What is the Silliest Accessory You Have Ever Seen.


I was flipping through the accessory pages at the Cable Company and came up with this https://www.thecableco.com/hallograph.html You have to be kidding me. Of all the dumb, idiotic, profoundly stupid things I have ever seen. The marketing is even better! Have you seen anything worse! It is up to us to uncover these things for what they are, SCAMS.

Mike
mijostyn

Showing 6 responses by mitch2

So, @tweak1 brought up the fabled Clever Little Clock earlier in this thread. The original CLC was a Timex travel alarm clock with an orange dot on the face. Something was definitely very, very clever, but it wasn’t the clock. Rivaled only by legendary products of marketing genius such as the pet rock and the Power Balance wrist band, the CLC garnered almost universal praise from both professional reviewers:
I found my entire listening experience to be much more enjoyable with the Clock in place.....Machina Dynamica sells the clock direct for $199, and it’s well worth the price.
as well as from audio aficionados such as tweek1:
I have been using many Machina Dynamica tweak products to great effect over a decade, including the Clever Little Clocks, and yes they too perform as advertised. If his products don’t work for you then look to your system, or maybe your hearing is not capable, but his products work well.
I always appreciate when any dissention is preempted by, "If you cannot hear how great this product is, the problem is either "your crappy system or your crappy hearing" or, one of my favorites, "you obviously don’t know how to listen critically."

If you do some sleuthing, you may learn the clock has origins beginning with the "Dawn of Man" and is tied to a person’s internal clock survival mechanism that helps to locate predators. The clock addresses alien time coordinates that are contained in a recording and are associated with the 4-dimensional spacetime coordinate system (x, y, z, t), where t is the time of the recording session and t-0 marks the first instant of the Big Bang. Easy peasy....pretty basic stuff. Apparently, it’s the relative difference between Past Time (i.e., recording time) and Present Time (i.e., listening time) that’s important - and that is where the CLC come in. If you happen to question the lineage of the CLC, consider that:

The Clever Little Clock is based on concepts and techniques that were developed by PWB Electronics, Leeds, England and is designed and manufactured exclusively by Machina Dynamica. The Clock I currently produce (with the permission of PWB) is an "updated" version of their original clock and takes advantage of many newer PWB concepts/products that have come along since then. May Belt of PWB Electronics provided assistance with this theory of operation.
Wow, good to know. Don’t be fooled by substitutes, and don’t be concerned about availability since there is now an Ultra Signature Version of the Clever Little Clock (a Casio with a thermometer and two neodymium magnets!) for only $299....now that’s darn clever!


Awesome - pick your dream components and then have yourself hypnotized to believe your rig is actually your dream rig whenever you listen.
The only problem with this group would be the need for constantly repeating the hypnosis to account for tweaks and system upgrades.
As an attempt to bring this back on topic, I would say the Hallograph is maybe not the silliest accessory I have ever seen.  That might be the little saucer things Geoff sent me as a prize for answering one of his questions correctly, but even that may not be THE silliest.  I would probably try and lump some of them into sort of a "top 10" list since silly is in the ear, eye, or wallet of the beholder.
One thing I can say about the Shakti folks, those electromagnetic stabilizers (aka "the Stone") have held their value better than any audiophile "accessory" I have ever owned.  Considering what I purchased them for years ago, I could sell them today for more.  Almost as good as buying bonds and better than a savings account....however, if I were really smart, I would have sold them a year ago and purchased Tesla or bitcoin!
@gmercer - your observations about the "audiophile" Ethernet switch highlights my issue with "audiophile" tweaks in general.... the high'ish prices often seem more aligned with the hype than the actual benefit resulting from products that most non-audiophiles would view as rather ordinary.

I recently stumbled on the Audio Science Review website where they measure and review a variety of audio gear.  In the case of two "audiophile" Ethernet switches they reviewed, they did not find any measured or discernable sonic differences between those two "audiophile" switches and the Netgear smart Gigabit switch they had on hand.  One of the "audiophile" switches became so hot the author "started to smell what resembled like overheating electronics" and measured a case temperature of over 100 degrees F!
Are those any different from the Ground Enhancers offered by EVS for $30/pr., or other similar products?