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Funny blog from Mark Waldrep about Nordost AXPONA power cord demo

7K views 123 replies 31 participants last post by  thehun 
#1 · (Edited)
Nordost and AXPONA Demo Questions
Nordost Demo Mysteries…Solved! Part II

Nordost was doing a demo at AXPONA of the "sound" of different power cords in a CD player. They did the demo by playing the same song on a given CD player with progressively more expensive power cords. It turned out to be the same song, but different track numbers on the CD. The tracks used gradually became louder and louder the more expensive the power cord that was chosen (but by fairly small amounts: about 1 dB).

Funny stuff! I'm glad Mark had the guts to post it. :)

Edit: As is pointed out later in this thread, Nordost threatened legal action against Mark Waldrep, forcing him to remove the blog entries and post a retraction. Another forum has made a copy of Mark's original blog entries.
 
#2 ·
Nordost and AXPONA Demo Questions
Nordost Demo Mysteries…Solved! Part II

Nordost was doing a demo at AXPONA of the "sound" of different power cords in a CD player. They did the demo by playing the same song on a given CD player with progressively more expensive power cords. It turned out to be the same song, but different track numbers on the CD. The tracks used gradually became louder and louder the more expensive the power cord that was chosen (but by fairly small amounts: about 1 dB).

Funny stuff! I'm glad Mark had the guts to post it. :)
At this stage, if you are in this hobby and you are not educated enough to know that the stuff Nordost and other peddle is just pure nonsense then you should scammed.

I like the look of high end cables but will buy the knockoffs from Ebay (made in China).
 
#3 · (Edited)
At this stage, if you are in this hobby and you are not educated enough to know that the stuff Nordost and other peddle is just pure nonsense then you should scammed.
I think most at AVS are aware of the situation with cables. But some other audio forums are rather crazy in this regard. Have a look at the audioasylum.com Cable Forum Mission Statement for example. This statement used to be a "no DBT discussion" rule, but they've since broadened its scope to ban any posts that claim cable audibility differences to be non-existent.
 
#4 ·
I've held the opinion that some cable purveyors actually believe in what they are peddling and still do believe that to be true.

Doesn't look like Nordost is one of those.
 
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#5 ·
I've held the opinion that some cable purveyors actually believe in what they are peddling
I'm sure some do, but believing in something don't make it so. It juts means that they're just as ill informed, or delusional, as their customers. ;)
 
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#7 ·
LOL, I think it's about 50-50. Half of these wire (and other product) scammers know full well they're peddling what I call placebo-based products. But I imagine fully half actually believe their own nonsense. So take your pick: a vendor who's dishonest or one who's incompetent. :rolleyes:

--Ethan
 
#9 · (Edited)
I think it's about 50-50. Half of these wire (and other product) scammers know full well they're peddling what I call placebo-based products. But I imagine fully half actually believe their own nonsense. So take your pick: a vendor who's dishonest or one who's incompetent. :rolleyes:

--Ethan

I agree, it is a mix.


I have discovered a good way to determine which one your are dealing with, at least if you can get them into a private conversation not in earshot of their co-workers. Propose a blind (or if you have the facilities, double blind) test, i.e. a bet of their auditory abilities giving them favorable odds. If they truly think they can hear a difference they will accept the challenge both because it will show you up and make them a little money. If they balk at it because of typical nonsense such as "Blind tests invoke hallucinations, cancer, and severe cognitive impairment. Otherwise I would.", then you know you are dealing with a con artist, plain and simple.


The money you collect when you win the bet, by the way, is the sweetest you will ever come by.;)
 
#10 ·
Baloney that they're just faking it. These manufacturers believe fervently in the stated 'benefits' of their products. And it is because their testing methodology is based entirely on sighted evaluations. No wonder.
 
#12 ·
Baloney that they're just faking it. These manufacturers believe fervently in the stated 'benefits' of their products.
I put them in the same category as Bernie Madoff, who to this day blames his investors for being so stupid that they believed his promises, while no intelligent person would have.
 
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#11 ·
I distinctly remember a "high end" cable merchant (who used to post here semi-regularly), state that he used to employ blind evaluation in the process of "designing" his cables, but because this method wasn't revealing the audible differences that he was confident were there, he stopped doing it.

Yes, really.
 
#15 · (Edited)
For those who might not know, the company Nordost threatened legal action against Mark Waldrep with a cease and desist letter. He has removed the blog posts in question and instead now has a retraction up I believe.
http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=5677


The audio industry in general disgusts me and is clearly driven by the almighty dollar, not truth, which is why I had to get out.
 
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#17 · (Edited)
For those who might not know, the company Nordost threatened legal action against Mark Waldrep with a cease and desist letter. He has removed the blog posts in question and instead now has a retraction up I believe.
http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=5677
Wow. That's just disturbing. :(

Edit: I tried to find copies of these blog posts in the Wayback Machine, but had no luck. Then I did a google search and it was in the google cache.
 
#19 ·
Fascinating - just change a few words, and this thread would read like it came out of a discussion pertaining to the claims of various religions...
 
#20 ·
In a sense. But the high end audio industry preys on hearing bias, a characteristic found in every human being. Those who hear the audible differences between cables actually hear them although they aren't there. It is the way the brain takes shortcuts when asked to distinguish a difference that is desired but non existent. Religion is pure belief.
 
#25 ·
I don't follow them closely but I was wondering if a plea to either Penn and Teller or their mentor James Randi at the JREF might yield some financial/legal aid to help fight this monster*. It would seem to be right up their alley...




*That word "monster" is in every dictionary, by the way, it is a common noun, so please don't get any ideas about suing me, anyone.;)
 
#31 ·
Well, we just tar all of them with the same brush. If two speaker cables are being tested, then the one sounding better is merely using the louder is better technique. After all, what happened here was a simple goof that was caught. We can assume if people are trying to convince you their $2000 cable is better, and to you it sounds better, it's because they twiddled the volume.

High end audiophoolery depends on sleight of hand - the presenter needs to able to twiddle the volume knob with no one looking. Or a demo cd with that already done.
 
#39 ·
Let's keep this thread alive. There's no need to work at making fun of Nordost - their catalog speaks for itself:

http://audiofederation.com/brands/nordost/nordost-price-list

$20K for a 1-meter length of their Odin speaker cable ... Guess you can hear the difference in Valhalla, because I doubt anyone can hear it down on planet Earth.

So Nordost forced Mark Waldrep to retract his post and he even had to go so far as to state his posts made "unsubstantiated claims." That's a very precise technical and legal term - I would like to know where specifically the good Dr. Aix crossed the line. Regardless of any technicality that Nordost's lawyers used to silence Waldrep, his general points will live on. And may Nordost rue the day they tried to shut down free inquiry over the alleged benefits of their $20,000 speaker cables and power cords.

Nordost sucks! That's a matter of opinion, good lawyers, and not something you can ask me to retract, at least not here in 'merica.
 
#45 ·
There's good evidence, and I don't mean just anecdotal, that knee pain is very susceptible to expectation bias. Anesthetize people and make a small incision by their knee, pretend to do stuff internally, and then tell them afterwards that, "The surgery was a success!", and lo-and-behold they report significant improvements to their condition!:eek:


"...new work published in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine should prove insightful. Surprisingly, sham surgery seems to alleviate painful symptoms just as effectively as the real operation does. "


-"Study Suggests Common Knee Surgery's Effect Is Purely Placebo" - Scientific American, July 12, 2002.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/study-suggests-common-kne/
 
#48 ·
There's good evidence, and I don't mean just anecdotal, that knee pain is very susceptible to expectation bias. Anesthetize people and make a small incision by their knee, pretend to do stuff internally, and then tell them afterwards that, "The surgery was a success!", and lo-and-behold they report significant improvements to their condition!
True. But over time placebo effect wears off and the underlying cause of the pain reasserts itself. I've got 20 years into my personal clinical trial, and as I said at a cost of maybe $40 a year I don't care why the pain is gone, I'm just satisfied that it is.
OTOH a friend of mine got a knee replacement two years ago, and he's far worse off now than he was before it. Surgery isn't always the best option either.
My understanding is that Monster Cable has threatened Monster Energy Drink [Hansen, see attached link] and like so often occurs has taken money from them to settle out of court...
I heard that too. They're apparently not content with just the ill gotten gains from their snake oil.
 
#47 · (Edited)
#52 ·
Acupuncture needles really work. I was having this intense pain in my thumb the other day which was preventing me from sewing. I pulled the needle out and BINGO, the pain was gone!:D
 
#61 ·
Yeah, shoulda, but no doubt it's an issue of "pay to play", and legal "play" is expensive, even if you win.
 
#62 ·
Short on topic comment on the off topic thread tangent...

It was mentioned that studies have proven glucosamine and chondroitin no more effective than placebo. You have to be careful about statistics, really careful. It is entirely possible that for a few people these two supplements are absolutely unequivocally effective in giving complete pain relief, and in a study no statistically significant difference from placebo is found because those few are swamped by the vast majority who find zero benefit.

And so there is no misunderstanding, in general (almost all cases) I believe supplements to be entirely ineffective and a waste of money, and in a few cases dangerous. I don't believe there is a link between vaccines and autism, and low light laser therapy is on the level of nordost. Just so we are clear. :)

Sort of the same vein as abx of cable differences... there could always exist people who really can hear differences, so you have to be careful how you interpret research results and statistics.

This stuff goes both ways regarding medicine, BTW. Hypothetical example, a clinical trial with thousands of participants might establish with an extremely high degree of certainty that med X lowers cholesterol more than med Y. Surely you want to be on med X! Of course, were you to look deeper into the statistics you might find it only lowers cholesterol 1% more (but with near certainty you'll get that extra 1%!), which itself is likely clinically insignificant as far as health outcomes, and med X costs twice as much, but hey... works better!

Back on topic...

Nordost sucks. Monster too. Complete placebo.
 
#63 ·
Sort of the same vein as abx of cable differences... there could always exist people who really can hear differences, so you have to be careful how you interpret research results and statistics.
But to hear a difference there has to actually BE a difference. Hard as I try (ok, well, not all that hard), I can't get on board with the "you can't measure it" crowd. You can measure it, but you have to know what to look for.
Nordost sucks. Monster too. Complete placebo.
Just quoting that because it can't be quoted too often.
 
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#68 ·
Me too. I've done a screen grab for posterity as I bet it won't last long.
 
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#71 ·
I still see both too.

And this, under their "about": "You Need Good Science to Get Great Sound!"
...followed by a link to the Nordost web site. Funny. I guess what they're really saying is, "You ain't gettin' good sound from us!"
 
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#75 ·
Yesterday I received a copy of the Audio Advisor catalog. I looked through the cable pages and found something I thought was interesting. Nowhere that I looked did AA explain specific benefits for cables. They only talked about descriptions and specifications improving performance without defining the performance. The only comments about audible differences were in quotes from the manufacturers. I remember in the past reading comments from AA employees. Those appear to be gone. I can't help but wonder if the catalog now reflects the result of some legal advice.
 
#76 ·
Is there no FCC regulation or something that looks into garbage claims that snake oil vendors make? :confused: Of course I guess any agency would bear the burden of proof of impropriety, but this is just wrong on so many levels.
 
#77 ·
Is there no FCC regulation or something that looks into garbage claims that snake oil vendors make?
This would fall under the FTC. Technically one could file a complaint with them, but it probably wouldn't go anywhere. They have a deceptive advertising division, but if the product doesn't raise a public health or safety issue they don't care.
 
#88 ·
Believing you hear the difference from a power cable test is a result of the Observer-Expectancy Effect coupled with Confirmation Bias. Over time, your insistence that there is a difference is solidified due to an Escalation of Commitment.

We are all susceptible to these biases. We do know that those most susceptible are the ones that don't understand them and/or refuse to believe they are impacted. Nobody tests a 'upgraded power cable' unless they have some expectation or belief that a sound improvement is possible, even if simple engineering and physics tell us otherwise. Which means there is a bias.
 
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