One would think, if what they produced was snake oil, the company would have not lasted this long...
That's a rather naive assessment. You could say "If the claims of the homeopaths weren't true, you wouldn't expect them to have lasted this long..." Or "If astrology didn't work, it wouldn't have lasted this long..." Beliefs based on subjectivity, imagination and misconstrual of evidence can last a loooong time. Indefinitely, it seems. That doesn't entail SR is snake oil; only that your point isn't terribly strong. |
but, have you tried any of their products? No. Neither have I tried flat earth belief, or homeopathy. Or new age crystal healing. Or little brass bowls placed on my walls. I will await some reliable objective evidence that raises a product out of the noise of marketing claims, to suggest they are worth my time and effort and money. |
The internet is a fools paradise. Hence there are things like QAnon, flat earthers, Covid deniers etc... ...and things like audio companies making extravagant claims with dubious-technobabble-sounding marketing without producing any more objective evidence than the belief systems you cited? |
My suggestion would be to steer clear of the two clowns :-)
Disruption is the aim of the game, off-topics comments and when all else fails, they stoop down to their usual condescending tone. My posts have stayed on topic, both the topic of the thread and addressing the arguments other posters have given, and my posts contain no abuse. I also posted that I would be happy to see SR's products validated. On the other hand, you drop in only to sling ad hominem and name calling, which others are now adopting, and you claim it's "the other guy" who's game is off-topic insulting posts? What's that thing about pots and kettles again...? Here's a hint: if you really care about keeping the level of discourse higher, if someone has a point of view different from your own, try actually explaining why you disagree rather than simply slinging insults. |
mitch2, That seems like saying "If you bought a stone you were told was a real diamond, and a jeweler examining shows you it's only cheap Cubic zirconia, how does that 'prove' it's a fake diamond?" Er...that's pretty much what it means to be a fake, a scam, snake oil: a false claim. Per Wikipedia: "Snake oil is a euphemism for deceptive marketing, health care fraud, or a scam." The term "snake oil," has been used in high end audio to describe products that make false/deceptive claims. It's especially been attached to the tweakier side, and in particular cables, as I'd think you know. In other words, the idea that many cable/tweak companies make deceptive claims about the performance of their product, using misleading marketing claims and technobabble. IF Gene proved a product's extravagant performance claims false - showing they produce neither objectively verifiable difference nor subjectively (controlled tests), that would be essentially the definition of "snake oil" being exposed. Which is not to say SR products have been so determined. But it just seems very strange to suggest that if a customer is "happy" then a product isn't snake oil or there is no scam involved. Do you think if you someone sold you a fake diamond, as long as you happily believe the false claim that it's real then there was no scam involved? Surely you don't really think this way, so why would you use that logic for an audio product sold on false claims? |
If you were provided with a full spec sheet of any/all products, would you be able to translate those specs into something meaningful? Something you could interpret and explain to someone else that “these should sound like this because of that..” If a product is claimed to have altered an audio signal to an audible degree, there should be measurable differences in the audio signal with and without the product in use. It makes sense then to ask a claimant to show measurable differences in an audio signal, for frequency response, distortion, whatever, to a degree that suggests it’s audibility. It would be even better if it was established as audible under blinded conditions.
And no, your analogy is completely without merit.
Only because you don’t seem to understand the point. If it sounds better, then it works. Which is like saying "If I took a homeopathic pill and felt better, it works!" Or: If a psychic did a reading on me and I left believing she had some hits, then she was using real psychic powers!" Do you understand the role of controlling for variables? That you felt better after a homeopathic pill does not automatically entail the pill caused it. You may have gotten better anyway without the pill, or your belief in homeopathy may have led you to happily believe you are cured when you are not (very common in homeopathy, not to mention in faith healing as well). And it does not establish that homeopathy works on the principles it says it works. Same with psychic powers. The fact you THINK it "worked" may be due to your own naivety about how psychics use standard "cold reading" techniques. And in how you managed to ignore the "misses" in their guesses. It’s standard fair yet people believe in the psychic power all the time. In other words: BELIEVING something works, THINKING it "happened" doesn’t necessarily mean it works or happened. Our minds are very good at imagining things. Some people think they have been visited and probed by aliens. You don’t think you could imagine a little less upper midrange glare in your system with a new cable? But I realize none of this will be hitting home if you are one who believes in the primacy and Ultimate Reliability of your subjective impressions, and nothing can refute them.
I have a problem with narrow minded, closed minded ignorance.
I know the feeling. Are you open minded to measurements being used to determine if a product "works" or not? Even if you think you hear it working? |
perkri
Heres the thing, the products are real, they actually exist. You can
hold them, touch them and listen to them. If they don’t work, you can
return them.
Homeopathic pills are real, they actually exist. You can hold them, touch them and swallow them. Astrologers are real. You can meet them, touch them (if they let you!), talk to them. They'll explain to you how the stars guide your fortunes. The question is: are the CLAIMS made about those phenomena real? There is no objective evidence for those claims (and plenty against them), yet countless people think they work. Yet you reasoned that a product that doesn't do what it claims wouldn't maintain business. Are you able to see the point yet, as to why the basic logic of your inference was somewhat naive? |
I would like to see Gene take Synergistic Research up on the offer. That would be fun and interesting. Given Ted’s confidence that his products can be shown to work by objective measurements, I’m surprised that...as far as I know!...Synergistic Research has not provided any such demonstration.You’d think that would be a selling point if such demonstration were available, given the failure of competitors to provide such evidence beyond competing sales patter. I don’t see any evidence on the SR web site of objective verification through measurements (much less listening tests controlling for bias), or on an internet search. If I’ve missed it on the SR website, or anywhere else on the internet, someone please point me towards it. The only thing I’ve found about objective measurements from Synergistic Research is this old Stereophile Forum thread: https://www.stereophile.com/content/proof-performance-synergistic-art-1In that thread Ted apparently believed he had presented measured proof of a difference when using one of his products. There was lots of pushback by the technical types wanting to rule out error. In the end, Ted admitted there was indeed a problem with the files that rendered the data files "corrupted" and "inaccurate." Which was good of him to admit! He then said he’d move forward in trying to establish this objective evidence employing an "objective third party with experience in the field of digital room correction for publication later this year." I can’t find anything suggesting the objective evidence was ever presented after that stereophile thread. Again...I’d love to be pointed towards that evidence if it was presented, though I suspect we’d know about it if that happened. So, it looks like this was tried before without success that I’m aware of. Frankly, though I’m skeptical about such things, I’d like to see Synergistic Research’s claims verified by objective measurements!First of all, it would provide solid evidence for customers of the product’s claims. Second, it would be very intriguing technically, and possibly establish novel ways of improving hi-fi system performance that many hadn’t considered before, that actually have objective evidence, further widening the audience for such tweaks. It’s a bummer that bad blood seems to be keeping this from happening. |
mitch2, I fail to see the disanalogy.
I did not make the diamond analogy, you did. A diamond has intrinsic
value as a gemstone, so if somebody sold a rock as a diamond that is
clearly fraud and a crime. Audiophile cables and fuses are sold to
improve the sound of the Audiophile's system. These items are in fact
cables and fuses so there is no fraud wrt what they are. The value is
dependent on what the listener hears....i.e., what makes them happy.
To be more specific, remember we are talking about what the listener BELIEVES he hears. So the conversation we are having concerns the line of thought you seem to be floating: "Ok, IF a product produces no actual change in a signal, or can't be demonstrated to do so, 'so what' so long as someone BELIEVES he hears a difference. That's all that matters, right?" So if someone's happy belief is all that matters, it doesn't matter on what that belief is based, deception or otherwise? That would imply that selling someone a fake diamond is just fine, so long as you can deceive them in to believing it's real. "Hey, they are happy giving me thousands of dollars, even though they could have bought the same thing for $40, because they think it's real. If they are happy what does it matter?" Is that really the logic you would endorse? Back to a diamond/cable analogy. A seller of gems has two cheap diamonds, exactly alike that he his showing "John" who is buying a ring for his soon to be fiance. The seller makes the claim that one is far more valuable, far more rare and harder to find, having come from deep in hard to reach mines, in an exotic country. Hence warranting the much higher price. He even uses influencing tactics "see how the more rare gem reflects light in a more beautiful manner?" which causes John to look at it differently "Yes, I think I see what you mean!" So John buys the second diamond, playing 3 times as much money having been led to believe false claims about how it is different from the cheaper gem, which was exactly the same. Does this deception strike you as just fine, so long as John remains ignorant of the truth? Do we just do away with the very notion of "scam?" Similarly, take a situation where a cable salesman demonstrates to John two cables, both of which are in fact the same in any materially/sonically relevant way. That is, there is zero performance difference, no change to the signal. BUT, the salesman gives a big impressive patter about the provenance of the much more expensive cable, justifying it's cost on the grounds it WILL change the signal in an audible way, and do so on the impressive sounding technical story given by the salesman. The salesman uses influential priming like "can you hear how the background seems darker? The highs smoother?" etc. John comes to believe he his hearing a difference that does not exist, and which has been made on false technical claims. He pays 4 times more for the expensive cable, deceived that he is getting a different, higher quality performance than the cheaper cable. As in the diamond example: Are you perfectly fine with this deception? So long as someone can be convinced by deception in to believing "it is different" that's all that matters? In the diamond example, wouldn't it be better if people had information as to the real nature of the diamonds, so they can at least make advised,informed choices? Sure, perhaps there will be those who say "look, ultimately I don't care whether there is a real difference, but so long as I BELIEVE or FEEL like one is more rare than the other, I'm happy to pay for that belief." But surely many others will not feel that way, and would want to be informed if there is an actual difference or not between the high priced and lower priced diamonds. Knowledge is power, right? Why would uninformed choices be better than informed choices? Having the information out there allows those who want to be informed to be informed, when deciding how to spend their money. Why should it be any different for audio gear? Some may say "I don't care about any objective verification that I'm getting better performance by spending much more money on a cable" but plenty of people DO care, so if we have the information available, the people who do care can use it, the people who don't can ignore it.
However, I do not begrudge those who do believe in the value and want to spend the money.
Neither do I begrudge how anyone spends his money. The point I see in this conversation has to do with the value of knowing the facts about what you are buying. For me: If it turns out a cable truly alters the sonic signal, that's great to know and gives me information on what I'm buying. If it turns out there's no evidence it alters the signal at all vs a cheaper cable, I still may enjoy buying the more expensive cable for various reasons (e.g. the way it looks, feels, or even for the fact I seem to perceive better sound from that cable, and am happy to avail myself of that effect, whether imaginary or not. But at least I'm able to make informed choices on what I'm actually getting for my money). Cheers! |
perkri First this: Well, suggesting they are clowns, is giving them too much credit as that would require they be creative and have imagination - something that is clearly lacking. Perhaps ask yourself why you are resorting to such insults. Does it really help in discussions like these? For my part, I’ve been addressing the character of your arguments, not your character. Comparing swapping a cable and listening for the difference is nothing like homeopathy or astrology. The result is tangible, and immediate. A singular variable. No, your impression that you are hearing a difference between cables is no more or less "tangible" than someone’s impression they feel better after taking a homeopathic pill. It’s simply a subjective impression in both cases. Which is open to the question: what is *causing* that subjective impression. You are leaping to the conclusion that your impression of hearing a difference was due to the efficacy of the cable altering the audio signal, just as the person taking the homeopathic (inert) pill leaps to the conclusion that their feeling better was caused by the objective efficacy of the homeopathic pill. You say you are a pragmatics with some education in science and math, so it is quite surprising that you do not seem to recognize the influence of uncontrolled variables here, PARTICULARLY that of human bias and imagination, something that is well documented. Here’s a list of cognitive biases (which by nature skew interpretation of experience/data): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biasesExample of bias in action, where wine experts described the "differences" between a red and a white wine they were tasting, but it was in fact the same wine, simply colored different to make them believe they were tasting two different wines: https://lions-talk-science.org/2014/12/08/how-fancy-labels-fool-us-the-neuroscience-behind-bias/Do you think somehow that you are not prone to cognitive bias, or that audio is somehow magically immune from the variable? It’s not: http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/04/dishonesty-of-sighted-audio-product.htmlAnd if you’ve ever been involved in blind testing, it can be very educational in that aspect. I have had many different cables in my system and have done blind testing: you can pretend to someone in such a test that you are switching devices or cables and ask them to rate which one they like better, while not changing a thing. The mere fact they believe a different cable is now in use, and listening for a difference, can cause them to rate one cable higher over another, hear differences that aren’t there. I’ve done similar blind tests with plenty of people with video cables too, where they are just SURE that one cable is producing a sharper, better picture over the other, yet their guesses are pure random chance. In other words: if you have two cables that are identical in performance, so long as we are assuming they will sound different, or even simply "seeing if we can hear the difference," we can end up "hearing" a difference that isn’t objectively there. Sorry, but that really is a bug in human psychology. Bias distortion is such an important feature of our psychology that science has adopted in to it’s core methods ways of controlling for bias! Which, again, makes it strange to me that you have some background in science, yet don’t seem to recognize this issue when it comes to audio evaluations. Further: you have depicted me as the one who is dogmatic and close minded. And yet in my very first post, to use Synergistic Research as an example, I expressed that I am both OPEN to SR’s products working as claimed, I explain what type of evidence would open up my belief in the claims, and that I would be HAPPY to have the claims demonstrated as true. Does that actually, really strike you as close-minded? Meanwhile, you never answered my question as to what could change YOUR mind about a subjective-based claim that "X tweak makes a difference," whether for instance you’d accept evidence based on measurements or listening tests controlling for bias. What is your answer? Are you open minded to such evidence your subjective impression could be wrong? And can you reply, I hope, without insults, please? Thank you. |
perkri, If I hear something I like, I don’t care what causes it. Ok, perfectly fine. But why begrudge that it may be of interest to someone else who cares? That’s what seems to happen whenever someone starts asking about certain types of evidence around here. We don’t get simply "Well, I personally don’t care about objective verification, but that's fine if you do" but rather we get scorn dumped on us for caring, for even bringing it up, for caring about such evidence and why, and we get insulted and painted as muckrakers. Can we perhaps stop this and understand audiophiles have different interests, criteria and approaches and that’s ok? As I am the beginning, middle, and end of my listening experience, the reason why it works or doesn’t is irrelevant. Ok, so you have put your scientific curiosity aside. Again, a fine personal choice, but we shouldn’t therefore pretend that those careful empirical methods, and the knowledge built by those methods, have no say in the realm of audio, as if audio is in it’s own epistemic bubble from the rest of empirical reality and pure subjectivity gets us the right answers.
It is not difficult to find two uniquely different amplifiers that have the same measurements, and yet sound vastly different.
Which is begging the question. Again...what is the demonstration for this claim? That people believed they heard a difference between such amplifiers? That goes right back to the question of bias and variables. That you don’t care to be careful in that regard doesn’t mean others aren’t justified in noting the problems in such accounts, when trying to understand the facts.
There is no measurements that will predict those nuanced effects and if I will like or dislike the sonic effect.
Perhaps that’s because you aren’t terribly concerned with measurements, as your post indicates, and so haven’t been rigorous about correlating the measurements to what you are hearing. Maybe if you got a little more rigorous, you’d find out that X amount of stuffing changed Y measurement correlating to what you hear. So why would I take the word of someone who says "measurements don’t predict this" from someone who doesn’t seem all that interested in measurements or "why it happens?" Do any of Stereophiles measurements tell you how the gear will sound? The measurements often tell me at least something about the sound of a product, especially speakers, and often enough correlate to what I myself heard in that product. Does it tell me *precisely* in all ways how the speaker sounds? No. But it often does correlate with some relevant characteristics. Same with the Soundstage measurements. (For instance the measurements of the PMC speakers not long ago in Stereophile correlated very well with Kal Rubinson’s impressions of the speaker’s particular lack of warmth, and my own when I listened to that speaker). It would be absolutely bizarre if measurements could not be correlated to predicting to some degree how something sounds. It would make my job as a sound designer literally impossible. All day long I’m using EQ and effects which have been designed on the knowledge of what to measurably, technically change in a sound file to achieve X type of sound! That goes for "spaciousness" "warmth" " clarity" "dullness" "punch" "soundstaging" "imaging" you name it! We are manipulating it all day long BECAUSE people have correlated these things to measurements, and thus create a great variety of modules and plug-ins that we work with to predictably manipulated sound character. |
So scientists don’t understand what sound is, just as they don’t understand what electricity is. This obviously follows from this article. Those who are sure that everything can be measured, and everything immeasurable is just snake oil should read the article carefully. Putting aside that rather rash conclusion... ...this speaks to a conundrum that I never see answered once people start resorting to the "things that can’t be measured" defense of tweak products and other gear. If we are talking about unmeasurable phenomena....how did any company in question identify and solve the problem in the first place?Dreams? Communal trance? Consulting oracles? The typical audiophile gear, cables included, come with a technical story from the manufacturer. "Here’s a technical problem that can undermine the performance of X item; Here’s how we solve that problem." And you are told about "skin effect," "radiation," "electrical interference," "dielectrics" "active shielding" and on and on. In other words, all type of phenomena that we know through being able to detect with instruments and measure. Then they lay out some claim about how they have technically addressed the problem. But then if there is any skepticism of the claim, you get fall backs to "Well, not everything is measurable you know! Stop looking to measurements!" Well, HOW did the manufacturer know it was the specific technical problem in the first place, if he never could identify and detect it by measuring it? Pure conjecture and imagination? SR for instance talks about how you will hear a significant increase in frequency linearity with one of their cables. That would be measurable, right? Can we not presume they measured these differences? If you don’t think so, how in the world would they have determined it was an increase in frequency linearity that was causing the perception in the first place? You can’t have it both ways: claim to identify a technical problem by appeal to measurable phenomena, claim to solve the problem, but then have people throw up their hands on demands for measurements "hey, this stuff can’t be measured!" Can anyone appealing to the "don’t ask for measurements, this stuff can’t be measured" stuff answer this conundrum? |
nonoise, To hear some say that they’ve never tried a product and then go onto compare it with homeopathic products and the like is silly. SR products are out there for the sampling. Homeopathic remedies are out there for sampling too. Do the anecdotal reports of users entail that claims for how the homeopathic pills work are true? Is that really good enough? If so, I guess you simply reject science and it's methods, at least for medicine. But if cognitive bias plays a role in why people think medically inner substances change their disease status, why could similar bias not play a role in evaluating audio?(It does). Please understand: asking if there is a certain type of evidence for a claim is NOT the same as saying the claim is not true. I’d hope such distinctions wouldn’t actually have to be pointed out, but it seems required dishearteningly often in these conversations.
but that doesn’t seem to meet the ever changing goalposts as now they want scientific documentation before they even consider listening to it?
That’s what’s called dealing in bad faith.
Well, that’s interesting. Ted Denny is telling us his products produce measurable results, and is even offering to pay to have his products measured as demonstration. I say kudos to Ted! Now there is something wrong with the desire to demonstrate a product’s objective performance via measurements? Are you against Denny’s efforts to show measurable results for his products? If so, why?
When someone as steeped in audio who should have easy access to what they claim doesn’t work (what with all their connections in the field) refuses to even listen to it speaks volumes to their inauthentic stance.
Can you show me where I have claimed SR’s products don’t work?Or are you making things up? Again. (Hint: I haven’t - look at my first post on the subject). |
My sons survived pebbles, kinder eggs, assault rifles and we have had no
accidents yet after 2 years playing with IEDs. God Bless America! Cool. I know guys who survived speeding through crowded neighborhoods and driving drunk. No accidents. So I guess that stuff is ok and doesn't really pose a danger. |
Hi Mitch,
As if it isn’t clear enough: I’m not accusing anyone or any company of "fraud."
You brought up the subject of "IF <--- note the "If" - a company sold a product that doesn’t do what it claims, but some people believe it and pay for it, what’s the harm?"
I was curious how the logic of your take on that has implications in other consumer areas. But I guess you don’t want to play that out to see the implications.
As I have said a billion times here: I’m fully supportive of anyone buying whatever they want for whatever reason! If someone doesn’t give a damn about objective verification, tries a product, "hears" something that makes him happy and he wants to pay for it...GREAT for that person! Nobody should be forced in to any particular method of buying gear. Follow your bliss. So you seem to have made some incorrect inference about my attitude.
All I’m saying is: what’s wrong with anyone testing a product using objective data, relevant to the claims made for the product? As I said, isn’t the more information we have for a product the better, given the wide range of approaches many audiophiles bring to the hobby? If you don’t care about certain objective data, don’t bother with it. If you do, then it’s nice to have it available.
As for SR’s products: Anyone who likes the products and buys them on their own subjective impressions, enjoy!
Personally I’d prefer to see some of the claims objectively verified by another technically competent party, before I would be ready to buy such things. Which is why I’d like to see Gene take up SR’s offer. That would be fun and possibly very interesting. And like I said, I would actually like it if SR’s products had some objective verification. That would be cool, and it would increase my own interest in the products...who knows maybe even purchasing one of them.
But, again, that’s my personal criteria for certain products, and I begrudge no one who takes a different approach.
(I’m not going to insult people as "clowns" etc as I have received from others on this thread. I respect anyone’s right to practice the hobby in the way they enjoy).
Cheers!
(I think I’m outta this thread. If Gene measures the stuff I’m sure there will be another thread on the outcome).
|
