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I don't think so

"While you certainly offered some useful, valid points, your comments effectively place legitimate design concerns in the same category as total snake oil"

I don't see how I 'effectively' do that at all. I am saying that legitimate design concerns lead to a design that meets certain criterion. Whether or not these concerns lead to a subjectively better sound is another matter. Some design concerns are real, and must be addressed, while others are closer to a form of snake-oil in and of themselves. Some design speakers thinking that a 1st order electric crossover must be used at all costs, because group delay is "the" most important aspect of home stereo speakers. Some think you need a single driver, because passive or active crossovers are where most of the sonic evils lie... which is strange because a transient accurate loudspeaker has no more phase issue than a full range speaker - both have natural acoustic phase roll at their frequency extrements and are inherently band-pass devices. With phase correction, even those errors can be compensated for mathmatically. Phase correction works. You can pass a square wave through a digital IIR Filter and get a square wave out. Fantastic. Some think digital IIR Filters "SOUND BAD". The only good filter is NO filter they say. Okay. Too bad all digital sources use filters to limit out of band noise, which have an effect on phase and transient response.

But all that aside, at the end of it all, no matter how much engineering went into the components OR the system as a whole, the end goal is to do what? Meet a bunch of objective measurement criterion? Or please the end user? It's the latter. Meeting ALL of preconceived design specifications is mute if the end user does not feel his $30K got him the sound he wanted. If he feels there is not enough bass for his recordings in general, then there is not enough bass. How much baffle step compensation is correct? 3db? 5dB? 6db? Depends on the room. Depends on the LISTENER.

Anyways, my point was that the OP used the word "accuracy" and he (and you) failed to do that. Why? We can try to define accuracy but then the audiophile converts this DEFINITIVE word into yet another subjective audiophilism: "It just doesn't sound accurate to me..."

What he means is that it just does not sound NATURAL to him, because the word ACCURATE can in no way apply to subjective apprasial of a non-engineered interconnected pile of engineered components. But they use words like accurate, probably for no other reason than to get objectivists shorts in a knot.

So can you calculate how much baffle step correction is called for in a given design? Ask Zaph if you can get ahold of him... I believe in some of his designs he basically says "Add BFC to taste and for the given distance from the wall." So how can someone ENGINEER a speaker without saying on the back "This speaker MUST be 3 feet from the wall in order for the baffle step compensation circuit to correctly accentuate the lower frequencies."? What if someone prefers this speaker 2 feet from the wall because they want a bit more boundary-related bass reinforcement? What if they find the bass 'over-bloomed' at 3 feet and prefer four? Are they WRONG? With engineering, if I prefer a tire that causes the car to spin off the track or the odomoeter not to work, I am destroying the original design intent. But what if the final result is just a preference and actual performance data has no real bearing? People who run very high performance cars are very very careful not to put on wheels which may have different diameter or offset than the original factory tires. At the extreme speeds and performance limits at which these vehicles are operated, one does not want to monkey around. That said, many advancements in racing have been made by drivers using their intuition and giving feedback to their mechanics, who called for differently engineered parts. This "feedback loop" can be subjective information from the driver - he speaks of the FEEL of the vehicle... It's up to the mechanics and engineers to adequately interpret this rather subjective description and come up with a new specification - something tangible to build to.

Anyways - back to snake oil.

I've always maintained that someone who pays to have their imagination sold back to them is insane. I pick on Geoff Kait alot because of his teleportation tweaks, for example. I believe that you can't use psychic energy to make stereos sound better. But you CAN use PSYCHOLOGICAL tricks to do it. Geoff Kait is no more guilty of snake oil than a company that sells an amp for $50K when $30K of it is all "jewelry" and fancy bling finishing. Sure you can make an amp chasis out of a single block of aluminum. You can make knobs out of exotic and rare woods too. But the former is much easier to sell as an "engineered improvement" than the wooden knob is, isn't it? Okay, it's neato to have a frame extruded out of a single piece of aluminum. So show me the performance data that proves it superior to a standard chassis design made from multiple pieces. Oh, that's abusurd they will say. They will scoff and say that customers who have spent tens, nay, hundreds of thousands have heard the difference their extruded chassis make and that I am the fool.

Some engineering is required to meet design criterion. Other "engineering" is charlatanism dressed UP as engineering with no other purpose than to increase the price-tag on the end result. Very suspicious are these "new technologies" that don't seem to require additional parts or time-consuming assembly. They're just a neato shape, or a slightly different form - then this is offered as the latest panacea with no proof of additional performance gains.

I've been in the room with the little bowls and all of the head nodding and "Do you hear that? Didja? Didja?" suggestion tricks. I didn't hear a godd@mn thing when they put that little 1/2" wide bowl on it's goofy little stand on the wall. If that makes a difference in the sound then removing the plant from the end table should impart a sonic different 100 times more profound. And that doesn't either. In fact, if the little bowls do this, then people walking around the room during auditions should as well (and moreso) and that doesn't seem to make much of an audible difference EITHER!

Sure, snake oil is "bad" when it uses "fake engineering" to sell. But what if people are WILLING to line up and pay for it? Gamblers go to casinos with the intent of "winning money" despite knowing the FACT that the more they gamble the more they will approach the mathmatically determined odds. You can win a coin toss three times in a row, but do it ten thousand times and you will get 50/50 accuracy unless something is wrong with the coin.

I just don't see how arguing with people who "believe" is of any value. It's like telling the religious that there is no definitive proof of God. They don't care, they have belief and faith - they need nothing more. When someone survives a crash after serious trauma, it's a miracle. If someone dies in a crash "God took them". If this were true, and there was no god, could someone survive a crash or die in one? Can a person survive a crash without a miracle? Can a person die in a crash without being "taken by God"?

Once you boil it down to THAT point in the conversation, it had better be in good spirit and jest followed by wine and cheese, else it's a complete waste of time.

Cheers,
Presto


Edits: 11/11/12
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