"Dave Martin" wrote in message
k.net...

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...

Absolutely. If I play The Art of the Fugue on LP to one group, and I
play
the Sex Pistols on CD to a second group, I can guarantee you that by any
objective measure of relaxation (deltoid test, skin resistance, what
have
you), the group listening to analogue recordings will test as more
relaxed.
--scott

Well, it depends on which recording of the Art of the Fugue, doesn't it?

And what drugs the two groups have taken.

Peace,
Paul

"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message
...
In rec.audio.tech Paul Stamler wrote:
Some of you may be old enough to remember the "deltoid test" flap. In
the
early days of digital recording, a clinical psychologist (was his name
Diamond?) claimed that digital recordings agitated his patients, while
analog recordings calmed them. He proved that by employing the "deltoid
test", borrowed from chiropractic.


Tweako amp designer Mark Levinson has been touting those 'results' for
some
years now...most recently in a published
'roundtable' in The Absolute Sound. The polite silence from the other
members
of the roundtable was rather telling...even TAS has its limits.

Oh, I forgot to add...the clinical psychologist who first brought up this
business surfaced again a couple of years later, hawking the beautiful
audiophile recordings he had made. On a Sony PCM-F1. Digital.

Peace,
Paul

"Andrew Chesters" wrote in message
...
Agent_C wrote:
I'm sure we all have our favorite snake oil story...

Mine comes from Lyric HiFi here in New York, when they tried to sell me
little coin size metallic stickers. At $250.00 each, they supposedly
improved the sound by "dampening the field-effect resonance" on your
individual components. What??? I could hardly contain my laughter!

Then there was the afternoon at Sound by Singer (a more appropriate
name for this rug merchant would be 'Sound by Swindler'), where he had
a customer convinced his prospective $500,000.00 system was so precise,
that one could actually distinguish between two identically titled CD's
- by the subtle differences on the pitted surface of the disk.

I'm not even going to start sharing what salesmen have said while
trying to sell me cables...

A_C

Not as "off the wall" as some of the tales here, but when shopping for
an MD for sound effects playback in a theatre, I was told by spotty yoof
in Richer Sounds that "player X had a better sound because it went
through fewer buttons on the front panel than player Y". Needless to
say, I did laugh in his face and, quite loudly, explained to the whole
shop that he new dip-**** about audio. Might just have lost them a few
sales that day.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the company which sells wooden *control
knobs* for stereo equipment! They claim all sorts of 'subtle' sonic
advantages when compared to the original plastic or metal ones....

jak

I DID buy one of them, just happened to be the one with more
knobs/buttons. There again, I was only really interested in one
feature; "Can you set it to pause after each track?"

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Absolutely. If I play The Art of the Fugue on LP to one group, and I play
the Sex Pistols on CD to a second group, I can guarantee you that by any
objective measure of relaxation (deltoid test, skin resistance, what have
you), the group listening to analogue recordings will test as more relaxed

And I would bet any amount of money that that same group could accurately
define the differences between the Analog and CD recordings. I'd even gander a
guess ratio accuracy at over 96%.

PapaNate

David Morgan (MAMS) wrote:
"Jim Gilliland" wrote in message...

And here's their latest innovation:

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/hallograph.htm

Oh my.... :-\

They've been in business for over a decade!

Jim Gilliland wrote:
Agent_C wrote:
I'm sure we all have our favorite snake oil story...


Some of my favorite snake oil products have come from the Shakti
company:

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/audiovideo.htm

They not only improve your audio, but the same technology will make
your
car run better!

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/automotive.htm

And here's their latest innovation:

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/hallograph.htm

Those things improve the sound in the room so much that they make it
*look* like there's a violin in the room with you! Amazing.

Karl Winkler
Lectrsonics, Inc.
http://www.lectrsonics.com

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 20:18:44 GMT, "David Morgan \(MAMS\)"
wrote:


"Agent_C" wrote in message ups.com...
You're being sarcastic right? I believe a tube preamp will actually
sound a little 'warmer' than a solid state one.

A_C


You're joking right? Unless you qualify that statement, there's little
more to assume. So many manufacturers are making little cheap
preamps with a small tube on the input gain stage which (tube there
or tube not there), still sound like crap up against a huge variety of
solid state preamps.

Yeah, but it's warm crap...

Al

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 20:21:09 GMT, "David Morgan \(MAMS\)"
wrote:


"Jim Gilliland" wrote in message...

And here's their latest innovation:

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/hallograph.htm


Oh my.... :-\




They say they have a patent pending for that... wonder if it's true.
What are the patent regulations, does the patented invention actually
have to work, or can any crazy thing be patented?

Al

On 3 Mar 2005 13:25:07 -0800, "Karl Winkler"
wrote:


Jim Gilliland wrote:
Agent_C wrote:
I'm sure we all have our favorite snake oil story...


Some of my favorite snake oil products have come from the Shakti
company:

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/audiovideo.htm

They not only improve your audio, but the same technology will make
your
car run better!

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/automotive.htm

And here's their latest innovation:

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/hallograph.htm

Those things improve the sound in the room so much that they make it
*look* like there's a violin in the room with you! Amazing.

They had to have something real in the picture to give it some cred.

Al

On 3/3/05 12:11 PM, in article
, "Johann Burkard"
wrote:

Oh no, wait - the sofa in front is a special sofa that removes subsonic
vibrations (from 0 to 0.1 Hz) so that the music will have more air,
ambiance and three dimensional sound stage. Great.

We had someone call up and asked us about mastering his "healing music",
which was some kind of synth sounds mixed with a 0.1Hz sine wave. We had to
explain the fact that once he delivered his material on DAT, his preferred
delivery format, the 0.1Hz would be gone.

Allen
--
Allen Corneau
Mastering Engineer
Essential Sound Mastering
Houston, TX

They say they have a patent pending for that... wonder if it's true.
What are the patent regulations, does the patented invention actually
have to work, or can any crazy thing be patented?

In theory, a patented invention must be "useful", "novel", and
"non-obvious". Most would say that "useful" requires that it actually
work, at least to some extent. It used to be the case, long ago, that
you had to actually build at least a working model and be able to
demonstrate that the device worked.

However, in practice, the rules have changed. Many patent claims are
allowed based solely on a description (which must, again in principle,
be sufficiently detailed to allow someone skilled in the art to
reproduce the invention as described) and no working model is ever
presented. It's also clear that many patent examiners are content to
accept the filer's explanation about how and why the invention works,
and that they're sometimes woefully ignorant of the actual state of
the art and of the existence of relevant prior art.

On the other hand, "patent pending" simply means that they've filed.
It doesn't mean that the patent has been issued, or has even been
allowed and is on the way to being issued. It's entirely possible
that most or all of their claims have been, or will be laughed out of
court by the patent examiner.

Even if they do have a valid patent claim in the works, there's
nothing definite to say that their flowery public description about
how their product is supposed to work, corresponds at all closely to
the wording in the patent claims. They might have filed a patent
claim for some narrowly-worded aspect of the design of this specific
product (e.g. a specific size and shape of the ripples), without
trying to claim wider coverage via a "utility" patent and its
description and claims.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

TimPerry wrote:

My favorites are those little teflon sticks being sold to
audiofools to
support speaker cables up off and away from the lossy dielectric
plastic fibers in your carpet.

Mark


hey that a new one! where can i see it?

http://www.xit.net/kenan/testimonials.htm

or google these keywords

"speaker cables" "off the floor"

its off the wall if you ask me :-)

Mark

"Jim Gilliland" wrote in message ...
David Morgan (MAMS) wrote:
"Jim Gilliland" wrote in message...

And here's their latest innovation:

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/hallograph.htm

Oh my.... :-\

They've been in business for over a decade!


No wonder the political situation is like it is....

On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 17:34:21 +0000 (UTC), Steven Sullivan
wrote:

the INTELLIGENT CHIP:
"Machina Dynamica now carries the amazing Intelligent Chip, an emerging technology device that improves CD sound quality
in the blink of an eye. The Intelligent Chip is a thin, 1-inch square orange wafer that automatically upgrades any
CD/DVD/SACD disc when the Chip is placed momentarily on the top surface of the player while the disc is playing."

OK, this is the MOST ridiculous thing I've ever heard...

However, someone should tell this guy he's got these way under-priced.
Anyone that would believe that nonsense would also be willing to pay
at least $1000 for one of them.

A_C

Powell wrote:
"Arny Krueger" wrote
Recently I got John Atkinson of Stereophile to confirm
that SP ran an article about the sonic advantages of
treating CDs with Armor All.

I answered Mr. Krueger's question as soon as I saw his
posting. I guess that is what he mean by "getting" me to
confirm this fact. Contarry to his implication, I didn't
have anything to hide.

In fact the result was damaged CDs.

As I pointed out, damaged from the scratches that could result
from the ArmorAll application. These scratches can be polished out.

Is that what you and Atkinson are going to debate at the
show... Armor All?

I did assure Mr. Krueger that he could raise any subject he felt
relevant.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

"Dave Platt" wrote in message
...
They say they have a patent pending for that... wonder if it's true.
What are the patent regulations, does the patented invention actually
have to work, or can any crazy thing be patented?

In theory, a patented invention must be "useful", "novel", and
"non-obvious". Most would say that "useful" requires that it actually
work, at least to some extent. It used to be the case, long ago, that
you had to actually build at least a working model and be able to
demonstrate that the device worked.

They say one of the simplest patents ever granted was for the number 1.65.
It was granted to Phillip H. Smith as the optimum diameter ratio for a
coaxial transmission line.

Not often I get to use that bit of trivia.

dtk

Jim Gilliland wrote:

David Morgan (MAMS) wrote:
"Jim Gilliland" wrote in message...

And here's their latest innovation:

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/hallograph.htm

Oh my.... :-\

They've been in business for over a decade!

The current "SBEM"* rate of 1 is still probably about the same as it was
in P.T. Barnum's day, so that would come out to about 1/2 a million new
SPEM's every year, or 5,000,000 SBEM in a decade. That's a healthy
market share.

*SBEM = "Sucker Born Every Minute"

Harvey Gerst
Indian Trail Recording Studio
http://www.ITRstudio.com/

Allen Corneau wrote:
On 3/3/05 12:11 PM, in article
, "Johann Burkard"
wrote:

Oh no, wait - the sofa in front is a special sofa that removes subsonic
vibrations (from 0 to 0.1 Hz) so that the music will have more air,
ambiance and three dimensional sound stage. Great.

We had someone call up and asked us about mastering his "healing music",
which was some kind of synth sounds mixed with a 0.1Hz sine wave. We had to
explain the fact that once he delivered his material on DAT, his preferred
delivery format, the 0.1Hz would be gone.

Did you offer to put some replacement 0.1 Hz in for him?

Doesn't Famous Blue Raincoat have a cut on it like that?
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

And the winner is.....
http://www.referenceaudiomods.com/Me.../merchant.mvc?
Screen=PROD&Product_Code=NOB_C37_C&Category_Code=V OLUME&Product_Count=2

In article ,
dt king wrote:

In theory, a patented invention must be "useful", "novel", and
"non-obvious". Most would say that "useful" requires that it actually
work, at least to some extent. It used to be the case, long ago, that
you had to actually build at least a working model and be able to
demonstrate that the device worked.

They say one of the simplest patents ever granted was for the number 1.65.
It was granted to Phillip H. Smith as the optimum diameter ratio for a
coaxial transmission line.

Neat - that's the ratio which gives the lowest loss per weight/cost
of materials given standard (WW II) dielectrics, right?

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

Paul Stamler wrote:
Some of you may be old enough to remember the "deltoid test" flap. In
the
early days of digital recording, a clinical psychologist (was his
name
Diamond?) claimed that digital recordings agitated his patients,
while
analog recordings calmed them. He proved that by employing the
"deltoid
test", borrowed from chiropractic.

In that test, the subject stands with arms outstretched; the
experimenter
suddenly presses downward. Whether or not the subject can resist
tells the
experimenter something about his/her muscle tone, and presumably
other
things like stress level. The good doctor found that when subjects
listened
to digital recordings, they showed much lower muscle tone than when
they
listened to analog recordings.

Now, it's not entirely outside of the realm of possibility that
digital
recordings might have subtle physiological effects. And it's
certainly
possible that the deltoid test might be detecting real physiological
effects, whether or not they might be connected to what the subject
was
listening to.

But when the doctor cautioned that it was well-known in the world of
chiropractic that the effects of the deltoid test would be skewed if
there
was refined sugar anywhere in the room, that's when it was time for
the
horselaugh.

I had a great chiropractor many years ago who was very good
actually, he did this test with me. And sure enough I reacted
negatively with a weakened arm to sugar, white flour, citrus, all the
usual suspects. Until we got to *coffee*. For that, my arm never
moved an inch and I lost no muscle strength whatsoever, solid as a
rock!

"Apparently your body likes coffee" Dr. Sheftick said more than a
little surprised. He went on to explain to me that this was just a
convenient method to ask a person's unconcious mind directly what it
likes and does not like, bypassing the conscious mind and inquiring of
the organic. Apparently the unconcious mind controls the sympathetic
nervous system which then can move your body parts. He postulated that
I might have had somewhat of an underactive thyroid, and that coffee
was something my body found useful in compensating for that.

And I wasn't yet drinking a pot of coffee a day and working 100 hour
weeks as a Studio assistant back then either, that came later.

Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy
Staff Audio / Fox News / M-AES
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits

At the last Stereophile writers' meeting I attended, at least 15 years ago, John
Atkinson asked an intelligent question. To wit...

"Why is it that some mounts are supposed to isolate the amp/CD player, etc, from
the surface they're on, while others couple it tightly to the surface (cones, in
particular), yet both approaches claim improved sound?"

I suggested that one way to find out would be to play an impulse from a CD
through a speaker in front of the player. (A similar experiment to test
amplifiers could be done with a pulse generator feeding the amp.) You could then
look at the pulse's spectrum and decay (at the player's or amp's output) using a
variety of isolation devices, no isolation at all, and with no speaker at all
(as a reference). This should show whether CD players, etc, are meaningfully
microphonic, and whether isolation devices have any effect.

John thought that was a good idea. Then he said the thing that forever made me
lose respect for his "understanding" of science.

"But what if there's no difference between the isolating devices?"

In case this isn't clear... You don't assume the result before performing an
experiment. Indeed, it's often better to perform an experiment simply to see
what happens, rather than trying to "prove" or "disprove" something.

I doubt that John ever performed the experiment. I am guilty, too, of failing to
follow through on subjective observations with controlled experiments.

Oh, I forgot to add...the clinical psychologist who first brought up this
business surfaced again a couple of years later, hawking the beautiful
audiophile recordings he had made. On a Sony PCM-F1. Digital.

But with the Apogee filters, right?

Someone once tried to sell me a tube mic preamp. Said it would warm up
all my recordings.

If a tube mic preamp makes your recordings sound warmer with 6.3 volts on
the tube's filament, would applying 63 volts to the filament make your
recordings sound even warmer? ;-)

Arny, do you believe that, in general, tube and transistor amplification _do
not_ sound different?

In article ,
Agent_C wrote:

OK, this is the MOST ridiculous thing I've ever heard...

I assume this means you haven't discovered the Time Cube guy?

In article ,
TimPerry wrote:

remember the "ZeroStat" gun for records?

I remember that it worked quite well if you used it properly.
And used improperly it also did a fine job of getting your kid sister
out of your room.

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 05:43:04 -0800, Agent_C wrote:

I'm sure we all have our favorite snake oil story...


When I was a kid back in the early 70's, I went with a fellow audiophile
friend of mine to BrandsMart which was a place where you needed a
membership card to get in.
We went to the audio section and they had quite a selection of equipment
there at all price ranges.

Anyway, my friend wanted to buy some speakers so we were audtioning all
the ones on this giant wall of speakers with this remote control thing
that allowed us to switch between various models.

He like the sound of some mid-line BOSE speakers, not the 901's, but some
box model like 601 or 301 or something like that.
We commented to the salesman who happened to be this black guy who looked
exactly like Nipsey Russel or Dr. J of the Nets that the sound seemed to
be coming from everywhere when we switched to the Bose speakers.

He blurted out in this 1970's ghetto accent "Maaaannnnnn THAT'S da TRICK
of Da BOSE"!!!!!

We quickly figured out that the "trick of the Bose" was having another 10
speakers playing at the same time!!!!!

I'll never forget it!!!

BTW he bought a set of Advents and the guy gave him a great deal on them,
but it was very funny at the time!



--
Glenn O'Toole

"Lounge Lizard Extraordinaire
and
master of the bagpipes"

On 3 Mar 2005 05:43:04 -0800, "Agent_C"
wrote:

I'm sure we all have our favorite snake oil story...

Here is my partial collection. About 0.01% of what is out there.

http://www.amusicdirect.com/products...380&sku=AAQEV8
http://gallery.consumerreview.com/au...es/opus-mm.asp
http://www.bybeetech.com/
http://www.amusicdirect.com/products...=280&sku=AELEV
http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina27.htm
http://www.altmann.haan.de/tubeolator/default.htm
http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina28.htm
http://www.scamshield.com/Feature.asp?id=1



Regards,

Boris Mohar

Got Knock? - see:
Viatrack Printed Circuit Designs (among other things) http://www.viatrack.ca

"Mike Diack" wrote in message
.. .

And the winner is.....
http://www.referenceaudiomods.com/Me.../merchant.mvc?
Screen=PROD&Product_Code=NOB_C37_C&Category_Code=V OLUME&Product_Count=2

oh yes... i wonder what a "Audio Consulting AC Isolation Transformer
($340 Installed)" is?

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message ...
At the last Stereophile writers' meeting I attended, at least 15 years ago, John
Atkinson asked an intelligent question. To wit...

"Why is it that some mounts are supposed to isolate the amp/CD player, etc, from
the surface they're on, while others couple it tightly to the surface (cones, in
particular), yet both approaches claim improved sound?"

I suggested that one way to find out would be to play an impulse from a CD
through a speaker in front of the player. (A similar experiment to test
amplifiers could be done with a pulse generator feeding the amp.) You could then
look at the pulse's spectrum and decay (at the player's or amp's output) using a
variety of isolation devices, no isolation at all, and with no speaker at all
(as a reference). This should show whether CD players, etc, are meaningfully
microphonic, and whether isolation devices have any effect.

John thought that was a good idea. Then he said the thing that forever made me
lose respect for his "understanding" of science.

"But what if there's no difference between the isolating devices?"

In case this isn't clear... You don't assume the result before performing an
experiment. Indeed, it's often better to perform an experiment simply to see
what happens, rather than trying to "prove" or "disprove" something.

I doubt that John ever performed the experiment. I am guilty, too, of failing to
follow through on subjective observations with controlled experiments.


Isn't this because he's a magazine editor and not a scientist? People
pay good money for advertising space. I though his response was
somewhat adequate; for if one set of cones were to be for coupling
and the other for de-coupling, yet the cones were identical, why should
there be any difference? This would pretty well signify, Snake Oil.
I don't think there was any real need to follow up with that experiment,
and both of you probably knew that.

"TimPerry" wrote in message ...

"Mike Diack" wrote in message
.. .

And the winner is.....
http://www.referenceaudiomods.com/Me.../merchant.mvc?
Screen=PROD&Product_Code=NOB_C37_C&Category_Code=V OLUME&Product_Count=2

oh yes... i wonder what a "Audio Consulting AC Isolation Transformer
($340 Installed)" is?


And honestly... I haven't tried listening to many power conditioners lately, either.

"David Morgan (MAMS)" wrote in message
news:esOVd.20090$QQ3.18031@trnddc02...

"TimPerry" wrote in message
...

"Mike Diack" wrote in message
.. .

And the winner is.....
http://www.referenceaudiomods.com/Me.../merchant.mvc?
Screen=PROD&Product_Code=NOB_C37_C&Category_Code=V OLUME&Product_Count=2

oh yes... i wonder what a "Audio Consulting AC Isolation Transformer
($340 Installed)" is?


And honestly... I haven't tried listening to many power conditioners
lately, either.

What's the best-sounding power conditioner for under... (oh never mind).

Neil Henderson

"play on" wrote in message
...
On 3 Mar 2005 13:25:07 -0800, "Karl Winkler"
wrote:


Jim Gilliland wrote:
Agent_C wrote:
I'm sure we all have our favorite snake oil story...


Some of my favorite snake oil products have come from the Shakti
company:

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/audiovideo.htm

They not only improve your audio, but the same technology will make
your
car run better!

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/automotive.htm

And here's their latest innovation:

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/hallograph.htm

Those things improve the sound in the room so much that they make it
*look* like there's a violin in the room with you! Amazing.

They had to have something real in the picture to give it some cred.

Al

the violin was just there to string you along

"David Morgan \(MAMS\)" wrote:

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message ...
At the last Stereophile writers' meeting I attended, at least 15 years ago, John
Atkinson asked an intelligent question. To wit...

"Why is it that some mounts are supposed to isolate the amp/CD player, etc, from
the surface they're on, while others couple it tightly to the surface (cones, in
particular), yet both approaches claim improved sound?"

I suggested that one way to find out would be to play an impulse from a CD
through a speaker in front of the player. (A similar experiment to test
amplifiers could be done with a pulse generator feeding the amp.) You could then
look at the pulse's spectrum and decay (at the player's or amp's output) using a
variety of isolation devices, no isolation at all, and with no speaker at all
(as a reference). This should show whether CD players, etc, are meaningfully
microphonic, and whether isolation devices have any effect.

John thought that was a good idea. Then he said the thing that forever made me
lose respect for his "understanding" of science.

"But what if there's no difference between the isolating devices?"

In case this isn't clear... You don't assume the result before performing an
experiment. Indeed, it's often better to perform an experiment simply to see
what happens, rather than trying to "prove" or "disprove" something.

I doubt that John ever performed the experiment. I am guilty, too, of failing to
follow through on subjective observations with controlled experiments.


Isn't this because he's a magazine editor and not a scientist? People
pay good money for advertising space. I though his response was
somewhat adequate; for if one set of cones were to be for coupling
and the other for de-coupling, yet the cones were identical, why should
there be any difference? This would pretty well signify, Snake Oil.
I don't think there was any real need to follow up with that experiment,
and both of you probably knew that.

I wonder, how many such devices have ended up on Stereophile's
'Recommended Components' list?






--

-S
It's not my business to do intelligent work. -- D. Rumsfeld, testifying
before the House Armed Services Committee

On 3 Mar 2005 18:57:19 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Allen Corneau wrote:
On 3/3/05 12:11 PM, in article
, "Johann Burkard"
wrote:

Oh no, wait - the sofa in front is a special sofa that removes subsonic
vibrations (from 0 to 0.1 Hz) so that the music will have more air,
ambiance and three dimensional sound stage. Great.

We had someone call up and asked us about mastering his "healing music",
which was some kind of synth sounds mixed with a 0.1Hz sine wave. We had to
explain the fact that once he delivered his material on DAT, his preferred
delivery format, the 0.1Hz would be gone.

Did you offer to put some replacement 0.1 Hz in for him?

Yeah they could have charged extra for that...

Al

On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 00:13:55 GMT, Mike Diack
wrote:


And the winner is.....
http://www.referenceaudiomods.com/Me.../merchant.mvc?
Screen=PROD&Product_Code=NOB_C37_C&Category_Code= VOLUME&Product_Count=2


I prefer the magic laquer myself... although it is less expensive.

http://www.referenceaudiomods.com/Me...ory_C ode=C37

"WillStG" wrote in message
ups.com...

Paul Stamler wrote:
Some of you may be old enough to remember the "deltoid test" flap. In
the
early days of digital recording, a clinical psychologist (was his
name
Diamond?) claimed that digital recordings agitated his patients,
while
analog recordings calmed them. He proved that by employing the
"deltoid
test", borrowed from chiropractic.

In that test, the subject stands with arms outstretched; the
experimenter
suddenly presses downward. Whether or not the subject can resist
tells the
experimenter something about his/her muscle tone, and presumably
other
things like stress level. The good doctor found that when subjects
listened
to digital recordings, they showed much lower muscle tone than when
they
listened to analog recordings.

Now, it's not entirely outside of the realm of possibility that
digital
recordings might have subtle physiological effects. And it's
certainly
possible that the deltoid test might be detecting real physiological
effects, whether or not they might be connected to what the subject
was
listening to.

But when the doctor cautioned that it was well-known in the world of
chiropractic that the effects of the deltoid test would be skewed if
there
was refined sugar anywhere in the room, that's when it was time for
the
horselaugh.


i actually participated in this test. it was done at a meeting of the SBE in
Detroit. 2 analog records were played, however one had been digitally
mastered.
i don't remember anything mentioned about refined sugar though.
this was about 1980 or maybe a little earlier (if i recall correctly)

Our whole society has the biggest snake oil jones of all....that the
new and improved consumer product really _ is_ an improvement. Usually
each new generation of consumer product-and often commercial ones as
well- are mixed improvements. Ask any VCR tech (I should say _former_
VCR tech) who will explained how the early toploaders were nearly
indestructible and highly repairable with crude electronic performance,
the early frontloaders were well made and superior in performance, and
current ones are low end ****boxes that are not even worth opening for
cleaning, they are totally nonrepairable plus being inferior
electronically. TV sets and car radios have worse RF sections than late
tube and mid-life solid state ones. Cars have engine and transmission
castings far less rugged and rebuildable than cars of 40, 30, or even
20 years ago.

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 19:44:27 -0500, Boris Mohar
wrote:

http://www.amusicdirect.com/products...=280&sku=AELEV

Nice... I especially like the cable elevators, quite reasonable at
$159.

Al

John Atkinson wrote:

Powell wrote:
"Arny Krueger" wrote
Recently I got John Atkinson of Stereophile to confirm
that SP ran an article about the sonic advantages of
treating CDs with Armor All.

I answered Mr. Krueger's question as soon as I saw his
posting. I guess that is what he mean by "getting" me to
confirm this fact. Contarry to his implication, I didn't
have anything to hide.

In fact the result was damaged CDs.

As I pointed out, damaged from the scratches that could result
from the ArmorAll application. These scratches can be polished out.

So, you basically say that it is no big deal. If somebody
damaged a couple of dozen (or more) compact discs, they can
get to work and polish out the scratches.

John, if people had not followed the advice of that article
in the first place, they would not have to polish anything.
Basically, all of those people followed the Stereophile
directions and used up a lot of time doing so. Then, they
had to follow more Stereophile directions and use up even
more time fixing the mess your guy caused.

The guy who wrote that article did a lot more damage than
you claim I have done by virtue of my supposed evil antics.
At least I have never duped anybody into damaging their
record collections.

Incidentally, while scratches were the supposed result, it
is also possible that Armor All could potentially damage the
label side of a disc. No telling, really, but the stuff is
made for use on rubber or rubberized products and not
lacquer coatings. Your article writer obviously never
researched much of anything when he came up with his dream
plan to make compact discs sound better.

Howard Ferstler