics", the less you enforce the more you get. I think it will swing back hard, as it did some 25 years ago, and probably too hard in some ways. People want security from their tax dollars, and they don't want a society where hustlers are given free reign.

I often tell my kids they are living in an era where virtually every good and service you purchase requires serious buyer beware dilligance. The era of BS is literally everywhere. Blink, and your cable bill goes up $40, while your debit card is suddenly getting dinged for charges out of Auckland.

I doubt this ever comes to enforcing trade laws against dubious audio claims, but I think Amir has noted that one of the main goals of this site is to expose them. Maybe that's a solution for other markets as well, though stolen boat motors may forever be a lost cause.
 
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