Claim your $1M from the Great Randi

[jan.didden]

Originally posted by Kuei Yang Wang
Konnichiwa,
Would they? The products sell (probably well enough) despite all debunkers, on the strength of the majority of people who care about music and care zip about the science that dictates why such items should not make a difference. The believers are already convinced, so all it would do is to possibly convince the debunkers to go out and buy the product. I for one would not expect many sales ever which way.

Funny, quite a few years someone announced at a AES convention he had proven with a reasonable degree of certainty, in small scale and sample size double blind tests that speaker cables had audibly different properties. The poor sod who had actually gone and done his homework made the mistake to choose a significance level apropriate to the sample size (.2) and was promply savaged by the audio nazis for using such a low significance level and was forced to re-run his experiemnts with a significance level of .05 which (predictably BTW, after all, this is science and statistiscs) failed to show positive results.

It was this what I referred to when I pointed out that the Audio Pelicanists (I like that term, especially when used as a pejorative expression) had changed the goal posts every time when presented with a reasonable study that suggest that there was stinking to the heavens in the kingdom of denmark.

So no, EVEN IF a suitable test would be published (enough cases where, actually) which would suggest that Audio Pelicanists are WRONG (which any sensible human already knows they are, not on the basis of any specific instance, but based on their iditio insistance that everything knowable is already known about audio) they will move the goalposts again and simply pelicanise the whole event.

The actual problem is that (most of) the debunkers are actually fanatical adherents of a religion, not the openminded sceptics (eg ones who do not believe either that something is so or not and instead look for proof) they make themselves out to be, but agressive defenders of the orthodox true faith, who will stop at nothing lawfull and practical (including the deliberate production of severely flawed evidence then presented as fact) to ensure their faith is defended and imposed on others who do not share it.

If they could,they would ban subjectivist audio magazines, sales of high end audio and "esotheric" acessories (they have repeated actually tried through trand standards agencies etc.). You will no more convice such people of anything they object to as you culd convine the pope that catholic doctrine is wrong, Nag Hamadi, the death sea scrolls and other recent finds of authentic material that would support you substantially nonwithstanding.

If you wish to stand on the side of such charlatans, suit yourself. I find either brand of believer repulsive and prefer actual first hand knowledge over making other peoples opinions my own facts. I know much and believ nothing and I shall keep it that way.

Sayonara

Well, I'm not an audio nazi (at least I don't consider myself that way, YMMV, that's your prerogative of course), but I think that I am open enough to accept that those stones change the sound reproduction, if there was a blind test that looked reasonably competent and that did show so. The explanation given by John that they absorb RF or microwaves COULD theoretically have an effect.

So, why do those people keep on moaning, 'oh, they don't understand us' etc? You cannot expect everybody to immediately exhaustively test anything that comes on the market, and the stones effect doesn't at first sight look valid, so it gets to the bottom of the heap. So guys stop complaining and show us!

And John C, sorry, but so far the only supporting evidence you gave was that (1) you know the designer, (2) he's a big shot at NASA or something, and (3) you phone each other within the hour. That, I'm afraid, isn't what I would consider a reasonable competent blind test.


Jan Didden

[jan.didden]

Just read the BP whitepaper at http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina17.htm . I must say that the explanation sounds quite reasonable. Mechanical absorbtion is of course the conversion of mechanical vibrations into heat. We do that all the time with speaker cabinet damping. I cannot relate to those pebbles absorbing RF/microwave, but that is my limited knowledge in this area. But sure, why not.
So, I put a jar on top of my speaker, as suggested. What does that do? Damp the vibrations of the speaker top, where it can transmit its vibrations to the jar? How does the jar then transmit the vibrations to the pebbles? What about the vibrations of the speaker sides, which is orders of magnitude bigger than that top?
Questions, questions.

Now, KYW, do these questions make me an audio pelican? I hope not. These are IMHO all reasonable, engineering related questions which I would ask of ANY new wizardry that claimed such an effect. And, if the effect is there, it would be childs work for those hi-strung designers to explain it, put in a few numbers, maybe a graph. Like show vibration vs frequency before and after. Accelerometers are cheap these days. IOW make just a tiny effort towards credibility.
Why don't they do that? Why do they ramble on about standard physical observations as if these are specifically the realm of BP (which they are not), and then go on to list how to use them.

I really get angry you know. They do (f) ****** all to come up with a couple of measurement, blind tests, anything that shows some serious results. But they have their mouth full of 'oh, they don't understand us', implying that I (and others) am stupid, prejudiced, fanatical, what have you. I don't merit that. They want me to do a serious effort to understand and accept their product. Why don't THEY do a serious effort? How come I end up defending myself for not buying their stuff?

John C, you remember the times you developed the JC-2 and JC-3? When you methodically researched things, measuring, proving to yourself at any step what was going on? Do you realise what you wrote these few last posts? What happened between then and now, John?

Jan Didden

[john curl]

Jan, it is a sad moment, to have you misunderstand my position so greatly.
I am an audio design consultant, have been for more than 30 years, and I design several new or improved products every year. I KNOW HOW to develop the topology and get the basic performance from audio circuits. However, this is NOT enough, IF I want to make something other than a mid-fi product. I have proven this to myself by allowing others, in the past, to make the 'minor decisions' such as connectors, layout, wiring, etc and have paid the price of poor sales, and a diminishment of my design reputation. I could NOT MEASURE any problems, with previous decisions, just lost sales and less enthusiastic reviews.
IF I had to prove every design technique that I use by a blind test first, I would never make any progress, and my competitors would evolve past me by trying different things, without regard to the 'scientific method' or somesuch, as they have, often enough before.
When I bring up the background of some designer, it is not just that they are qualified, and educated, but that they actually can teach me a few things when I do communicate with them. What have I learned from you? That I am not the same person that I was 30 years ago, when I developed the JC-1 ,2, and 3? Of course I am, except that I use my physics background more these days, compared with the past.

[diy_audio_fo]

Originally posted by john curl
Diy, why don't you do a Google search and find out for yourself. Just go to Google, the put in 'shakti audio'. For the 'brilliant pebbles' maybe the same technique will work also.

John,

thank you for your kind reply.

I think that because you know and personally talk to the nice guy you can give us first hand information.

Originally posted by john curl

many here are IGNORANT of what is being offered in the audio marketplace as 'improvers'

Google - due the low signal to noise ratio of Internet - is a poor primer so I hope you can steer us pointing out the documents that worth reading

Thanx

[john curl]

Jan, it is a sad moment, to have you misunderstand my position so greatly.
I am an audio design consultant, have been for more than 30 years, and I design several new or improved products every year. I KNOW HOW to develop the topology and get the basic performance from audio circuits. However, this is NOT enough, IF I want to make something other than a mid-fi product. I have proven this to myself by allowing others, in the past, to make the 'minor decisions' such as connectors, layout, wiring, etc and have paid the price of poor sales, and a diminishment of my design reputation. I could NOT MEASURE any problems, with previous decisions, just lost sales and less enthusiastic reviews.
IF I had to prove every design technique that I use by a blind test first, I would never make any progress, and my competitors would evolve past me by trying different things, without regard to the 'scientific method' or somesuch, as they have, often enough before.
When I bring up the background of some designer, it is not just that they are qualified, and educated, but that they actually can teach me a few things when I do communicate with them. What have I learned from you? That I am not the same person that I was 30 years ago, when I developed the JC-1 ,2, and 3? Of course I am, except that I use my physics background more these days, compared with the past.

[runebivrin]

Is it just my imagination, or does John Curl's posts have a tendency to reappear with some inbetween?

Rune

[SY]

Originally posted by runebivrin
Is it just my imagination, or does John Curl's posts have a tendency to reappear with some inbetween?

Rune

A fluke of software. When you get to our age, it seems to happen with some regularity.

[ThorstenL]

Konnichiwa,

Originally posted by fdegrove
Why is it that every time there's something out there that's a little beyond what's readily available in schoolbooks for all to fall back on it either gets dismissed out of hand or invariably qualifies as voodoo?

Here goes.....

"I once overheard two botanists arguing over a Damned Thing that had blasphemously sprouted in a college yard. One claimed that the Damned Thing was a tree and the other claimed that it was a shrub. They each had good scholary arguments, and they were still debating when I left them.

The world is forever spawning Damned Things- things that are neither tree nor shrub, fish nor fowl, black nor white- and the categorical thinker can only regard the spiky and buzzing world of sensory fact as a profound insult to his card-index system of classifications.

Worst of all are the facts which violate "common sense", that dreary bog of sullen prejudice and muddy inertia. The whole history of science is the odyssey of a pixilated card- indexer perpetually sailing between such Damned Things and desperately juggling his classifications to fit them in, just as the history of politics is the futile epic of a long series of attempts to line up the Damned Things and cajole them to march in regiment."

From Robert Anthony Wilson / Hagbard Celine "Never Whistle While Your ****ing"

http://www.rawilson.com/whistle****.html

Sayonara

[john curl]

Kuei, much of the 'mental position' represented here on this thread is shown in books by Robert Alton Wilson. I get much insight from them.
For the record, for everyone, and back to the Shakti Stones and the Randi challenge: The 'challenge' does not hold legal water with regard to the Shakti Stones, because the device uses measurable qualities, ie reduction of RFI and microwave energy, rather than any extraordinary source to work. This is in the 'fine print' of the 'challenge'. This has been explored by legal people from Shakti. Heck, 1 Million dollars? Worth a shot. ;-)
Another misunderstanding: Shakti Stones and Brilliant Pebbles are just cute names for 2 very different products. The Brilliant Pebbles are designed to absorb mechanical vibration. The Shakti Stones are designed to reduce RFI from about 1Meg Hz into microwave frequencies. This is also why they did NOT work for my application of reducing low RFI from 5KHz to 50KHz. Aluminum foil did work, however, in that range, very well. Thanks, SY.
I hope that many of you have come to see that you were criticizing specific tweaks, and the individuals who represent them, without any real evidence.

[jan.didden]

Originally posted by john curl
[snip]I hope that many of you have come to see that you were criticizing specific tweaks, and the individuals who represent them, without any real evidence.

Maybe many have, but not me, unfortunately (not that that needs to bother you, of course, but just for the record).

Also for the record: I was not criticising specific tweaks and/or the representative individuals as such. I and several others just asked for SOME real evidence that the gadgets do as advertised. Nobody seems to bother with that, not you, not their inventor, for whom it would be childs play to present that 'real evidence'. We can only guess at your collective reasons to abstain, and apparently being content with lamenting ' they don't understand us', 'they are prejudiced' etc, or words to that effect. I honestly regret that, being left up in the air.

BTW, Your last scentence sums it up nicely, although you may not have meant it that way: "..you were criticizing specific tweaks, and the individuals who represent them, without any real evidence". Exactly.

Jan Didden