Does any of this stuff do anything?

[CoolbeaN]

I bought a used preamp-processor off audiogon. Good deal, Outlaw 950 for $300 delivered. Anywho.... Looking for more good deals I browsed around the dollar auctions and found some very interesting things that don't seem to do anything at all, or at least not better than anything else. I'll leave out the stuff from Machina Dynamica which is obviously a scam.

Exotic power cables:
AudiogoN ForSale: Black mountain cable Peak Power Cord
What difference does it make when you have 200 feet of standard household romex in your walls?

Cable Isolators:
AudiogoN ForSale: Cable isolators B-Stock Blowout!
Who cares if your speaker cables touches the ground?

Sound Improvement discs
AudiogoN ForSale: Sid model 14 or 15 sound improvement
Either the laser reads the disc or it doesn't... right?

Digital and analog terminators
AudiogoN ForSale: Digital-terminator 75 Ohm simple but
AudiogoN ForSale: Analog-terminator "shorties"
What??

I think it's just a plastic brick filled with sand......
AudiogoN ForSale: Ais Ophiopogon


I won't bother posting the unending list of interconnects.... lets just say there are many and they always sell at a (to me) very high price.

Does any of this stuff do ANYTHING?

 

[SY]

Does any of this stuff do ANYTHING?

If you mean anything connected to reality, some does, some doesn't. If you mean entertain audiophiles by giving them shiny toys to play with and write about it on the internet, then it's all functional.

 

[neutron7]

If you are affected by the pleasant illusion that simply spending money on things makes them sound better then they will make your stereo appear to sound better, but since you asked, you might always have doubts, so I do not think they are for you.

 

[dave_gerecke]

Ah yes, indeed it does do something. It increases the income of the seller(s) by extracting the hard earn cash from the wallets of the purchasers. For further explanation of the effect, do a search of the WWW for P.T. Barnum quotes. He has one that explains it well.

Peace,

Dave

 

[CoolbeaN]

For further explanation of the effect, do a search of the WWW for P.T. Barnum quotes. He has one that explains it well.

No search neccicary, I am well versed in this quote already.

 

[godfrey]

The bottom must have really fallen out of the snake-oil market.
A closer look at the Black Mountain power cable reveals...

It's actually the manufacturer trying to get rid of their own products!
With no reserve price!! ...and the auction winner has the option to buy more at the same price!!!


Come to think of it, that must be really annoying for retailers trying to shift the stuff off their shelves for $550.00

p.s. For anyone who's actually interested in a pre-tangled power cord that's slightly too short, the bidding's up to $20 so far...

 

[scott wurcer]

I've tried ophiopogon (the rhizome) in Chinese medicial soup, can't say I could detect its desired improvement of my stomach "yin".

 

[trd1587]

Hey I'm selling Triangular shapped Speaker cables that are guaranteed to no induce Extra-Terrestrial noise.

5k$

 

[jlsem]

You are obviously new to the forum. Take a look around and you will find many horse carcasses that you can take a stick to. However, you have earned valuable brownie points with some of the moderators by demonstrating some skepticism.

John

 

[wwenze]

Atheists, my crystal egg definitely works.

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

 

[trd1587]

Nice Fan you got there dude!..... Is it wired to the Module 1375 from your old Delorean?

 

[wwenze]

Nice Fan you got there dude!..... Is it wired to the Module 1375 from your old Delorean?

Thank you. No it's meant to blow me in hot weather, though one cannot deny the antistatic properties when it's turned to blow the equipment.

 

[Richard Ellis]

Coolbean:
Yeah, I would guess you haven't run round in circles as some of the more dubious posts on the "merit" of some of these 'wonder' products.
That's the first 'sand filled brick' I've seen however. The one I really liked was the balls of wood....'Isolation feet' of course in the velvet lined box for your "Awe & enjoyment". The promise to isolate your equipment from the deleterious effects of...Vibration, RFI, EMI, Static charges, Gravity waves, UFO Transmissions, Phases of the Moon, Planetary alignments, "Whats your sign?", Witches, Warlocks, MAGIC, Merlin, Hobbits...et.al., Apollo, Zeus...et.al., Governmental Mind machines, blah blah blah.

_______________________________________________Rick..............

 

[Bob W7ETA]

"What difference does it make when you have 200 feet of standard household romex in your walls?"

Have you considered that your knowledge is limited? Is it is, maybe your model of electron flow and magnetism isn't complete?

When the fellow at the audio store I bought an HV receiver and speakers from stated that buying speakers cables would improve the sound, the same for interconnects to a CD player, I thought he was jest trying to con me outta some more money.

He suggested I test my theory that his speaker cable that was more expensive than Radio Shack speaker wire, wouldn't sound better buy buying some and simply bring it back if it didn't sound better.

When I tried that and two pairs of his interconnects, and the sound actually got better, I knew I was in trouble! The world didn't work they way I new it did.

 

[poynton]

AudiogoN ForSale: Cable isolators B-Stock Blowout!

Current High Bid is $40.50 ....

Retail Price is $39.95 ... at current sale prices

Anyway, they are 'B Stock'. Clearly they will not work as well as 'A Stock".



Andy


.

 

[Glowbug]

AudiogoN ForSale: Ais Ophiopogon

That's like the Monolith from 2001.

 

[CoolbeaN]

Have you considered that your knowledge is limited? .

If I felt my knowledge wasn't limited, I wouldn't have bothered to post let alone sign up for this site. And that is exactly why I am posing the question to you fine folks. I have yet to hear of any postive, real world benefits for any of these products from anyone besides the makers of the products, and the trolls that are just validating their purchases. So if you have any evidence I would love to hear it. I am not dogmatic, just skeptical.

Out of curiosity, what speaker cable and interconnects did you purchase and what did it replace? Also, what does that have to do with my comment about the power cable?

 

[star882]

Thank you. No it's meant to blow me in hot weather, though one cannot deny the antistatic properties when it's turned to blow the equipment.

I have a Scythe fan that looks a lot like that one, but hybrid digitals run too cool for the fan to do anything useful. (Maybe I should build a really powerful hybrid with some large IGBTs...)

I have also tried, without success, to increase the efficiency of a TI hybrid by taping a picture of Allie Moore (the environmentalist) to the circuit board. (Those hybrids are just too efficient to easily improve...) However, I found that putting a picture of Allie Moore* on an iPod gave numerous desired effects such as realtime display of file type, sample rate, and bitrate, as well as eliminate the skipping while loading certain files. I can now copy files onto it without having to use gtkpod. Oh, and the best part is that it will now play Ogg and FLAC! It isn't as easy to use anymore, but that's a small price to pay when I can get FLAC playback...

*Note: the picture of Allie Moore was part of a modified Rockbox distribution.

 

[CoolbeaN]

Hey, I found another one....
Blackbody - $959.00 : LessLoss high end audio power cables, video power cables, audiophile power cables, audiophile cables

 

[wakibaki]

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