Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil

He was trying to sell his amps and he was very successful, though? He poured epoxy over everything so you couldn't see his magical tweaks.

Exclusivity is just another kind of marketing and that's very much in keeping with audiophile snake oildom - hunting for that one whale who'll pay $25k for diamond-encrusted RCA cables.

― papal hotwife (milo z), Saturday, January 22, 2022

"very successful" is relative. basically the audio engineering equivalent of a working musician is how I break it down to an extent.

he got by in LA building amps, and got to hang out with some great musicians. that's a win in itself, but it doesn't seem that lived especially high on the hog and I don't expect his estate's worth much. there are dopes with lawn care business a lot more successful than HAD.

yes of course he worked to build a mystique that let him get by building a small number of amps at his own pace. I don't see the crime there. at worst he's the Bill Finnegan of amps. a weird craftsman who most comfortable woking with customers and building with his own hands and was ultimately eclipsed by imitators who were better at business than he was (hi dere Two Rock)

shrug

someone on twitter shared this classical review and it probably belongs here

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FKAFOQuXsAIhJEd?format=jpg&name=medium

sometimes time is the best snake oil

that last sentence is so beautiful

"the download has settled into my wifi"

yeah man, gotta break that shit in!

beautiful

it's like those dudes who sincerely put in a white noise CD and run their stereo for 24 hours to "break in" speakers

Let it marinate overnight

it's like those dudes who sincerely put in a white noise CD and run their stereo for 24 hours to "break in" speakers

totally

it's like a lot of these audiophile things where there's a tiny shred of truth (that new speakers may be a little "tight" and loosen up after a bit) taken to to pathological extremes

Oh shit I just thought of my own audio snakeoil product to sell: “Speaker Wash” a CD of sine tones you play to ”unclog” the sound coming out of the speakers or to “cleanse” the speakers when you switch from one (gold MFSL of course) CD to another.

i would invest.

It should be a gadget, though, for maximum snake-oil upcharge potential. I want to see a blog post where someone cracks open the bespoke Speaker Wash unit to reveal a discman with the sine-tone CD permanently sealed inside. Not sure if it should be a wood-grained module resembling a high-end turntable, or have more of an amateur-radio look.

Not sure if it should be a wood-grained module resembling a high-end turntable, or have more of an amateur-radio look.

The woodgrain version is the one you sell on your website; the one that looks like you built it in your basement is the "prototype" model which you sell for 50% more, exclusively to members of your email list.

This business is going places.

Obviously the audiophile snake oil community's interest and credulousness is directly proportional to exorbitant cost. but check this shit out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ayQfMq9Rlw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRhtzUvyuDQ

snake oil?

Amateurs, they shouldn’t be putting that on YouTube for free!

“I never was satisfied with the sound of my CD collection on my high-end system, but a helpful Speaker Wash (r) technician came to my home and after examining my system, explained to me that what I was hearing was years of accumulated musical residue. My Mozart was mixed up with my Manowar! But after a professional flush (not cheap but worth every penny) I now cleanse my system weekly with the proprietary Speaker Wash(r) cabinet and my system sounds great! Much higher highs and lower lows and presence! The only drawback is that for the cabinet (yes, it’s six feet tall and you will definitely need to make room for it) to work I need an annual subscription (again, not cheap but worth every penny) to keep the software up to date to deal with the latest sounds. Thanks!!!

Close quotes

If on not getting an improvement in the 'soundstage' I wont buy it.

This whole "dry out your ruined phone" craze sounds like an opportunity for Alva Noto, Ryoji Ikeda and pals.

Nice to be reminded to do a frequency sweep once in a while (not the one above, which looks like it recorded off someone's telly, complete with background noises)... 13.5-13.8kHz at best with these 53yo ears. Hold the hi-res!

the apple watch does use a sound to blast water out of the speaker when you deactivate swim mode

it does not sound like the above examples

pic.twitter.com/aVC96UeW5m

— Shoegaze Dad 🇵🇭 (@yeoldedad) February 28, 2022

yes, but now i want healing crystal-encrusted gold plated cables.

Abbey Rd are yet again selling cardboard boxes with Pink Floyd written in biro for £200, who in the world would want to own such a hollow item?

https://shop.abbeyroad.com/*/*/Pink-Floyd-i-The-Dark-Side-of-the-Moon-i-EMI-Tape-Box-Folio-Side-One/6VJM0000000

The tape contained within this box was exclusively manufactured by EMI. Between the mid ‘50s and 1981, EMI produced both blank and pre-recorded magnetic tapes in many formats, including type H60 and type H65

What weird phrasing. "The tape contained within this box (well not this box... this box is empty)"

This box once contained bars of pure gold! It's empty now, but doesn't that make it feel more valuable just knowing that?

Selling a purely fetishistic item like that takes real ballz... at least throw in a "special edition" CD, or something?

I mean, for an extra, idk...£15 in manufacturing costs? They could throw in a tape reel and stick the quad version of DSotM on it, surely?

It’s a replica of the empty box!

It’s a replica of the empty box!

And here I thought Funko Pops were the peak of ephemera. This is on another level and an extremely hokey pitch. At least put a picture of the original tape inside the box or something.

The correct price point for this item is one tenth of that figure (and even then for suckers only)

thought i was in the NFT thread for a sec

Selling a purely fetishistic item like that takes real ballz... at least throw in a "special edition" CD, or something?

― Not Dork Yet (alternate toke) (morrisp), Wednesday, March 2, 2022 3:09 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mean, for an extra, idk...£15 in manufacturing costs? They could throw in a tape reel and stick the quad version of DSotM on it, surely?

― Maresn3st, Wednesday, March 2, 2022 3:09 PM

Missed this exchange earlier. I'm as confused as you all. Maybe they don't have the rights to the music? But wait, they're using the EMI logo???

Sidebar: people sell empty boxes for other collectables, don't they? Is Abbey Road just trying to cash in on that scene? Also didn't those other collectable empty boxes have something in them at one point? Or???

Whatever the case, this is fantastically stupid.

Just browsed through the wonderful Abbey Road web store and this can't be life. Who buys this stuff?

I once came across a TEAC A-3340 or something at a pawn shop a few years ago, and don’t regret not picking it up. Idk if that’s a good model, but just the thought of it needing service and the cost of open-reel recordings was too much of a minefield to try to do frugally. I’m sure there’s a scene for that (perhaps some folks here collect them), but it seems like if there would have been a heyday for getting into it, it would have been in the late 90s-00s when ppl were just figuring out the internet and just offloading shit they thought was outdated.

thought i was in the NFT thread for a sec

― scanner darkly

Yes omg this is NFTs for boomers!

No Floyd Tapes

Oh wait, these are litho prints of the front and back of the tape box, mounted in little photo-corners? I thought it was the actual box at least!

I'd happy pay a tenner for a photographic reproduction of the master tape box (of something I actually love, like, I dunno, Brilliant Trees or House Tornado or something) on something useful, like a ring binder or a mouse mat or a pencil case, but obviously that's far too trashy gift shop / Paperchase for Abbey Road. Chuck in a certificate and it's £200.

I used to like those '90s CD re-issues with images of hand-written stereo master labels in the liner notes. Never occurred to me you could charge big bucks for those images!

I take it back, Abbey Road shop is full of this kind of "useful" tat. You can never have enough tote bags.

TEAC A-3340

Pretty sure we had one of these when I worked in a university archive - we had the congressional papers from a long serving speaker of the house and some other state things and the archivist was required by law to keep them in their original format and have the hardware necessary to make reproductions as needed. So we had an 8 track player, reel-to-reel, Zip drives, ancient giant floppy drives, and multiples of a weird film projecter from the 80s that happened to have a composite video output - he bought a few on ebay to keep around as backups.

tbh i can totally see myself splurging £200 on the original master tape box for some album i really love as a cool collectible & now i'm kinda mad that the idea is in my head but its not a thing being offered

Maybe they don't have the rights to the music? But wait, they're using the EMI logo???

Maybe they have a deal with EMI were they can use the trademark on reproductions of old stuff (from when that was the studio name), and EMI gets a cut

if this ain't the way you listen to yer vinyls than yer doin it wrong. pic.twitter.com/1Lj2oE9Yhx

— QueenCityJamz (@QueenCityJamz) March 3, 2022

i'm getting some unpleasant resonances. what fillings do you recommend for soundstage accuracy and clarity?

it helps to swallow a handful of shakti stones first

Hey look! Side two is now for sale.

https://shop.abbeyroad.com/*/*/Pink-Floyd-The-Dark-Side-of-the-Moon-EMI-Tape-Box-Folio-Side-Two/7BHJ0000000

Okay, it stopped being funny.

>:|

$300+ shipped to the U.S. Imagine someone designing some ridiculous super deluxe box set and stopping at the sight of this, thinking "wait, are you saying we don't even need actual content to make this kind of money???"

Here is one of the last batch that came out, it's not even a tape box, just a folder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GUeyNVmVds