Why are there so many Snake Oil in this business?

[EERecordist]

Because of the post-war baby boom, a generation grew up with the expanding pop music after the mid-60s, the Beatles. As a result, the Japanese audio business grew with medium to large manufacturers seeking better design for low distortion and increased power for amplifiers. Meanwhile American manufacturers grew with now famous designers. Think AR, Advent, Kloss, someone should make a family tree. Existing consumer manufacturers like McIntosh benefitted, and German manufacturers like Dual were successful. That era was a boom for ever-improving audio test equipment.

The CD era and digital recording took a little time to settle down on anti-aliasing filters, but quickly created a very clean playback chain for the consumer.

The next era was small boutique manufacturers in the snake oil mold. By then, Japanese design and manufacturing had moved on. But consumers who had grown up listening to music at home entered a time in their financial situation had money to buy boutique audio equipment. Many larger towns have a boutique and/or vintage audio shop, and audio shows became a thing.

We are in the streaming and earbuds/headphone era now where measurements mean less, and the audiophile generation is aging out.

 

[Timcognito]

Because of the post-war baby boom, a generation grew up with the expanding pop music after the mid-60s, the Beatles. As a result, the Japanese audio business grew with medium to large manufacturers seeking better design for low distortion and increased power for amplifiers. Meanwhile American manufacturers grew with now famous designers. Think AR, Advent, Kloss, someone should make a family tree. Existing consumer manufacturers like McIntosh benefitted, and German manufacturers like Dual were successful. That era was a boom for ever-improving audio test equipment.

The CD era and digital recording took a little time to settle down on anti-aliasing filters, but quickly created a very clean playback chain for the consumer.

The next era was small boutique manufacturers in the snake oil mold. By then, Japanese design and manufacturing had moved on. But consumers who had grown up listening to music at home entered a time in their financial situation had money to buy boutique audio equipment. Many larger towns have a boutique and/or vintage audio shop, and audio shows became a thing.

We are in the streaming and earbuds/headphone era now where measurements mean less, and the audiophile generation is aging out.

Very true. Further the equipment and music have become commodities for individual consumption. Only so called audiophiles have an interest as said above. Music was the center of many social activities for an earlier generation, now it seems, one listens and then tells everyone one social media about it. That couldn't happen before.

 

[Deleted member 2702]

Some reasons:
1) Lack of scientific thinking among people (people thinking scientifically will probably have a more correct gut feeling saying that something is snake oil).
2) Manufacturers, shops and "reviewers" without morals and ethics.
3) Naive or uninformed buyers (or that they have other priorities in life than finding out if it is snake oil or not, so they just take a "chance" that is not).
4) Lack of laws (or lack of applying them) preventing false claims by snake oil promoters.
5) Easiness of big margins for the manufacturers and the shops. Corruptness by reviewers/magazines (because of advertisement etc.).
6) Non-snake oil manufacturers have little to win by risking offending some potential buyers who are believing in snake oil products. So they are quiet. HUGE respect to manufacturers who warn people about snake oil: Benchmark is an exemplary company in that regard warning about audio-foolery. Read this.

 

[Brian Hall]

Take a look at the audiogon forums. Those are the type of people ignorant enough to buy the snake oil "products".

 

[Taiga]

For infectious disease control, it is important to understand the concept of Source-> Pathway-> Receiver. The better you understand the scientifically relevant aspects of each of those components, the better your chance for success. I think there is a similar analog for audio that is not comprehended by uneducated consumers. Just like with the recent Covid pandemic, people are susceptible to false claims made for one or more of those three components.

 

[Chrispy]

I know for sure that we have all come across this. We can't be in an Audiophile for long before we come across products that are just Snake Oil. And in the past maybe some of us fell for them. I recall at one stage there were those green pens for coating the sides of a CD. I think I might even have fallen for one!!

But why does this business have so much Snake Oil in it? Some things clearly will have an impact on the sound but some things are nothing but pure Voodoo.

Our hobby has enough engineers with a solid scientific background so why are they not able to weed out the charletons?

And how do you recognise something as being snake oil rather than making an actual difference. I use to think that a cable used to carry a digital signal is just a cable and makes no difference only to learn recently that even the various formats S/PDIF, Toslink, USB, I2S can all have an effect on the final analogue sound that we hear.

This is just a general discussion for my understanding. No flame wars please. I am new here and dont want to get booted off within a week of being here.

Many thanks

Might start off with your own claim about digital signals being affected by cable....can you expand on how that works?

 

[Palladium]

Because the tech has practically stagnated since forever and the engineering required to get a semi-passable product is trivial.

 

[pinger]

Actually snake oil products for hi fi is really no different than shampoos and creams and conditioners etc for women. Just one example

 

[Baldo]

Measuring is supposed to be the gold standard but are we really able to measure the differences? For example, music under the influence altered states of consciousness (by means of meditation, breath work, physical exercise, Sexual activity) will sound different. In some cases one is able to hear details that were not heard before, and this is from the exact same equipment.

So the subject of psychoacoustics (something I suppose I will learn more about) is definitely real, but is it measureable? I dont think we have the equipment or methodology yet to be able to say that we can "measure" subjective results.

 

[Baldo]

Actually snake oil products for hi fi is really no different than shampoos and creams and conditioners etc for women. Just one example

oooo, I dont know, I swear my hair feels better after certain shampoos than others.

 

[Jim Taylor]

... music under the influence [of] altered states of consciousness ...

That is not something that is transferable from one person to another. Instead, it is a personal and subjective state (highly subjective!) unique to the individual. It is not quantifiable. As such, it is not within the realm of objective measurement.

Jim

 

[kemmler3D]

Measuring is supposed to be the gold standard but are we really able to measure the differences?

We can measure everything about sound before it enters your ear. That's the business of ASR.

For example, music under the influence altered states of consciousness (by means of meditation, breath work, physical exercise, Sexual activity) will sound different. In some cases one is able to hear details that were not heard before, and this is from the exact same equipment.

We can't measure everything happening in your brain when you hear something... that's your business.

But if you can show that there is no difference in the sound before it enters your ear, we can at least rule out the equipment as the cause of what you are hearing inside your brain.

 

[Snarfie]

I guess audio is not a Exact Science so you can misuse that for a million reasons.

 

[solderdude]

There are even snakeoil sellers that actually believe that what they are selling works. Usually for the exact same reasons as the buyers do.

 

[DVDdoug]

Why are there so many Snake Oil in this business?

It's always been a bit crazy (at least since the 70s when I got interested in audio, but I think a lot of it now is because most "sound quality" issues were solved when digital came-along. There's not as much to talk about anymore. Maybe mostly only the crazies are left?

There's some mythology in the pro audio world too but you don't hear much about high-end cables or cable lifters or that kind of stuff. (Most "audio engineers" that do mixing & mastering are skilled at what they do, but the rarely have a regular engineering degree or the associated scientific/engineering background.)

And how do you recognise something as being snake oil rather than making an actual difference.

A big clue is the vague words they use. Often it's something that can't be defined, so certainly not measured. They'll say an amplifier is "musical" or the sound is "liquid' or some other nonsense. If they say there is (or isn't) distortion, that's defined and can be measured. Or if they say. "The bass is weak" (or strong) that's defined and can be measured.

You'll also find a lack of proper blind listening tests. You'll hear excuses that certain things can be heard but not measured, but then they have to make-up new excuses when they can't hear a difference in a blind ABX test.

There are some things like stereo "soundstage" that are an illusion (with the sound really coming out of a pair of speakers) and there's no good way to measure or quantify that. But soundstage comes from the recording, the speakers, room acoustics, and your brain. If someone thinks a different amplifier improves soundstage they are fooling themselves.

Lossy compression artifacts (MP3, etc.) are hard to measure because they change moment-to moment depending on program content and may not show-up in the usual measurements. Lossy compression is best-tested with blind listening. People often measure & show a loss of high-frequencies with MP3. That does prove it's lossy, but the loss if high frequencies is not what you normally hear. If you hear a compression artifact (at least with a "high quality" MP3s it's usually something else.

I guess audio is not a Exact Science so you can misuse that for a million reasons.

Mostly human perception. If you can hear 1% or 5% distortion depends on the nature of the distortion and your ability to hear distortion, and the volume you're listening at, etc.

With noise our ears are most-sensitive to mid-frequencies so you are more likely to hear a mid-frequency whine than a low-frequency hum or a very-high frequency noise if they are all at the same level.

Speakers, rooms, and acoustics also gets complicated.


Audiophoolery

What is a blind ABX test?

 

[im_gumby]

For some consumers, the looks/bling/style, etc. and maybe a romantic story surrounding the gear are the products they are buying, not so much the performance of the underlying hardware.

Lets separate looks from snake oil.

Sure there's a diminishing return on performance as you increase in price.
But there is something to be said to have some beauty or form to it.

I think its different than snake oil.

Snake oil, you have outlandish claims made by the company that they can't really prove and are selling it for an outrageous price.
(Can you say scam?)

I mean a cabinet out of Panzerholtz is insanely expensive. But it does what it claims to do. (Densified wood ply in a resin is one of the best cabinet materials. )

Can you say the same about some of these high end speaker cables from companies like MIT?

 

[im_gumby]

Might start off with your own claim about digital signals being affected by cable....can you expand on how that works?

Ok, there are limits to what certain cables can do. Take a CAT 3 networking cable and try to run 10GbE signal thru it. You're not going to get the bandwidth.
Its merely a question of the limitations of the cable and its design spec.

Which gets to your point.

Snake Oil works when they can point to a limitation and then make outlandish claims.

Think of it as using a truth to sell a lie.

That's how the con works.

 

[Doodski]

Ok, there are limits to what certain cables can do. Take a CAT 3 networking cable and try to run 10GbE signal thru it. You're not going to get the bandwidth.
Its merely a question of the limitations of the cable and its design spec.

You stated, "S/PDIF, Toslink, USB, I2S can all have an effect on the final analogue sound that we hear."
That's what we all want to know about how they sound different.

 

[im_gumby]

You stated, "S/PDIF, Toslink, USB, I2S can all have an effect on the final analogue sound that we hear."
That's what we all want to know about how they sound different.

Sorry that wasn't me.

I was just trying to show how snake oil claims have a basis in some truth there...

 

[Doodski]

I know for sure that we have all come across this. We can't be in an Audiophile for long before we come across products that are just Snake Oil. And in the past maybe some of us fell for them. I recall at one stage there were those green pens for coating the sides of a CD. I think I might even have fallen for one!!

But why does this business have so much Snake Oil in it? Some things clearly will have an impact on the sound but some things are nothing but pure Voodoo.

Our hobby has enough engineers with a solid scientific background so why are they not able to weed out the charletons?

And how do you recognise something as being snake oil rather than making an actual difference. I use to think that a cable used to carry a digital signal is just a cable and makes no difference only to learn recently that even the various formats S/PDIF, Toslink, USB, I2S can all have an effect on the final analogue sound that we hear.

This is just a general discussion for my understanding. No flame wars please. I am new here and dont want to get booted off within a week of being here.

Many thanks

Can you elaborate on the bolden text a bit so we understand what you are saying?