My favorite one lately is where a guy was so thrilled about the speaker he built that he put a recording of it up on Youtube so everybody could hear just how amazing it sounded... I swear I'm not making this up.
OK, here's a reality check I will actually do with real money. While I wait for the lead time to get the parts to repair my Parasounds, I will order a Beheinger A500. This is a dirt cheap 175W amp with "normal" specifications better thah many esoteric units. All it has to do is drive my subs, 20 to 60 Hz, but I have opportunity to do direct comparison to my remaining good Parasound on the main speakers. Can I hear the difference? More accurately, can my wife with her magic golden ears (true, but long story) hear the deference?
Fred, which recording of Pete? My normal test is the nylon strings on a Julian Bream recording take on a metallic sound. The horns on King James Version cause my wife actual pain when not right. Unscientific, but completely repeatable.
Merlot... Just wait for the reviewers to start talking like this about "smell-a-vision" It is coming! Can yo imagine the drivel they will come up with?
Fred, which recording of Pete? My normal test is the nylon strings on a Julian Bream recording take on a metallic sound. The horns on King James Version cause my wife actual pain when not right. Unscientific, but completely repeatable.
Merlot... Just wait for the reviewers to start talking like this about "smell-a-vision" It is coming! Can yo imagine the drivel they will come up with?
How about the adds on standard TV for HD. Loved it. Great upgrade to your half-scan Comcast cable feed!
I'ts more than qualified as a sub unit with one caveat.That is a pretty good amp sold under various names. Don't expect it to reach rated power Behringer lies about that. By don't bother, I am saying those are probably not going to be detectable as inferior in a fair DB test with any amp. Behringer is a strange company that offers good sounding gear for the most part, impossible to repair and sometimes quality control is not up to snuff. Don't expect that amp to sound anything but very very good and forget about repair. Just consider it a 130 x 130 watt
unit that looks crappy sounds great, hope it doesnt break.
G
unit that looks crappy sounds great, hope it doesnt break.
G
All over youtube, hundreds of videos of people doing that.. All of those people are decision makers too. You cant walk drive swim fly away from them, they rule now.
Quite amazing how Mr Fremer does that using an amp that in terms of FR and distortion measures worse than most speakers.
With ears like that it is obvious that he can hear differences in cables. I'm sure he hears electrons directly, he just has to put his ears to the cable.
Weavers' Reunion at Carnegie Hall 1963 (45rpm LPs, Vanguard/Classic),[according to the article]
If your wife's pain is 'completely repeatable' it is kind of scientific in that she is a reliable indicator of something real. (Double blind of course) 😀
I would suggest most people are a lot better at picking sound differences then they give themselves credit for - if you can always pick when you hear music somewhere, without knowing or seeing the source, whether it's real instruments versus just a hifi, then you're not half bad ... 🙂
The whole Stereophile staff is a poor joke. I don't care what good measurements they are capable of making, the snake oil and silly excuses for not measuring those scam devices along with power cords and cables and letting those reviewers publish glowing reviews when they can't tell when they listening to crap just drags the whole reputation down into the mire.
Not unlike the late night Bose ads, where the guy turns up the radio, and exhorts his tv speaker audience to hear that high fidelity, room filling sound!
In Canada , a salesman told me they are a tough sell: Bose used to forbid their vendors to have other speakers playable within 20' of them.
I spoke to Peter Aczel about continuing the tradition of debunking snake oil via some sort of publication. He seemed to think or at least this is how I took it, that there is not much of a market for the truth.
Peter is correct. I think a lot of people find some sort of odd comfort being lied to and told that everything is going to be just fine. He is one of the few people that I trust to tell it like it is when it comes to snake oil and scams. He's way into his 80's by now and not wanting to start up another publication. I wish some younger person would continue to carry the torch and start one up though.
He is pretty on the mark with that. People who can't see pseudoscience for what it is won't listen anyway. It's a target market that won't listen.
The last time I read one of his debunk articles, his heart was pretty much with it but he overextended his reach with some of the blanket statements. It looked a bit more like ax grinding than accurate information.
jn
A bit like Linn but less subtle. Linn trained their sales people to tap their toes whenever the Linn TT was playing during demos but never when no Linn product was played.
Peter Aczel just found that 'badmouthing' everybody in the audio business got boring to readers. Even a 'good' product was considered pointless, and that price-perhaps convenience should rule. The same thing happened with the ABX people who made ABX boxes decades ago. People stopped buying something that did not give them any resolution.
Decades ago, in the 1970's, I liked Peter Aczel's publication. It was fair, and John Meyer and I even put in a contribution.
However, later, Peter became enamored with ABX testing, and he took on a rather aggressive PhD tester, who never gave anybody an even break, including me. There is such a thing as professionalism in any business, and virtually all we got was bad mouthing of every other reviewer, manufacturer, etc. It was a 'fun' read, but not very useful.
However, later, Peter became enamored with ABX testing, and he took on a rather aggressive PhD tester, who never gave anybody an even break, including me. There is such a thing as professionalism in any business, and virtually all we got was bad mouthing of every other reviewer, manufacturer, etc. It was a 'fun' read, but not very useful.
Except he didn't, unless by "everybody" you mean "everybody who's fine with snake oil." I saw nothing but praise for (just to name a few) Otvos, Kanter, Taylor, Morrison, Hall, Toole, Olive, Snell, Barton, Griesinger, Voecks, Keele, Thiel, Win, and other purveyors of high quality products sold without BS.
He's 88 and retired.
Success in the publication field is unrelated to the truth of what you publish. People like BS and fantasy- go to your local bookstore and note the number or astronomy books and compare it to the number of astrology books. Note the number of medical books, then note the number of quack remedy books. So, if Aczel didn't make the same kind of money as Archibald, it's because he tended to publish harsh reality rather than attractive, spending-oriented fantasy designed to attract advertisers. There's definitely a smaller market for that!
In any case, your assertion was clearly false, but if it makes you feel better to believe it, that's your privilege.
Success in the publication field is unrelated to the truth of what you publish. People like BS and fantasy- go to your local bookstore and note the number or astronomy books and compare it to the number of astrology books. Note the number of medical books, then note the number of quack remedy books. So, if Aczel didn't make the same kind of money as Archibald, it's because he tended to publish harsh reality rather than attractive, spending-oriented fantasy designed to attract advertisers. There's definitely a smaller market for that!
In any case, your assertion was clearly false, but if it makes you feel better to believe it, that's your privilege.
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