Demagnetising LP's & cd's

RobHolt said:
And so it should be - telling that us.

If someone tells me they've used a blind test to apparently prove a difference where all known indications point to that being impossible, I want to examine that test in detail before accepting the findings.

If I facilitate a blind test everyone is able to examine every aspect of it at will.
I even get the listeners to to select the music, push the buttons, set the volume atc, and my only role is to swap the kit and ensure the test remains blind.




No so, and the comparison you make is invalid.
My expectation is driven by science - if two items are technically the same then I do not expect to hear a difference. That is a perfectly logical position to adopt and a world away from bias driven by hearsay, reviews, singing and dancing salesman, review, looks, price, reputation etc etc.

I also hear differences in blind tests.
I can however explain them and they are never attributable to unknown factors.
Hi-fi just isn't that complex, or demanding in terms of the technology, and our collective hearing is sufficiently unreliable that we do not require the level of care and analysis that some are suggesting.

You just play the damned bit of kit without the benefit of vision and/or someone providing a running commentary. If the difference disappears it didn't exist in the first place.
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Don't you ever give up and listen to some music. I have just loved listening to mine with super duper cables, tweeked this and that and sound isolation and all the rest. I am totally satisfied and you have sore fingers.
 
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Jimbo said:
Don't you ever give up and listen to some music. I have just loved listening to mine with super duper cables, tweeked this and that and sound isolation and all the rest. I am totally satisfied and you have sore fingers.
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agree totally, there comes a time when you put a stop to upgrading testing, and every time i chage my system for a while i say to my self that is better than what i had previously, but only to find out that it wasen't better only different, i went back to what i had before, but that was self preference, i believe that there is nothing wrong with trying out different equipment but in the end is how you prffer your music to sound personally to yourself,
nando.
 
nando said:
agree totally, there comes a time when you put a stop to upgrading testing, and every time i chage my system for a while i say to my self that is better than what i had previously, but only to find out that it wasen't better only different, i went back to what i had before, but that was self preference, i believe that there is nothing wrong with trying out different equipment but in the end is how you prffer your music to sound personally to yourself,
nando.
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Yes there is no harm in trying things out. If it works for you and you hear a clear change that is better then why not share it with others. Its just those others that butt in and say you are deluded and hearing things and that damn blind test that keeps cropping up. I don't need a blind test thank you i can judge with my ears without blindfolds. I have heard lots of gadgets and tweeks in the past. Some have made improvements to my system, some i could hear no change whatsoever but others did. So my conclusion is other peoples hearing is better than mine. I am on the fence with that but i wont rebuke them for it.
 
Hi Jimbo

Hope you're well, good to see you here..
Its nice to meet people in the flesh and do some comparisons, like the turntable comparison flatpoley did.

Its all usefull information that we can all enjoy, and take from it what we want to.

'blind test' has got some negative connotations in hifi circles it seems, but then you see threads like this turntable one and everyone joined in.

I think its more a matter of showing people respect for their opinions rather than anything else.

People I have met so far from hifi circles have all been great in the flesh. I would be genuinely happy to see any of them, any day. Reality is very different from typed text :)


NB I have music on in the background while typing ;)
 
I've been part of many blind dems over the years while working in hifi shops and with few exceptions (switching between two sources synched), you do pick up differences though they're often not as large as when relaxed and making sighted, comparative dems.

After the test and with the boxes (and me) in normal listening mode, the differences prior to the test returned full strength and my opinion never changed with respect to the preferred box prior to the test.

Basically, the only thing I ever got out of these tests is they don't work. If it's truly caused by some sort of sighted bias--that's fine with me. I plan to use the boxes connected in a normal fashion and in a sighted manner.

regards,

dave
 
my sad experience by being a dealer, is that i had to try vast amounts of all hio-fi , cables, gadgets, etc, that i forgot to listen to music, so far it got that at home i didn't even switch my own on, but the good thing was that i was able to say to people "take this home " and tell me what you think, never i influenced my opinion nor would i say what i thought untill they came back with their views then we will discuss the outcome, but never say that the product was bad or rubish, it was up to the individual to comment, just as do with cables let them take them home on trial, now i enjoy listening to music and before i llet anything out i do listen to it brieflly,
 
nando said:
my sad experience by being a dealer, is that i had to try vast amounts of all hio-fi , cables, gadgets, etc, that i forgot to listen to music, so far it got that at home i didn't even switch my own on, but the good thing was that i was able to say to people "take this home " and tell me what you think, never i influenced my opinion nor would i say what i thought untill they came back with their views then we will discuss the outcome, but never say that the product was bad or rubish, it was up to the individual to comment, just as do with cables let them take them home on trial, now i enjoy listening to music and before i llet anything out i do listen to it brieflly,
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There is nothing wrong with opinion, and nothing wrong with expressing it. What is wrong is to *impose* that opinion on someone, to close their mind - be it that they have to buy Linn and/or Naim, or have to buy valves, or that there is no difference buy what specs the best, or that you can only decide by using a blind test. Bluntly it is all bollocks. There is only one important senario - that is your ears, your music, your room, your system, your choice!
 
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Richard Dunn said:
There is nothing wrong with opinion, and nothing wrong with expressing it. What is wrong is to *impose* that opinion on someone, to close their mind - be it that they have to buy Linn and/or Naim, or have to buy valves, or that there is no difference buy what specs the best, or that you can only decide by using a blind test. Bluntly it is all bollocks. There is only one important senario - that is your ears, your music, your room, your system, your choice!
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absolutlly, i agree with you, the rest is up to the indidual to choose, you can make an opinion that's fair, but not by being radical and bias, i also had that agression from linn and naim as a retailer in the high st. "if you want to stock our products and become a dealer you must not stock so and so" choice? none.
 
i also had that agression from linn and naim as a retailer in the high st. "if you want to stock our products and become a dealer you must not stock so and so" choice? none.
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Hmmm...very odd.

We were encouraged in an opposite manner by Linn and Naim as a dealer here in the states. Only a comparitive dem mattered-bring on all comers and whichever came out on top was the best. Matter of fact, they strongly felt (and I still agree) any other method of purchasing, i.e. buying on friend or salesman's recc, hifi mag review or specs and it's a roll of the dice.

Funny, they often suggested competitive brands to round out our lines or even assisted with troubleshooting problems with competitor's gear when the gear's own rep couldn't help. I've never had another manufacture offer this level of unbiased service.
 
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blackdog said:
Hmmm...very odd.

We were encouraged in an opposite manner by Linn and Naim as a dealer here in the states. Only a comparitive dem mattered-bring on all comers and whichever came out on top was the best. Matter of fact, they strongly felt (and I still agree) any other method of purchasing, i.e. buying on friend or salesman's recc, hifi mag review or specs and it's a roll of the dice.

Funny, they often suggested competitive brands to round out our lines or even assisted with troubleshooting problems with competitor's gear when the gear's own rep couldn't help. I've never had another manufacture offer this level of unbiased service.
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We established a long time ago that *some* peoples experience in the US was completely different to that imposed on dealers in the UK.
 
If it actually happened, the shop owners\managers should have reported it to the company heads. If you're suggesting the companies were behind it, I find that impossible to believe since I experienced the complete opposite here in the states.

Why would you strong arm one of your biggest markets (the UK) but not others like the US? As well, I'm sure some sort of trade law could have been violated if that did go on.
 
Richard lives in fantasy world where it was the underhand dealings of some unseen new world order of Linn and NAim reps that stop his brand from being the best selling hifi in the world.

Nothing to do with the fact that his amps look like they were made in a bedroom by someone with only sheets of acrylic and a glue gun to assemble them rather than the product line consistency offered by the Linn-Naim hegemony at the time.

and if that didn't put people off then one can only assume his winning smile and good humoured nature sealed the deal.
 
blackdog said:
If it actually happened, the shop owners\managers should have reported it to the company heads. If you're suggesting the companies were behind it, I find that impossible to believe since I experienced the complete opposite here in the states.

Why would you strong arm one of your biggest markets (the UK) but not others like the US? As well, I'm sure some sort of trade law could have been violated if that did go on.
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You are being naive, the company initiated it. If you ever saw Ivor and Charlie in action in the early days doing their Mutt and Jeff act you would know, and all the sales staff were recruited from the dealers so were subject to the same brainwash. As was everyone else once they started the Glasgow and Salisbury indoctrination visits.

I have spoken to people Stateside who say that it was tried on there once they took on their own distribution, but the market was far larger and more diversified so it didn't work to the same extent.

Basically human nature dictates you get away with what you are allowed to get away with. So you were lucky. But even after that and you still think their products are superior then the bullshit must have got to you somehow.

Tell me why Garrard died when they could produce a product like the 401, tell me why the Pioneer PL-71 is like hens teeth in the UK, tell me why Pink triangle failed in that first incarnation. Tell me why I was forced to use a Linn LP12 at Hi-Fi shows otherwise customers would not take me seriously, even though I was using one of the best turntables ever produced - the Trio LO7D, and the Linn sounded SHITE in comparison to my ears.

And that is just Linn - show me all the British amplifier manufacturers who were killed by the lack of retail access because the dealers turnover was locked in with illegal dealer contracts to sell "certain" products and could only get damned with faint praise by the flat earth magazines. Show me the retailers who took on agencies just to show their customers they had *some* choice but deliberately screwed them on dem or did the foot taping dancing performance and any other means to sell what they *had* to sell. Many sadly missed companies with fine product as the industry dived into the Linn / Naim dark age that it is only now fully coming out of.

Still loads of the pollution out there though just look at PFM.
 
sq225917 said:
Richard lives in fantasy world where it was the underhand dealings of some unseen new world order of Linn and NAim reps that stop his brand from being the best selling hifi in the world.

Nothing to do with the fact that his amps look like they were made in a bedroom by someone with only sheets of acrylic and a glue gun to assemble them rather than the product line consistency offered by the Linn-Naim hegemony at the time.

and if that didn't put people off then one can only assume his winning smile and good humoured nature sealed the deal.
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The ******** speaks again, I have never used a glue gun in my life, and back then the amps were made of alluminium. As late as 1997 I had a factory with eleven employees and a turnover of nearly 1 million pounds. I choose *now* since 2005 to build things myself and stay small and enjoy my life and it gives me the freedom because I am beholding to no one so can tell it as it was and now is. If I relied still on dealers and distributors and had employees and overheads to feed do you think I would post like this, even though I thought it and know the facts.

Now I can be the pain in the arse I have always wanted to be, and tell the truth! for people to take or leave as is their choice.
 
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