Poor value vs snake oil...

What’s the relationship between SO and placebos?

Before my systematic listening experiments to increase my 3 embeddings controls quality, to improve the way my audio system was integrated in my house, many upgrade of parts, or buying of few tweaks, introduce changes that were small but there in some way, placebos or not...

SO(snake oil) and placebos qualifications are linked to a SINGULAR product and his SINGULAR effect.... The audible effect being small....We can ask ourself, was this change real enough? An is this change worth it and the amount of money invested ?

After my upgrading spree during some years to buy the best audio component i could buy, i was unsatisfied...Despite all these changes and upgrades, the question: are these changes real enough(placebo) and worth my money stay with me ?

But for the last 2 years taking the work in my own hand, i begins a set of methodical listenings experiments, and something change, a step at a times, EACH WEEK, incrementally better, coming first from the mechanical embedding , and after that from continuous improvement in my electrical and acoustical embeddings...

All my controls device are cheap and homemade, i developed my 3 embeddings methods , and EACH WEEK, for the last 2 years i has seen a tremensous increase in S.Q. with the same components, listening to the same known files...

My homemade controls are not snake oil nor placebo....Placebo enter in ANY experience anyway, it is a natural bias in ALL human experience....And i sell nothing, my idea are free and are there to convince people that good Hi-Fi experience may cost low money, contrary to a widely assumed opinions by most...


But explaining a set of continuous changes in the same direction by placebo explanation is like saying to a culturist exercising each day that his muscular mass increase is the result of placebo effect only.... For sure if you want muscular mass increase the mind set is important, and working with something about which someone says to you that it will be helping is a good "bias" and a welcoming positive placebo.... But you know that the muscular mass grows with real working not  mostly by hope and bias that  may help and will help tough....

I know that my device controls gives me the audio system i was dreaming of for all these years ....Not my positive mindset only , but my working with the electrical grid and the complex acoustics of my room with passive materials and active devices...

If not, placebo is not the right word to use about me, hallucinations is better...

I am then an " hallucinated audiophile", i prefer that branding to this trivial placebo accusation.... Placebo is eveywhere anyway, it is constitunional of human experience; very good S. Q. is not experimented in all audio system tough, even after many placebo upgrade or buying....This is my experience only....

My best to you.... :)

Mahgister, you've been at those psilocybin mushrooms again.

:)

I must say that i like mushrooms a lot....But my hallucinations comes from my speakers....Help me doctor....

:)

rols...I was Ok with what you were saying and your personal definition of "snake oil" until your last example where you sell someone else's product as your own and then use testimonials from people who are happy with what actually isn't your product but instead is someone else's. I agree that would not constitute snake oil, but it would be highly unethical and possibly fraudulent. Bad example.

I really like Mahgister’s analogy to the athlete working out. Exactly!
In our instant-gratification society, we want to hear our money NOW! "I’m not waiting for this $600 cable to break in, it sounds like a can o’nails! Must be some kind of SO!"
Give cables and components and tweaks time to get their muscles into performance shape.
It’s also important to have our listening "muscles" ready to perform. Unfortunately, listening muscles (cilia) are incredibly fragile. So abuse can result in permanent loss. Imagine what it would be like to go to the gym and work out hard, only to find that you overdid on your left arm and it’s now partially paralyzed for life!
Dr. Ted Kaptchuk of Harvard Medical says medical placebos are 50% as effective as the real meds. Why would you or I criticize a buddy who has used tweaks we consider fake to improve his system? We all do it constantly but perhaps our sense of logic clashes with our sense of hearing to the point that we draw a mental and/or financial line in the sand: "Naw, that can’t possibly work!" "Snake-oil!" And if the tweak works well, others yell "placebo effect!" Experts cited in Kaptchuk’s article have concluded that reacting to a placebo is not proof that a certain treatment doesn’t work, but rather that another, non-pharmacological mechanism may be present.
Now that certainly opens up many possible Pandora’s boxes. Yes, hallucination may be one answer, but in view of our mostly uneducated perspective, how can we automatically dismiss putting anything into our systems? Hell, if I get improved imaging with cherries jubilee under my turntable--who’s calling me out? Isn’t one of the metrics we are talking about using to detect SO dependent on wether or not there is any positive effect?
Tweaking is fun and can be really inexpensive, we see. So let’s lighten up on the unknown and get down on the cherries jubilee.