Snake oil

[cprobertson1]

Those last sites are great. I can't tell whether it's satire or dead serious.

Poe's Law strikes again!

[bd139]

My father in law is an "audiophile". His system cost about £25,000 just for the amp, speakers and bowls of rocks in the room. The stupid thing is he's saving up for a mystical CD player that uses quantum entangled gremlins or something to read the media. So at the moment he's using an iPod shuffle with it.   

Transferring 1mW at 10% efficiency means they'll soon be able to charge electric cars - while they're moving.

http://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/14/big-advance-wireless-charging-moving-electric-cars/

look at those pitiful fools and their stupid, puny magnetic coils. Nikola Tesla could do better in the 19th century! Don't they know microwave beams are the way to go? *loud sizzling and smoke emits from pedestrian*

This is a SOLVED problem. Why do people keep coming up with ways to do it?

[Fungus]

Here is another apparatus from the Golder Ear set:

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/stein-music-harmonizer-system/

It's so good, not even the inventor could explain how it works. Nevertheless, the reviewer found it impressive.

I can explain how it works: It sits in the corner of the room and draws your attention to it. This subconsciously alters the sound to make the room feel bigger. The high price reassures you that it must be doing something.

Then there's the "Golden Ear Awards 2016" named so, without a squat of irony. I found that amusing in itself.

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/golden-ear-awards-2016-jonathan-valin/

In here there is a $129998.00 turn table and tone arm. Phew, I'm glad it wasn't $130000.00, that would have been an outrageous ripoff.
To use the turntable you can invest in a $153000 pair of speakers and an $80000 amplifier.

I'm not going to say those systems are rubbish, far from it. I've been to a few HiFi shows and they're impressive.

But ... $130k? At that point you're well into the zone of "paying for the Artist". Picasso paintings go for millions of $$$ but there's no intrinsic value in them, they're just colored pigments on canvas.

On that basis I can sort of understand paying 130k for a 350-kilo (weight) limited-production turntable that looks like the engine out of a flying saucer. It's art. It turns every listening session into a ceremony. Watching it spin surely improves the sound you perceive. If you're a millionaire then... why not?

I really don't believe they sound any better than a $1k turntable in A-B testing though.

The real ripoffs are the magic stones to put on your speaker cables and the little plastic disks that you glue to your windows.

All of this expense so you can play a crappy piece of plastic with 45min long mark pressed into it. How impressive is that.

...piece of plastic that never had the full frequency response of the master tape in the first place and will slowly wear out over time as you play it.

Still, both those factors add up to "warmer" sound. That's a good thing, right?

[djos]

I'll take my 1 bit @ 2.88 Mhz DSD recordings (SACD) over a piece of pressed plastic that wears out any day of the week. My SACD player (universal Bluray player) only cost me $700 back when Bluray was still fairly new and expensive. It blows my mind what ppl pay for turntables now! 

I played my DSD recording of the 1812 overture to a vinal loving mate a while back, and he nearly crapped himself when the cannons fired up and had to admit his vinal could never compete. This recording actually comes with a warning that speaker damage is possible if your gear is not up to scratch. 

https://www.sa-cd.net/showtitle/190

[McBryce]

What's with all this modern vinyl rubbish? If you're not listening to shellac records, then why bother with a turntable at all

McBryce.

[Z80]

Human stupidity knows no bounds.  It's amazing how 'audiophiles' can spend huge sums to achieve a system with the best possible fidelity and then go and feed it a signal created by dragging a rock through a stamped plastic slot 

[IanMacdonald]

"But ... $130k? At that point you're well into the zone of "paying for the Artist". Picasso paintings go for millions of $ $ $ but there's no intrinsic value in them, they're just colored pigments on canvas."

Not a fan, but then Picasso must've put a fair bit of hard graft into them. So, credit where it's due. The ones that get me riled to see people paying $ $ $ for them are Mondrian and Pollock. Definitely qualify for the snake oil thread.

After all, Microsoft Office is only 1's and 0's, and I can do those. Just a small matter of getting them in the right order.

[Fungus]

Not a fan, but then Picasso must've put a fair bit of hard graft into them. So, credit where it's due.

So do the people who make those speakers+turntables.

R+D will be expensive and sales very limited.

[Specmaster]

You can find people trying sell the impossible in almost every walk of life, I used to work with a certain person who is a real snake oil salesman and the worst part of it is that others above him seem to have bought into his concept, when oh when will people wake up and smell the coffee??? 

[Buriedcode]

You can find people trying sell the impossible in almost every walk of life, I used to work with a certain person who is a real snake oil salesman and the worst part of it is that others above him seem to have bought into his concept, when oh when will people wake up and smell the coffee??? 

It is often the educated - or those who believe themselves to be - that fall for it.  Many Doctors, Engineers, and even scientists believe that, because of their success in their field that it extends to other areas.  It is prudent to occasionally double check belief's and decisions.  If you think you are too 'rational' or intelligent to fall prey to such ideas - you're just as susceptible as anyone else.

[Specmaster]

You can find people trying sell the impossible in almost every walk of life, I used to work with a certain person who is a real snake oil salesman and the worst part of it is that others above him seem to have bought into his concept, when oh when will people wake up and smell the coffee??? 

It is often the educated - or those who believe themselves to be - that fall for it.  Many Doctors, Engineers, and even scientists believe that, because of their success in their field that it extends to other areas.  It is prudent to occasionally double check belief's and decisions.  If you think you are too 'rational' or intelligent to fall prey to such ideas - you're just as susceptible as anyone else.

Oh I had him sussed out from the very first time I met the man. I'm always highly suspicious of anyone whose CV shows an inability to hold down a job for any appreciable time.   

[CJay]

You can find people trying sell the impossible in almost every walk of life, I used to work with a certain person who is a real snake oil salesman and the worst part of it is that others above him seem to have bought into his concept, when oh when will people wake up and smell the coffee??? 

It is often the educated - or those who believe themselves to be - that fall for it.  Many Doctors, Engineers, and even scientists believe that, because of their success in their field that it extends to other areas.  It is prudent to occasionally double check belief's and decisions.  If you think you are too 'rational' or intelligent to fall prey to such ideas - you're just as susceptible as anyone else.

Oh I had him sussed out from the very first time I met the man. I'm always highly suspicious of anyone whose CV shows an inability to hold down a job for any appreciable time.

I once lost a job to an 'engineer' who was an accomplished snakeoil salesman, he sold himself to the managing director as being everybody's favourite, the best most organised engineer in my field and managed to weasel his way into my position, causing the MD to 'demote' me.

It was obvious from talking to the 'engineer' that he had no idea about electronics, only a vague idea of how the gas analysis systems actually worked, he was a module swapper who had delusions of competence.

I resigned on the spot and wished the MD good luck with his technical wizard.

Four months later he was on the 'phone begging me to come back, of course I made it clear I wasn't interested, six months later the company went to the wall (for a number of reasons, not limited to the MD's inability to keep his mouth shut after a drink or two).

[Buriedcode]

I believe I may have been misconstrued.  I was not suggesting that con-artists pose as engineers, or are engineers themselves, just that education and confidence in ones skills are no protection against silly beliefs. We all have them (of course I am included). I'll just quote myself

If you think you are too 'rational' or intelligent to fall prey to such ideas - you're just as susceptible as anyone else.

[Cyberdragon]

I have a super evil idea...lets sell these audiophools an "ultra low distortion" electric guitar amplifier (aka an acoustic amp) and when they complain that it just goes "ding" we tell them it's exactly what they ordered.

[Lockon Stratos]

I couldnt find any better place so i throw it in here:
https://electrek.co/2016/11/01/tesla-battery-degradation/

Somehow i cannot believe them... (Some nutjob throwing this aroung claiming how EV's are better and its getting on my nerve.)

Whats the communities opinion on this?

[cprobertson1]

I couldn't find any better place so i throw it in here:

Somehow I cannot believe them... (Some nutjob throwing this around claiming how EV's are better and its getting on my nerve.)
Whats the communities opinion on this?

Not going to lie - I read that and thought you were saying somebody was going around claiming electron-volts (eV) are better than volts. Took me a good hour before it suddenly dawned on me (). It's just turned 0800 and I've been up for three hours, you'd think I'd be awake by now

I'm afraid this isn't my field - but on a first-principles basis (and looking at the presented data), there seem to be some major flaws with this somewhat preordained conclusion that the packs can be used for another few hundred thousand miles.

- Sample size - 286 samples isn't that large; may not be representative.

- Sampling bias - the samples were self-selected; may not be an issue here, but always worth remembering.

- Survivorship bias - the samples shown (see charts [1], [2], [3] and [4] in article) - how many people are dropping out, how many people are replacing their electric car when the battery dies (rather than replacing the battery), etc etc. The graph only shows the "surviving" car owners so to speak.

- Data obfuscation (probably accidental) - there are numerous occasions where the same user has submitted multiple entries: this is not intrinsically bad, as it allows you to track and individual vehicle - provided it is dealt with correctly. In this dataset, I am unsure how the data is being treated - if it is being treated as individual data points instead of an individual sampling, then this can hide poor performance [5]. If it has been dealt with properly (which I think would entail using only the most recent entry from a given user), then I believe it's fine - if not then it may be hiding poor performance.[6]


There are a bunch of other problems that I can think of, but I won't go into detail for risk of this post becoming inordinately long(er); but suffice to say I am not convinced the observations support the article's conclusion that the batteries are on average capable of another 150'000 miles...

And it is for a much simpler line of reasoning: if they were capable of another 150'000 miles (on average)... people would be reporting that already... unless what you're trying to say is that people get to MAX-150'000 miles (on average) and then suddenly stop and say to themselves "Hey! Let's get a new battery/car!" (though I wouldn't put it past them) - the fact that on average people aren't getting an extra 150'000 miles out their cars suggests that there are confounding factors at play asides from the battery.

In fact, you can see this in charts [1-4] - you'll notice that there are fewer samples at the "high mileage" end of the chart... it's almost as if, on average, high-mileage electric cars don't fare as well!



[1-4] - see google docs file for original data

[5] - As a comparison, imagine measuring the same resistor for tolerance multiple times and then claiming the entire batch of resistors is within tolerance.

[6] - As a quick demonstration: imagine two users - UserA has their car for 7 days, and then it dies. He logs the mileage the day it dies. UserB has their car for a year: he logs the mileage every day. Collating the data without filtering makes it look like UserB was in fact 365 different cars, each with n+1 days on the clock, when it was in fact just a single car. While the average is similar 186 vs 181 respectively), the conclusion is not - especially once we introduce more people - lets say UserC-UserZ: who in this example lose their cars after exactly 1 month and log exactly once. Clearly UserB was an outlier, but his excessive logging has swamped UserA and UserC-UserZ's data, driving the average higher than a single reading would have. (if UserB had made a single reading, the average would be 42-days until car-death with a standard deviation of 66: if UserB made a reading every day, the average life of a car would be ~172 days, with a standard deviation of 108, which clearly isn't the representing the life of most cars, as most cars in this sample fail at the 30 day mark; one could spend a while analysing the differences through statistical analysis - but, I'm afraid I can't be bothered... I also can't remember how to do statistical analysis properly anymore... ).

--EDIT-- some dummy couldn't count, I had to fix his calculations because they were borked

[Zenrei]

haha... i was reading the titles and all of a sudden...snake..oil.... whats this all about..... laughter ensues

[Richard Crowley]

This made me laugh out loud.

GOLD PLATED OPTICAL CABLE

[Specmaster]

Heard it all now, fibre optic, gold plated  Its as bad all those muppets who paid fortunes for video and audio cables made by Monster Cables in the belief that paying 6 to 10 times the price of a normal cable would greatly improve their audible or video pleasure.

[Mr. Scram]

This made me laugh out loud.

GOLD PLATED OPTICAL CABLE

Gold plating is a decent way of preventing long term tarnishing. Even if it wouldn't hamper electrical contact, which should be the case with optical cables, it does increase the durability of the product.

I do see added value here.

[Mr. Scram]

Heard it all now, fibre optic, gold plated  Its as bad all those muppets who paid fortunes for video and audio cables made by Monster Cables in the belief that paying 6 to 10 times the price of a normal cable would greatly improve their audible or video pleasure.

Who says it hasn't enhanced their pleasure? 

[McBryce]

This made me laugh out loud.

GOLD PLATED OPTICAL CABLE

Gold plating is a decent way of preventing long term tarnishing. Even if it wouldn't hamper electrical contact, which should be the case with optical cables, it does increase the durability of the product.

I do see added value here.

If it wasn't for the fact that the mating socket is most likely plastic. So you've a durable (replacable) cable and it's ruining the plastic socket that's mounted inside your expensive amp?

McBryce.

[Mr. Scram]

If it wasn't for the fact that the mating socket is most likely plastic. So you've a durable (replacable) cable and it's ruining the plastic socket that's mounted inside your expensive amp?

McBryce.

You obviously need to buy an amplifier with gold plated sockets too

[Specmaster]

If it wasn't for the fact that the mating socket is most likely plastic. So you've a durable (replacable) cable and it's ruining the plastic socket that's mounted inside your expensive amp?

McBryce.

You obviously need to buy an amplifier with gold plated sockets too

No doubt that there would be many buyers of such an amplifier, even with no real advantage apart from pure bragging rights about having gold plated inputs etc, that maybe match their gold plated turntable etc 

[IanMacdonald]

"It never ceases to amaze me how the "Audiophile" industry gets away with this BS and gives credence to the idea that if you tell a big enough lie, it's easier to sell it."

I'm sorry but you are simply denying the truth. This works. There is a 102.5% consensus among audio manufacturers that it does.

It is a done deal. there is no debate.

As for the naysayers, they are not audio manufacturers so they are not qualified to comment. Plus, they are probably in the pay of the evil Noise Abatement Society. So, ignore them.