Snake oil
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
'..originally a fraudulent liniment without snake extract, has come to refer to any product with questionable or unverifiable quality or benefit. By extension, a snake oil salesman is someone who knowingly sells fraudulent goods or who is himself a fraud, quack, or charlatan.'
...
There is plenty available elsewhere in the audiophile world so supply is not a problem but all the current formulas we have tested are too expensive and not terribly effective in our opinion. Indeed, some of the samples we have analysed don't even contain snake extract!
​
We believe that 'audiophile' cables, components, connections and circuit designs can subjectively improve perceived sound quality and this doesn't always seem attributed to reasonable technical explanations and measurement.
..
The marketing for a lot of audiophile upgrades alludes to technically feasible explanations but then provides little, if any, relevant technical measurements to back it up and use a great argument such as 'trust your ears!' or 'it's what it sounds like that matters!'.
Upgrades such as purer or 'better' conductors, lower dielectric properties, reduced or balanced skin effect, lower capacitance, resistance and inductance (in signal/supply paths), better plug and socket interfaces and switch contacts, emi and rf shielding or rejection, low microphonics, anti-resonance damping, improved grounding, reduced eddy currents etc are all technically feasable but how relevant are they and how much should each (little) improvement cost?
​
Then, of course, there is the question of placebo effect..
...
Capacitors with low esr and low impedance can significantly reduce noise and improve voltage stability in supply circuits.
​
Capacitors used in signal paths are much more subjective but improvements can be made by changing them for a better specification type. Keep in mind that the best signal capacitor is no signal capacitor so long as dc offset is taken care of (using a well engineered dc servoing system if necessary).
...
Engineered weak points for safety (most common type being fuses) are a necessity in the real world and a growing market for the audiophile upgrade hype.
​
Have we mentioned our new range of 'Audiophile Invisible Neverblow Safety Devices'?
​
They are under development in a variety of custom ratings and form factors specifically tuned to the audio circuitry, low current values for source equipment and pre-amps, high current for power amplifiers and subwoofers.
​
These incredible new devices are set to offer massive improvements to any audio equipment regardless of cost.
..
Clarity and realism improvements have been measured in the lab with amazing results of over 98% mhb*!
One of our stumbling blocks is finding a supply of snake oil that is not too expensive and refining the absolute correct properties for each application but our team of highly trained audiophile technicians are hard at work as we speak.
​
This is an exciting new era in audiophile safety device technology!
..
*mhb - 'marketing hype balony'