Manufacturers on the web: a double edged sword?

Richard,

The sound reproduction chain, the kit if you like is NOT part of the musical performance. It is the musicians who take care of that.

Modern test gear is orders of magnitude more sensitive than the human ear. If the various witchcraft tweaks were having a physical effect upon the signal, it WOULD be detectable and measurable. But they are not. Furthermore, if these bits of fairy dust are subjected to any kind of objective, blind listening tests, the differences invariably go away.

All your "easily observable" differences WILL disappear if they are subjected to any kind of blind testing, and you know it.

BUt, returning to the subject. Your post is an absolutely prime example of a trade member pushing his product philosophy. Your post stated:

"So no, I will *never* accept a truce in this argument as it is fundemental to my ideas, ethos, pleasure, hobby, designs and products."

Finally, you admit that you are using a forum to promote your products. I actually don't have a problem with that. But please have the honesty to come right out and admit it. At least Ash is upfront about it!

Just to make sure any tyros reading this thread are unaware of the fact.....


BEWARE OF AUDIO EQUIPMENT DESIGNERS AND PEDDLING BLACK MAGIC PRINCIPLES THINLY DISGUISED AS AUDIO TECHNOLOGY. THEY HAVE AGENDA TO PROMOTE NON-SCIENTIFIC, EASILY DISPROVEN DESIGN PRINCIPLES & EVALUATION METHODS. PLEASE BEAR THIS IN MIND WHEN ASSESSING THEIR POSTS.

I actually agree with you that the subjectivist v objectivist debate is critical to the future of the hi-fi industry. One of the main reasons people shy away from the hobby is the foo and bullshit put forward as hard fact by some manufacturers.

With Regards to the "flat earth" thing, the only reason you have a bee in your bonnet over that is that you were comprehensively beaten in the market place. They simply out-competed you. And my god, don't you resent it.

And you are absolutely right in the value of the internet in exposing bullshit. Consider yourself exposed.

If you continue to promote foo principles, I will continue to point out the fact that much of what you claim is nonsense, and can be proven so to be.

I did try to back off, but no you had to go steaming back in, didn't you?

Chris

 

Incomming!

 

I do wish people - mostly the subjectivists - would stop portraying this as some sort of war between subjectivism and objectivism. It isn't!

Ultimately, what you enjoy listening to and how you describe that experience or difference is entirely subjective. Objective methods are then used to show that any difference identified in the subjective domain actually exists - it simply tests that what you think you hear is real, and that you aren't influenced by non audible effects.

It really is very simple and shouldn't cause such angst.

 

Yes, I agree. Belt's sales were insignificant. But that 'stirring up people's anger' part helped undermine a lot of credibility throughout. I feel that were there no Peter Belt, there would have been no freezing CDs, no green pen and no Tice clock. These turned the hi-fi buff into a figure of fun the world over. Even today, and audiophile is imagined as being a sad little character with green pen in one hand and grossly overpriced cables in the other. Audio struggles to overcome that as much as hi-fi stores struggled and failed to overcome the 'do you want a bag over your head?' Not The Nine O'Clock News skit.

The Linn/Naim thing was a storm in a tea cup in comparison. It was pretty much limited to the UK and to UK hi-fi buffs. And no-one laughed at someone for buying into the Linn/Naim ethos, whereas the green pen thing exposed audio to unrecoverable ridicule. I agree totally that the Linn/Naim dominance was not a force for good in the business and its effects still resonate today, but I still don't think it was a factor in pushing people toward this overly-objective viewpoint, when viewed against things like Beltism and the green pen.

And yes, it is endemic. One of the few things that gave my mother comfort in her last days was aromatherapy treatments at her hospice, and yet this is regularly derided as 'smell to get well' nonsense. Nonsense or not, she reacted better to that than anything else.

 

Belt is the best evidence we have that people can be easily fooled. Otherwise perfectly rational journalists went into print to declare that they'd seen the light and been converted.

I was converted - briefly - by the extremely clever sighted dems.

Taking measures to guard against such 'influence' seems perfectly sensible to me.

We shouldn't overestimate the influence of Belt and I disagree that without him we'd not have seen the tweakery that followed.

 

Truce didn't last very long did it, just shows your dishonesty in suggesting it in the first place.

This is you usual bollocks that I must have countered the same way 100 times. My products reflect me - I do not reflect my products, so how can anyone with even a minute level of intelligence ever think I would produce something that doesn't follow the principles I feel strongly about and so talk about here - so that is out the window yet again. Now for some reality, please find one post on this forum since I have been back that promotes nva or nva products in any way, well there aren't any. The only mentions of nva is when they are drawn out of me to counter bollocks like this, or to answer a non promoting question.

You use this all the time as a red herring to promote your agenda and your desire to have conflict with me.

 

Go look at their annual accounts, you will see they are in deep sh*t. Over borrowed, over overheaded and under capitalised. This coming recession will see them bust, sold to the Chinese, or re capitalised with new owners.

The axis was successfull because of marketing not product and marketing by definition is bullshit.

 

That is the crunch Rob the objective doesn't show that it exists or not, it just shows that you can't measure it and what you can measure is largely irrelevant.

 

I'm afraid that is wrong. How does the definition of marketing, as defined anywhere, equate to the word bullshit? Don't post opinon as fact, its misleading. Perhaps that what you were thinking of when you wrote the above?

Many companies see marketing as vital to the sales strategy, in fact 99% do.
I doubt that they see marketing as bullshit.

I don't see NAIM being bought by the Chinese any time soon.

 

That was funny.

PMSL

 

Unfortunately, so do legitimate differences. They are called Type II errors. The sort of sample sizes used in audio discrimination tests are never large enough to make them statistically powerful. The nearest we get are the international tests run by Harman, and they seldom get better than p=0.05. I would not trust a breaking system on a car that had been tested to such a low grade of statistical significance. I wouldn't even trust a date-stamp on a yoghurt pot that was 95% confident.

And yet a lot of people are more than willing to throw out a lot of research based on such low-grade testing. Why?

 

Because it is still far more reliable than the alternatives IMO.

 

Jesus Fucking Christ On A Bicycle, Richard!
Just look at yourself, will you? I was emolience itself for several posts, trying to back away from a conflict. But no, you would not respond to my peace overtures. Back you come, like a hi-fi version of Ian Paisley, braying your nonesense & sinking to your normal level of rudeness. If you honestly think you are fooling anyone with your "I'm just an enthusiast expressing an opinion" malarkey, you must have a very low opinion of the people who post here. It's insulting, Richard!

So screw it.

Let's have some home truths, shall we?

What you do on hi fi fora (at least until your behaviour becomes TOO intolerable) is mount viral marketing campaigns.

Even after the rules of this forum were changed to make you declare yourself as a Trade member, you **** about with half-assed Muppet references. Have the decency to stop insulting our intelligences and put "Richard Dunne - Trade - NVA"
as your sig.

As to your "flat earth axis-of-evil" conspiracy theory, what a load of self-serving, self-pitying rubbish.

You ceased trading because fewer & fewer dealers wanted anything to do with you. I actually took the trouble to get back into contact with the guy I got a home demo of your kit from. He's retired now, but I sometimes bump into him. I asked him why he ceased to deal with you. Incidently, he stopped being a Linn dealer at about the same time.

His response? "Life's too bloody short to have to deal with that guy!"

Anyway, I'm off. I will respond to any rantings you may choose to post, but probably not until next week.

 

No it isn't. Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day. Factor in a series of false positive errors and you have a clock that tells a randomly-generated time every time you look at it.

 

Thats to the point!

Must admit the whole 'Individual' not trade thing but 'Trade' Muppet Labs is bad form and just sticking two fingers up at ZG moderation as they asked trade to declare themselves as trade.

 

Of course it is and clock references are an extremely poor analogy IMO.

If real differences, eg something you've measured and know to exist aren't identifiable on a blind test, that tells you that the difference while real isn't audible, probably doesn't matter and you can ignore it.

I can (and have) shown for example that small adjustments to EQ of a db or two are clearly and repeatedly identified on a blind test. Drop the variation to 0.25db and it becomes harder, and often impossible to reliably detect.
That simply tells me that we've established where a real difference either matters or doesn't.

Do the same thing sighted and the difference - no matter how small - is always heard becasue the listeners are fully aware of what you've done.

Now, neither test is perfect but I know which I'd being more inclined to rely on.

 

What do you know of the history of nva, nothing, but you make up stories bordering on libel. Why should I have to go into a history that has been explained to you many times before and yet you insist in making up lies because they suite your agenda.

 

Birds of a feather

 

That neatly avoided the subject of my post!

 

Can we please get this away from individuals and back to the subject please - even remotely on topic will do!

I'm trying to work and really haven't the time to start pruning.