[Review] my favourite online review ever.

Andy,

All of my hifi friends came to be such as the result of being on forums - many from ZG. Where the problem lies is that many recent Zerogainers only seem to want the sort of advice they like and want to hear. You can help what you think by questioning it. That's what I did.

 

Thanks, Im always open to suggestions and will continue to use this forum. Despite the fact ZG has been a bit of a soap opera in recent months.

 

if you're after friendly banter, good independent advice - then I suggest you try the 'wam or even pfm...

there are a few people on here hell bent on ruining it for everyone else on here - and as a result this place is dying a slow death...looks like the mods aren't doing anything about it either.

 

What would you do? Would you like the job?

 

it's the endless questioning of peoples thoughts and experiences that drags it down.

just becasue 'one' member starts and ends with provable science, he criticises anyone else who's experience and beliefs don't fall into that group.

"you can't prove it with science, ergo, you are wrong" which is just horseshit, and it gets peoples backs up.

example: Just because there's no currently accurate and accepted theory that is easily understood to explain the well heard differences in cables that can't be expalined by LCR doesn't mean it's not true. it's just not understood or well researched enough. i couldn't explain any of whats in the 'essex' cable tests by Hawksford, wave theroy and all that jazz, but i don't discount it.

people find the questioning and barracking offensive.

 

I'd ban the people who are dragging this place down. simple as.

 

It's not quite that simple, we can discuss this over a PM if you like.

 

it's ok - I'm not too concerned, just seems the fun has disappeared from this place recently

 

no

 

don't let it

 

david,not me personally i'm bullet-proof to such things. but it's easy to see the effect.

 

Different topic, same story:cry::cry:

 

Look guys, you can't blame someone for disagreeing with you. I'm happy to read discussion and debate. It would be really boring if we all agreed all the time.

As long as that debate is carried out in a non-personal manner we are happy for it to continue.

 

Thank you Richard, this is becoming quite comical.

I'm afraid to say, it is not "horseshit". If I tell you you are wrong, then you will be - I am not so arrogant as to claim that if I am not sure of my facts. What we have here are accepted facts up against subjective opinions based on potentially flawed experiences.

It is always going to be easy for me to win that argument would you not agree? The alternative is to provide a more robust case. I'm offering everyone the opportunity to do that by blind testing your convictions - I'll even organise it for a cross section of the forum.

Look back at my post history and you will clearly see that I jumped ship from your side to my current stance. Testing my convictions effectively blind was higghly instrumental in my transformation - it was like a light bulb going on in my head.

We need Zanash to provide a cable (which unfortunately he seems reluctant to do at the moment) and you can choose to take me up on my offer or not. But if you choose not to, please don't fill up thread at ZG with complaints about my application of logic the the matter of music reproduction.

 

Going back to the OP briefly.. how about this from six loons?

Sounds like the usual exuberant nonsense about cables.

But wait, this isn’t the latest offering from one of the boutique wire shiesters, no, they’re talking about plain vanilla 13amp extension cable of the B&Q variety (or the same from Wal-Mart), the stuff more often used with a Flymo or hedge trimmer.

Obviously the reviewer responsible for this should have his audiofule stars ripped off.

 

that's where you are wrong, you are arrogant. you believe that your experience with gear is universal for everyone else and that simply because the correlation between characteristics other than LCR for cables is too complicated to prove that it should be ignored.

if you can't hear differences in the setup you tested, then you assume that there are none to hear.

and that's incorrect, it only proves that 'your ears' couldn't hear a difference with those cables and that gear.

that's three variables, even listening to the same gear and cables, another listener has different ears so your experience can never be anything more than personal, it doesn't mean anything in the wider scheme of things, it is only relevant to your ears.

you can only conclude that 'you' can't hear differences in cables, the logic goes no further than that.

consider this: in an art gallery there are two identical rooms, with identical lighting. in each of them is a painting, one of Van Gochs as it happens. in room one it's £26 millions pounds worth of sunflowers, in room 2 is a fake, a great fake, the best fake ever made.

now, maybe you or me, joe average, aren't going to be able to tell that they are different, they look the same, the frames are the same, the colours are the same.

but standing next to us is the redoubtable Brian Sewell, art critic extroadanaire, who immediately dismisses number 2 as a fake, and he can do this because he's looking at details in the painting, stroke angle, edge depth that we can't even consider.

I suspose you would tell him that the paintings are identical, and if he thinks otherwise he is wrong, because you can't perceive any difference between them.

infact based on experience i'd expect you'd go as far as to tell him that he obviously knows nothing about art and is a complete idiot into the bargain. and you would do that because you are arrogant, and are unable to take on other peoples view points and experiences when they differ from your own.

At which point, Brian, who doesn't suffer fools gladly might 'pop' you on the nose for being so rude.

I, and i would suggest quite a lot of posters on the forum, would likely tell him, that we can't tell them apart and that they appear to be identical. Which would no doubt end up with Brian taking his time to try and show us the differences and engagae us in discussion over the differences over a lovely cup of tea and some nice scones. (while you, sat on your own, would be bleeding from your nose into a tissue on the other side of the Tate gallery cafe.)

but at least you'd have the satisfaction of 'knowing' you were right..



i'd rather take my cues from Professor Malcolm Hawksford..

 

Sadly as usual you are missing the point.

If those two paintings were scientifically tested, the original would be different to the fake. Science would tell us they were different.

Science tells us nothing of the kind with your cables, so you choose to claim science is ignorant and that people like me are deaf.

Now who's being arrogant?

 

Not if they were painted at the same time........

 

A lot of so called "art experts" are also decieved by fakes. I'm sure the venerable Brian has also been so duped on occasion

Quote below from BBC News website:

When we were in London last fall, we spent a day at the National Gallery, a wonderful museum. One of the most striking paintings we saw was Raphael's Madonna of the Pinks, described by the museum as the most important old master painting in Great Britain. The Madonna was prominently displayed in conjunction with the Gallery's campaign to buy it. There was a sign next to the painting saying that it was owned by the Duke of Northumberland; had been displayed for a considerable time in the National Gallery; but the old Duke had died, and his estate was planning on selling the painting overseas. The Gallery was trying to raise enough money to buy the Raphael from the Duke's estate and keep it in Great Britain. There was some suggestion that the Duke hadn't known anything about art, and that either the Duke, or his heirs, or whoever was administering his estate was lacking in patriotism.

Most of the money for the purchase came, no doubt, from the British government, but some was contributed by museum-goers. We contributed some cash to the bin next to the painting, and noted with some satisfaction that most of the money in the bin was American.

Earlier this month, the Gallery bought the painting from the Duke's estate for $41.7 million.

Now a prominent American art historian says the painting is a fake:

James Beck, Professor of Art History at Columbia University in New York and the President of ArtWatch International, told Friday's edition of the [London] Times the gallery had paid "a record price for a fake."
"They haven't done their homework," Beck said. "It's a disgrace. The National Gallery never checked any of them physically. When you're spending government money, or anyone's money it's an omission. Frankly, it's a kind of arrogance of the Establishment."

An ancestor of the Duke bought the 1507-8 picture in 1853 but it was long considered a copy until 1991 when Nicholas Penny, the Gallery's curator, examined the picture and hailed it as the rediscovered masterpiece.

Beck told the paper his research led him to believe the painting was in fact made in 1827 by Vincenzo Camuccini, a frequent copyist of Raphael and a recognized faker.


It is, in any event, a lovely painting:

 

i'm wondering if i'm detecting a pattern in all of these objective / subjective 'discussions'

it seems to me in general that the longer you've been interested in audio (or at least been active on audio forums) and have no vested interest in the subjective point of view (nothing wrong with that, people have the right to spend their money on whatever they want), the less likely you are to have a subjective point of view.

most of who i consider my 'audio friends' even though i've not seen many of them for a while have very modest cable looms and supports, maybe they've played with cara.
however most of them when i first met them, back in the days when whf forum was THE place to hang if you were in the audio cognoscenti and people were only just starting to get a handle on the groove, were playing around with esoteric cables. some of which had been frozen or were laughingly branded 'the elephant cock' and various supports with strange prongs, cutouts, wobblyness and god knows what were tried.
one by one these have all fallen by the wayside along with room correction, green pens, sprays for connectors, spikes, squash balls, dynamat, the list is endless. some still use them but most now do not.
i therefore put forward the theory that as you mature as an audiophile the tweaking becomes less of a priority and listening to music comes to the fore... either that or we are all a bunch of deaf twats.....