Synergistic calls out Audioholics

Even if somebody like Gene "proves" the SR stuff makes no measurable difference, cannot be selected in blind listening tests, and costs a fraction of the selling price to build, how does that "prove" it is snake oil - as long as the purchasers are happy with their purchases.  I don't care whether Ted Denny drives a Ferrari, I didn't help pay for it.

@prof 

Heres the thing, the products are real, they actually exist. You can hold them, touch them and listen to them. If they don’t work, you can return them.

This isn’t about me being for or against one company, tweak, approach or what someone appreciates in a system as far as how it sounds.

I have a problem with blind, closed minded ignorance.

Suspect I’m going to hear something along the lines of “If someone told me that if I  put feathers in my pockets, i could fly, I wouldn’t be running to try and jump off a building either. Not unless they could show me measurements...”

Looking forward to the next ridiculous analogy...

mitch2,

That seems like saying "If you bought a stone you were told was a real diamond, and a jeweler examining shows you it's only cheap Cubic zirconia, how does that 'prove' it's a fake diamond?"

Er...that's pretty much what it means to be a fake, a scam, snake oil: a false claim.

Per Wikipedia:  "Snake oil is a euphemism for deceptive marketing, health care fraud, or a scam." 


The term "snake oil," has been used in high end audio to describe products that make false/deceptive claims.   It's especially been attached to the tweakier side, and in particular cables, as I'd think you know.  In other words, the idea that many cable/tweak companies make deceptive claims about the performance of their product, using misleading marketing claims and technobabble.


IF Gene proved a product's extravagant performance claims false - showing they produce neither objectively verifiable difference nor subjectively (controlled tests),  that would be essentially the definition of "snake oil" being exposed.

Which is not to say SR products have been so determined.  But it just seems very strange to suggest that if a customer is "happy" then a product isn't snake oil or there is no scam involved.   Do you think if you someone sold you a fake diamond, as long as you happily believe the false claim that it's real then there was no scam involved?  Surely you don't really think this way, so why would you use that logic for an audio product sold on false claims?

perkri

Heres the thing, the products are real, they actually exist. You can hold them, touch them and listen to them. If they don’t work, you can return them.

Homeopathic pills are real, they actually exist. You can hold them, touch them and swallow them. 


Astrologers are real.  You can meet them, touch them (if they let you!), talk to them.  They'll explain to you how the stars guide your fortunes.


The question is: are the CLAIMS made about those phenomena real?

There is no objective evidence for those claims (and plenty against them), yet countless people think they work.   Yet you reasoned that a product that doesn't do what it claims wouldn't maintain business.

Are you able to see the point yet, as to why the basic logic of your inference was somewhat naive?