You think my starship stories are far out? They are as nothing compared to what people sell to audiophiles. Who buy it happily.
Is it true? Could it be? You, the discerning reader, must make that decision for yourself. I have go hold my breath until I stop chortling.
Heartfelt thanks to this guy.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
17 comments:
I have the complete collection of CBS mystery radio theater on disk, and I'm always amazed by the people that recognize that. . and want to borrow them. (and yes, to friends they are welcome to borrow). Thought I was the only one listened to them, let alone, wanted to have them on tape.
I love those! A brilliant effort; I was always surprised that CBS Radio stuck with 'em. The show always had sponsors!
Audiophiles will spend money on any stupid thing as long as it's grossly overpriced and you tell them only a discerning ear can tell the difference.
Exhibit A: Monster Cable
"But Madge, cold fusion?"
"You're soaking in it!"
You can find a lot of them online. I spent a lot of time listenting to them with a little crystal set in bed when I was supposed to be asleep.
http://www.oldtimeradiofans.com/template.php?show_name=CBS%20Radio%20Mystery%20Theater
E.G. Marshall. What a great show.
Anyone who will by a $200 set of "oxygen free" speaker cables thinking they will be able to hear the difference, or that there will be any difference between #14 zip cord and #14 "oxygen free copper" will fork over their money for this also.
But it's a nice scam. And probably a pretty good wallet lightener among the audiophools. Too bad it does not come with a free "sucker" tattoo for every purchasers forehead.
And yes, Mystery Theater was very good. I preferred the "hard boiled detective" genre, Boston Blackie, Sam Spade, etc. Those shows always had sponsors because they sold product, usually with a chuckle. As in "Fearless Fosdick uses and endorses Wild Root Cream Oil, Charlie."
Pete Allen
Flash back to high school: "Science doesn't mean anything to me... how is it going to help me in the real world?" Twenty years later, the poor sap ends up blowing money on expensive audiophile gear that makes no difference in the sound, is walking around with magnetic insoles with no therapeutic value, drinking homeopathic "medicines" which are nothing more than water and paying for psychic readings which are merely the theater of a bad actor. Yeah, science didn't matter to him alright.
The guy is a phraud!
If he were a true audiophile he would be selling oxygen free power cords to help purify the house current, and cured copper finned tubing to cover the OFC Monster Cables to help mitigate harmonic resistance cause by uneven heat dissipation to the air.
And where are the CD edge markers? Every audiophile knows that a green sharpie will improve the sound of your CD, just as the red Sharpie secures your CDRW data from accidental deletion.
If he were a true research outfit he would be selling custom markers with the exact shade of green matched to the wavelength of the laser diode. And nothing is mentioned about the light leaking from the edges of the DVDs and BluRay.
I read his "Brilliant Pebble" white paper, and although he recognizes the correlation of pebbles and sound pressure, he is clueless as to what colors and minerals do what. He suggests experimenting!! WTF!1! That is what he is getting paid for - to tell us what color and what mineral we need. He totally dropped the ball on that product. I don't want to buy a random assortment and not have enough medium smoky quarts and too many large landscape agates.
He doesn't even touch on the fact that LiAlSi2 O6, Lithium Aluminum Silicate (Spodumene) will totally transform your music. The pink variety of Spodumene, Kunzite, when improperly positioned in the room will cause your ZZ Top to sound like Barry Manilow, , Toby Keith like Tiny Tim, and even Lynyrd Skynyrd to sound like Sony & Cher. I even had a yellow cabochon of Kunzite convert Arthur Fiedler into Fitty Cent!
Amateur Audiophools gotta be careful when they are messing with stuff that can make your ears bleed
He is a damn Newb, Don't buy from him till he gets his act together.
Great find by the way, sent it off to some of my OFC buying buddies.
Um...I am not very techy, but the description of the product sounds...questionable? Reminds me of art lovers who really don't understand what they are talking about. Buy other people think they do. (I am not one of them...art: either I like it or don't).
WV: Kingle. A future brand name of...something.
P.T. Barnum was right.
There is one born every minute; and someone waiting to cash in on it.
WV: biasing (???)
Virtually every hobby has snake oil salesmen. Paintball had the "magic box", Audio has this and others, Shooting has alot of "training" methods of dubious value(that is not to say there isn't good training that's worth the money).
Audio snake oil, however, is among the must vibrantly lurid sort.
One of my fave examples was Linn-Sondek. They actually made very nice turntables, excellent tonearms, fine cartridges, all of it based on first-rate mechanical engineering...but priced extremely high and with -zero- actual information and a huge amount of high-sounding, empty language in the sales of it. (IMHO, 'cos without the mystical talk, the big spending audio d00ds would've overlooked it despite the actual quality). At one of the radio stations where I worked, we used old Linn "Basik" arms and cartridges on -- oh the horror -- Technics SP-10 Mk II turntables with bases far fancier than shown in the link for archival playback. The sound quality was stunningly good. It's not that high-zoot audio gear is all puffery and nonsense; it's just the amount and quality of same is so overwhelming.
I Am Not A Physicist ... but every time I see the word "quantum" in advertising or promotional copy, my BSometer needle jumps sharply.
Oh, don't get me wrong, there is alot of it in Audio, mainly because A) the really obssessed types will spend OBSCENE amounts of money(Case in point: Legacy Audio Helix speakers, $38K/pair) in a field where alot of it is ultimately subjective.
Hell, the Linn Basiks were positively pedestrian - Rockports were considered the finest turntables ever made... and cost 70 grand when they were. Like you noticed, a good tonearm(and there are a few companies making high end ones) does alot to improve the sound of the turntable - that Linn tonearm you popped on probably cost 3 times what the technic turntable did. And oh, you'll be happy to know that Lynn is still making turntables. :)
In a way, audio is like sports cars, once you get past a certain point, the price starts to far outstrip the performance.
Annnnnndddd, Wait! There's More!
If you send in your order right now! We'll include for free, just pay shipping and handling, the original Hans Christian Anderson "Emperor's Clothes" In the latest style and fashion. People who are stupid, or unfit to hold their current position, will think you have no clothes on at all........
Damne! The entire Federal Government will be drooling. But imagine how easy it would be to get past TSA in those with your Thompson tucked under your "Emperor's Duster"...
C'mon Roberta! If you order now, I'll throw in a free ensemble for Tam. Think how your keen sense of fashion will be applauded at the next blog meet....
I've noticed that musicians are very seldom "audiophiles".
Whether from the conductors position, or from a seat in the band, music will never sound the same coming from speakers. No matter how good the reproduction, music from your audio equipment is still only a reproduction.
And I think that musicians know that, and that is why they don't waste their money on "audiophile" gear.
heh, "meaters" awesome word verification :)
Have to wait to follow the link while I go check the winter air in my tires and the antifreeze level in my 64 VW Bug
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