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Comment by zmix | Hacker News Reader

No measured data AND no hearing experience. Now that's what I call serious journalism!

This is my favourite BS argument by audiophiles when defending some impossible claim or other: you have to listen to it. Not measure it or pay any attention to how the item actually works.

They claim they can hear digital cables, ethernet cables and now storage devices. Its plainly ridiculous but somehow they manage to find each other and reinforce this nonsense en-masse, ruining online forums with garbage and confusing noobs with half understood technical terms like jitter.

Then the next step is always some disparaging remark that you can't hear the difference because your system isn't "high enough resolution".

Audiophiles have become more insufferable as systems improved.

> This is my favourite BS argument by audiophiles when defending some impossible claim or other: you have to listen to it.

Just like a lot of engineers will tell you, that having studied a topic on university/college doesn't make up for "field experience".

> Then the next step is always some disparaging remark that you can't hear the difference because your system isn't "high enough resolution".

It's true. Just like there is differences in quality of measuring instruments (cheap china multimeter vs. Agilent or the like) there is difference in electronic components for audio reproduction.

I have one other disparaging remark for you: Not only is your system not resolving enough, your ears are not trained enough to hear the difference ;-).

> Audiophiles have become more insufferable as systems improved.

Well, that just proves audiophiles from the 1980's were right: They told us, that there can be better systems. It's just, that those developments, back then, were expensive and new, which resulted in high product prices, while today they are common main stream.

Audiophiles don't make systems, engineers do. The only thing that audiophiles produce is consistently is nonsense: green pens for CDs, audible jitter, validating the snake oil merchants who sell them magic boxes of dirt, special resonance stones, pyramids, digital cables that can't possibly do what is claimed.

That much vaunted "training" is a special form of self delusion. Try asking any self respecting audiophile whether they can pass a double blind test in picking out the difference between good old RCA cables and all you get is a long, copy pasted diatribe of how flawed testing is. That tells you they spend all their time telling themselves what they want to hear.

Would you expect them to take measurements or do a double blind test if I was selling invisible pink dragons to improve audio quality and they were reporting on it? If anything, I thought the article was too tame.

You seem to have overlooked that this piece is filed in the news section, not the reviews section.

I did not overlook the devaluation of the product in the title, which can only be a result: "Snake Oil". This is why I said: "No measurements AND no experience." But he came to a conclusion: It's snake-oil. Unprofessional.

I'm pretty sure you don't honestly believe that even the most outlandish claims from the least credible sources deserve rigorous testing before they can be dismissed. The only people who aren't willing to draw a line somewhere and conclude from the manufacturer's lack of convincing explanations for their implausible claims that it really is bullshit, are people engaged in the same kind of scamming and trolling.

No honest, reasonable assessment of this "product" and its marketing can conclude that the manufacturer appears to be on the level. Expecting journalists to wade through literally infinite bullshit from people not acting in good faith before reaching a conclusion is absurd. Your perverted idea of what journalism should be is far more harmful than any journalistic laziness that may be on display here.

To be fair though, audiophile reviews never contain any actual measured data either.

That's not fair at all! At least not to the major audiophile magazines, here in Germany, or such a prestigious publication like "The Stereophile". Just two examples:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/bowers-wilkins-diamond-s...

https://www.stereo.de/hifi-test/produkt/aavik-d-180-2058 (see "Messergebnisse" and "Messwerte").

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