Ever feel snookered? 'fess up!

I think he just felt suckered into making the purchase by all of the enthusiasm about the product.
Live and learn, I guess.

 

when i called them back for an RMA it took some effort to remain professional.

 

Tried a BBE "Sonic Maximizer" once, and didn't find that it offered much of anything that a standard bass/treble control couldn't accomplish; I guess there were a few recordings it might have helped with, but overall very underwhelming at actually "enhancing" anything. In its favor however, I could not detect that it added any audible hiss and seemed fairly transparent, so fairly harmless overall.

The biggest by far though was the "high-end" blu-ray player I bought about 10 years ago that turned out to literally be nothing more than an Oppo in a heavy-duty chassis (THX, my a$$). I bought the unit "slightly used" (1 year old) on consignment for a little less than half of the original MSRP; I thought it was a great deal given its condition and minimal use, but in the end I still paid 3x the cost of the Oppo for some extra steel and aluminum, a prettier shade of blue in the display, and a very dubious "THX" badge. We still use it from time to time and to its credit it has been flawlessly reliable with any disc we have loaded (it is an Oppo, after all), but honestly it still grinds my gears a bit to be reminded that I was a chump (serves me right for mostly ignoring the audiophile press, as I found out after the fact that it wasn't a particularly well-kept secret at that point) so it's a sort of ongoing love-hate thing, lol.

 

“ Cryoed Tubes” Not only did they NOT sound any better (at least to my ears).They did not even last as long as the stock new tubes.

 

ha! I wondered why you sold yours. You inspired me to buy mine. I actually really like it over what is in the Node 2i and my tube buffer. But I am embarrassed to admit I didn’t test the Node directly into my MA8000 built in DAC like a proper audiophile should!

 

No doubt. Did they wind up setting you up with the proper vintage and a billion frequent flier miles? Do you still do business with that dealer?
It's circumstantial but I imagine I'd be done with them. Selling a 16 yr old unit as today's best is unacceptable. I don't see how that could ever be an honest mistake?
Yikes. Chumps everywhere.

 

no. i asked for a refund and have done business with them again because of their in stock availability and exceptional discount. only for sealed box items.

 

I remember those. On older CD players I heard some differences with them on, but not good enough at the price to do all my cd’s. I also tried the sorbothane rings a bit better th an the green ones.

 

I listed it for sale but never did sell it. I am sure at some point I will put it back into my system. I am constantly changing things around.

 

Great thread! Most regular people think we all got snookered. Sure they hear the difference but only if you point it out and if you told them how much all this stuff really cost their jaw hits the floor.

I guess Synergistic Research PHTs they were only $199 like a lot of this stuff your mind sure can convince you that there was an improvement.

Over the years I bought a lot of stuff Shunyata Black mamba power cords, the original Hydra. More recently Furutech outlets and with all of them I thought I heard a difference. Now I look back 3 or 4 residences later who knows. I still use the stuff and it all sounds good to me.

 

I bought on of these for recording and playing needle drops with the understanding if I didn't like it I can return it and I did. To me it was not an improvement over what I already had. I ended getting a Merging Technologies Anubis and I'm still impressed with how it sounds.

 

That BBE Sonic Maximizer worked really well with Carver and Sunfire tube preamps but set up a horrible oscillation with Sonic Frontiers.
It must be really system dependent on how it works if you heard only a small change in the sound.

 

I took some 901’s as part trade for a great system. It’s my own fault for doing it. Luckily they were a super hot item at the time so I put an ad in the local paper and they were gone in five minutes.

 

He was convicted. (You can look it up.)

 

Mark had his fingers in several audio companies. He was arrested and convicted on a charity scam.

 

If you've been in the game for a while you've likely been snookered. Fortunately we can all be saved from ourselves. Forget what your ears tell you. Ignore your pleasure. SINAD rules!

 

In my merry go round days I’ve been snookered with various pieces of gear that just didn’t sound musical, and some of it downright bad.

To this day I have never heard any difference in a power chord and one has to have one heck of a system to hear real differences in audio and speaker cables. And then all the little and expensive isolation blocks and doo dads. The electronics of the amp itself is where the differences lie, and obviously the speakers.

I still don’t hear much if any difference between cheap CD players and supposed high end 16 bit players, I’ve consistently had them demoed with the person demoing losing track of which player is which… I hear a lot of difference between poor and good recordings.

I think some of the best amplifiers were made long ago and despite all the reviews modern design hasn’t surpassed them. There are only a few good amp companies and to me Nelson Pass is still the man - he is the Bill Belichik of amplifiers. You can buy any Pass amp from any of his generations and get a solid piece of gear. The Aleph stuff from 20 years ago still sounds great. I just a bought an integrated amp that was supposed to be awesome and yet doesn’t sound as good as my 50 year old Pioneer. I guess some things never change. The Pioneer lives on.

 

Never been snookered by cheap gear: Paid $90 for clearance Yamaha RX-530 Receiver used it for nearly 30 years(still works btw). Paid $200 new for a discontinued Sony Receiver about 25 years ago, still sounds great and has a great phono section.
I don't hear any difference in cables or power cords so for me, the cheaper the better.
Don't hear any difference in any type of tweaks so won't get snookered by fairy dust and unicorn sweat.

 

Haha... that bit of humour toward the end there really made me chuckle!

Sadly I'm pretty sure I would've been gullible enough to have owned some of those along the way... utterly holographic imaging and massive soundstage once I sprinkled some of it around. Night and day difference... Also exponentially improved the flux-capacitance of the... erm... flux capacitor

 

I did hear a pair of Dunlavy Sc-II in Atlanta in 1994 about a month before I moved to Cleveland and I still regret not buying them on the spot. Never mind that I would have somehow had to fit them into a Honda Civic Dx Hatchback to take them to the apartment and then move them in the truck. Not sure if I would have bought them would I feel regret now but only for buying them instead of not buying them.

 

Ironic that this video comes after a series of 4 videos where he talks about getting all of his cables switched to Shunyata.

 

This should never happen.

Why? Every good dealer will either let you borrow gear for a home audition or has a reasonable refund policy.

You should never buy anything without trying it in your system first unless you can get a refund; to address a few posts above, certainly every AudioQuest dealer does.

I didn't always operate this way, which is why I bought the CD is the future promise in 1984 or so.

Lack of surface noise does not mean musicality.

 

Then there are those Taiko Audio SGM Extreme computer (€23,370.00 to €28,920.00) videos before that for USB playback to your DAC.

Hmmm... Apparently the Taiko Audio guy believes power supplies impact the sound of the ripped CD (I assume these are bit-perfect rips). And did you know guys & gals that sound quality of streaming is better in Europe than US?!

Mind-blowing, shameless, misinformation. I can't believe the company guy can believe what he's saying, if he does, this is delusional. (Needless to say, Jay sounds like a delusional salesman.) Take your pick of how/what brand you prefer to be "ripped-off" by.

 

Yes, risk of being snookered definitely increases with price, and I think the relationship is exponential rather than linear, lol.

Pay $1000 for a cable: snookered

Pay $2000: super-mega ultra-chump snookered