The "Snake Oil" Trope
We're touching onto a human phenomenon that has always been the downfall of human civilization. The "Us vs Them" dilemma. One side gets an idea that the other side cannot tolerate. It builds and tension grows until it boils over. No side ever comes out on top. Generally, there is a great collapse and then a slow rebuild, until the cycle starts again. The thing that separates "Cable Theory" from causing the downfall of audio and being an audiophile, is money. As has been stated in this thread, people are spending their money on expensive cables regardless of nay-sayer opinion. Therefore, their opinion has little weight or affect on the industry. It begs the question of, "why bother making the argument to begin with?" As has also been said in this thread, whose business is it to command people, through besmirching, on what folks should or shouldn't buy? I know I will continue to receive condemnation for my opinion and statements, but I am going to sink it further by stating what *MY* observation over the decades has been. Some might identify with it and others won't. Every instance I have come across on the "snake oil" trope begins the same way: Person One: "I got this cool cable and it made this awesome impact on my sound." Person Two: "You're <insert demeaning insult here> for spending all that money. It's 'snake oil.'" Then the argument begins. Not to paint with so big a brush, but it fits the definition of bigotry. "obstinate or unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion, or faction, in particular prejudice against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group. " Sorry to say, but we have seen this very behavior on this thread. Yeah, I am aware, the incorrect and all too common counter to this is, "But you're not being tolerant of our intolerance against your belief!! That means you're a bigot too!!!" This misconception is because no one wants to feel bad about being wrong. However, being intolerant of someone's intolerance, isn't bigotry. Sorry, it isn't, no matter how convenient it is to think so. So, by all means, bring on the hate. It won't change anything. My system will still sound good to me as will my belief that the cables I purchased are easily 50% of the reason it sounds good. The only person who has to enjoy my system is me. |
Ideas and opinions are increasingly obsolete as humankind evolves/devolves. Innovations in human communication means we all have more than enough information to become expert in whatever endeavor/debate we choose. Experts tend to become enamored with their opinions/ideas, segue into beliefs. Recently, it came to my attention that robots/machines cannot hear, and humans cannot be objective. Therefore, I will carry on as before and listen and build my system for my own pleasure. I heard cables with different sound signatures, therefore, cable choices for me may be in flux from time to time. I have no problem with naysayers claims that cables make no difference to them, this is a subjective viewpoint. But for them to claim cables can make no difference to anyone goes into the belief realm. Also, hypocritical in when backing this claim with scientific rigor in the form of double blind tests which they in fact didn't use when deciding on their own cable purchase. I do see this one difference between the two packs of believers. While cable believers will argue amongst themselves as to qualitative judgments of cables, naysayers have no such issue. Many shades of grey for most cable believers, its all black and white for the objectivists. So my question is: Can a belief system even exist when so many shades of grey exist? Seems like pretty shaky religion to me. So, are we in fact, not really believers, merely holders of opinions? Belief thrives in black and white estimations of truth. Further, this belief is built on the idea of scientific rigor and double blind tests. Has a single naysayer ever heard every single cable in double blind test? Assuming not, an absolutist belief system built on speculation, that kind of belief system shouldn't last a day. This is the last subjectivist vs objectivist cable thread I'll participate in. There is no argument really, we're all subjectivists and to say otherwise is a falsehood. No machine or robots can stand in for us and present us with some objective set of data to negate human subjectivity, and no religion or belief system can dictate what is objective truth. I leave it to those defending beliefs and religions to fight it out. |
The more I read the more it sounds like religious arguments. "O ye of little faith." As if my beliefs depend on yours. What arrogance, and whenever skeptics appear, indignation and a call for scientific tests ironically appear. And such awe of cables and an over emphasis on tweaks does threaten our interests as new enthusiasts could feel lacking, not to mention turned off by cultic parallels. |
Not so fast. unreceiveddogma insults all of us as shills, saying I hope you guys are being paid handsomely by the cable manufacturers for all the hard work ya’all put into trying to sell this stuff to us. Nobody is selling anything. He doesn't even try to show where we are, just throws his insults out there as something known to be true simply because it gets repeated. There's a word for that. Dogma, I believe it is. unreceiveddogma owes us all an apology. Not just me. Read what he said. "I hope you guys are being paid handsomely". You guys. All of us who hear and understand the value of quality cables, he's calling us all shills. |
@ unreceivedogma Because you refer to people who disagree as naysayers, and people like jerrybj call them narrow-minded, that’s why. Or people like guakus who claim they are deaf altogether.Fair enough. I shouldn’t have used the word naysayer. However, it gets tiring being told I am not hearing what I know I am hearing. Again, why does it matter? It’s perfectly okay if I hear something different. No one seems to argue like this if food tastes different between folks. We all have taste preferences. My brother can pick out the individual ingredients in a soup while all I can taste is if it’s salty or not. I don’t tell him he cannot taste what he does. Sound and music is the same. I do notice a lot of comments claiming that we all must be getting paid by cable manufacturers or we are trying to sell cables. Does anyone have any proof of that claim? Cheers! |
Hey look, I assume nothing. You literally said yourself you can’t hear. Frankly, I’m being generous. I heard no difference Your words not mine. Which is fine. I have said many, many times I believe people when they say they can’t hear a difference. I believe you. Where I have to say "not fine" though is when you pull your hypocritical "attitude" attack! I hope you guys are being paid handsomely by the cable manufacturers for all the hard work ya’all put into trying to sell this stuff to us. This is NOT fine! YOU said YOU can’t hear. All I said is I believe you. I never accused you of being a paid shill. I never said you are faking it. I never tried to sell you anything, nor has anyone else. Also never made any attacks disparaging you personally. Even though, as one might say, there is plenty of material to work with! I think the evidence shows you are the one needs to give the attitude a rest. |
Millercarbon, your attitude is a huge turnoff. You people just presume we can’t hear. I’ll be in a room with a dozen other people, I hear something, others notice my attention is distracted, and I bring it to their attention. There’s an expression among some of us audiophiles. I don’t know if it will make it past the audiogon sensors. Let’s put this in allegorical form, not directly as a NYC person such as myself is usually inclined. The size of a man’s speakers are in inverse proportion to the size of his other equipment. I think we can apply the concept to cables as well. But we will see. I’m at least making the concession to make one more go at this. |
I won’t. Please read the discussions on learning to listen for new characteristics. Your inability to hear at all what others do easily is not evidence of us having mass delusion. It is evidence of your having a great big glaring gap in your listening skills. The discussions didn’t get far. Most who can’t hear are not only not interested in learning but worse, actively working to prevent others making progress. Please either learn to listen, or at least go and start your own discussions on your superior head firmly in sand approach to audio. Music is subjective. Sound is objective. We can measure sound but not music. Actually we don’t even know how to measure sound. What we can measure pretty well is pressure waves in air. That is what decibels are by the way. Pressure waves. Not sound. The difference is sound is not a physical phenomena. We talk as if it is but clearly it is not. Sound is an experience. I said it before, and it didn’t even come from me it came from Watts. A lot of puzzling paradoxes make sense once you see the world and the words for what they are. When a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound? No. It vibrates air. That is all. You can use a microphone to record the vibrations. You can use a stereo to reproduce the vibrations. All you have done is moved the vibrations around. The vibrations only become sound when heard by an organism. Minus the organism it is all just atmospheric pressure waves. You by virtue of being this special organism evoke these qualities of sound and music out of an otherwise sterile lifeless universe. Don’t ever short change the human being. |
@ femoore12: Why do nay-sayers feel the need to argue so much? Because you refer to people who disagree as naysayers, and people like jerrybj call them narrow-minded, that’s why. Or people like guakus who claim they are deaf altogether. You throw out the bait, they bite, and then surprise surprise, you act all indignant. “They probably have never listened to expensive cable. If only the naysayers would try them out”, yadda yadda. 🙄 Well guess what: I HAVE paid your price to legitimacy in this discussion. I HAVE tested in the vicinity of a dozen cables in my system, many costing what I spent on my amps, and decided that what difference I thought I might be hearing was just as likely to be a physiological consequence of an undigested potato, quite negligible and most certainly not worth the cost. Frankly, I’m being generous. I heard no difference that was replicated day in day out. And certainly, compared to the difference of spending a mere $200 on fire resistant burlap to make my room semi-anechoic, the difference is minuscule. I hope you guys are being paid handsomely by the cable manufacturers for all the hard work ya’all put into trying to sell this stuff to us. The guy who I am trying out for the first time to repair my cartridge has cables as thick as baseball bats. He claimed that they cost him $25K. I was stunned, frankly. That is approaching the value of my entire system. It made me immediately question whether I should leave my cartridge there, 😆. I did leave it. Hopefully it will be fine when I get it back. |
@tomic601 Folks are biting alright. Just at each other and not on any finer points of the discussion. |
@sns You touch on many good points. Let's take cables and other tweaks out of the equation. What makes one speaker better than another if it has the same exact specs? If a $20,000 speaker can do 20hz to 20Khz @ 4 to 8 ohms and a $500 speaker can do 20hz to 20Khz @ 4 to 8 ohms, then what's the difference? Specs are specs and the signal is the signal, right? How can one sound better than the other? Once you ask this, you'll find eerily similar responses to those that support premium cables. Yet, you won't see these folks busting out their "test equipment" and software generated "graphs" to prove that their speaker or stereo setup is better than another. It would seem in their narrow view of the audio world, the value of a system is in the COST spent for equipment. Yet cannot be true for cables. If that amp is $5000 it must be good for "reasons" and not "Snake Oil" and better than an amp that cost $500. No way an amp or pre-amp manufacturer could/would put "Snake Oil" in the system. LOL! They won't bother to read and understand the tech and specifications of premium cables, but you had better bet they have all the marketing buzz-words for their stereo equipment memorized. Funny how that works. Hypocrisy most foul. |
So much for scientific rigor. My last post's questions as to cable naysayers cable purchasing decisions was not meant to be rhetorical. So it seems the objectivist cable purchases are actually subjective choices, based on whatever? They don't in fact practice what they preach in regard to cable purchases, they didn't use double blind testing in determining their purchase. I understand they have a point to make in there isn't always scientifically valid explanations as to claims of qualitative sound differences in cables. But this doubt isn't proof there isn't, many reasons for that, plenty of posts in other cable threads as to those reasons. As to simplified judgments as to how we subjectivists are sheep and mindless consumers of marketing drivel. Some may be, but the vast majority of us, based on my observations are simply seeking the best sound quality at a price we can afford. We don't care about packaging, manufacturer's boasts of this and that. We simply listen to cables in our systems and make judgements as to what sounds best. Seems like all you so called objectivists have done the same, unless you're one who refuses to audition cables above some subjective price point. Years ago, when all this cable controversy began, I decided to learn for myself as to validity of various conclusions. I tried many, many cables through lending library at Cable Company, digital, analog, speaker, IC, power, balanced, single ended. The only final valid conclusion I could come to is that cables do sound different from one another. Does price correlate to sound quality, sometimes yes, sometimes no. Some of the cables I tried were highly praised, didn't do anything for me. My take away was perhaps they did in their system, not in mine, no objective conclusions for me. I could have concluded those people tin eared or delusional, but I choose to not be so judgemental when I've not heard those exact cables in their systems, in their listening rooms. The extreme complexity and uniqueness of our systems and our ear/brains/minds makes it impossible to judge what another hears from their system. The whole undertaking of building and listening to an audio system is just so overwhelmingly subjective in totality, how one can assign some objective criteria to the entire experience is simply wrongheaded. Yes, objective criteria can be used for certain components within the entire system, but in a global sense, I think not. And then, why is it that every system is likely singularly unique in this total human population, could it have something to do with it being a subjective experience? In the end, I cannot objectively judge anyone's subjective judgment of their own system. I can have ideas in regard to their system based on my experience, but judgments, no. Finally, in the end, I don't really care whether one believes cables sound different or not. It has no bearing on my listening to my system and the pleasure or angst it brings. This ongoing and never ending argument is much more about ego, attempts to make people think like us is a fool's errand. |
@jerrybj I feel you. I really wanted a place where I could talk about how different cables affect the system. Maybe even get some guidance on which DAC to eventually upgrade to. My first post was about my recent addition of Shunyata’s newly released Venom V16 power distributor, using their Delta v2 XC power cable from their reference line. Not one single response asking questions about the product or how it sounded. Just one post from someone who took issue with my issues about replacing the Audioquest in my system. *shrug* |
My earlier questions still stand. Why do the cable nay-sayers feel the need to argue so much? Why do you care if I don't agree with your opinion? I think cables make a difference and you don't. Fantastic! There is no need to resort to insults or demeaning comments about our intelligence. That just means you have no argument as you cannot disprove a subjective opinion. For example, I think Mark Rothko was a terrible artist. I don't think his paintings are real art. I don't have to have any scientific evidence to prove my subjective opinion. Same with the cables. The sound that comes out of my system is also subjective. Why else would we all be constantly search for better components? Thanks! |
Hoping there are enough in agreement that cables make a difference to sound. I have no need to argue with those that disagree. My system improvements will be of no interest to them, and I have no interest in their narrow mindedness. After much thought and research, I bought my 'end game' interconnects two years ago. Probably not able to do that again. And honestly, the sound transmitted through them is good enough that they will be my last pair. |
@boxer12 My statement wasn’t directly aimed at you. In answer to your question, opinions cannot be "objective" because the nature of opinion is "subjective." Observation isn’t always opinion. If you witnessed a car crash, it isn’t opinion or subjective if you state, "I just saw a car crash." Now, as to how and why the car crashed can be opinion. If someone says they added a cable and it sounded better as a result, they are simply making an observation of their own system. That is objective to their particular circumstance. It would not be possible for anyone else to recreate that circumstance, even if they bought all the same equipment and cables. It’s a different place, a different room, different power, different acoustics and a different set of ears and different awareness. Therefore, the only person who can be objective is the owner of the equipment. All other rhetoric regarding it is subjective. With that said, If that person recommends that cable to someone else for their system, it is NOT an objective statement. That person cannot possibly know for certain whether that cable will improve someone else’s system. IN that respect it is subjective. |
Good Modjeski quote, @three_easy_payments. Roger wasn't alone in his opinion, Tim De Paracicini (EAR-Yoshino, Pink Floyd Studios, the electonics of the Mobile Fidelity mastering chain) sharing many of them (as well how to make a superior transformer. Both Roger and Tim were masters of that science & art). |
Being right or wrong on this topic doesn’t matter - only sales do. At the end of the day if consumers don’t recognize a benefit from buying audio products that are promoted as improving sound then this will be reflected in poor sales. Regardless of how many arguments MC tries making with contrived analogies to rocks and metal to prove he is right the only thing that matters is the market - the ultimate arbiter. Other than an egocentric exercise, there is absolutely zero to gain by trying to "prove" based on argument that your position is correct. This isn’t debate club. People either hear it or they don’t and this is reflected in sales. I highly doubt many people have ever gotten wildly wealthy selling an audio tweak. |
