Audiophoolery phooled awesomely

[kfitch42]

Further, when music was played through the coat hanger wire, we were asked if what we heard sounded good to us. All agreed that what was heard sounded excellent, however, when A-B tests occured, it was impossible to determine which sounded best the majority of the time and which wire was in use.

http://gizmodo.com/363154/audiophile-deathmatch-monster-cables-vs-a-coat-hanger

[mariush]

I guess you were reminded of that post by reddit 

Yeah... a few days ago i got into a forum "fight" with a guy that wanted 1m long Cat 7 network cables, because he thinks the music would sound better  when transferred from his external Western Digital hard disk to his external DAC box.

Apparently, the thicker copper wires and the insulation on each pair of the Cat 7 network cable makes the bits going through the cable happier. Idiots...

[Stonent]

Directional arrows....

[Fsck]

I guess you were reminded of that post by reddit 

Yeah... a few days ago i got into a forum "fight" with a guy that wanted 1m long Cat 7 network cables, because he thinks the music would sound better  when transferred from his external Western Digital hard disk to his external DAC box.

Apparently, the thicker copper wires and the insulation on each pair of the Cat 7 network cable makes the bits going through the cable happier. Idiots...

wouldn't it be cooler to just enclose it all in a faraday's cage?

[free_electron]

quick , somebody sell gold plated coat hangers !

[nanofrog]

quick , somebody sell gold plated coat hangers !

Brilliant idea!        

[Phaedrus]

quick , somebody sell gold plated coat hangers !

Brilliant idea!        

And once the audiophools catch wise, we can sell the left-over stock to the Saudis!

[amyk]

Directional arrows....

Reminded me of this:

[EEVblog]

Why is it that audiophile arguments are almost indistinguishable from religious arguments?
Oh, that's right, in both cases one side is delusional 

[rolycat]

quick , somebody sell gold plated coat hangers !

Brilliant idea!        

And once the audiophools catch wise, we can sell the left-over stock to the Saudis!

The great thing about audiophools is that they never catch wise.

The only way they'll abandon their gold-plated coat hangers will be when you create an ultra-grade rhodium plated coat hanger with wild silk insulation (woven by virgins from utopia land, obviously) and hand-carved beech support plinths.

[madires]

Yeah... a few days ago i got into a forum "fight" with a guy that wanted 1m long Cat 7 network cables, because he thinks the music would sound better  when transferred from his external Western Digital hard disk to his external DAC box.

Apparently, the thicker copper wires and the insulation on each pair of the Cat 7 network cable makes the bits going through the cable happier. Idiots...

Ah, beginners! He should use OM4 multimode glassfiber. He'll will be blown away by the crystal clear and crisp bits :-) 

[Six_Shooter]

Nothing will ever beat the Brilliant Pebbles scam: http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina31.htm

Hundreds of dollars for a bag of rocks. I only wish I had thought of farming stupidity myself.

Uhhh...  uuuhm....  Please tell me that IS a joke... Please?

[tom66]

Geoff Kait? He's a nutter but I have no reason to believe he's anything but completely serious about what he sells. His products have been reviewed by many such as Positive Feedback, Stereophile, etc. Shockingly, most of them get good reviews. I don't know if they are funded by him or not, but I can't believe anyone can seriously believe those to work.

[AndyC_772]

Does remind me a bit of these guys:

http://kalecoauto.com/

[EEVblog]

Geoff Kait? He's a nutter but I have no reason to believe he's anything but completely serious about what he sells.

Most of them are, they really believe this stuff makes a difference.

I always thought that machinadynamica was a joke though? I mean they are just so wacky and tacky, it's gotta be a joke, right? 

His products have been reviewed by many such as Positive Feedback, Stereophile, etc. Shockingly, most of them get good reviews. I don't know if they are funded by him or not, but I can't believe anyone can seriously believe those to work.

They work the same way all the audiophool products work, psychology. And yes, it's a very real delusional effect to those who make and buy this stuff.
It's not helped by the fact that some things do make an audible difference of course, they just conveniently forget the fact that it's regular measurable electrical properties at play in those cases. Then they stretch that out into thinking they can hear the difference between two identical electrical spec speaker cables, when one has been cryogenicly frozen, and the other hasn't etc.
It's a self perpetuating industry with those magazines.
The editors want to hear the difference, so they do. And the readers want to read about them hearing the differences because it helps perpetuate their own delusions.

[Tepe]

I always thought that machinadynamica was a joke though? I mean they are just so wacky and tacky, it's gotta be a joke, right? 

"natural musician's cork" 

[c4757p]

I always thought that machinadynamica was a joke though? I mean they are just so wacky and tacky, it's gotta be a joke, right? 

I said that last time his site was brought up, and was told that no, he's dead serious, even has reviews out and such. I still don't believe it. I think it's a joke gone a bit too far - maybe the dude even got a couple of the things reviewed by other sites as a matter of doing the joke to completion... These people seem to think he's not serious, though they don't seem too sure either.

If he's actually selling "real" products, he is a particularly stupid twit, and if he's a scammer, he's stupid as well for narrowing his potential client base to those with an IQ under 4, but if he's joking, it's one of the most trollish (In a good way? I'm not sure), simultaneously best and worst fake products I've seen in a while.

I'd say that whether it's a really well done joke or a joke carried too far and turned into a real scam hinges on what would happen if someone (other than a reviewer!) were to click "Buy Now" and make a purchase. Would he refund it?

Now, even if it borders on "scam", I'm not sure how much I can hate him for it. Look at the kind of people who defend his products' legitimacy. (Yes, he himself commented on that thread.) Maybe it makes me a bad person, but I can't feel too bad for anyone who basically says "anybody who thinks logically is a commie".

[tom66]

He could be a Poe.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe's_Law

But, this seems unlikely, given that he actually sells the products. Even if he were a Poe, and not a true Believer of the One True Sound, he's still a scammer by selling such products.

[macboy]

Yeah... a few days ago i got into a forum "fight" with a guy that wanted 1m long Cat 7 network cables, because he thinks the music would sound better  when transferred from his external Western Digital hard disk to his external DAC box.

Apparently, the thicker copper wires and the insulation on each pair of the Cat 7 network cable makes the bits going through the cable happier. Idiots...

Ah, beginners! He should use OM4 multimode glassfiber. He'll will be blown away by the crystal clear and crisp bits :-)

I once had a spat with an audiophool over "glass fiber" TOSLINK (optical digital audio) cables vs. plain old plastic fiber. He claimed that the plastic ones had a bandwidth limit of 6 MHz, causing all manner of audible nastiness. When I showed him data illustrating that 2 meters of plastic fiber had several GHz of bandwidth, he of course wanted nothing to do with the data. He's also a power cord upgrader, using expensive "hospital grade" plugs (but specially gold-plated overpriced ones by an audiophoolery company) and specially wound super pure OFC blah blah power cables. I once asked him what had he done to upgrade the AC line between his breaker panel and the wall socket, since that's just a long, cheap run of Romex type solid (not litz wound!) 14 gauge impure copper wire. No repsonse.

[c4757p]

Yeah, he's a scammer if he really sells them. But do we know that he would actually go through with a sale to a random person? I'm having trouble finding anyone saying they've bought one of his "products" other than intending to review them. It's still a little scammish to sell them even to a reviewer - that's what I mean by a joke gone too far, though, maybe he only pushed it that far to complete the image by having material on other websites. Even the Ripoff Report article doesn't claim that anybody ever bought the products, unless I'm missing it. And I know these audiophools can be really silly, but I have a hard time believing that even many of them would bite. A few, yes, but only a small few.

Of course, part of me suspects that he would go through with the sale just to avoid having to expose himself. In that case, I still don't think I'd truly call it a "scam", since the motivation isn't money, but rather continuing to prop up his overly intricate joke, but it would still be highly immoral. I think this is just a dude who went way too far with a joke and has trouble admitting that he lied.

[olsenn]

That coat hanger really adds a full bodied sibilance to the upper mids of jazz

[mamalala]

I once asked him what had he done to upgrade the AC line between his breaker panel and the wall socket, since that's just a long, cheap run of Romex type solid (not litz wound!) 14 gauge impure copper wire. No repsonse.

I find that power cable phoolery especially entertainingly stupid. Not only is there lots of regular solid copper wire between the wall outlet and fusebox, but lots of more wire wound on the transformers. Twice, no less! (primary and secondary). But even all that pales in comparison to the length of cabling that runs between the actual power generating station and the fuse box in the first place. With more transformers inbetween, of course. All that coiled up wire surely must make the electrons dizzy, resulting in wonky sound

Greetings,

Chris

[saturation]

One other item worth exploring is surge protector phoolery; the most bizarre rationale are given in audiophile settings to justify devices, but more subtle ones are used to bamboozle the general population into buying expensive surge protectors.  Beware of them too.

[madires]

I find that power cable phoolery especially entertainingly stupid. Not only is there lots of regular solid copper wire between the wall outlet and fusebox, but lots of more wire wound on the transformers. Twice, no less! (primary and secondary). But even all that pales in comparison to the length of cabling that runs between the actual power generating station and the fuse box in the first place. With more transformers inbetween, of course. All that coiled up wire surely must make the electrons dizzy, resulting in wonky sound

I got an idea. We could make the audiophoolery fans pay for a power grid upgrade :-)

[cloudscapes]

Directional arrows....

Reminded me of this:

but but but, electron spin! the electron poles have to align with the sound waves to get good basslines!

science!