Snake oil, fraud, confirmation bias


It is becoming increasingly apparent that many threads about legitimate topics devolve into one or more of the contributors here making claims of snake oil, fraud, or confirmation bias thereby derailing the conversation beyond the valid and relevant thread topic and this is getting ridiculous. For anyone here who honestly holds the position that there is snake oil and fraud in the world of Music Reproduction Systems I challenge them to prove their claims in court it should be an easy task based on the claims they make here in Audiogon  AND they will make a fortune because in the US once proven they can file a class action suit and profit enormously from the efforts of others to deceive. These people regularly claim that "there is no evidence" that things such as cables or fuses make a difference when in actual fact Audiogon is filled with evidence that these things make very real differences in Music Reproduction Systems of course those who claim fraud reject that evidence as "confirmation bias" but in absence of any documentation from them they are only repeating the claim they have made so many times that has been refuted many times here by those who have demonstrated to there satisfaction that they make a difference.   I think in actual truth the real fraudsters here are those that repeatedly make these claims of snake oil and fraud and often they have no experience to back up there claims they simply say the claims are impossible!
clearthink

Showing 1 response by thinkfreedaniel

These are just some random thoughts. I think Roger Russels classic article on speaker wire was an objective argument that any differences in speaker cables are small or related to speaker impedance and wire resistance.
http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm )He quotes Gordon Gow who set up a true blind test and found no discernible difference. Sometimes I wonder if actual audio engineers should be the ones to write equipment reviews. But then again I doubt that all the fun of our audiophilia is based on objective sound alone. If I am listening to the sound of a pair of Tannoy Westminster's with a set of Mcintosh amps I am sure it will sound better than if I am hearing exactly the same sound coming from a cheap ghetto blaster. There is a psychology of beauty and aesthetics  involved here that really does make things sound better.