Why is the snake oil topic closed?
<jl35> and that's before you get to amps, DACs, CD players, and of course, cables. What a state audio is in. Even hi-rez remastered downloads are often crushed and squeezed to death. No wonder many stick to vinyl / tube systems and have done with it. These debates are important, but its for the readers to see where the vested interests may lie. Audio can be simple, really. Something like Recording, Room and placement (unless its Headphones), Loudspeaker, and the rest you can take your pick. |
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 🐍 |
Anyone who wants to make a quick easy buck in this industry can try their hand at the following time honoured practice. Get a deal with a manufacturer of cheap electrical cables to supply you with a variety of cables. You can specify various design criteria, braided, coloured sleeving, different termination etc etc. Now you can sell them at whatever markup you fancy as long as you have a USP (unique selling point - marketing jargon) for each one. All audio products sound different no doubt, but the only ones most humans can easily distinguish between are loudspeakers. You can also include Tube amps and turntables/ cartridges if you love analogue - who doesn't?). You can pay more for build quality, aesthetics and features and if you wish but don't kid yourself you're getting significantly better sound. It seems criminal that some engineers are working extremely hard to further standards in these areas, often with little financial gain, whilst purveyors of snake oil rake in easy money. Yet this is the way of the world and its only fair that newcomers to audio get a fair warning. Things were even worse before the age of the internet. Or were they? I guess on balance they were because in those days there was very little information outside magazines, a whole different world of hurt. How many of us eventually leave this hobby due to disgust at being swindled? |
"
Debussy understood that a work of art Or an effort to create beauty, was always regarded by some people as a personal attack." ...one's 'snake oil' may be another's 'essential oil'...and vice-versa, of course... Any attempts at humour can be construed as an application of ground glass into the potion at hand... ...which is why (IMHO) this topic was doomed from Post #2. (I'm generally surprised that topics of this nature go on as long as they do, but...some things are just like that....) |
| Post removed |
"Rub Snake oil onto my..." Which Oil? I have not upgraded my stereo in 7+ years, so the problems I am dealing with now are not related to Audio in any way whatsoever. But this thread, as its predecessor, is turning UGLY, and your comment proves (to me) the point. I am out of here, shall spend the rest of the evening with Stereo2Go folks, among civilized audiophiles. Good Bye! |
We have no idea how sexual minorities or sex-disoriented kids happen, we do not even know all the species of animals we are exterminating on this Planet. But, Hey, we landed on the Moon and we detect black holes colliding out There, we know EVERYTHING!!! All amps sound the same, I know...... first thing tomorrow morning I will list all my CDs and LPs on Discogs and start hi-rez download spree, is this a "certified" move? Naim Audio claims that each one of their CD drives gets $whatever worth of special paint. Looks and feels real special to me. Is this a Snake Oil?? who to believe? Big buck companies like Bose? Anonymous WWW posts? My own ears? Suffer thru double-blind / ABX tests each time I am buying new iPhone? What a poor boy should do? (Genesis, Lamb Lies Down...) Come on, Cheer Up!!! :-) if folks spend $10k on Nordost, do Not talk to me about "hard-earned money"... should they spend $$$ on yet another Lamborghini instead? Or get another mistress? Point a dimwit like myself where and how to waste my extra cash! |
Seriously!!! It's all good for an individual to play around with these snake oil products in private, just keep it to themselves. But when they come on here and tell the "gullible" that it's a fix for whatever problems they have. Then tell the "gullible" to spend their hard earned money on them, that's when it becomes objectionable. Especially when it makes bags of money for the voodoo'ist peddler who's selling it. Cheers George |
| Post removed |
I think it would help if the topic called "snake oil" won't be taken so seriously! ;-) ...Seriously!!! It is just snake oil, so by definition it should be fun talk, not name-calling and endless accusations. Art Dudley (of Listener, now one of the seniors at Stereophile) said once that he would have to stick a few feathers up his, ahem, hat, while showing the Mping dots to his beighbors. If Shakti Stone sitting on top of my Nap250 makes me smile and prevents the pile of jewel cases from scratching my beloved amp, why would I substitute it for the ugly Yellow Pages? Shakti looks nice, and according to my wife "kills Naim sound"... so there is some effect according to non-blind test! :-) I do not see myself accusing Ferrari driver stuck next to me in LA traffic of stupidity, Ferrari makes him happy. $1000 a pop Shunyata power cords make me happy,... an unpleasant and far more costly visit to Newman Markus or Theodore makes my Boss happy. I do not see myself (well, do not dare!) calling her Stupid! Black Holes, Quantum Mechanics, interferometers and whatnot will show nothing special about $$$ dress, so what? Those "ashamed of themselves" by being here, move onto McIntosh, or Linn, Krell, Harman/Kardon forums. All the gizmos are sold with some return policy, I do not see many posts here saying that folks tried Nordost Valhalla and then ran back to Audio Advisor or RadioShack-on-line. Why is that? reminds me of "scientific" discussion with Olympus sales rep about my stupidity of using Zeiss and Leica microscopes in my research. It turned as ugly as some posts on Snake Oil. Is there an agenda on both sides??? Preaching McDonalds (dont get me wrong, totally respectful establishment) to Audiogon crowd? Why??? BTW (returning to the beginning of this lengthy rambling), what are you talking about, what is the definition of SnakeOil as opposed to Tweaks? Sounds the same to me as "all TT/amps/CD players sound the same" from prev generation of 'Goners ;-) |
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. |
Twas’ a purposely opaque statement. Pythonesque in intent. So we can have robots, ie people just like us--which is socially and culturally..a dead thing. No differences = death, dead things. Or suffer from the barbs and intrusion of individuals. Suffer the differences and be alive. So one cannot recognize the shape of even one thing ...or even ’be’... without the existence of fundamental differences. Differential is the fundamental of reality. Between the goalposts of identical vs chaos, humans meander in their lost little ways, seeking perfections in unity if they are fools, and happy mediums of not quite manageable difference..if they understand some of the issues at hand. Being comfortable is loosely equatable to being dead. Too much chaos disallows coherence, so that’s the same as dead. Dead in -and as- a sea of noise. Somewhere in the middle is the road of life. Oh yes, critically, exploitation requires, on mass levels..it requires commodification of the target. Commodities are dead things, unchanging things. Manageable things. Or it can be achieved via injection of Chaos. Tie humanity to one goalpost or the other. In each motion they become commoditized and manageable. Keeping people out of the middle and out of reasoning- is key. |
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. 😀 |
teo_audio Do You Suffer From the Dunning-Kruger Effect?This is a fair question. Indeed, I think many of the self-proclaimed objectivists here suffer from this effect. But the real problem here seems to be the seething intolerance and animosity that some posters express, as reflected in the many deleted posts in this thread. |
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. |
Do You Suffer From the Dunning-Kruger Effect?
https://code.tutsplus.com/articles/do-you-suffer-from-the-dunning-kruger-effect--net-22227 Manipulating societies is driven by elevating and empowering the former outside of their cognition that it is being done, and denigrating and degrading the latter ...via similar manipulations... and most importantly...having the former (the enabled illiterate) chase after and defeat the latter. Pure Machiavellian tactics. Practically page one chapter one of the Machiavellian guide to controlling populations. The scenarios encountered on forums like this show the door is always wide open to use this lever, even if the people be aware of it. Cognitive dissonance driven by desires, fears, and so on. The harder a body is driven the stronger the ego's grip. After all, that's it's job..which is to preserve the body above all else. Thought and cognition that is unedited can happen in the calm times. So control is about disallowing rest and calm times. Which some of you, if you noticed, in the past decade or so... there have been probably dozens of books now that try to get that point through to the people. But..cognitive dissonance intercedes... |
Well for one thing as a serious audio fan that honors science and engineering, it can be kind of embarrassing to be associated with some of the more ridiculous tweaks that some support here. Why would you feel embarrassed if you don't believe it? You are not associated with it at that point. I find many of the tweaks don't have efficacy, but personally feel no connection to them what so ever. I enjoy high end home audio, period. You can only be embarrassed or offended if you allow yourself to be. Don't worry about some anonymous person on the internet. There are many more important things in life to be worried about. |
jji666 ... as a serious audio fan that honors science and engineering, it can be kind of embarrassing to be associated with some of the more ridiculous tweaks that some support here ...You post here anonymously, and yet are embarrassed by the anonymous posts of others? That really doesn't make any sense, especially from someone who says they honor "science." |
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. |
Well for one thing as a serious audio fan that honors science and engineering, it can be kind of embarrassing to be associated with some of the more ridiculous tweaks that some support here. And occasionally it can feel like someone is trying to rip one off. (I do acknowledge that most tweakers don't push tweaks on others and stick to the "different strokes for different folks" mentality). I think it is just a matter of degree: I'm sure many tweaks have some effect. Some clearly cannot. Then some are so extreme so as to represent a caricature. What is impossible is that a tweak is not measurable but still effective. It's possible instruments are not sensitive enough yet. But the concept that a tweak would be impossible to ever measure, but still effective, makes no sense. |
What naturally happens to dog that is hungry? One will steal food from your dinner table if spotted smell. A theft is natural to all of us including dogs and everyone improvises and practices that skill so that it won't hurt the victim in a very nice way. It's an art that always creates tension between us, yet, we praise skillful thieves in the movies played by high caliber movie actors. Ways to steal are so many perhaps more than combinations on the chess board in the beginning of the game so discussed 'SNAKE OIL' I believe should not be a topic of frustration or anger -- IT'S OUR NATURE for hek sake yo! So my only reaction to those trying to purchase $100k home audio amp, $10k home audio wires and even $10k turntable cartridges is chuckle-chuckle whahaha! |
kosst_amojan ... this thread is at least as stupid as Foggythink's ... These fools aren't on the cutting edge... They're neurotic ... I commend those who derail their stupid snake oil threads.Why so angry? Why so bitter? |
| Post removed |
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,You should be preaching this crud here, among your disciples. https://cdni.rt.com/files/2015.12/article/5670cd0cc46188bd2c8b461f.jpg Cheers George |
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. |
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. |
| Post removed |
