"kiwi" nothing?
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
Mike
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cal91, "glupson...Yes he did. At least the quotes are attributed to him." That is why I asked and I doubt anyone knows for sure anymore. It is sure that everything seems more dignified with Einstein;s name attached to it. Well, maybe not everything. Even his picture cannot redeem millercarbon's posts. |
And then cakyol said: What people usually mean when they say this, they think digital is perfect, since any errors are detected and corrected. Almost never do you find one who understands CD is an analog format in which timing matters. |
I certainly lose on the "knowing no fear" part. The problem with modern digital communication is that you can not see or hear the other person's expression. Expression can turn a statement 180 degrees around. It is frequently not what you say but how you say it. Where is cleeds? Have not seen him around in a while. |
When we choose another person as an avatar? to represent ourselves it's because we think we share common qualities or characteristics. I posted this on another thread but I don't think people understood why. I think people on this thread will. The following are Einstein quotes which show what kind of a human being he was. Some interesting quotes from Einstein. "Hail to the man who went through life always helping others, knowing no fear, and to whom aggressiveness and resentment are alien." "The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance." "Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution." "I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university." "I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am." "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods." I don't see a resemblance, although in fairness to the person I am calling out I kind of agree it's not fair to judge something you have no experience with no matter how ridiculous it might appear. There have been posters who imply they purchased these tweaks and feel insulted. |
roxy54- I'm still wondering about your ears. The problem isn't in the ears, its in the brain. It takes a lot of time and effort to compare and evaluate different components. Are they really going to do that when already convinced it can't possibly make any difference? Why? I wouldn't. It'd be nuts. Oh sure maybe every once in a while they might be able to just sit there all lazy and passive while someone else changes things for them. But then you know for sure exactly what will happen. The comparison won't be valid. It won't be double-blind. It won't be statistically significant. It will need to be repeated a bajillion times to be sure. It was done as part of a marketing demo. It wasn't the right music. The sun was in my eyes. The dog ate my homework. Its all so lame you have to wonder how it is that an adult with enough on the ball to be able to afford an internet connection isn't able to make up anything better than a bunch of excuses that have people thinking like mijostyn started it all off with: Of all the dumb, idiotic, profoundly stupid things I have ever seen. And that my friend is a brain problem, not ears. |
theaudiotweak and everyone who chimed in on "patent pending", I take the issue of advertising as "patent pending" seriously. Not to go into why anyone would have kept it in that state for 17 years, people have strange habits, but it does seem suspicious to say the least. Lawyer costs, or not. The issue at hand is that we are talking about an item which is very unusual in its execution and proposed action so it may or may not work as advertised (according to two camps here). Decision to invest quite some amount of money in it is largely on credibility of the manufacturer and her/his claims. If said manufacturer has been marketing by claiming something untrue regarding patent ("pending") for years, how likely is it that the rest of the claims are believable? Not to mention that, if those links above are correct, it is even a punishable offense. Way before writing this post, in fact before ever mentioning this patent issue in my posts, I tried to locate the patent for Hallograph with no success. In short, scrutiny may be in order. Having said that, it seems that claiming impossible-to-verify patents is not unheard of in audiophilia. There was at least one product by PPT that was falsely advertised as being patented. Even one of the Tekton Design patents has expired (fee related), but it may be deliberate and it may take some time to connect claims with actual patents that are active. To be clear, I am not claiming that any of the products do not work as advertised. I simply state that claims about patents are dubious. We all have our pet peeves and this happens to be mine. |
I’m still wondering about your ears. Hearing or not differences, this discriminative power is not linked to solely our listenings habits and history, or to our hearing fitness and potentials different for each of us, but this discriminative power is also function of the way the audio system is rightfully embedded mechanically, electrically, and acoustically... No way someone could hear some modifications in his system if the noise floor is too high or the acoustic too bad in his room, because of a lack of controls in these 3 dimensions... All the sour and sometimes angry discussions between people come from the simple ignorance that it is not only the quality of the electronical design that makes great audio experience, but MOSTLY the way the audio system is embedded in these 3 dimensions; never mind his price if the system is on an acceptable level of quality already, the way it has been embed or would be, or not, is the KEY..... |
cakyol, I'm still wondering about your ears. I've been in this game for many years, and there are HUGE difference in digital cables. I have three good quality cables, and all sound very different. Different wire, insulators and RCA's (I use single ended) all make a difference. I wish I couldn't hear the difference, like you. I would be a little richer. |
roxy54, Do you have eyes ? I said "proportionally priced". No need to pay over 20 bucks for ANY digital cable. As long as they are within spec, which almost all of them are, you will be fine. Esoteric digital cables are a waste of money. There is error detecting & correcting logic in all digital gear. Besides, digital signals are much better in noisy environments than analog signals, nobody needs expensive digital cables. |
Wow, Bayesian, you say? Wow! You must be one a them probabilistic audiophiles. Heard about em, hardly ever met one. Do you ever listen? Or do you just blow smoke all over the interwebs? Took me a good several months in the beginning to learn to listen good enough to reliably evaluate things like CDPs and DACs. At first and for quite some time they all sounded just the same to me. Not only me. Stood right behind a guy one time, he had driven 200 miles to hear this one Proceed DAC. Got a real nice demo. Whatever it was, they sounded absolutely identical to me. Guy says gee hate to tell you but they sound the same to me. Would have been real easy at that point for me to be one of you who know only how to mock, deride, and insult. Me I wanted too much to learn how to build a really truly satisfying system to take the easy way out like that. Which by the way is exactly what you're doing. Taking the easy way out. Learning to listen critically, developing the skills to properly evaluate what you're hearing, are not at all easy things to do. So go ahead, crack your dopey little jokes, make your snide comments, puff your chest out pontificating utterly irrelevant statistical probabilities. Whatever floats your boat. Its your loss. Not mine. |
“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” No, not even close, loathsome reply. It could just as easily be true, in fact much more plausible from a Bayesian point of view, that the effect is in your head. I don’t mind people preferring tweaks, but dissing other peoples’ system and hearings is the stuff of kindergarten playgrounds. |
Giant leather ear attachments - Back in the 1980's or 90's I saw a hilarious product that even though they looked absolutely absurd, they actually made perfectly good sense. The product was a pair of large & I mean LARGE leather ear-shaped attachments which were advertised to provide additional surface area with which to capture more sound waves. It makes perfectly good sense & many wild animals have unusually large ears for that very purpose. I should have bought a pair at least for laughs. How many of us have cupped our ears with our palms to achieve the very same thing. LOL, LOL. |
Maybe millercarbon or mahgister will take them off our hands. By the way dont assimilate my way with someone else, anybody, to ridicule me and dont speak using my name in my back out of an answer to some precise post by myself....I will NEVER use your name out of an answer to you for the sake of ridiculizing you, like you in your last post ....Imitate me, it is called elementary politeness... My answer now: Some think that a 10,000 dollars equalizer is vastly superior to my few bucks embeddings controls devices... They ridicule my listenings experiments and devices and called them pejoratively "tweaks", forgetting i created them myself or bought only the more low cost electronic pieces, Schuman Generators at 10 bucks for example, and modifying them for my needs...I never bought or recommend branded name and ready made products... I only recommend CREATIVITY.... They laugh at me.....Without knowing for example the limitations of their ready made, without the human ears, pricely electronic equalizer solutions...They are useful yes, BUT only stay, whatever some can say, limited and partial solutions... Where you put the mic, that is where the measure is taken...And how do you measure with a microphone the very audible effects of a Schuman Generator or a ionizer? And how do you manage it for many simultaneous listenings locations in your room? My ears can at no cost....The difference is that you dont know that your ears can also like mine do the job, but you are able to pay for a ready made solution, i am not, i then use my ears like a compass.... This people with their 10,000 bucks products smile at one guy who transform totally his room for peanuts... Who is ridiculous then ? The one who tried before using his mouth or the one who dogmatically affirm something about a device he will never listen to before giving a judgement? I cannot be accused of selling costly tweaks, i replicate them at the price of a few peanuts jars... And i know WHY and HOW these costly device may work by my own experiments...I never recommended to someone COSTLY ready made product like you Mijostyn your E.Q. device...And i dont attack people either with laws of science or not....E.Q. costly device or costly "tweaks" it is the same thing for me...My road is peanuts costs HI-FI.... An Example now: Few years ago i read about the Bybee room enhancer costing many thousands dollars... The fabrication of this device is secret but there is a description where they say it is made with some crystals and probably some battery etc... I replicate that myself with success.... It is not the same thing, but the increase in S.Q. for peanuts versus many thousand dollars for the Bybee were enough to convince me... And so was my listenings experiments story for some years with many other retro engineer simple devices... Another example: my "golden plate" cost peanuts and replace very more costly products very well known that cost many thousand dollars...I NEVER BOUGHT ONE.... Who is ridiculous me or those speaking about "tweaks" they never replicate or never listen to? Because their audio system cost 50,000 bucks in some case how in the hell can they justify the S.Q. increase of cardboard paper and aluminium paper glued at the right spot? 😁 It does not matter if a "tweaks" work or not in our system or for ourself, or even if it does not work at all, the fool is not someone who make a wrong decision; the fool expresses himself without any experience of what he is talking about and call it a law of acoustic or anything else...Acoustical art and science has limitations for which the human ears dont give a dam.... The only problem with most tweaks, it is not they dont work, most work in the right condition to some level, it is their high price that is the "problem", their ratio S.Q. increase/ price.. A device who does not work at all will take no or very few flying reviews in any market....Save a miraculous sums of reviewrs lies....That is not the rule sorry... Only exception...A pile of bullshit will never give you big money, a few bucks perhaps, except in some western movie with a witch doctor selling you his"snake oil" for a few dollars..... I will keep my peanuts costs efficient device and i will laugh the last laugh at those credulous technological fads who think they are right by virtue of advanced technology and who trust more a device than their own ears in a room created for their ears... A n equalizer is only a tool, not a complete solution of the acoustical settings of a room at all... I dont need it now, because for the price paid the improvement will be marginal... If the piano is in the room and the sound dont come of the speakers at all, in not one, but 2 different positions of listenings, with natural timbre, no need for a costly small increase of S.Q. « Ignorance is precisely what you think you know or see, you can call it at best the blind spot, or at worst, a pair of blinders»- Anonymus Smith after consulting his ophtalmologist |
@daveyf, knock yourself out. Just because you are gullible does not mean the rest of us have to be. I'm really sorry that you wasted your money. My intent was not to attack you. I had no idea you had wasted your money on these things. Frankly I thought everyone would laugh at the silliness of them. I had no idea someone would take them seriously. From an ethical standpoint you can't sell them. Maybe you could donate them to a museum? Maybe millercarbon or mahgister will take them off our hands. |
@mijostyn You have brought me back to this thread with your ongoing attacks. Firstly, you have absolutely no clue as to what I do and do not do with my system, nor what it sounds like, secondly your ongoing disbelief in gear that you have never heard ( and clearly have no interest in hearing..thereby enlightening yourself) is telling us a lot! The fact that you are a blinkered person and unable to comprehend that not everything that looks unacceptable to your way of thinking may in fact work, also says a lot about you. Lastly I should ask you a question, why are you even in this hobby? After all you seem to know that nothing makes any difference in your system, those power cables are all bogus if they are not meeting your visual requirement, those weird looking foam panels on your wall..just fancy wall coverings right...those big flat panels that vibrate...how can they really work well also...hmmm. Now I'm off-- |
I'm constantly reminded of a song lyric by Simon and Garfunkel in the song The Boxer on the Bridge Over Troubled Waters LP, "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest" . I find this to be quite true and you can substitute any of the senses for "hears" including "believes" and it's still true. As long as we are using our ear/brain to evaluate what we hear it becomes quite subjective. I once bought snake oil in the 80's called First and also Last. I even put Last on only the outside half of several albums to see if the Archival claim for Last was discernable over time. I can't say that it did anything. |
@audio2design, the first denial would come in about 6 months usually stating "Prior Art." To keep it going for 17 years with lawyers would cost a fortune but I am almost sure the patent office would offer a final denial after they had had enough. @grannyring , there is a sucker born every minute and they are the fish these hoodlums' feed on. If you do not know enough to make an intelligent decision ask someone who is. When humans are involved it is always best to doubt everything. @pokey77 you have to be kidding. I have decided I'm going to make my fortune creating a string of companies that make nothing but audiophile absurdities. You have convinced me there is a growing market for such things. If they can get daveyf for $1500 I bet I can get him for at least $2500. I'll start with a full system demagnetizer (just a fancy power strip you plug all your stuff into) and follow it up with the Phonograph Holographer ( a little box you plug up between your phono stage and preamp, gives you a holographic sound stage.) Next, lets see...ah! The Image Synthesizer, a triangular wooden box 6 feet tall you put in-between your main speakers. Prevents that hole in the middle. It will all work. I promise! Such is the power of psychoacoustics. |
@daveyf @grannyring @theaudiotweak Only sounds of reason in here. For everyone, please, no matter what you think, at least give them a listen in YOUR system and then you will know if they do anything for you. When I first saw these devices, I thought they'd be used in the first reflection as they would appear to breakup the first reflection if positioned in that area of each sidewall. GIK and others do this with room treatment. I do not own these, and never plan to. But experience with them is the only way to know if they really work in your room or not. |
glupson.. Yea it is a hard read and a hard write..takes me sometime to write the correct visual for all of this. What I knew before was based on my own designs, experiments and observations. When Debbie found me after her patent and she had referenced mine she called me out of the blue. After hearing my design in person she thought somehow I corrupted her patent. She flew across country to meet me. TotalIy different application but the end results are nearly the same. I showed her highend audio and she shared her 35 years of being a professional geophysicist and why that field of science is so important in the production of music both live and recorded. Chance encounter. Tom |
theaudiotweak, Thanks for the explanation of "activated" and the rest. I will have to try to grasp it with a few more readings as, at first quick read, it does not completely explain what goes where. I will do my best as time goes by. As far as patents go, they are not as complicated to obtain and, taking into consideration the rest of the marketing description of Hallographs, I have a feeling it is more of a marketing trick than actual "patent pending" with any intention to obtain it. Of course, I may be wrong, but claiming that patent is pending for 17 years is bordering on laughable. 2021 How Much Does A Patent Cost? | Cost To File & Patent An Idea (thervo.com) You wonder how this goes... This information is found in 35 U.S. Code 292(a) about false marking. The document states: "Whoever marks upon, or affixes to, or uses in advertising in connection with any article, the words 'patent applied for,' 'patent pending,' or any word importing that an application for patent has been made, when no application for patent has been made, or if made, is not pending, for the purpose of deceiving the public — Shall be fined not more than $500 for every such offense. Only the United States may sue for the penalty authorized by this subsection." When Can You Say Patent Pending? Everything You Need to Know (upcounsel.com) |
When you have better than a cursory wikipedia understanding of sound waves and acoustics, then this conversation will make sense. You have latched onto only one property and are ignoring absolutely everything else. When you figure out longitudinal velocity, mean integrated velocity, extensional velocity, and oh, acoustic impedance, let's pick this up again and add another 4 or 5 terms to add to the repertoire. theaudiotweak2,118 posts01-11-2021 3:28pmLets keep it simple, has any one placed 2 or more plants in the corners of their audio room and encountered a change in sound? The pots could be clay or ceramic or brass or metal or plastic. |
Great remarks.... It is called the acoustical properties of the varied content of a room.... For me there is 3: Acoustical properties of the material content walls included. Geometry (form of the room and proportion) Topology (numbers of windows and number of doors and their location) These 3 factors DECIDED what the sound of an untreated room will be like.... More than the branded name of your chosen amplifier and on par if not more so than your specific speakers... Add to the impact of the acoustical embeddings of an audio system, the impact of an untreated electrical grid, and the impact of unimpeded vibrations and other mechanical factor like resonance... |
Lets keep it simple, has any one placed 2 or more plants in the corners of their audio room and encountered a change in sound? The pots could be clay or ceramic or brass or metal or plastic. That describes 5 different materials with 5 different shear velocities and whose varied shapes are surrounded by the air that touches these vessels. Now how about the soil level and its density.. packed and dense or loosely filled with stones on top. All materials change the shear velocity and reflective angles. Oh and then there is the height and density of the plant.. tall and open with leaves hanging from the top. Could it be a small tree with branches and then a coarse trunk and bark or a dense hanging fern? Do you hang each from a chain screwed to the ceiling. Is the chain brass or aluminum? Do you hang them near the ceiling or somewhere in between..or do you place them directly on the floor or set on a stand. Is that stand closed on all sides or is it on a opened leg wire stand. Every material shape reacts to compression and shear they all speak back to us in our music..Tom |
I missed the $2000 fuse. @cd318 1+++ You better hope none of the fan boys see this:-) @jperry there are plenty of things you don't have to hear, they are that STUPID, more likely to make things worse not better, and there are plenty of people watching this thread that feel exactly the same way they are just more polite than I am. Fine, I'll be that voice. I'm sorry daveyf but I am under the opinion that your wife had better lock up your credit card. Next you'll be buying a camel to use as a live bass diffuser. |
@syntax , All Linn LP12 "upgrades" Err yes. After almost half a century’s worth of upgrades, it must be getting difficult to think of what next. We’ve seen numerous sub chassis reinforcements, various arm boards, different (mainly rubbish) motors, and many speed improvements. The most ridiculous one was the new arm board in the late 80s. A real piece of overpriced crap. So whatever next? Could I perhaps suggest a direct drive motor? Don’t thank me Linn, and don’t worry about all the things you’ve said about them previously. It’s a different market now and most people won’t remember anyway. Yes, you could introduce it with great fanfare as the final 50th anniversary solution. Until the next one. |
glupson, "Reactivation" occurs all the time. When you play music the compression waves which start from the shear motion of the speaker drivers becomes a compression wave to be heard. The sounds we hear are from all the objects and the room boundaries themselves. The motion in and on those objects move, that is shear. The shear motion in solid objects is what modulates the air. The air molecules lay on top of these objects that move and vibrate and that motion of air is how we hear. (compression waves) ..Like the seismic energy of the Earth all the materials above ground have particles that can be and are in constant motion. The air that lays across those vastly different solid particles (lead vs steel vs wood) is activated by the density and shape of those objects even when the air is at rest on them. Even if you think they are not moving they are. The walls the carpet the wood floors the Hallograph they are all always in motion and they always react in conjunction with all of the others. Glass and wool sound different because of their shear velocity and density. Wooly sound..glassy sound, tinny sound, leaden sound all describe the sound we hear when these and other materials are struck by shear waves and the resulting compression waves. Patent pending is a form designed to protect the inventors ideas before the actual patent is granted. I could not find a patent pending application. A problem with a patent or pending patent is full disclosure which means some or all parts of a patent can be copied or changed or litagated. So you need deep pockets to protect yourself from both copies being made on shore as well as overseas. Shakti probably was conflicted as to keep or disclose materials and methods to build their product. I know the Argent Rooms Lens were copied and maybe never patented. Bud Purvine of the EnABL process gave up on trying to enforce his patent and just let the masses run with it and benefit themselves. Everyone has their own method of reasoning on these matters. Tom |
Jimminy crickets, No everyone, I have not heard them and would never give them that honor. I could make a pair in about 1 hour but do not like wasting my time. Daveyf if you think they make your system sound better, that is the power of psycho acoustics for you. Why the heck would I want to dissipate energy after spending so much money to make as much energy as I possibly can? EMF detrimental? With the system cranked to 95 dB I can not hear my wife pull in in the 911, the refrigerator, the washing machine, the HVAC, my daughter on the elliptical trainer and my whole house buzzing. I would think all that would be more detrimental to sound quality than EMF which has ZERO effect on biological systems such as us. Unfortunately, cell phones do not cause brains to rot. We'll have to come up with something else. Audio2design, I really enjoy your posts but IMHO you are just too politically correct. Call a spade lug a spade lug. The only change is sound quality these things make is the rattle they make with the floor. You can patent anything by the way. It does not have to work. |
+1 daveyf1,966 posts So many naysayers on this thread....question is how many of them have actually heard what the Shakti Hallograph’s can do and have had them in their system? My bet...none of them..:0( I don't have any problem with folk who have actual experience with this product and have formed a subsequent negative opinion, but to draw conclusions simply by looking at the product on the web...and then come on a forum to denigrate it....not cool~ |