Hype, Hyperbole and high price!


Okay, I understand that this site has to make money by having advertisers, but cheese and crackers, the claims that are made are just laughable if not down right criminal!  Before I attended an engineering university I too was duped into buying expensive wires and such.  Now, armed with an engineering and physics background, I can see through the BS claims made.  I try and not let it get in the way of my enjoyment of good quality stereo equipment, but when a salesman tries to sell me something based on testimonials, hype and hyperbole, I tell him politely my background and then ask him a series of questions which leaves him dumbfounded. 

Such crap as directional wires - (I used to work for both Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman) and trust me, if we had to test the miles of wires for directionality in every piece of equipment built...well you get the gist.

I have friends that are audio snobs and although they argue with me (Basically buyer's remorse) they know that what I say is true and end the conversation.  Oh well, I suppose I will continue to get a headache when I read said claims.

Sigh!
kenny928

Showing 1 response by wlutke

My garage system is Bottlehead SETs, Bottlehead pre and phono pre, AH! cd, Thorens TT and Madisound BK-16s with Mirage sub. So it’s a "kick butt" little tube system. What interconnects I use make little audible difference so I use sub $200 IC’s. In the house there is a Very Nice tube/SS system that, with those same interconnects, is a real price/performance disaster that only just competes with the SET gear. But with its current combination of Nordost Valhalla 2, Tyr 2 and Frey 2, it soundly (ha!) spanks the SET gear from the first note.
I eventually learned to be wary of logic/physics based assumptions in audio, keep an open mind and go with what works. After all, it’s physics now saying that, at the quantum level, the property of matter changes when it knows you are looking at it. Swear by the Almighty, look this one up. Maybe physics changes when it knows it’s being listened to as well.