russ andrews. load of old bollox if you ask me......

Thanks, Julian. I've no intention of being controversial, but I have a scientific background and I still work with research scientists, so I tend to be sceptical. Plus, of course, the fact that I've never heard any difference with most of the things I've tried (Bub will now enter and tell me I'm deaf - he may, of course, be right).

However, it interests me that there should be high ambient emf "at ground level". But what if you live on the 100th. floor of the Empire State Building? Does it mean that you can forgo things to elevate your cables, be they Jungle Jimmy's threads or porcelain lifters, because the emf level is about zero up there? Or, I live 500 metres above seal level. Do the cables of my brother's hi-fi at sea level perform less well? Rhetorical questions only, of course. But I don't believe a word of it. However, as Michael says elsewhere, if you hear a difference, be it totally imaginary or measurably real, you heard a difference and that's reality for you. If a placebo cures your disease, you remain cured.

 

tones,
would the possibility of static charge build up on carpets and the fact that much of a houses wiring and metal tubery goes either round the bottom of the walls or under the floor have this effect?
just a thought.

as for it all being bollocks well maybe it is but if it makes you happy who's to say nay!

cheers


julian

 

Jimmy also has his CD labels carefully aligned so that they are horizontal when you open the case. OCD-QED.

Tones you are mostly deaf.

Placebos don't actually cure anything; they are included in drug trials to control for the possibility that the disease in question will remit spontaneously.

 

James - even if Tones is very self deprecating about his hearing, it's no excuse to insult him by calling him "mostly deaf"

As to placebos curing diseases (or having the same effect as a drug being trialled) - it happens. The people taking the placebo don't know they aren't taking the "real" drug and if they believe it will work then it will work.

There are people who've been cured of cancer using all kinds of remedies that I'm sure the established medical profession would call "a load of bollox". Now whether it was the alternative remedies or the belief that they would work which did the curing, no one can say for sure. One thing is for sure though, you can have all the radio and chemo-therapy you like but if you don't believe it's going to cure you then it won't. The psychosomatic effect is extremely powerful.

Michael.

 

EH? Somebody say something?

Yes, I know about placebos - I worked for years in the Basel pharma industry and I still have good friends in the clinical trials departments of Novartis and Roche. I was actually quoting something Michael said on another thread. It boils down to the simple fact that if you heard it, you heard it, no matter whether it was real or not. You hear vast improvements wrought by Mana, I don't, our realities are different, but we're happy with them. So, back to John Borwick, quoted earlier.

 

Thanks, Michael, but no problems . James and I have had a "thing" about my hearing for a long time, ever since I couldn't hear any difference when I tried a Mana Sound Frame. Since my hearing is the only one I have, I have to be content with it - and it does save me a lot of money, because I don't have to buy expensive cables, stands, etc. (C'mon, James, admit it, you engineered the whole thing, so that you could get a cheap(er) Sound Frame!).

 

Michael, I think you need an irony/joke button. It was a light jest not an insult. I think Tones knows me well enough to spot that.

It's not the placebo itself which effects the 'cure', it's the advice given by the doctor to the patient at the time of administration.

The problems with medicine are that firstly you have to treat patients as individuals but we research them in large numbers, and secondly we don't know enough about the diseases to offer accurate prognoses in every individual case.

In other words, unexpected things happen. It's not a black-and-white science.

 

'Voodoo' :devil: Excellent lyrics one of RJD better moments

 

That would be those smilies on the left hand side of the screen

Michael.

 

Yes, but smilies are ghastly things.

Very late night with Paul Ranson last night. He is one of the good guys, even if he has a reputation among some posters here for being a 'rottweiler'. Forums need rottweilers.

Go Paul!

 

If folk want to buy stuff from RA, why does that upset people so much. If they are happy and Mr Andrews has done nothing wrong who are we to complain.

Of course they might be cheaper or better options. I cannot understand why a good friend of mine has just spent a fortune on a rather nice but dreadful sounding B&O system, but he is very very happy with his purchase, and that is what matters.

Is it worth complaining about someone buying a hyper expensive car for example a Rolls when there are a whole host of cheaper cars that may be better.

If I wish to hang my hand made exotic cables from the strands of a spiders web and I think it improves my listening experience, is this a crime? Listening to music is not an exact science, one only has to read the research papers to understand this, it is highly complicated and is largely about perceptions - in it fullest terms.

 

RA is a very clever businessman. Some of the stuff he sells is technically rubbish but some are very good also.

But whatever he sells, he succeed in charging OTT prices by using extraordinary amount of hype that is conjured up and designed to exploit various weaknesses in the buyer.

I am glad to see from the posts not only in this forum but also at HFC and other forums that many people are waking up to the fact.

Caveat Emptor!

 

Blue Max, a more constructive and honest approach, I suspect quite a few forum memebers wouldn't disagree with you, I for one won't He is a clever business, that knows his trade, I've met him a few times (in a professional capacity, shrewd is a word that springs to mind , along with a few others)
However, It's marketing that sells for sure, He doesn't twist peoples arm to buy, his some times over priced trinkets, and he offers a money back no quibble garentee, not many do, people make their own minds up (hopefully )
I'm not sticking up for the guy, he does make a tidy sum I'm sure, the Catalogue hie suppiles I feel costs the wrong side of 5 figures, but thats his choice, the same as the customers deciding weather to buy his products or not, at the end of last year on HFC, it was getting very liabious and down right offensive, weather alledgely true of not.
His marketing techinquies 'Suggest' a possible improvement by 'x' or 'y' for sure, but he's not physicaly forcing them to part with there hard erned.
You could say the same for either Mc donalds or Kwick Fit, both of these names synonamious with some of the best marketing cobblers in the UK/World, Kwick fit are one of the dearest on the block by a fair margin, Mc D's is one of the best repeat business in exsistance, Now Tom Farner (Kwick Fit) and Russ Andrews are Scottish, & Mc D's is a scottish name, maybe a ripe form or Irony I dunno. But to redress the balance R/A does have a lot of happy, but lighter in the wallet customers, although if they are happy, then who are we to worry. WM

 

..like for example, the drive to 'upgrade', for the sake of the very act itself, which is arguably something he perpetuates with his buy back schemes, and graphs of incremental progression, and is inherent possibly in society as a whole and our psychology - but frankly i have no interest in continuously slagging the guy.

 

We are all over 21 years of age

Chaps

If someone is daft enough to spend £80.00 on a lump of wood, then fine. No one put a gun to their head and if they keep the thing, then presumably they are happy and it is money well spent.

Just proves that you can fool some of the people some of the time.

Regards

Mick

 

nationality

dont think russ is scottish !

 

I have used kimber interconnects, speaker cables & mains cables etc in my Naim system for the last 6 years, and have been very happy with the results. Anything I have ordered from Russ that I don't like has been received back with no problems.
I did this after trying out other manufacturers products of a similar nature, and obvuisly preferred what I purchased.

How can you argue with a 60 day trial period? (I'm sure someone will for the sake of it!) U can then find out if particular claims are fact or fiction, and worth the dosh or not...

 

You do get better service from RA. But at a hefty premium.

Kimber Cables are priced THREE times higher in Britain compared to Canada for example.

 

Also people some times just imagine there is a difference in sound and there is not, I have probably done it myself.