Social experiment
I suspect the guy behind this enterprise did it as a social experiment, not so much to try to make money as to see how nutty he could make his claims and still have people fall for them.
I'd be surprised if he actually has had any customers.
But then again, people were actually buying Tice clocks.
I suspect the guy behind this enterprise did it as a social experiment, not so much to try to make money as to see how nutty he could make his claims and still have people fall for them.
I'd be surprised if he actually has had any customers.
But then again, people were actually buying Tice clocks.
Re: Social experiment
I keep thinking this as well. Heck, I think this most of the time when I see high-end audio tweak stuff.
I always imagine that their conversation goes something like this:
Audio Scammer #1: "Okay... I've got this idea.. Now.. hehe.. No no, hear me out."
Audio Scammer #2: "Is this going to be better than your last round of trying to sell home depot varnish in perfume vials to coat their electronics and calling it 'DX44 Lacquer?'"
AS #1: "Oh yeah.. Let me finish. This one's much better. Hang on, I gotta stop laughing. Okay... Check this one out. I thought this one up while my wife was gardening. I'm going to go in my back yard and get a bunch of rocks, okay? Then I'm going to put them in my kid's rock polisher. My wife has these jars for canning stuff from our garden, so once they're all polished, I'll fill a jar half way with them....."
AS #3: "Sounds like arts and crafts stuff to me, where's the meat?"
AS #1: "No no.. You gotta let me finish. So we sell these jars as 'Vibration Control Devices' to schmucks who think it'll improve the sound of the speakers and electronics when placed on top"
AS #2: "Hmmm.. Not bad, but we need to add some spin to it."
AS #1, 2 & 3: (thinking)
AS #3: "I've got it! Lets say that it works at a quantum level with microwave frequencies, and absorbs radiation in the 1Ghz spectrum."
AS #1: "Mmmph! Hahaha.. You think they'll fall for it?"
AS #2: "Yeah man.. I'm just going to say that it works on a quantum confusion principle. I'll say I developed it in the military while I was working on that battleship."
AS #1: "You mean back in '83 when you were a mess cook? No way they'll buy it."
AS #2: "Dude, I sold a $5 wooden knob from the craft store with your 'DX44 Lacquer' on it for $500 to some idiot the other day"
AS #1: "You're kidding.. You're actually able to sell those things? Damn, I guess I owe you $20 on that bet."
AS #3: "So what're you going to call this thing?"
AS #1: "I'm going to call it the Schmook Quantum Sterling Mpurifier"
AS #2: "OOOOH! Good name! How you come up with it?"
AS #1: "Playing the word jumble in the newspaper with my kid."
AS #2: "So how much do you want to charge for these?"
AS #1: "Well, obviously these quantum rocks are priceless, dont y'think? The tumbler cost me $35 for my kid. And the jars are 2 bucks each. Hmm.. Lets say $200 each, or $350 for a 'matched pair.'"
AS #3: "Sounds good. Make 10 and send them to me. I'll put 'em up the announcement on my site. I'll send 3 out to the usual rags, and the rest will be sold by the end of the month."
AS #1: "God I love this job."
mirlo said:
I keep thinking this as well. Heck, I think this most of the time when I see high-end audio tweak stuff.
I always imagine that their conversation goes something like this:
Audio Scammer #1: "Okay... I've got this idea.. Now.. hehe.. No no, hear me out."
Audio Scammer #2: "Is this going to be better than your last round of trying to sell home depot varnish in perfume vials to coat their electronics and calling it 'DX44 Lacquer?'"
AS #1: "Oh yeah.. Let me finish. This one's much better. Hang on, I gotta stop laughing. Okay... Check this one out. I thought this one up while my wife was gardening. I'm going to go in my back yard and get a bunch of rocks, okay? Then I'm going to put them in my kid's rock polisher. My wife has these jars for canning stuff from our garden, so once they're all polished, I'll fill a jar half way with them....."
AS #3: "Sounds like arts and crafts stuff to me, where's the meat?"
AS #1: "No no.. You gotta let me finish. So we sell these jars as 'Vibration Control Devices' to schmucks who think it'll improve the sound of the speakers and electronics when placed on top"
AS #2: "Hmmm.. Not bad, but we need to add some spin to it."
AS #1, 2 & 3: (thinking)
AS #3: "I've got it! Lets say that it works at a quantum level with microwave frequencies, and absorbs radiation in the 1Ghz spectrum."
AS #1: "Mmmph! Hahaha.. You think they'll fall for it?"
AS #2: "Yeah man.. I'm just going to say that it works on a quantum confusion principle. I'll say I developed it in the military while I was working on that battleship."
AS #1: "You mean back in '83 when you were a mess cook? No way they'll buy it."
AS #2: "Dude, I sold a $5 wooden knob from the craft store with your 'DX44 Lacquer' on it for $500 to some idiot the other day"
AS #1: "You're kidding.. You're actually able to sell those things? Damn, I guess I owe you $20 on that bet."
AS #3: "So what're you going to call this thing?"
AS #1: "I'm going to call it the Schmook Quantum Sterling Mpurifier"
AS #2: "OOOOH! Good name! How you come up with it?"
AS #1: "Playing the word jumble in the newspaper with my kid."
AS #2: "So how much do you want to charge for these?"
AS #1: "Well, obviously these quantum rocks are priceless, dont y'think? The tumbler cost me $35 for my kid. And the jars are 2 bucks each. Hmm.. Lets say $200 each, or $350 for a 'matched pair.'"
AS #3: "Sounds good. Make 10 and send them to me. I'll put 'em up the announcement on my site. I'll send 3 out to the usual rags, and the rest will be sold by the end of the month."
AS #1: "God I love this job."
gary f said:
I find that these work best when treated liberally with a solution containing two parts hydrogen and two parts oxygen. Gives you more sparkle on the highend, and I find the process has more of a "tingle" when done this way.
However, I have heard that misusing these can cause severe detrioration in the audio spectrum, almost to a painful degree. Has anyone tested this?
Stocker said:
I'll bet that experiment went something like this:
Interrogator: Can you heeear it?
Prisoner: No...
Interrogator: Ve hav vays to make you hear... (shows him a picture of what happened to the last guy, with all the scars)
Prisoner: Oh yes! I can hear it now! Would you believe it sounds so much like 8kHz??? Wow!
Interrogator makes a note: "Human brain samples audio at 192 kHz"
WOW!!
Absolutely fantastic!
The ultratweeter works in the GIGAHERTZ range, and it is supposed to be connected to an audio amp??
How many audio amplifiers are able to reproduce 1 Ghz? And how much music is recorded at 1Ghz?
Ahh... yes of course, that special cable that comes with that ultratweeter
Got to have a couple of these tweets, what about a group buy?
Absolutely fantastic!
The ultratweeter works in the GIGAHERTZ range, and it is supposed to be connected to an audio amp??
How many audio amplifiers are able to reproduce 1 Ghz? And how much music is recorded at 1Ghz?
Ahh... yes of course, that special cable that comes with that ultratweeter
Got to have a couple of these tweets, what about a group buy?
Hi all
Now that is funny, people wonder why HIFI is view as the land of snake oil when there are so many things like this around. Not that these doodads don’t work, its just that like other magic stuff, you have to believe in them for them to work, to “hear the improvement”. Fortunately the psychological principal of “buyers remorse” give the mfrs an advantage when someone has spent a weeks wages on some special audio trinket, they are more strongly inclined to hear a difference the more they spent..
A “small” technical problem here is that even at 1 MHz, sound in air is absorbed in just a few inches of travel. Even if they had something, which produced super high frequencies, they would never get to the end of the horn throat at 1 GHz.
I should add “even if” they were fed with a signal other than stray RF the cables picked up because there is nothing from a power amp is going that high either. Audio amplifiers all have intentional or stray series inductance which blocks out RF from going in on the speaker terminals.
Want more “air” or “sound stage”, open a window, knock down a wall or (seriously) absorb the reflections that originate close to your speakers.
Better it would be to donate the $300 to a needy cause where some good may come from it than to hand it to people like this who make things worse for serious audiophiles..
Tom Danley
Now that is funny, people wonder why HIFI is view as the land of snake oil when there are so many things like this around. Not that these doodads don’t work, its just that like other magic stuff, you have to believe in them for them to work, to “hear the improvement”. Fortunately the psychological principal of “buyers remorse” give the mfrs an advantage when someone has spent a weeks wages on some special audio trinket, they are more strongly inclined to hear a difference the more they spent..
A “small” technical problem here is that even at 1 MHz, sound in air is absorbed in just a few inches of travel. Even if they had something, which produced super high frequencies, they would never get to the end of the horn throat at 1 GHz.
I should add “even if” they were fed with a signal other than stray RF the cables picked up because there is nothing from a power amp is going that high either. Audio amplifiers all have intentional or stray series inductance which blocks out RF from going in on the speaker terminals.
Want more “air” or “sound stage”, open a window, knock down a wall or (seriously) absorb the reflections that originate close to your speakers.
Better it would be to donate the $300 to a needy cause where some good may come from it than to hand it to people like this who make things worse for serious audiophiles..
Tom Danley
Hehe - that was a gewd find.
I've literally been crying tears here reading this thread.
Reminds me how seedy commercial audiophilia is. The one dealer near me (out of business now) used to do Boston Acoustics & Rotel stuff. They used add a bit of additiional hidden subwoofer in their setup when demo-ing there systems.
"Of course with your room acoustics sound is totaly different"
I've literally been crying tears here reading this thread.
Reminds me how seedy commercial audiophilia is. The one dealer near me (out of business now) used to do Boston Acoustics & Rotel stuff. They used add a bit of additiional hidden subwoofer in their setup when demo-ing there systems.
"Of course with your room acoustics sound is totaly different"
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