georgehifi
Why is the snake oil topic closed?
Because it had no place being in a "Technical Forum" just as this thread.
Both should be in the Misc Audio forum where anything goes.
Cheers George
>>>>Actually, Georgie Boy, many of the controversial tweaks we are talking about here are quite technical, at least have technical aspects to them. Fuses, cables, tiny little bowls, Morphic Message Labels, clocks, what have you. Of course, it’s quite understandable that some folks are obsessed with circuits and have no other interests. Electric circuits is not the only technical field in this hobby. Don't be a big cry baby.
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Georgiehifi wrote,
"You should be preaching your crud here."
Crud? That's quite a vocabulary you're sporting there, Georgie. You're not real good with technical debate are ya, mate? |
Why not just tweak twerps?
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That’s the way it goes. In any case, knowledge is what’s left after you subtract out all the stuff you forgot from school, anyway.
He not busy being born is busy dying. - old audio axiom |
psag wrote,
”We have all invested in our setups, financially and emotionally. Some then go the extra step and invest in tweaks. What we crave is certainty as to what these devices are doing to our listening experience. When clear answers are not forthcoming, we tend to force the issue, by forming fixed opinions and ideaologies, partially based on what we want to hear rather than what we are really hearing. When challenged, some of us become angry, i.e., defensive at the suggestion that we might have fallen victim to the snake oil salesman.
I have had several costly tweaks in my system for some years now. Were I to suddenly toss them all, I seriously doubt that I would miss them. Maybe someday I’ll try it, if I can find the time and motivation to do so.
>>>>>>>That sounds like an operator error. No offense. Since most tweaks, especially expensive ones, have a 30 day money back guarantee you should have established whether the expensive tweaks you invested in worked in the first place. Think of tweaks like components, you’ll be better off in the long run. It’s a little silly to express buyer’s remorse when you didn’t do your due diligence.
We don’t want unmotivated tuna. Sorry Charlie. 🐬
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Gee whiz, Moopers, I thought you was all all dried out. Now you got me thinkin’. Maybe youse oughta consider turning herself in again.
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psag
What tweaks purportedly do cannot be quantitated or otherwise objectively measured. They are by their very nature elusive. That can cause problems for certain personality types.
>>>>>>I’m not sure I totally agree with your detective work. I divide tweaks up into two groups. One group can be quantitated and objectively measured, assuming someone actually did measure them, which as I’ve pointed out previously no one ever does, or rarely does. Tweaks I put into this group are vibration isolation devices, tiny little bowl resonators, even crystals in some applications (Room Acoustics), Helmholtz resonators. Audiophiles often assume certain tweaks like crystals can’t be measured or quantified.
OK, so the second group is the one that gets audiophiles’ panties in a bunch. This is the group of tweaks that includes but is not limited to things that go bump in the night, OR things that would be very difficult to measure even though they sort of make sense. This group includes of course the Peter Belt foils and pens and message labels, Machina Dynamica’s Clock and the Teleportation Tweak (duh!), the Tice Clock, contact enhancers, but also more mundane tweaks such as cones and other footers, CD treatments, CD demagnetizers, power cords, power conditioners, fuses, and cryogenics in general, and of course wire directionality.
OK, let the angst and hand wringing commence. 😩 |
Moops - you say I was challenged? When? By whom? What topic? 😀
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Did the floodgates just open for the knuckledraggers to come into the discussion? 😳
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Whitestix wrote,
” Yet if you, for example, choose to purchase one or a dozen of GK’s tweaks and find them to enhance to a considerable degree your listening pleasure, then by all means do so and don’t give a thought to the snake oil deniers. But don’t get your nose out of joint when these folks provide contrary rational responses to those perceptions you are having.”
Huh? That’s pretty weird since you are one of the most vociferous of the anti tweakers. This is just another excellent example of the new Do What I Say not What I Do style of naysayers and tweakaphobes, pretending to seek the high ground. Pretending to be open minded.
Some examples of Whitestix not so moderate posting,
“Kosst is my audio muse and tells it like it is. GK espouses nothing but nonsense as usual. I certainly get the notion of run-in of gear -- speakers for darn sure, and tubes and electronics to a lesser degree, as well as wire.”
“High anxiety and OCD runs rampant in society, with sellers guilting folks into buying products of little or no utility. It is nowhere worse than among audio-fools. The "fuse-heads" have got the syndrome to a greater degree than most others. I think for some folks, the propensity for self-delusion is rather unbridled. At any rate, I like the way you think. “
“Geoff has as comrade in arms with Teo weighing in on the question raised by the OP. I hear nothing but pablum from the two of them. Kooky nonsense, really. However, if there is some benefit from elevating speaker cable, then get a saw and cut u...”
“Geoff, regardless of the SR tweaks I have auditioned and returned, I have never lost my senses to the degree that would motivate me to try a single one of your idiotic tweaks. Your stuff takes the cake for getting audio-fools to part with their c...”
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Looks like this subject is officially taboo. Makes everyone too nervous. It’s our old friend, the Controversial Tweak syndrome.
“You can’t kill kill.” - Charles Manson
A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic.
“Shut the cave door and back to pigmy country!” - Mo Gambo (The Old Philosopher)
”The greatest humbug of all is the man who believes—or pretends to believe—that everything and everybody are humbugs.” - P.T. Barnum
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I’d opine it’s probably the opposite of gullibility. If naysayers were gullible they’d be buying up the snake oil in barrels. Instead of gullible shall we say superstitious? Maybe overly suspicious. Even Einstein could be overly suspicious. As in his rather stubborn inability to wrap his mind around quantum mechanics or black holes. |
jl351,756 posts11-28-2017 5:20pm +1 czarivey . certainly if someone wants to be a consumer advocate, the insurance industry and big pharma seems a much more productive arena than high end audio products...Enter your text ...
I realize you believe you’re on some kind of mission. But Im on a bigger mission. A much bigger mission. In fact, I’m financing YOUR mission. |
Zen … and the Art of Debunkery
Or, How to Debunk Just About Anything
“While informed skepticism is an integral part of the scientific method, professional debunkers — often called ‘kneejerk skeptics’ — tend to be skeptics in name only, and to speak with little or no authority on the subject matter of which they are so passionately skeptical.”
– Dan Drasin, author of Zen and the Art of Debunkery
Kneejerk skeptics. Good one! Pseudo skeptics react to words, not the meaning behind the words. Quantum mechanics. Quantum Teleportation. Information field. Mind-matter interaction. Electromagnetism. Photon. Graphene. This thread is going along in typical herky jerky fashion.
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The old glaucma scam, eh? I'm hip. |
How 'bout sending me a kilo of whatever you smoke when you post.
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Uh, oh. I’m starting to get a bad feeling. Really bad. 😧
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Mapman, nice to see you out and about. Here's hoping for a full recovery. 😷 |
Let’s hear it for the poor downtrodden engineers. Working in obscurity, unheralded, overworked, and underpaid, working in low light, striving to find the perfect formula to make the big bosses some real money. Not some piddling amount. The audio industry is analogous to the car industry. "Where do we go from here? We got the four valves per cylinder. We got the forward looking radar. We got the airbags all around. We got the lithium battery. What else can we possibly come up with to sell these gosh darn cars??" Equipment upgraditis. Sound familiar?
😩
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jl35
to see those all listed on one page, and think of all the damage they have done to unsuspecting audiophiles...
Nobody appreciates the naive, gullible tenderfoot audiophile more than I do. They're my favorite. Hi, there. Want some candy? 🤑
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Let’s see, maybe we should establish what it is all of these people are complaining so bitterly about. I’m sure there must be some specific things that really get under their skin. Or is it just a general paranoia? Who knows? My guess is there's gotta be something pretty reprehensible, disturbing, out there to produce so much angst and anger. Sure, everyone gets a little upset over super high cable costs and aftermarket fuse prices have really gone through the roof. But, geez, there must be some other things out there that are really bothering people. Maybe some uh, criminal things. Hmmmm, I wonder what they could be....
So, without further ado, your humble scribe, and a prime suspect in the hunt for purveyors of dreaded Oil of the Snake, presents The List. In no particular order, the list of really, really obvious and noxious Snake Oil products. By the way, PWB Electronics of Leeds England, another primary Purveyor of Oil of the Snake, (Peter Belt RIP) is still going strong, cranking out gallons of the stuff as we speak.
The List. These are the ones you really have to be careful about. The ones with the snake 🐍 next to them are from Machina Dynamica (blush).
THE LIST
Mpingo disc
Shakti Stone
The Green Pen (Audio Prism)
Red ’x Pen
Cream Electret
Silver Rainbow Foil
The Teleportation Tweak 🐍
The Clever Little Clock 🐍
The Quantum Clip
Franck Tchang’s Acoustic Resonators
Original Cable Jacket
SteinMusic Harmonizer
Brilliant Pebbles 🐍
The Intelligent Chip
Super Intelligent Chip 🐍
Golden Sound’s Ultra Tweeters
Flying Saucers for Windows 🐍
Morphic Message Foil
Shakti Halographs
Schumann frequency generator (Acoustic Revive)
Xtreme AV Tourmaline Gun
The Photos in the Freezer Tweak (courtesy PWB Electronics)
C-37 Lacquer
VPI Brick
Marigo VTS Dots
HONORABLE MENTION
Tip Toes, aluminum cones, the first
Audio Technical wet playing system for vinyl records
Herbies Audio Lab Tube Dampers
Iconoclast ionizer from Mapleshade
Auric Illuminator CD treatment, one of the first
Extreme AV Liquid Resolution CD treatment
Audio Deske CD Improver (edge beveler)
Extreme AV Quicksilver Gold contact enhancer
Nimbus Sub Hertz 6 DOF Isolation Platform 🐍 |
shadorne
Huh? Quantum mechanics and black holes don’t make sense. It all makes total sense to me but I dont go in to the detail of these things with preconceived notions. Einstein made that mistake.
>>>>>>A great man once said anyone who thinks he understands quantum mechanics probably doesn’t. So black holes make total sense to you but just not audio tweaks, is that what you would have us believe? You don't have preconceived notions about hyper physics, only about audiophile tweaks.
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jji666 OP wrote,
"I’m just a guy who loves music and audio gear and believes that common sense should prevail in determining which after-market accessories should or should not make a difference or at least which are worth pursuing. There could be a civil, interesting conversation had about this, even if it was had before.
Instead, what you have here, I am sorry to say, are a few other voices like my own drowned out by some pretty odd/extreme folks on both sides of the debate.
Now I do understand why Audiogon closed the prior thread. Unfortunately it’s a little like closing the picnic basket after the ants have already gotten in."
I’m waiting for some kind of argument why something must make sense or must be measurable. I’m not interested in if you’re a nice guy or not. Or if you’re a reasonable fellow. That’s beside the point. Black holes don't make sense. Quarks don't make sense. Quantum mechanics doesn't make sense. Lots of things in this hobby don't make sense. That vinyl can sound better than CDs. Vibration isolation. Especially for solid state electronics. That fuses are directional. That speaker cables are directional. Mpingo discs. The Green Pen. The Schumann frequency generator.
I’m being civil. Stop pretending this conversation isn’t civil. And stop pretending anyone who disagrees with you is some sort of extremist or lunatic. If you don't wish to discuss the subject, the one YOU started, I'll understand. 😀
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It’s nice that you honor science and engineering but surely you must be aware that if nothing else science is full of surprises.BIG SURPRISES! You know, black holes, gravity waves, which by the day, could not (repeat not) be measured for decades and decades.
You don’t know what you don’t know. You may not be familiar the famous expression, anyone who claims to know how quantum physics works probably doesn’t. |
Ah, couldn’t think of a good argument, eh? That's a shame.
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That's what happens when you eat at a dump. They serve Coke warm and flat. Which is analogous to naysayers who don't have good luck with certain tweaks. It's an operator error. Hel-loo! For the rest of the tweakaphobes, the ones who never get up off their Barco Loungers to try anything, who knows why they get a bee in their bonnets. Oh, well, you can't save the world.
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Huh? Coke or Pepsi? Don’t be silly. You buy the one you think tastes best. It has almost nothing to do with advertising. Are you so gullible? By the way, Coke is much better than Pepsi ever thought of being.
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Audiophile product fraud would be rather difficult to prove in court. And that’s why Better Business Bureau, Consumer Watchdog groups, Consumer Reports, Bureau of Consumer Protection, FCC, NIST, AES, Journal of Physics, or any other consumer protection group does not (rpt not) respond to requests for investigating an audiophile device or tweak on the suspicion that the device either has claims that are false or that the device is an outright fraud, and does nothing. What would the judge’s instructions to the jury be, see if sound is more transparent, or the if the bass has more slam? Cut me some slack! The real advantage of audiophile tweaks is they make good conversation starters. Caveats emptor, your results may vary, enjoy the music. Smoke if ya got em.
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Hey, this thread is shaping up to be even funnier than the one they closed. 🤡 Next up, How come audiophiles are always trying to get better sound. Why can’t they just be content like us? 🙄
Enjoy the music.
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cleeds
The snake oil thread isn’t closed, it’s here.
There was a troll thread that was closed earlier today. I think this was it here.
Good catch! The Snake Oil thread is not a troll thread. 😛 |
How ’bout a group hug and singing a few verses of Kumbaya? 🎼
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