What are you talking about? Are several hundred messages in this thread that support my condemnation not enough for you? Why do you think I stopped by? I saw several hundred messages, all attacking one or two guys who advocate the CLC clock or Belt products. What I also saw was that neither of those two guys ever made any personal attacks against anyone here, they persisted in non-inflammatory remarks advocating products they believed in, and continued to be attacked with the usual mockery, ridicule, scorn, derision and contempt. Products which as far as I can tell, not a single detractor had tried. Now if they somehow deserved all of it, I would have kept moseying along. But instead, I decided to pitch a tent. Especially after I saw some of you accusing both the members and the manufacturers of the products of nothing less than fraud.

I posted examples of this to Sluggo. Who decided after so many months of stupidly accusing members and manufacturers of fraud without even having the moral decency to support his accusations, to show us all an example of how to take "the high road". By accusing me of living in my mother's basement.


You didn't ask "why" I would seem so certain.... During a recent visit to a popular forum, I was quickly "martyred" after simply describing the Beltist tweaks I had done to my amp. And this was after I was reluctant to tell people what I had done (knowing the attitude they would adopt, which is the very same attitude that poisons this place), and half the forum begging me to reveal my "secret" tweaks. I was immediately branded a troll, demands were made to close the thread, shortly after that I was banned, no explanation given. You may think I'm angry, but I'm far more amused when I see the kind of fear, paranoia, risible ignorance and even hysteria that such audio products inspire in people. It brings out the very worst in people, when it's in fact a positive thing that ought to bring out the best.

Thanks. I appreciate that you recognize my talents.... ;-) Obviously, you can probably guess that I prefer unmoderated forums. But moderated ones are.... well, a "challenge". I admit, they're not nearly as fun. Everyone ends up sounding like the same person with a different name. However, I don't think even the gunslingers here would accuse me of being HifiSoundGuy...

Nice theory, but you're overlooking the fact that I made that complaint based on what I read -before- I hitched my horse here. So I have no part to play in the fact that we're looking at the end of a thread that contains 300 messages on alternative audio products, and never mind "intelligent debate", I did not see even a single attempt at a proper debate in it. It looks like you all had made up your minds about the products and the members who advocated those products, right from the start. And I'm not saying a debate would have changed anyone's mind, because as I just said, I don't see that anyone wants their mind to be changed.

I'm not trying to steal anyone's opinion here. Every audiophile has the right to be wrong, if they choose to. But if people are going to claim to be "right" about Belt's or MD's products, which is are products that I know something about (more Belt than MD), and even present them as "factual", they'd better have more than bluster and ridicule to support their claims. Particularly when "gunslingers" are hurling unfounded libelous accusations of fraud against members and manufacturers, as though they have every right to do so. In some forums (I haven't yet checked this one), that's an instant ban.


You're oversimplifying things again. I do not condemn people who haven't tested the concepts. Any test is still better than not testing at all, I would suppose. But I condemn some of the tests that people use, and I advocated using sighted tests, as most people use to evaluate any other product. (When you bought your audio components, did you run blind tests on them in the hifi shop?) I'm quite sure that I have a lot more experience conducting sighted & blind tests both on myself and others, so I am not regurgitating some theory I read in an audio magazine.

I explained to you in my last message in some detail, why blind testing for audio was just plain stupid. But the "stupid" part is not the test itself. I can appreciate the desire to be objective, I am objectively minded myself. The stupid part is the "belief" that the tests are valid (because they appear to create a condition of objectivity and authenticity), and that the results of any blind test will tell you all that you need to know about a product. You obvously can't imagine how many perfectly good products were dismissed due to the stupidity of people adhering to results of blind tests in audio. Even the editor of a major audio magazine was duped into selling his fine amp and living with a crappier one (which did NO good things to his sound), as a result of blind testing.

Yes, I recognize the merit blind tests have in other applications of science. However, they were never proven to have any merit in audio applications and in fact, contravene the scientific range rule, as I pointed out. I see those who adhere to blind tests as no more than religious zealots, convinced that they are following reasonable scientific principles and not crazy personal religions. And I'm sorry to have to inform you, but simple "blind tests" are not good enough for serious proponents of blind tests. For that, you need an ABX comparator, and a means to level match to within 0.01 db. Otherwise, you'll be accused of introducing listener bias into the tests by those adherents to blind tests, and your tests are therefore meaningless. Now how many people are equipped to do that, or even have the knowledge?

But even if they happen to have a spare ABX comparator lying around, and a sensitive db meter, plus at least a second person to make it double blind, note that ABX tests have revealed no differences between wires, cd players, or amplifiers. ("Comparing Audio Components", David Clark's, JAES, 1983). Most people, even "Outlaws" I'm sure, can nevertheless hear differences between these types of components.
Are they.... FOOLING themselves, perhaps? I don't bloody well think so. Blind tests, and -properly conducted- blind tests, seem to think so, though. So as much as you might think you're clever and "avoiding being duped" by running audio products through blind testing procedures, you're really not. They're about as reliable as a Republican ballot box security guardian. You can't avoid being duped, in audio. You can only avoid good sound. If not having good sound is the cost I must pay to avoid being duped, guess what? I'd rather be duped.