Do you know this to be a fact?
Ofcourse Naim knows about radio noise, in any shape or form, and how it influences their equipment and to which degree. This is not some scientific breakthrough from Chord that totally surprises Naim and other manufacturers. It it were it would surely be ‘patent pending’, which it isn’t.
The same type of devices from Acoustic Revive have been around since at least 2008. This is not a new type of product.
Also ferrites are the standard approach of preventing and reducing HF radio noise inside electronic equipment, this has also been discussed years ago on these forums:
Sorry. I missed that one.
I don’t disagree. It would seem impossible to design every external influence out, while at the same time maximising sound quality and keeping within budget.
I think with a lot of these quite expensive add-ons that they can initially be found as an improvement yet quickly become the norm, and then if removed they are are not missed. I replaced £300+ ethernet cables with el cheapo BJC and thought they were better, or at least no worse, and swapped £3,500 of mains leads and block for a £170 Hydra and didn’t miss it for a second. I thought the EE switch improved things but it’s very much at the margins. Would I miss it if I sold it? Probably not.
I’d never say that these ARAYs cannot work or do not work - if people like what they do and think them worth the while then that’s great, it keeps them happy and keeps Chord in business. These products are very much at the lunatic fringe of hifi, where people are willing to spend large amounts of money for very small improvements. If all the tweaks were removed, would their enjoyment of music be decreased? Has the obsessive quest of the very best distracted them from the simple joy of music? Maybe, maybe not. Who knows?
That’s a circular argument.
A tweak could be defined as ‘something that initially makes the system sound a bit better, but which you wouldn’t miss if you took it out’.
As opposed to an upgrade, which you would always miss and crave for if you lost it.
Now this raises an interesting point - does the act of disabling vs enabling an input with the array left in place show a difference? Or do you notice the difference when plugging/unplugging it to an enabled input?
It could be that Naim allowing inputs to be disabled has an effect in its own right and hence why the feature exists in the first place
Yes that instruction is insane. I can only imagine how it would read for someone with difficulties regarding language or for instance Neuropsychiatric disabilities such as ADHD.
Good point. At first I opened them all up, tried the Aray thingy in one of them, and it worked. I then closed all the inputs that weren’t needed with no discernible difference. So the Aray worked, I’ve subsequently removed it to the sound’s detriment, and it went straight back in to stay.
Although having said that if I get my gullible paws on the RJ version I’ll see if both work to improve the sound.
Some folk are comfortable with their own faculties to decide for themselves if something is brilliant or bollocks.
Would be interesting how many would sign up in an orderly queue to just order some if Naim had released these devices.
Comforted by the thought of endorsement by investment.
Correct - Chord have been in trouble with the ASA in the past for making unsubstantiated claims. They had to amend their advertising blurb as a result. Annoyingly I can’t find this on the ASA database, but it certainly used to be there as I remember reading it.
Earlier in this thread
A quick Google will find it for you. But Chord are not the only folks to have fallen foul of the ASA cough expensive mains cables cough. Can also be found by Googling!
Following that sort of reasoning amplifiers sound the same. If you think your 552 is better than the NAD 7020 I use at the moment, you are simply justifying the enormous amount of money you have spent
Damn right!
Some people just know that the earth is flat. At some point in the future the penny may drop for the rest of us…
Peter
Off the edge probably
Starting with the assumption that a device does not do anything and asking for proof that it does, is not a sign of closed mindedness. It is a sign of not accepting information as truth based on subjective or anecdotal evidence alone.
Where the flat earth analogy applies is on the other side: trusting that information is true solely based on unverifiable, subjective experiences. “I know that device X works because i heard it” is the same as “I know the earth is flat because i’ve seen it”.
Ultimately, two things are important:
- You can’t proof a negative
We can’t proof that aliens don’t exist and similarly we can’t proof that a device doesn’t do anything. The burden of proof lies with the party making the positive assertion. If you claim that a device objectively works, then you need to prove it with more than just anecdotal evidence. Without verifiable evidence there is no difference between claiming that you saw a UFO or that a certain contraption noticeably improves sound quality.
- Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
A phrase made popular by Carl Sagan who reworded Laplace’s principle, which says that “the weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness” . This statement is at the heart of the scientific method, and a model for critical thinking, rational thought and skepticism everywhere.
No one who bases their world view on these principles would blindly accept the concept of a flat earth, since there is only subjective anecdotal evidence for it.
The same applies to a passive totem filled with some material to stick in unused ports of equipment claiming to improve sound quality.
It’s fine if someone says: “I don’t care about all of that, i only care if i personally hear a difference”. But they are then akin to the flat earther saying: “I don’t care about evidence, the earth looks flat to me and that’s all the evidence i need”.
I’m not sure that last para is true. Claiming the world is flat because of what you see also means you refute very significant evidence to the contrary. Hearing an improvement from a device is not the same at all unless there is significant scientific evidence that the device does not make an improvement. Frankly if I hear an improvement I have no need whatsoever to provide evidence because I don’t care whether anyone else believes the improvement is there anyway.
Jesus !
See what I did there?