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Exactly

Posted by Charles Hansen (M) on September 26, 2005 at 10:40:56

In Reply to: apples and oranges posted by Bruce from DC on September 26, 2005 at 09:57:09:

Bruce wrote, "As others have said in the thread, the 3 "lies" you mention are indpendently, objectively verifiable. So, that makes them different than a "lie" about whether a tweak has a sonic effect."

I agree completely, but in my opinion the objective lies are far *worse* than the marketing stories about tweaks. In the examples I cited, the perpetrators *knew* they were lying and did so unashamedly in a cynical attempt to sell more product.

Let's now look at an example of a marketing story concerning tweaks. Sometime in the late '80s, Dick Olsher did a cable survey in Stereophile. The article included the marketing claims of the cable designers, and Olsher attempted to look at these mechanisms from a "scientific" viewpoint. One of the cables reviewed was the Cardas, and of course the marketing claim was "Golden Ratio Stranding", whereby the mechanical resonances were distributed in a semi-random way.

When I read that article, I figured I had never heard such a load of horseshit in my life. The entire idea of mechanical resonances affecting the sound of cables seemed *extremely* far-fetched to me at that time. And even if there was something to this idea, why not just damp the resonances instead of distributing them? I was so offended by this obvious example of "malarkey", that it was several years before I even listened to these cables.

To make a long story short, over 15 years later I now accept this explanation as valid. It still isn't fully satisfying to me, but I've had enough experiences with cables and performed enough experiments that I can't find a better explanation. Is it the *real* explanation? I have no idea. But I am crystal clear that (unlike the three "mainstream" examples I cited) this is not some cynical marketing claim designed to sell product. This is the genuine belief of the designer, and (silly as it seems) the most likely explanation I can find.

Bruce wrote, "However, when we get to reports of perceived sonic differences caused by tweaks, our confidence level that these reported differences are not the result of something going on in the reporter's head goes down if we don't have a plausible explanation that accounts for the difference."

Again, I agree completely. This is what drives the people to make claims about their products, even though they may be inaccurate.

There are only a couple of other options, and I've tried them both in the real world.

a) "I know exactly how this thing operates, but I'm not telling. It would be too easy for people to steal my ideas." This is what I did at Avalon, and it really didn't work well at all. Even though people loved the sound of the speakers, without some sort of explanation on which to hang their hats, people were reluctant to buy them and reviewers were reluctant to write positive stories about them.

b) "I have no idea how this thing works, but is really does." This is what we currently do with our tweaks the "Irrational, But Efficacious" system enhancement disc, and the myrtle wood blocks. We would probably sell more if we came up with some sort of plausible explanation, but at least we aren't pissing people off with the outrageousness of our claims in the way the Geoff Kait seems to have.

But whether a tweak works or not has nothing to do with our "confidence level" that is established by any "plausible explanation". (Which is one of the reasons why it was a mistake for Stereophile to publish Austin's editorial.) Either the tweak works or it doesn't, regardless of your personal feelings about its "plausible explanation".

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Schiit Audio

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