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Author Topic: Audio Snake Oil  (Read 82720 times)

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Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Audio Snake Oil
« Reply #60 on: July 08, 2016, 03:58:37 PM »
Devo never sounded so fantabulous and true.
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

Offline dactylus

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Re: Audio Snake Oil
« Reply #61 on: July 10, 2016, 11:30:02 AM »

^^^
Wow!!
hot licks > microphones > recorder



...ball of confusion, that's what the world is today, hey hey...

Offline F.O.Bean

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Re: Audio Snake Oil
« Reply #62 on: July 15, 2016, 05:57:08 AM »
OK, people.  I think we have now reached the absolute zenith of stupidity and BS:

http://www.monoandstereo.com/2016/04/kemp-elektroniks-maxiimus-p16-review_3.html
http://www.kempelektroniks.nl/en/918/kemp-elektroniks/products/shunt-conditioners/fostac-maxiimus-p16

That might be the BIGGEST waste of money Ive EVER seen :P They don't even explain WTF it even does!!! They just say it works with the internal resonances of the earth and its radiation field or something like that, but never say what it does for the audio! What a waste of $$!!!
Schoeps MK 4V & MK 41V ->
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Naiant +60v|Low Noise PFA's (x2) ->
DarkTrain Right Angle Stubby XLR's (x3) ->
Sound Devices MixPre-6 & MixPre-3

http://www.archive.org/bookmarks/diskobean
http://www.archive.org/bookmarks/Bean420
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Offline SacredMetal

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Re: $350 ethernet cable - teardown and bench test
« Reply #63 on: October 02, 2016, 12:15:58 PM »
How 'bout some magic pebbles to go with yer fancy ethernet cables and resonators? (No affiliation!) > http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina31.htm

If you like those, there's also a bridge I can sell you. ;)

The scary thing is I can tell you what stones those are in the bag on the right... Actually heading to a gem show right now, I can pick up my own version of "The Pebbles" (leaving out the Bam-Bam)
Zoom X/Y, Zoom M/S, Rode NT-1's, Rode NTK, Cascade Fathead
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(it may not be the greatest but its a good start...)

Offline voltronic

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Re: Audio Snake Oil
« Reply #64 on: April 10, 2020, 03:34:38 PM »
This one is an entirely new category of Audio Snake Oil for me.

https://www.lessloss.com/blackbody-p-200.html
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Offline lerond

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Re: Audio Snake Oil
« Reply #65 on: April 10, 2020, 05:06:05 PM »
Bwa-ha-ha-haha!

Quoting selectively from the ad text:
Quote
This is not your typical "talisman" tweak. Such tweaks are accompanied by diminishing returns once coloration sets in.
The Blackbody, on the other hand, is the only object that removes the influence of near-field EM reflections. Unlike other tweaks, it lowers the system’s noise floor, yet at the same time does nothing to introduce its own color the sound.
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Offline heathen

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Re: Audio Snake Oil
« Reply #66 on: April 12, 2020, 10:16:15 AM »
Is there any hobby as susceptible to this nonsense as audiophiles?  Serious question.
Mics: AT4050ST | AT4031 | AT853 (C/SC) | Line Audio CM3 | Sennheiser e614 | Sennheiser MKE2 | DPA 4061 Pre: CA9200 Decks: Zoom F8 | Roland R-05

Offline jerryfreak

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Re: Audio Snake Oil
« Reply #67 on: April 12, 2020, 02:54:26 PM »
Is there any hobby as susceptible to this nonsense as audiophiles?  Serious question.
new agers
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Offline hoserama

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Re: Audio Snake Oil
« Reply #68 on: April 12, 2020, 08:26:34 PM »
Is there any hobby as susceptible to this nonsense as audiophiles?  Serious question.
new agers

I was just thinking the same thing. Also conspiracy theorist, which overlaps with New Agers a lot.
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Offline rocksuitcase

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Re: Audio Snake Oil
« Reply #69 on: April 16, 2020, 03:39:34 PM »
Is there any hobby as susceptible to this nonsense as audiophiles?  Serious question.
The article and product is so stupid I Agree.
Audiophilia is basically a search for "heavy air" as Bob Weir might put it.      :o
music IS love

When you get confused, listen to the music play!

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Offline jefflester

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Re: Audio Snake Oil
« Reply #70 on: April 16, 2020, 06:28:25 PM »
Is there any hobby as susceptible to this nonsense as audiophiles?  Serious question.
The article and product is so stupid I Agree.
Audiophilia is basically a search for "heavy air" as Bob Weir might put it.      :o
It was "thick air" that Bobby was looking for. :-)
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Offline rocksuitcase

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Re: Audio Snake Oil
« Reply #71 on: April 16, 2020, 08:12:00 PM »
Is there any hobby as susceptible to this nonsense as audiophiles?  Serious question.
The article and product is so stupid I Agree.
Audiophilia is basically a search for "heavy air" as Bob Weir might put it.      :o
It was "thick air" that Bobby was looking for. :-)
Ahso. I thought I may have had the wrong adjective. I'm betting the Dead found the thick air more often than this dude's weird absorber works!
Who has a link to the thick air interview?    ;D
music IS love

When you get confused, listen to the music play!

Mics:         AKG460|CK61|CK1|CK3|CK8|Beyer M 201E|DPA 4060 SK
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Offline jefflester

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Re: Audio Snake Oil
« Reply #72 on: April 16, 2020, 08:59:00 PM »
Is there any hobby as susceptible to this nonsense as audiophiles?  Serious question.
The article and product is so stupid I Agree.
Audiophilia is basically a search for "heavy air" as Bob Weir might put it.      :o
It was "thick air" that Bobby was looking for. :-)
Ahso. I thought I may have had the wrong adjective. I'm betting the Dead found the thick air more often than this dude's weird absorber works!
Who has a link to the thick air interview?    ;D
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-grateful-deads-anthem-of-the-sun-10-things-you-didnt-know-2-700628/

2. Relations between the band and producer Dave Hassinger broke down when Bob Weir requested the ambient sound of “thick air.”
Having produced the band’s debut, Warner Bros. staff producer Dave Hassinger was drafted in to record its follow-up a few months later. But with the band exploring decidedly more experimental territory on Anthem – not least telling Hassinger they wanted to record environmental audio of both the desert and the city – the producer jumped ship. “I was describing how I envisioned the song, and [long-term Dead sound engineer Dan Healy] and Hassinger were hassling over something,” Bob Weir said in Oliver Trager’s 1997 guide The American Book of the Dead. “I announced, ‘Right here I want the sound of thick air.’ I couldn’t describe it back then, because I didn’t know what I was talking about. I do know now: a little bit of white noise and a little bit of compression. I was thinking about something kind of like the buzzing that you hear in your ears in a hot, sticky summer day.”
DPA4061 HEB -> R-09 / AT943 -> CA-UGLY -> R-09
AKG CK63 -> nBob actives -> Baby NBox -> R-09/DR2d
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Line Audio CM4/Superlux S502/Samson C02/iSK Little Gem/Sennheiser E609/Shure SM57 -> Zoom F8/DR-680MKII (multitracked band recordings)

Offline voltronic

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Re: Audio Snake Oil
« Reply #73 on: April 17, 2020, 11:24:03 AM »
"Heavy Air"?  Like ozone?

Just run one of these in your listening room.  Not while you're in there though - it's toxic!

https://www.amazon.com/Enerzen-Commercial-Industrial-Deodorizer-Sterilizer/dp/B00JAP7388/
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- Gustav Mahler

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Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Audio Snake Oil
« Reply #74 on: April 17, 2020, 12:02:31 PM »
Quote
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-grateful-deads-anthem-of-the-sun-10-things-you-didnt-know-2-700628/

2. Relations between the band and producer Dave Hassinger broke down when Bob Weir requested the ambient sound of “thick air.”
Having produced the band’s debut, Warner Bros. staff producer Dave Hassinger was drafted in to record its follow-up a few months later. But with the band exploring decidedly more experimental territory on Anthem – not least telling Hassinger they wanted to record environmental audio of both the desert and the city – the producer jumped ship. “I was describing how I envisioned the song, and [long-term Dead sound engineer Dan Healy] and Hassinger were hassling over something,” Bob Weir said in Oliver Trager’s 1997 guide The American Book of the Dead. “I announced, ‘Right here I want the sound of thick air.’ I couldn’t describe it back then, because I didn’t know what I was talking about. I do know now: a little bit of white noise and a little bit of compression. I was thinking about something kind of like the buzzing that you hear in your ears in a hot, sticky summer day.”


^
Nice. I'd read about the "thick air" incident with Dave Hassinger, yet had not come across Bob's concluding follow up (my bold above).   He turns it around and quantifies it, translating the poetic woo-woo head-speak into clearly descriptive audio terminology. 

In the end, both the colorfully poetic and dry technical aspects are woefully incomplete descriptions on their own without reference to the other.  It is finding a meaningful relationship between the two which is essential to achieving a successful realization of musical art via a technical medium.  Music technology is an unavoidable convergence of art and science.  It becomes most fully actualized when its practitioners are able to relate to both realms honestly, which requires thinking and communicating using the different ideas and different terms of very different mediums. It is a translational art like  language interpretation, which requires a sufficient understanding of sub-contexts in both mediums to be able to successfully convey essential meaning, rather than a rote word-for-word translation that strips away the essence of the message. Command of the technical allows actualization of the artistic.  It enhances the subjective artistic experience rather than diminishing it, but therein lies the fears of those who confine themselves to just one side without the other. Science needn't and shouldn't displace faith nor faith science when each is able to provide a useful illumination of the other.

Most of us are able to recognize this, if only subconsciously, and that exposes snake-oil sales hype as an "essentially meaningless bad-faith translation" which in turn provides entertainment value in its obvious falsities.  "All your bases are belong to us"


So easy to poke holes in the less-loss blackbody thing.  The part I found especially funny is how they go on and on about how it so perfectly absorbs the entire electromagnetic spectrum.. while displaying photos of a shinny chrome-plated thing super-adept at not absorbing the visual portion of that spectrum.

musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

 

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