Why does a vero build sound so good ?

[Paul Marossy]

techies are offended by "snake oil" salesmen taking advantage of the ignorant!

I dunno... I think my stereo sounds incredible since I replaced my stock metal volume and tone control knobs with carefully aged one piece Brazilian Mahogany knobs turned on a steam operated lathe by real craftsman trained in the ways of old world tradition. Now I have the ultimate stereo thanks to those $300 knobs! Yeah, right.  :roll:

I am also reminded of that guy that is selling this stuff that you paint on your opamp or transistor to make your stereo sound better. To the uninformed, it sounds good, but I am not convinced...

[puretube]

Paul! you been cloning from the "Funny Mojo" thread again! *
You naughty boy! Put a little love in your f*rt...



*) http://diystompboxes.com/sboxforum/viewtopic.php?t=25039

[Paul Marossy]

puretube-

I haven't kept up on that thread, but I certainly do remember it - it's one of the longest ones I have ever seen in this forum!  :wink:

Maybe I should try some of those knobs on my guitar?!  :lol:

[puretube]

recently heard about a rumour, they are even planning to make real guitars completely out of wood...   Imagine!!!  :shock:

[Mark Hammer]

Again, sometimes weird stuff MATTERS, and sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes, there are important things that you can't explain (we used Aspirin for decades before understanding what it did or how it worked), and sometimes an explanation is crucial to having something work.  Life's like that.

I think the gripe that some folks have about audiophiles is the same gripe they have about some religious fundamentalists (and some politicians), and that is the absence of doubt despite an absence of proof.  If one heard the phrase "I *thought* it sounded good, but I may have been fooled by may expectations" a little more often, I think audiophile/non-audiophile relations would be a little better.

Sometimes, as well, it happens that X causes Y but we *think* that it is Z causing Y, despite the logical improbability of Z doing what we assume.  

Two cases in point.  

1) How on earth could one's astrological sign have any impact on personality characteristics?  There is simply no conceivable process whereby astronomic bodies light years away could influence us, and if they could it would be the closest astral bodies that would have the biggest effect, not their visual pattern.  On the other hand, there ARE known seasonal variations in hormonal levels due to daylength, etc., and these are hormones known to be able to influence the developing nervous system.  Indeed, serious astrologers always demand to know the latitude/longitude of birth, and seasonal daylength corresponds to that.  So, MAYBE the astrological signs are merely correlated with season and whatever possible influence season of birth may have on nervous systems, and by extension personality.  Foolishly, some people thought it was the fault of the stars.

2) How on earth could digital code be rendered "better" by any thermal process (i.e., freezing a CD)?  Makes no sense at all.  On the other hand, is it possible that the dropout rate is influenced by physical properties of the disc such that false bits and such are less likely to occur with some thermal treatment of the recording medium?  Possibly.  Would that be true of ALL CDs and ALL players?  Not likely, since some will be unaffected and some highly affected.  What we are talking about, however, might not be how discs *sound* but how disc-readers perform.

It is the going beyond mere superstition that leads to advances.  Accepting one's initial perceptions ithout seeking to understand or explain them is basically staying in a rut

[puretube]

i`m not into audiophile mojo (except with FX  :lol: ),
but I have to admit to have read about s.th., that
those dark CD-rims might influence the jitter
(and hence the dropout/failure-bit rate)...

[Paul Marossy]

I think the gripe that some folks have about audiophiles is the same gripe they have about some religious fundamentalists (and some politicians), and that is the absence of doubt despite an absence of proof.

That's a fair assessment.  

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

The trouble that I have with audiophiles is that (often) they loose sight of the experience of enjoying music & just get into technology for its own sake. Nothing wrong with that, of course.. but then the less technologically savvy of them are leeched onto by the snake-oil salesmen. A suprising number of these high-tech snake-oil victims (nearly always guys!) are people who are successful in their own profession (medical, accoujntancy, programming etc) and automatically assume that they know everything about completely unrelated fields. They are usually prime suckers for investment scams too.
I find a higher % of CEOs are audiophiles, than  professional musicians!
Also there is the conspicuous display of wealth syndrome. Hard to relate to, from my dumpster-diving perspective. :wink:
My plan is to try to ignore all this stuff & build a stompbox.

[KORGULL]

I'm wondering how the pedals were hooked up during the comparison.
Were they both in the signal chain at the same time in series, and you were alternately turning them on/off? If so did you try switching them around? The one in front might be affecting the next one - vice/versa.
Or, did you stop playing and unhook/switch pedals each time? If so, the time lapse could be affecting your judgement/memory of the sound.
Did you use the same battery/power supply for both pedals?
Sorry if these questions were already addressed - I was reading through this pretty fast - might've missed some comments.
I sometimes think that if any method of FX circuit construction could sound better than others, it would be PTP/perf - because you are directly connecting the component leads - usually only spanning a very short distance.
*I'm not claiming it is better - just something I've thought about.*

[DiyFreaque]

They are usually prime suckers for investment scams too.

(scribble, scribble) Prime....suckers.....investment......scams.  Got it!

Hey - I have to finance that next rack mount somehow  

Cheers,
Scott

[bwanasonic]

Indeed, serious astrologers

Oh man, ...

...aww, forget it.

Stompboxes, that's right.

Here to talk about stompboxes.

Take a deep breath...

Holy shit! did I really see the phrase "serious astrologer!!??

Yeah, anyhow.

Did I mention www.randi.org ?

And, but of course - :lol:

Kerry M

[R.G.]

Ever stare at a TV screen with only the raw salt-and-pepper static between stations? If so, did you see patterns form and disappear?

The static is demonstrably random. The patterns come from your mind.

The human mind is inherently a pattern-matching device. That's why formal logic comes so hard to most people - it's not a pattern matching process. The human mind matches patterns so well that it can and does find patterns in incomplete, irrelevant and erroneous data. We enshrine this in things like detective or spy novels where the protagonist finds the correct thread in a nest of confusing facts and lies.

An inevitable consequence of being so good at finding partial patterns is the side effect of finding patterns where there are none. It is more acceptable to the human mind to find fantastic, impossible, or ludicrous patterns than to find none.

[Mark Hammer]

An inevitable consequence of being so good at finding partial patterns is the side effect of finding patterns where there are none. It is more acceptable to the human mind to find fantastic, impossible, or ludicrous patterns than to find none.

You mean like in some of the threads? or some of my posts?  :lol:

And Kerry, you saw the phrase "serious astrologer", not because *I* take it seriously but because *someone* out there does.  My point was essentially to underscore the notion that even when astrology buffs take their "metier" to the nth degree and treat it as if 'twer science, it is interesting how the factors they perceive to be important correspond not only to the visual distribution of constellations over the year, but to the cyclical changes in things like daylength which have potentially stronger lnks to in utero influences on personality yet are systematically ignored by such "scientists".  I.E., the superficial appearance of diligence and methodicalness does not necessarily imply the application of the more stringent criteria of scientific investigation, or even basic flexibility in thinking.  How ironic that someone might espouse a belief that is partly correct but for entirely different reasons than they have proposed or are willing to accept or even consider.  It's that no doubt but no evidence thing.

I have a picture in my office from the cover of the multi-disciplinary journal "Science".  The picture is from 1971 or so.  I have had it hanging in every office I have had from about 1973 onward.  It is a picture of an old-world monkey like a rhesus or macaque looking outward with its chin resting on its folded over hand, much like Rodin's "Thinker".  The monkey looks lost in deep cogitation.  I keep it in my office to remind myself and my colleagues that often the outward appearance of deep thought, and the visual trappings of smartness, do not accurately reflect the dearth of content going on underneath.  Sometimes we ARE just "posing monkeys".   :wink:  Good for the soul to admit it, and good for humankind to consider it a possibility in others too from time to time.

[bwanasonic]

you saw the phrase "serious astrologer", not because *I* take it seriously but because *someone* out there does.

That's what I was hoping. I was really just being silly though. I am actually very interested in what the following article calls "Magical Thinking" :

http://www.csicop.org/si/2001-11/alternative.html

Kerry M

[Mark Hammer]

Many years ago, when I was an undergrad, the Canadian government funded a commission of inquiry and a corresponding program of research into the "nonmedicinal use of drugs".  The so-called LeDain Commission resulted in numerous theses and dissertations on marijuana use and effects.  A couple of grad students I knew at the time had a lab set up at the university where their research participants (who no doubt had ONLY the interests of science in mind) could come and toke up.  It was the prototypic "head" room, complete with the classic black and white poster of a grinning Jimi Hendrix, black-light posters from the Fillmore and Avalon, paisley print sheets covering the ceiling and drooping for that "I'm so deep" atmosphere, bean bag chairs, Jefferson Airplane or Ravi Shankar playing in the background, the whole schmear as we say.  Some of the participants got government-grown weed but a great many got a relatively inert substance called colt's foot, which apparently smelt like weed when burning but had no psychoactive ingredients, permitting it to be considered a "placebo".  The effects of the expectations created by the atmosphere were so strong that people smoking colt's foot used to get absolutely wasted, both according to their description and according to objective measures of their state.  Hell, I imagine some of them probably even wished, years later, that they could listen to Pink Floyd or Led Zep while smoking whatever it was they had in that study.

Give a human an expectation and there is no end to the things they will perceive.

[WGTP]

I've been trying to avoid these kinds of posts, but I have to say this with all due respect to all those involved with varying opinions.

How many phenomenon that are observable and measureable in 2005 were not in 1905 or 1805.  Maybe there was differening opinions about whether something was occuring, but now it is accepted that it is occuring because we figured out how to measure it.

Things are occuring now that we can not yet measure.  Just because we can't figure out how to measure something does not mean it isn't occuring.

Make any since?  This whole concept of electricity???  you can't see it and there was a time when we couldn't measure it, but it was still going on.

What was it that R.G. said?  There is no magic, only technology we don't understand?

[Mark Hammer]

Absolutely, which is why I have some stated reservations.

That being said, there IS a difference between accepting some result and a mumbo-jumbo explanation, and accepting a result and saying "Geez, I wish to heck I understood how this works or what principles could lie behind it".

[WGTP]

And to add to that, I just read a couple of car reviews and one reviewer thought the transmission (same model car) was precise and the other thought it clunky???  Maybe they were the same and maybe they weren't

Certainly the world if full of snake oil salesmen.

I think the whole guitar vintage sound deal is a good example.  It has taken decades to figure out why some of the old stuff, did in fact. sound better than the new stuff.  Like when Marshal changed from EL34's to 6550's or something.  Scatter winding.  Different magnets, the effect of the cover and other metal on the magnetic circuit, etc.  Different speaker materials and designs.

Some times you can measure a difference, but can it be heard?

Are some peoples ears more sensitive to phase or pitch or harmonics or direction, etc.  

[MartyMart]

Some times you can measure a difference, but can it be heard?

Are some peoples ears more sensitive to phase of pitch or harmonics or direction, etc.  

Perhaps so, I just "mastered" the new "Melanie B" album in my studio,
( 8th mastering job )  so yes I have "good ears" but in this case I needed ear plugs !!  :lol:

Marty.

[Paul Marossy]

Ever stare at a TV screen with only the raw salt-and-pepper static between stations? If so, did you see patterns form and disappear?

Never really did that, but I do remember staring at the "popcorn" ceiling as a kid and seeing shapes in it and stuff.