Snake oil, fraud, confirmation bias

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.  Check out the classical Indian music label, Moment. Fantastic music, many of their CDs recorded live. Tremendous sound quality. And guess what? Moment is a believer in audiophile equipment and audiophile cables, which they use in their recordings. And I ain't talking about no pro audio cables, either. Wake up, people! Smell the coffee! ☕️

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. 

I feel your frustration brother.  It won't likely be diminished by the usual vitriol in some of the responses here.  The sad and simple fact is, as others have philosophized; humanity for the most part consists of two types of people: those who are happy in their existence, enjoying life (and their hobbies/passions); and those who are not, who exist to let everone know how misserable they are.  When I read the comments of the latter on Audiogon and other blocs or hear their pathetic and banal rants at social events and store queues, I smile and think of the gum that we sometimes pick up on the bottom of our shoes: one of life's "little" annoyances, which quickly wear off and are easily forgotten.

Nope. That’s incorrect. The real definition of knowledge is what’s left after you subtract what you forgot from school. Which, for most people, myself not included, is immediately if not sooner. There is no shared knowledge. There I no learning by osmosis, either. 🌿

ethiessen1

Knowledge is defined as a consensus of collective observations. That said ...

That's your definition of knowledge, perhaps. But it's not the generally accepted definition at all. Here's Merriam-Webster:

"Definition of knowledge 1 a (1) : the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association (2) : acquaintance with or understanding of a science, art, or technique b (1) : the fact or condition of being aware of something (2) : the range of one's information or understanding

• answered to the best of my knowledge

c : the circumstance or condition of apprehending truth or fact through reasoning : cognition d : the fact or condition of having information or of being learned

• a person of unusual knowledge"

---

As you can see, there's no need for a " consensus of collective observations ."

This is not necessarily my view but it presents an interesting point of view which adds to this discussion. The whole thing is about the authors view on snake oil - so quite relevant and on topic.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m7ERMu825m4

@ethiessen1  Nice try.  I made the same argument here earlier only to be informed by the naysayers that experiential happenings are irrelevant and silly if the phenomenon can't be measured or affirmed by science.

Knowledge is defined as a consensus of collective observations. That said, there will be apparent anomalies within said observations. While there are laws of physics that are considered to be absolute, they themselves have been turned upside down upon occasion. One example as discussed (loosely) here relates to system synergies. While there are certain generally agreed upon "laws" of music reproduction, thinking they are found in every audio system everywhere in the same fashion is ludicrous.

One "proof" of this would be that certain speakers give different results in different systems - or even two (or more) owners of the exact same systems may hear said speakers differently from the other. In another, some hold that tube based gear reacts differently with other components than solid state gear does and that within the tube based gear universe, certain tubes give different audible results than others. Yet no one credible shouts snake oil at these observations.

In conclusion, we all hear music differently, due to age, experiences, quality of equipment, etc etc. For someone to make a blanket statement that someone cannot possibly hear what they hear in their system without hearing the system themselves before and after, and certainly not having the exact same ears, aural experiences etc, is laughable. A comparison would be someone claiming I couldn’t possibly have the flavor profile I experience drinking a particular wine essentially because their interpretation of it differs. Someone with more experience than myself would necessarily have different viewpoints of high end systems or expensive wines than I. Consensus might hold that their observations are more or less valid than mine. Because no two humans have exactly the same sensory apparatus, combined with differing experiences, declaring absolute right and wrong is impossible - everything is relative.

I find it interesting that the OP can ignore his own thread, but can’t ignore the naysayers.  

Oy. I certainly don’t believe science has completed its mission of creating a perfect model and understanding of the physical universe. It never will. But that doesn’t mean I believe in ghosts.

Electronically reproduced music is, in the end, a moving magnet that pushes air. If a tweak back up the reproduction chain doesn’t affect the movement of the magnet, it doesn’t affect the movement of the air, and it is thus not affecting the sound of the music. Anyone who believes otherwise is basically thinking the equivalent of believing a volcanic eruption is the sign of an angry deity.

Because science is imperfect and we won’t have more sensitive measuring instruments until we do, I will make some allowances that maybe some "snake oil" audio tweaks may actually affect sound quality in ways that are too nuanced or minute to be measured now but will be able to be measured in our sci-fi future. And then I will make an allowance that maybe the brain is sensitive enough to pick up what instruments can’t. Although that still doesn’t justify the dramatic results some folks report. But still, the desirability of the level of impact relative to the goal of achieving perfection is a subjective one, so I won’t say that a .000001% improvement isn’t a worthy goal if someone thinks it is.

But many of these tweaks simply go against common sense. It is theoretically possible that a power cable would be of lesser quality, or contain a defect that renders it less capable of conducting current than, the power cables in your wall. But to me that clearly can be fixed by remedying that defect and rendering the power cable to be of consistent quality with what is in the wall. But that’s not a $500 fix with fancy colors and giant connectors. It’s a $5 fix, with maybe a little workmanship involved. Otherwise it is just bling. The only way a power cable that goes beyond fixing a defect could affect audio quality would be if it goes much farther than one meter - it would need to go all the way to the pole, or the power substation, etc.

Let’s pose a hypothetical: let’s go to the sci-fi world where we are sure that measuring instruments are confidently as sensitive and capable as human hearing at measuring an audio signal emitting from the moving magnets (we may be there already, but I want this premise clear as part of the hypothetical). In that scenario, if the measuring instrument detected no difference when a fancy fuse is reversed in direction, would the pro-tweaker crowd still hold to the everything-is-subjective-and-if-I-hear-a-difference-then-there-is-one axiom?

I won’t hide the ball on my own belief. I do accept that there is a level of poor accessories that are effectively defective. 20 gauge speaker cable on a long run. Very cheap interconnects that diminish conductivity under torque. Unshielded or improperly grounded cables when shielding or grounding are required to eliminate interference of some sort. So then there is a level of problem solving to eliminate these "defects" and that includes after-market products. But those are $5-$100 items, not all of this super expensive, visually stunning but scientifically non-distinct products.

It’s bling. Enjoy it if you want to - I’d love to have some of that stuff just because it looks cool. But once you’ve gone to the level of eliminating defects, you’ve gone as far as you can with this stuff from the standpoint of affecting the movement of those magnets. There is a magical, mystical quality to music. But that doesn’t move the reproduction of music beyond the reach of science and engineering.

You obviously do not know the definition of "evidence". Look it up and shut up.

My boomerang won’t come back - but that’s not what you said. You said in your example you could perceive gravity if you’re standing near a cliff. By the way, shouldn’t you be standing out on a ledge somewhere?

Are you volunteering to peer review the Teleportation Tweak? As I said previously I already published the long awaited, How the Teleportation Tweak Works. Try to keep up.

@geoffkait 

Your post is a bad example. Hold a 100 pound weight in your hands for an hour. I think you will "perceive or feel" gravity.

BTW, how is that teleportation thing going? Have you had it peer reviewed yet? Why not? Have you published your research? Why not? What are you hiding?

Costco_emoji wrote,

I don’t know where Geoff gets this idea that there are things in this universe we can’t measure. We can measure black holes colliding half way across the galaxy, but we can’t measure the quality of our stereo??? Whatever! I had one chump tell me that it would be impossible to measure single instrument within an orchestra. It would be difficult, but hardly impossible, and probably not worth the effort. These snake oil clowns who claim you can’t measure a cable breaking in speak out of pure ignorance. The answer is obviously you can’t measure what doesn’t exist. People have in fact measured cables. Nelson Pass has a great article on cable which I’m sure none of the snake oilers would bother to look up. Stereophile measures almost everything they review so I’m not sure how anybody can say nobody measures anything. The only folks that don’t measure things are the folks who know there’s nothing to measure..... because you can measure the customer’s delusions. I have to wonder if sticking suction cup dildos to your speakers would improve the sound as much as some of this high dollar hocus pocus the con artists sell.

>>>>Costco, I’m pretty sure your reading compression went bye bye again. I didn’t say nobody measures anything. Duh! What I actually said was that there is no way to measure certain audiophile tweaks. You know, the ones that SCARE you. The ones that go BUMP in the night. The ones YOU don't understand. The ones you're constantly ranting about. In fact, Stereophile doesn’t meausure audio tweaks. Nobody does. Hel-loo! So, go ahead, fly off the handle.

 
defiantboomerang
@jji666

so if you perceive no gravity, it is safe to jump off a roof? After all, according to you, perception is reality. :))
.......................

Gravity is the weakest force. We cannot perceive or feel gravity. So that is what we call a bad example. Nuclear forces, for example, are much stronger than the force of gravity yet we cannot perceive nuclear forces

We do have a natural fear of heights, however. 

Even more dangerous, as I can attest!

if I spent anywhere near that on a power cord, I most certainly would end up with a broken neck, but gravity would have nothing to do with it.  There are more powerful forces in the universe, namely my wife!

@jji666    uhh...ok, but I guess in your case, don't risk trying a $1000 power cord, it might break your neck. ;)

Boomerang: no, I’d still break my neck. But if I did not believe in gravity, I’d certainly be capable of believing gravity wasn’t the reason I broke it!

@jji666 

so if you perceive no gravity, it is safe to jump off a roof? After all, according to you, perception is reality. :))

the farce is strong...

Perception is reality.

But a second reality is that people who spend $1000 on a power cord will have $1000 less to spend on a speaker or amp that will actually improve system sound.

But a third reality is that some have sufficient funds to ignore the second reality and adhere to the first. 

Can 50,000 Frenchman be wrong?
(An old quote.  Look it up.)

but the force is strong...

This OP is easily one of the most disturbing posts I have read recently. This fellow has the chutzpah to attack those of us who have a solid understanding of science and engineering -- and KNOW that cables and fuses CANNOT make a difference -- as snake oil peddlers.

Scientific illiteracy is strong with this one!

Dude, start with a grammatically correct/coherent argument, and maybe I'll listen to whatever the hell it is you are complaining about.

yes, and even without measurement, we can compare

as in a blind listening test... do it 20 times and see what is worthwhile

it is the basis for the opinion that counts

I kind of look forward to the opinions on both sides. It's why I come here. It wouldn't be very informative if everything was pro / positive about every subject.

Snake Oil is worthless - that's why I use Unicorn horns as vibration isolators under my router!

Mine Goes to 11

Uh, actually we already know that many of these "Snake Oil" devices cannot be measured, at least not using conventional methods. That’s why you have to use your listening skills to evaluate them. Hel-loo! "OK, Give me some examples," you implore. OK, audio cones, the Clever Clock, Silver Rainbow Foil, Cream Electret, Morphic Message Labels, the Green Pen, a purple pen, a black pen, the Red X Pen, demagnetizing CDs, Mpingo disc.

Tiny little bowl resonators, tube traps, and other things that probably don’t arouse the overly suspicious mind of the wary naysayer CAN be measured using ordinary means. Besides the measurement argument is kind of moot since nobody measures anything anyway - not reviewers, not naysayers, nobody! They don’t measure cables, they don’t measure fuses, they don’t measure room treatments, audio racks, isolation devices or CD treatments, not even crystals, so in reality the measurement argument is pretty feeble, to use your word.

Measurements dont apply to the enjoyment of roses or a meal but the roses may be carefully grown in a measured and controlled way and the meal prepared with measured ingredients and use of heat as well as technique.

The subjectivists continually confound measurements used to rigorously engineer and test high fidelity equipment and sound reproduction to the feeling one gets from listening to Mahler or Mozart. These are two entirely different aspects and conflating them is just the consequence of a feeble mind.

Of note the Snake Oil purveyors constantly appeal to subjective elements that are associated with our perception of music rather than stating a performance specifcation for what their Snake Oil actually does in a measurable way. This is deliberate and it works well but only on feeble minds.

This thread is an excellent example of the Galileo Inquisition. I have posted frequently on the subject of Science having become the new Religion. Is this thread an example of Lone Wolf terrorism? I.e., while officially a part of the Scientofic community, an individual is inspired by what he perceives as their will.

THE GALILEO INQUISITION

The Galileo affair (Italian: il processo a Galileo Galilei) was a sequence of events, beginning around 1610,[1] culminating with the trial and condemnation of Galileo Galilei by the Roman Catholic Inquisition in 1633 for his support of heliocentrism.[2]

In 1610, Galileo published his Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger), describing the surprising observations that he had made with the new telescope, namely the phases of Venus and the Galilean moons of Jupiter. With these observations he promoted the heliocentric theory of Nicolaus Copernicus (published in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in 1543). Galileo’s initial discoveries were met with opposition within the Catholic Church, and in 1616 the Inquisition declared heliocentrism to be formally heretical. Heliocentric books were banned and Galileo was ordered to refrain from holding, teaching or defending heliocentric ideas.[3]

Galileo went on to propose a theory of tides in 1616, and of comets in 1619; he argued that the tides were evidence for the motion of the Earth. In 1632 Galileo, now an old man, published his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which implicitly defended heliocentrism, and was immensely popular. Responding to mounting controversy over theology, astronomy and philosophy, the Roman Inquisition tried Galileo in 1633 and found him "vehemently suspect of heresy", sentencing him to indefinite imprisonment. Galileo was kept under house arrest until his death in 1642.

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In case someone missed it the first few times around, here it is again.

Intro to Zen and the Art of Debunkery

"As the millennium turns, science seems in many ways to be treading the weary path of the religions it presumed to replace. Where free, dispassionate inquiry once reigned, emotions now run high in the defense of a fundamentalized "scientific truth." As anomalies mount up beneath a sea of denial, defenders of the Faith and the Kingdom cling with increasing self-righteousness to the hull of a sinking paradigm. Faced with provocative evidence of things undreamt of in their philosophy, many otherwise mature scientists revert to a kind of skeptical infantilism characterized by blind faith in the absoluteness of the familiar. Small wonder, then, that so many promising fields of inquiry remain shrouded in superstition, ignorance, denial, disinformation, taboo . . . and debunkery."

*sigh*  The 'tempest in a tea cup' continues....on and on, anon....

One of the 'function' keys on the typ. keyboard needs an app that makes "IMHO" appear....because most of the 'sturm und drang' that appears whenever an OP launches into a 'controversy' over 'something' that's stepped on their tail by 'someone' posting 'something' that's contrary to their 'HO'....

This activity reminds me of what would occur if one were to affix the tails of 2 cats together in some fashion, and suspend them from a 'clothesline'....for those of us who remember such an item....a 'clothesline', just to be clear....

(Please note:  I do not recommend, nor approve of such treatment of felines, and will call the authorities if I witness such behaviour.  It's an 'analogy'.  If you don't recognize the word, look it up.)

Now, I suspect that many of 'us' simply like to view the 'push/pull' of such seemingly endless forums as a version of 'cheap thrills', a 'slow motion car wreck' of sorts.  I used to be of that audience.  "Let's watch these fools fight over the quantity of angels on a pin head!"

Now...I'm just bored.

In the future...(how about tomorrow?)...post your 'grievance', supply an address to another site (preferably far from here) and have your online version of a back alley confrontation Elsewhere.

Yes, I can and will go 'elsewhere', having delivered 'MHO'.

To paraphrase an old McDonalds' ad line, "You deserve a brick today."

Consider it delivered.  I'll send you the bill....;)

@kosst_amojan  When does God make his intentions known?  Delusions of grandeur?  I hope you get to the point that you are able to realize your need for help.  All the best, sincerely! 

@kosst_amojan   WOW!  The will of God is very clear to you?  You actually presume that you as a man, a creation of God, with the finite mind that God gave you, can comprehend the infinite intellect of God?

By definition that is impossible. Too creepy for me.  Please seek help.  

@kosst_amojan I never claimed anything as gospel.  That's about Matthew, Mark, Luke and John...w a y out of my league!!!!   Those guys were heroic.  Never claimed that! Nor would I.  How about you?

This is something other than constructive or productive. I'm disappointed.

@kosst_amojan  I didn't assume you to have psychiatric challenges and   don't feel qualified to make such a diagnosis.   Although your self-diagnosis explains much about your seemingly senseless ramblings.  Perhaps that's where fact and fiction have become juxtaposed for you. All the best!  I hear that with appropriate treatment... 😃

I would just like to express my appreciation for the comical turn this thread has taken. 

I haven't commented for all the reasons stated by a multitude of others, mostly because 'why bother?'. But, with the current entertainment level high, I believe in positive reinforcement.

So please, more.