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I think that you can consider extreme audiophilia to be an expression of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and therefore the audiophile industry is predatory in th

I think that you can consider extreme audiophilia to be an expression of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and therefore the audiophile industry is predatory in that it preys upon the mentally ill. I’ve seen it all - including $1,000 aftermarket wooden knobs that were said to dampen sound-corrupting vibrations in your power amplifier. The people who sell these items know exactly what they’re doing, and I hope more people will see them for what they are - common con men.

brightball 8y ago
Previously worked for an after market sales site for the industry and the level of fraud in the marketplace is what got me into anti-phishing in the first place. I’ve never seen anything like it.
thaumasiotes 8y ago
How do $1,000 aftermarket wooden knobs (with no detectable physical effect) differ from, say, a $1,000 bottle of wine (which cannot be distinguished in a blind taste test from a $5 bottle)? They're just class signifiers. The difference I see is that audiophiles are less prestigious than oenophiles, but I don't see how you get from there to "audiophiles have a mental illness".
- imgabe 8y ago
  A $1000 bottle of wine is going to be from a specific year, from a specific vineyard. There's naturally a limited supply, so price will increase with demand like any collectible. A wooden knob is not unique and anyone could manufacture an unlimited amount at low cost.
  - GuiA 8y ago
    Oh, clearly you haven’t dug deeply enough. The wood is handchosen to minimize resonance, handcrafted by an artisan coming from a generation of Italian woodworkers, etc etc. Exactly the same as wine.
  - hermitdev 8y ago
    I've had a $400 bottle of scotch (37 yr McCallan over 15 years ago), and it was significantly better than the 18 yr old you could get at the time for about $120. Was it worth it? Yes-once. I wouldn't do it again, but I enjoyed that bottle over a 3 month period.
    - andyroid 8y ago
      So not a blind test at all then, and just as easily biased as the expensive wooden knob that subjectively was so much better.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    There is no natural limit on bottles that are labeled with a specific year and a specific vineyard. The only way to know the label is genuine is the stringent chain-of-custody requirements that have become normal in the world of expensive artwork under pressure from forgeries. As far as I know, those are not yet the norm for wine.
    - bwilliams18 8y ago
      I wouldn't say they are the norm, but they're certainly expected by any re-seller (auction house, retailer, restaurant) when dealing with the highest echelon of wine (1st Growth Bordeaux, Premier Cru Burgundy, Vintage Champagne) they'll also expect a description of the storage conditions over time. See the documentary Sour Grapes to understand how this system was undermined and trust evaporated from the industry.
- besulzbach 8y ago
  Good point. I think that by their logic selling "enthusiast" versions of anything will almost always be classifiable as a practice that "preys upon the mentally ill".
- jayd16 8y ago
  Can you link me to this amazing $5 bottle?
  - matwood 8y ago
    $5 is tough to hit. My 'cheap' goto is anything from Rosemount. It's in the $10 range, and is consistently good. The shiraz was their original known variety, but they have others now. It also used to be cheaper at just under $10, but popularity pushed the price up.
- hwillis 8y ago
  > say, a $1,000 bottle of wine (which cannot be distinguished in a blind taste test from a $5 bottle)? Well for one thing, that's wrong- distinguishing wine is easy. Even people who are just pretty into wine can identify different vinyards etc. and actual sommeliers can nail wine down to the year it was bottled and the conditions it was stored[1]. The thing you're referring to is that when you line up regular people and give them $5 and $1000 bottles of wine, they will rank them in essentially random order. That should be no surprise at all. People have their own favorites. When you line up experts, they can differentiate cheap wine from expensive wine, but inside a broad category (say $200-$1000) they will rank essentially randomly. Again, that shouldn't be surprising at all, because "quality" itself isn't what's being paid for or looked for. Each wine is developed for a taste, not for some abstract quality metric that is the exact same for every wine. Normal audiophiles will typically aim for objective metrics like THD, but the extreme guys are often aiming for subjective/vague things like timbre, color and soundstage. That leads to some esotericism. They also tend to have gobs of money to throw at this stuff, so a $1000 knob may be more about getting exactly what you want, or even just prestige. Both rational choices. Regardless, its inherently way more absurd than wine because even audiophiles with the most virgin ears will get nothing from .001% THD (very high end) vs <.0001% THD (verging on a lab setup), and virtually all will get nothing from <.01% THD. On the other hand, wine fanatics who have found their favorite wine will be able to recognize it quite accurately. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZQc0wfkU7I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZQc0wfkU7I
  - computerex 8y ago
    Hilarious that you posted a clip from Uncorked as some form of evidence, because no one has ever lied on reality tv to make things more dramatic.
  - gaze 8y ago
    0.0001% THD is better than 120 dB, beyond the spec of an APx555. That’s beyond lab spec.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    > Normal audiophiles will typically aim for objective metrics like THD, but the extreme guys are often aiming for subjective/vague things like timbre, color and soundstage. They should probably be using $200 equalizers to get that, not buying $10000 components where more than half of them couldn't possibly change the sound.
- asdff 8y ago
  It would be like if the $5 bottle was glass, and the $1000 bottle contained the same wine in a special wooden bottle that allegedly dampened any disruptive vibrations without any research at all.
- MRSallee 8y ago
  100%. "I don't share these values, the person must be mentally ill. Wine is not at all the same thing, because let me explain my values which are obviously universal."
- tlrobinson 8y ago
  There's a slight difference. AFAIK oenophiles don't typically try to use pseudoscience to justify their purchases (or encourage others to make purchases) If someone told me I should buy a wine because the doorknobs in the winery were special wooden knobs I would also question their judgement/sanity.
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    But they are oak, imparting a woodland undertone.
  - contingo 8y ago
    You evidently haven't encountered the biodynamic viticulture people, who are everywhere these days. They will tell you to buy a wine because its grapes were harvested when the stars were in a particular alignment and the moonlight a particular intensity.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      And they buried the correct rams horn full of crystals before planting. I’m not kidding.
- bsaul 8y ago
  I understand what you mean, but just for the record, professional winetasters can pretty much guess which part of land in a given region a wine comes from in blind tests. So, i can tell you that there is a huge difference between a bottle labelled 1000$ and a 5$ one. One telling indicator is that wine does practice blind tests a lot, and has blind test wine competitions that lead to prices, that help small wine producers get their brand recognized ( search for wine labelled with « medaille d’argent » or « medaille d’or » of any french wine contest and you won’t be disappointed) . Audio equipments very much less so.
  - kyberias 8y ago
    Also, some professional winetasters can't tell the difference between white and red wine.
  - deanCommie 8y ago
    super sommeliers can. They are 1 in a thousand (amongst even professionals) Most professional wine tasters crumble in blind taste tests.
- golergka 8y ago
  I don't know enough about wine, but judgding from experience, I can definetly tell the $1,000 and $20,000 whisky bottles apart by taste. And controlled double blind studies usually tell the same story: people can taste them apart.

brightball 8y ago

Previously worked for an after market sales site for the industry and the level of fraud in the marketplace is what got me into anti-phishing in the first place. I’ve never seen anything like it.

thaumasiotes 8y ago

How do $1,000 aftermarket wooden knobs (with no detectable physical effect) differ from, say, a $1,000 bottle of wine (which cannot be distinguished in a blind taste test from a $5 bottle)? They're just class signifiers. The difference I see is that audiophiles are less prestigious than oenophiles, but I don't see how you get from there to "audiophiles have a mental illness".

imgabe 8y ago
A $1000 bottle of wine is going to be from a specific year, from a specific vineyard. There's naturally a limited supply, so price will increase with demand like any collectible. A wooden knob is not unique and anyone could manufacture an unlimited amount at low cost.
- GuiA 8y ago
  Oh, clearly you haven’t dug deeply enough. The wood is handchosen to minimize resonance, handcrafted by an artisan coming from a generation of Italian woodworkers, etc etc. Exactly the same as wine.
- hermitdev 8y ago
  I've had a $400 bottle of scotch (37 yr McCallan over 15 years ago), and it was significantly better than the 18 yr old you could get at the time for about $120. Was it worth it? Yes-once. I wouldn't do it again, but I enjoyed that bottle over a 3 month period.
  - andyroid 8y ago
    So not a blind test at all then, and just as easily biased as the expensive wooden knob that subjectively was so much better.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  There is no natural limit on bottles that are labeled with a specific year and a specific vineyard. The only way to know the label is genuine is the stringent chain-of-custody requirements that have become normal in the world of expensive artwork under pressure from forgeries. As far as I know, those are not yet the norm for wine.
  - bwilliams18 8y ago
    I wouldn't say they are the norm, but they're certainly expected by any re-seller (auction house, retailer, restaurant) when dealing with the highest echelon of wine (1st Growth Bordeaux, Premier Cru Burgundy, Vintage Champagne) they'll also expect a description of the storage conditions over time. See the documentary Sour Grapes to understand how this system was undermined and trust evaporated from the industry.
besulzbach 8y ago
Good point. I think that by their logic selling "enthusiast" versions of anything will almost always be classifiable as a practice that "preys upon the mentally ill".
jayd16 8y ago
Can you link me to this amazing $5 bottle?
- matwood 8y ago
  $5 is tough to hit. My 'cheap' goto is anything from Rosemount. It's in the $10 range, and is consistently good. The shiraz was their original known variety, but they have others now. It also used to be cheaper at just under $10, but popularity pushed the price up.
hwillis 8y ago
> say, a $1,000 bottle of wine (which cannot be distinguished in a blind taste test from a $5 bottle)? Well for one thing, that's wrong- distinguishing wine is easy. Even people who are just pretty into wine can identify different vinyards etc. and actual sommeliers can nail wine down to the year it was bottled and the conditions it was stored[1]. The thing you're referring to is that when you line up regular people and give them $5 and $1000 bottles of wine, they will rank them in essentially random order. That should be no surprise at all. People have their own favorites. When you line up experts, they can differentiate cheap wine from expensive wine, but inside a broad category (say $200-$1000) they will rank essentially randomly. Again, that shouldn't be surprising at all, because "quality" itself isn't what's being paid for or looked for. Each wine is developed for a taste, not for some abstract quality metric that is the exact same for every wine. Normal audiophiles will typically aim for objective metrics like THD, but the extreme guys are often aiming for subjective/vague things like timbre, color and soundstage. That leads to some esotericism. They also tend to have gobs of money to throw at this stuff, so a $1000 knob may be more about getting exactly what you want, or even just prestige. Both rational choices. Regardless, its inherently way more absurd than wine because even audiophiles with the most virgin ears will get nothing from .001% THD (very high end) vs <.0001% THD (verging on a lab setup), and virtually all will get nothing from <.01% THD. On the other hand, wine fanatics who have found their favorite wine will be able to recognize it quite accurately. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZQc0wfkU7I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZQc0wfkU7I
- computerex 8y ago
  Hilarious that you posted a clip from Uncorked as some form of evidence, because no one has ever lied on reality tv to make things more dramatic.
- gaze 8y ago
  0.0001% THD is better than 120 dB, beyond the spec of an APx555. That’s beyond lab spec.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  > Normal audiophiles will typically aim for objective metrics like THD, but the extreme guys are often aiming for subjective/vague things like timbre, color and soundstage. They should probably be using $200 equalizers to get that, not buying $10000 components where more than half of them couldn't possibly change the sound.
asdff 8y ago
It would be like if the $5 bottle was glass, and the $1000 bottle contained the same wine in a special wooden bottle that allegedly dampened any disruptive vibrations without any research at all.
MRSallee 8y ago
100%. "I don't share these values, the person must be mentally ill. Wine is not at all the same thing, because let me explain my values which are obviously universal."
tlrobinson 8y ago
There's a slight difference. AFAIK oenophiles don't typically try to use pseudoscience to justify their purchases (or encourage others to make purchases) If someone told me I should buy a wine because the doorknobs in the winery were special wooden knobs I would also question their judgement/sanity.
- lostlogin 8y ago
  But they are oak, imparting a woodland undertone.
- contingo 8y ago
  You evidently haven't encountered the biodynamic viticulture people, who are everywhere these days. They will tell you to buy a wine because its grapes were harvested when the stars were in a particular alignment and the moonlight a particular intensity.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    And they buried the correct rams horn full of crystals before planting. I’m not kidding.
bsaul 8y ago
I understand what you mean, but just for the record, professional winetasters can pretty much guess which part of land in a given region a wine comes from in blind tests. So, i can tell you that there is a huge difference between a bottle labelled 1000$ and a 5$ one. One telling indicator is that wine does practice blind tests a lot, and has blind test wine competitions that lead to prices, that help small wine producers get their brand recognized ( search for wine labelled with « medaille d’argent » or « medaille d’or » of any french wine contest and you won’t be disappointed) . Audio equipments very much less so.
- kyberias 8y ago
  Also, some professional winetasters can't tell the difference between white and red wine.
- deanCommie 8y ago
  super sommeliers can. They are 1 in a thousand (amongst even professionals) Most professional wine tasters crumble in blind taste tests.
golergka 8y ago
I don't know enough about wine, but judgding from experience, I can definetly tell the $1,000 and $20,000 whisky bottles apart by taste. And controlled double blind studies usually tell the same story: people can taste them apart.