What is your Audio Amazing Story?

Throughout the years, many High-End manufacturers have sold us more than a few products based on some pretty incredible tales, often to justify their exorbitant prices. Let’s face it, we audiophiles tend to be a pretty gullible bunch.

I am curious. What is your own memory of the most amazing tale about an audio product?

You don’t have to name names if you feel charitable and you don’t have to admit that you believed the story. We’ve all been there. As a group, I am sure we can build an excellent collection of Audiophile Amazing Stories.

The funny thing is that some of those products did work very well, just not necessarily the way the manufacturers claimed.

I can’t wait to hear from you.

 

Ok, I'll bite. How about those Cardas cap thingys.

 

Good product, IMO. They keep your unused RCA jacks in nice clean order. I own a few.

 

how about the laser turntable sounding better than a regular one
or better yet, CD>analog
please don't respond to this post, we'll hijack the thread!

 

probably some nonsense about how "remaining static electricity from the environment will float in through your systim via the cut off wires and directly into your system like a funnel or antennae" it'd be some bogus excuse of the like

 

I don't have any unused RCA Jacks!

What about ****ake stones (or are those the mushrooms?) ... can anyone say "placebo effect"?

Mark Kelley

 

As a young hi-fi fan I was depressed by the sound of LP's (noise and mostly derived from 5th generation dubs, etc.). I attended a meeting of the NY Audio Society and heard my first three track 15 ips master tape (from RCA I believe). It blew off my socks! Not till SACD have I heard that "sound", and only sometimes, mind you.

Richard.

 

Some of you Toronto area guys might know a store chain called World Of Sound And Vision, they're in malls. They tried to sell me on their "amazing speaker technology that made surround without special equipment". They then demonstrated it to me using Roger Waters' Amused to Death....the one with Q sound. I had to laugh at them. I'm sure some people fell for it.

 

About 12 years or so ago some guy in the UK was touting these little triangles of black tin foil stuff that you stuck all over your system and plugs etc. Some of the magazine reviewers swore they made a difference, many of us thought it was a case of the "emperor's new clothe's" I tried a free sample of them given away with the hifi mags and could hear no difference. they stayed on my plugs for years though - just in case

 

That sounds very much like the infamous 'Nuance' speaker guys. The Q sound, the really hard sell. I came across 'amazing stories' of outrage a few years ago when researching speakers. A google turned up this The Nuance thread:THE TRUTH ABOUT NUANCE SPEAKERS.
I hope I accidently encounter one of their outlets someday and have 10 minutes to spare, just for the fun/pain of it.

 

Did anybody in here ever attend one of the old McIntosh demos where they had a live string quartet playing in the room along side one of their systems? I can't remember if the live performers were playing the same piece of music simultaneously with the vinyl and simply stopped playing somewhere in the middle or how this demo worked....any help? It made an impression on me in my early audio days (or was it daze?).

 

I actually feel that these are excellent for blocking RF interference.

 

Acoustic Research was the first to do these demo's in the late 1950's and early 1960's. When they premiered the AR-3, they made recordings of the Fine Arts Quartet, in and anechoic chamber, and then reproduced the tape in a concert hall, with the actual quartet playing along with it, then they would stop and you would have to try to figure out what was what! Really amazing demo's.

Here is a pic:

 

Triangles vs. dot

Hello Mambo.

I recall a similar "dot" craze at about the same period. I got a bunch of these tiny dots that you put on everything inside your electronic gears, chips, transistors, caps, etc. The claim was that they removed all the bad vibes out of your system. I don't recall critical spots these dots were suppose to go but I dotted everything in sight; if it had a flat spot, it got dotted--maybe that was my mistake. The effects were supposedly a lower noise floor, and a lifting of the veil from the sound. Well, I couldn't hear a darn difference. Until recently. I dusted off one of my old preamps and started to hear rattling noises inside: it was the dots that had come loose and created their own noise floor.

With hindsight, I think the problem with those dots was that they were relatively inexpensive. Had they cost me megabucks, I would have heard a "significant" difference.

PS: I just got your scale. It looks great and works even better! But could I improve its performance with a few dots?

 

Thank you for a fascinating story and the great photo!

Personally, if I couldn't here the difference between live performance and reproduced sound, I would have to donate my symphony season tickets to charity. After years of upgrading and tweaking and tens of thousands of dollars spent, I still can't get a sound that comes close to concert-hall sound.

 

When I managed a Sound Future CD store back in the early 90s, the green marker craze went through our shop. We put green marker on a ton of cds and we would swear they sounded better. The dope must have really been good back then.

 

A salesman told me that those new Bose speakers that are shaped like poles "filled the room with sound". He also said they were the best speakers for that reason. They sounded very harsh to me.

 

I use Cardas caps...darn things plain work. And the they look good too!

Like a lot of tweaks, you sometimes have to use them to experience the benefit. We used to use aluminum foil on mics in the studio to stop RFI. Musicians would see it and think we were crazy so we would remove them and do another take. They would about faint from the difference.

 

Dunno! that's another audio mystery. i have been told that they become far more accurate when one is sexually aroused though.... He he...

 

Gary, where did you get the generic caps?

 

I have a set as well, I just don't hear much difference. I think they are over priced. Those things should be a buck a piece.