EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Products => Dodgy Technology => Topic started by: AlbertL on April 13, 2021, 11:30:13 pm
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How it "works":
https://www.bybeetech.com/about-us-our-technology/ (https://www.bybeetech.com/about-us-our-technology/)
And a glowing review:
http://enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/1202/bybee.htm (http://enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/1202/bybee.htm)
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Quite expensive for a zero ohm resistor.
:-DD
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0.1 ohm actually.
:-DD
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I’ll bet Mr. Bybee’s CV along with his patent and publication list as a prominent physicist would be quite interesting reading :-DD
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Plug-In Speaker Bullets
The Plug-In Speaker Bullets deliver stunning improvements in detail retrieval, ambience and spatial presentation, vocal and instrumental color, transient and dynamic impact, and harmonic completeness. With a a simple plug-in connection, the Plug-In Speaker Bullets surpass even the benefits of all but the most extensive system-wide internal Bybee modification upgrades to amplifiers, pre-amplifiers, loudspeakers, cables, etc.
The Plug-In Speaker Bullets incorporate a newly developed combination of aluminum casings and new proprietary wire that surpasses the gold wire originally used in earlier products. The termination on this product utilizes the highest quality silver banana plugs and 5-way binding post terminals for the receiving end of the speaker cables. Although dramatic sonic improvements will be quickly audible, an burn-in period of 100-200 hours will enable the Plug-In Speaker Bullets to reach full performance.
(https://i.imgur.com/3KfaKLF.jpg)
Don't they already look "burn't in" at the ends and a it crusty?
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"the Bybee Quantum Purifier was borne."
"borne"? Yikes.
" It is indestinquisable to the human ear, however it's effects are profound"
"indestinquisable "?? it's? Apostrophe misuse is a 101 level mistake.
"It is built into our Quantum Purifies"
Purifies or Purifiers?
" learn more and more about this technology and it's potentials every day. We are constantly seeking and finding ways to increase it's effectiveness."
Again with the it's vs its... argh. I can't take it anymore. Looks like he should install a Purifier or two on his keyboard cable.
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Don't they already look "burn't in" at the ends and a it crusty?
"new proprietary wire that surpasses the gold wire originally used" - I wonder what that is? "Quantum carbon nanotubes" maybe? Hard to find a better-than-gold material for wires, IMHO...
And judging by the picture/description, it seems the gold plating has worn off of the silver "base material" - silver certainly is one of the worst choices as a contact material when exposed to air...
(But good thing is, people never look inside their amplifiers or loudspeakers - they might die to a stroke when they just spent a couple of k for the plugs, running into phone wires on the inside...)
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If it's "indistinguishable to the human ear", then who exactly is their target audience? I know that if spent that much money on whatever that is, I would expect its effects to be a little more distinguishable.
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In the past, we have attempted to explain in more detail, the science behind this technology. Unfortunately, we find that more information tends to bring out the skeptics, so we now elect to remain informative, yet vague. We like to say "most people don't know how the cell phone works, but that doesn't stop them from using it." We feel our products are similar in that it is not critical to know how they work in order to enjoy them.
:-DD
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And the most outstanding feature is that it will deplete your bank account while helping us to make more money. >:D
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In the past, we have attempted to explain in more detail, the science behind this technology. Unfortunately, we find that more information tends to bring out the skeptics, so we now elect to remain informative, yet vague. We like to say "most people don't know how the cell phone works, but that doesn't stop them from using it." We feel our products are similar in that it is not critical to know how they work in order to enjoy them.
:-DD
Yep, and they will still sell them just fine. The reason is because, well, it's basically a kind of religion. Meaning facts don't matter, and they know it. If their customers believe it sounds better, then it will. And if they spend $9,999 on a transfactor wave smoothification box, then they will believe it actually makes a difference. A $9,999 difference.
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Yep! It's called cognitive dissonance and makes you believe the sound has improved by 9,999 bucks.
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Which is why you often see a glass of wine in-frame in Audiophool articles. Wine helps with the cognitive dissonance thing.
So here's my new product for the discerning Audiophool:
Sonic Enhancement Vintage Pino Noir
* Using choice grapes only grown during solar flux minima for reduced ionic contamination.
* Zero use of metallic elements in the fermentation and aging process, eliminating galvanically-induced anti-spin polarization.
* Proper application of Sonic Enhancement Vintage will dramatically reduce the sensitivity of your inner ear to Electromagnetic Interference, greatly opening up the soundstage and clarifying standing-wave audio spectral distortion.
* etc, etc.
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Add "cryogenically enhanced sound field projection" and "blockchain based verification of authenticity", and it will sell like hot cakes. ;D
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I'm going to wait for the spin-sensitive version. Only electrons with up spin go to the left channel and those with down spin go to the right.
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That would be the Stern-Gerlach version (q.v.).
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Since this sucker is quantum, doesn't that mean it has to adhere to the Uncertainty Principle?
"Hey, this thing doesn't work."
"Well, it obeys the Uncertainly Principle...So you can never be certain that it does anything. Pretty cool, huh?"
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If it's "indistinguishable to the human ear", then who exactly is their target audience? I know that if spent that much money on whatever that is, I would expect its effects to be a little more distinguishable.
If it was about being indistinguishable then your criticism would be sound, however the original author says it is about being "indestinquisable" to the human ear, which I think you must agree is a completely different matter. Indeed the whole things is about quisablilty. Proof of that is how queasy you will feel once you have paid for some and heard the difference they make. :)
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What a truly marvellous product it must be, to reach backwards in time and clean up noisy quantumn thingamajigs from the cables in the recording studio as well..!
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What a truly marvellous product it must be, to reach backwards in time and clean up noisy quantumn thingamajigs from the cables in the recording studio as well..!
That's a good point as well. Do all the musicians have their equipment cleansed of "impure" sonic degradations. No not a chance. Many sounds are intentionally distorted (i.e. guitars). The guitarist listens to their distortion and sets it just so. But that involves his/her own ear. Who's to say what they think they hear is what another person with different ears hears? Don't a lot of hard rock band members have bad hearing, so ... :wtf:
The whole recording is composed of impure sounds before it even gets to the recording electronics. So the whole point at home is to reproduce the impure sounds as faithfully as possible ... :o
I wonder if any musician that was involved in a recording - say Ozzie - was to listen to it in an audiophile's living room ... would he think it sounded like what he remembered. OK OK don't use Ozzie, but you get my point. :-DD
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And even after all the efforts it's not guaranteed that you're pleased by what you hear. >:D
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Which is why you often see a glass of wine in-frame in Audiophool articles. Wine helps with the cognitive dissonance thing.
In essence (Haha, you see what I did here?), it's "the more, the better", that is "the more wine, the better the sound".
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Add "cryogenically frozen enhanced sound field projection" and "blockchain based verification of authenticity", and it will sell like hot cakes. ;D
I thought they cryogenically froze things
Here's some blockchain cable to go with it:
https://www.wireonwire.com/products/experience880-tunable-rca-audio-cable-interconnect (https://www.wireonwire.com/products/experience880-tunable-rca-audio-cable-interconnect)
(https://i.imgur.com/vy7K7Ho.jpg)
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In the past, we have attempted to explain in more detail, the science behind this technology. Unfortunately, we find that more information tends to bring out the skeptics, so we now elect to remain informative, yet vague. We like to say "most people don't know how the cell phone works, but that doesn't stop them from using it." We feel our products are similar in that it is not critical to know how they work in order to enjoy them.
:-DD
Yep, and they will still sell them just fine. The reason is because, well, it's basically a kind of religion. Meaning facts don't matter, and they know it. If their customers believe it sounds better, then it will. And if they spend $9,999 on a transfactor wave smoothification box, then they will believe it actually makes a difference. A $9,999 difference.
While those products are obviously snake oil and all the marketing around them is very funny, as I often say about this, I have absolutely zero problem with those products existing and selling.
Are those companies hurting anyone? Not really. Are they taking away business from others? Not even so IMHO.
That people will judge in a 100% subjective way the effects of products that are exactly sold to "improve" their *subjective* listening experience is perfectly congruent.
Likewise, some people (probably even a lot more than we may think) feel better when they are wearing a certain color. You can try and prove them using thousands of studies that it can't make any objective difference whatsoever. That would be barking up the wrong tree.
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A friend in Austria calls this stuff "Deppensteuer" -> "idiot tax".
The astonishing thing is that availability of excess cash often comes with age - and that is inversely proportional to the upper frequency limit of hearing ability.
Rule of Thumb: age 0: 20kHz, corner frequency of hearing "low pass filter" drops by 2kHz per decade of age. In my case this fits nicely: I stopped noticing the horizontal oscillator of our TV at 20something.
Greetings,
Rainer
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The part of all this that really gets me is the quality of the speakers and the room's acoustics are demonstrably going to have far more of an impact than all but the shittiest amplifiers and connections, especially once you're at line level or higher.
Do any of these guys go to the effort of setting up a fairly flat mic and audio spectrum analyzer, and sweep their setup? I've never done it but I'd guess that's the way to do it if you're really after good sound reproduction and not expensive crap to brag about.
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I should have set up such a business! Could be retired on a tropical island in the Philippines right now.
And the most outstanding feature is that it will deplete your bank account while helping us to make more money. >:D
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The part of all this that really gets me is the quality of the speakers and the room's acoustics are demonstrably going to have far more of an impact than all but the shittiest amplifiers and connections, especially once you're at line level or higher.
absolutely true but there is a lot of snake oil around speakers too.
Do any of these guys go to the effort of setting up a fairly flat mic and audio spectrum analyzer, and sweep their setup? I've never done it but I'd guess that's the way to do it if you're really after good sound reproduction and not expensive crap to brag about.
Decades ago, well before cheap instrumentation, I walked into a hifi shop to look for an amplifier. The sales rep came back with glowing reports on how this company used a spectrum analyzer to do this and that. It was obvious that he had no idea what a spectrum analyzer was. I listened for a bit and as the BS got deeper and deeper I turned around and left. Never went into that store again, in fact it was a long time before going into any hi fidelity shop.
Even funnier back in that time frame equalizers where a big thing. I just thought it was funny that some one could be convinced to buy an amp with a flat response well out beyond human hearing and at the same time be convinced of a need for an equalizer.
In the end I never really grew into listening to music the way some do. That probably saved me a lot of money in records and equipment. I ended up hacking in an FM tuner into an old receiver that had radio problem and just listened to the local college station most of the time. Back ground fill if you will.
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I need to go read the warranty language of some of these audiophool products. A black box that sits there and absorbs negative audiophonic particles - it just sits there ...
How do you claim it isn't working correctly when there are no specifications - well really - nothing that can be measured?
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The part of all this that really gets me is the quality of the speakers and the room's acoustics are demonstrably going to have far more of an impact than all but the shittiest amplifiers and connections, especially once you're at line level or higher.
Do any of these guys go to the effort of setting up a fairly flat mic and audio spectrum analyzer, and sweep their setup? I've never done it but I'd guess that's the way to do it if you're really after good sound reproduction and not expensive crap to brag about.
These days a Umik-1 calibrated microphone and the free REW program allows you to take all sorts of in-room measurements for less than $100 (assuming you already own a PC/laptop, that is :)). With the right DSP/equalizer, you can also use REW to optimize the sound. Anyone who wants to spend their money wisely goes that way, these days.
In 2020, active speakers with high quality DSP+DAC+Class D amplifier are, arguably, a much better use of money than the most expensive source/amplifier/speakers with no correction. Some of the newer designs like the Purifi Audio amplifiers have unbelievable specs, well above any audiophool amplifier https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-and-measurements-of-purifi-1et400a-amplifier.7984/. (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-and-measurements-of-purifi-1et400a-amplifier.7984/.) Active speakers designs like the LXmini (by Linkwitz of Linkwitz-Riley fame) sound better than speakers 10 times their cost https://www.linkwitzlab.com/LXmini/Introduction.htm, (https://www.linkwitzlab.com/LXmini/Introduction.htm,) even when materials like schedule 40 PVC pipes are part of the design (obviously those can be improved by using audiophool grade Sc 40 PVC pipe >:D)
Class D amplifiers are so good, to the point that I have seen people add valve preamplifiers with 0 gain in the chain to "warm" the sound, since well designed class D amplifiers can sound too good for their ears :-DD
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Personally, and I do not demand that you follow this prescription, I only trust the subjective opinions of audio critics who are familiar with live acoustic music performance, especially chamber music, Renaissance polyphony, and other music that needs to be reproduced cleanly. My first bad memory of other types is when I was a poor college student and visited a legitimate high-end audio retailer. I had to wait my turn, while a much richer customer auditioned full-size Klipschorns by listening to a recording of Paul Revere and the Raiders.
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I need to go read the warranty language of some of these audiophool products. A black box that sits there and absorbs negative audiophonic particles - it just sits there ...
How do you claim it isn't working correctly when there are no specifications - well really - nothing that can be measured?
Not only that. Pretty much all the audiophools products like this one always need a "break in period" of hundreds of hours. That pretty much guarantees that any potential problem (or lack of any effect) can be waved off with a "just wait". The best way to avoid a real ABX test of the product