Why is the snake oil topic closed?

<jl35> and that's before you get to amps, DACs, CD players, and of course, cables.

What a state audio is in. Even hi-rez remastered downloads are often crushed and squeezed to death.

No wonder many stick to vinyl / tube systems and have done with it. These debates are important, but its for the readers to see where the vested interests may lie.

Audio can be simple, really. Something like Recording, Room and placement (unless its Headphones), Loudspeaker,  and the rest you can take your pick.

jl35
to see those all listed on one page, and think of all the damage they have done to unsuspecting audiophiles...

Nobody appreciates the naive, gullible tenderfoot audiophile more than I do. They're my favorite.  Hi, there. Want some candy? 🤑

@cd318

"It seems criminal that some engineers are working extremely hard to further standards in these areas, often with little financial gain, whilst purveyors of snake oil rake in easy money. "

+1 That is so true. What money gets wasted on snake oil never reaches the engineering design team that could possibly make the next significant real and measurable advance in audio. Given enough time, that entire engineering design team gets fired and the company outsources an industrial artist to design a cool looking face plate or a orders a thicker OEM cable jacket and a sales director is hired to attend audio shows and issue magazine ads touting miraculous new bogus scientific discoveries of effects going beyond what anyone has heard. Profits go up and costs go down but progress in audio is now ONLY in aesthetics (driven by the sales director and an outsourced industrial artist.)

The snakes are certainly quite brazen these days. I wonder why? Do people find it entertaining? Brash, snarky brazen snakes > the sneaky more secretive ones?   Brash is in these days I hear.

Let’s hear it for the poor downtrodden engineers. Working in obscurity, unheralded, overworked, and underpaid, working in low light, striving to find the perfect formula to make the big bosses some real money. Not some piddling amount. The audio industry is analogous to the car industry. "Where do we go from here? We got the four valves per cylinder. We got the forward looking radar. We got the airbags all around. We got the lithium battery. What else can we possibly come up with to sell these gosh darn cars??" Equipment upgraditis. Sound familiar?

😩