Advice on....Snake Oil

mapman

Just call fraud fraud when it occurs. 

I've always thought it odd that so many here are quick to charge fraud, yet none (to my knowledge) have ever filed a fraud complaint with authorities. So although the accusers often claim their goal is to protect the "gullible" and misinformed, it's obvious that is not their genuine interest.

It can be very difficult to prove fraud legally. Especially when the fraud has to do with largely subjective judgement such as sound quality. This entire site is basically about sound quality and various claims about it which is mostly a subjective judgement. But it is very naive to assert fraud does not exist especially in that kind of environment. In many cases it gets downgraded to “snake oil”. Credibility is really the only thing one has here in the eyes of others and worth preserving. It is not credible to assert that all here are perfect angels all the time as a result of their common love or obsession with sound. 
My advice:  
Just be realistic and steer the course. There are always a few bad apples. Trust but verify when called for. Otherwise just have fun!

Dill, your first post is spot on, in very few words. They don’t want , or can’t spend, or entrenched in their “science”.
exactly cleeds, they’re not trying to protect anything except to keep their personal bubble from bursting. They’re the ones when shown the blue pill and red pill, run away from either. There may very well be people who feel they don’t hear a difference, or feel, what they hear justifies the expense. There’s not a thing wrong with that, they’re not out trying to convince anyone that they didn’t hear what they claim they did. It makes no sense to spend if the value is not there for you. Why they are so hell bent on trying to convince us not to believe our own ears, not to spend for our own enjoyment ( last I checked, it’s my money I’m spending) 

what some would call "snake oil".

Why?
Because as we know from CV19,  propaganda goes a  veryyyy longgg way.
You can not always believe what you read, hear, 
As Kevin Deal says at Upscale aAudio,, <<If they are not showing pics of the guts of any component = means they are hiding something>> He is right. Its the old saying, a  pic tells a thosand words,, before i make any purcahse i carefully look at the guts, and weight. 
If it looks gorgeous from the outside, but inside pic looks like garbage,, and weight is puny,, I know its all hype. 
Guts + weight says alot. 
Who wants to  pay top $ for a   toy sized  transformer?
Lets rephrase your **snakeoil** which really only applies to mods/upgrades (new caps, new resistors new tubes) , for  describing a  components reputation, lets tag  it <<hype>>
There is alot of hype in this hobby. 
Snakeoil buster here. 

mapman

It can be very difficult to prove fraud legally ...

Of course. That’s why we have lawyers. Yet it still appears that notwithstanding the frequent accusations of fraud that are made on this site, no one - not one single person - has ever even filed a complaint of fraud with authorities. Not one single time. That can’t be simply explained away by stating that fraud difficult to prove. No proof is required to file a complaint.

If fraud were a real problem in our world of hi-fi, you’d think at least one lawsuit seeking class action status would have been filed. After all the US is a rather litigious place - just consider some of the absurd lawsuits that have been filed: A woman who sued the government because she was burned by nacho cheese; class action status sought for suit claiming Garden Veggie Straws have no veggies;
and then there’s the class action effort regarding fake butter at Dunkin’.

So the explanation that no suit has been filed over hi-fi fraud because it would be difficult to prove just isn’t valid. Besides, it isn’t necessary to actually prove the allegation of fraud. The vast majority of cases are settled out of court.