Chord GroundARAY - brilliant or bollocks?

I’m sure after this week, on duty in the streaming audio room as she has been, she needs Christmas! There are only so many ways to say politely “read the bloody instructions!”

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Well…. Everything that Bedini wrote about their clarifier struck me as only very slightly less fanciful than the musings of the Witchfinder General, but it worked, often making unplayable discs and video games playable, never mind anything else. Bring back Rumsfeld and the unknowable unknowns - just because you think you know how it works doesn’t mean that’s how it works…

At least when googling the Bendini :snake: :oil_drum: I learned about the Machina Dynamica Clever Little Clock and their other revolutionary products, so not a waste :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

Well said.

I built my own Bedini. Don’t know how it worked, I don’t know why it worked, I just know it worked.

What I don’t understand, is why do people fear the unknown.

Why is it a problem that the products haven’t been scientifically proven effective?

Yes, that’s a great name, or is that a naim.
I found spherical pots worked so much better than other shapes, standing waves are cancelled, no resonance peeks or troughs, practically a flat frequency response.

I’ll look into the Golden Nugget upgrade, but not sure how that might react being non-magnetic. However on the same lines, I‘ve found an ironstone pot upgrade is possible with a sachet of rare earth added to the premium grade potting compost.

I’ve found a specialist pot maker who can make quantity batches at £10ea.
If I cryo treat the pots, paint mat black & an olive green top ring, they should be able to retail in the £1500 region.

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I’ve been at the theatre tonight to see The Long Song, a new play. Absolutely great. While I was out being cultured you saddos were trying to come up with silly names for an alternative grounding products. What a pathetic display. Golden Nuggets? Rubbish. As most seem to agree that the whole concept is bollocks, there is only one name - Ground Nuts. I claim the IPR and the massive profits that will surely flow. I’m going to use matured horse droppings as the filler as I believe the alignment of the fibrous content will better channel the unwanted HF elements safely to ground, in a way that compost would not. I’m working on a prototype, but stuffing horse droppings into my used enemas is proving challenging.

Bran new, eh?

We’ve found a great Mexican restaurant for the next time you’re down here…

If a product doesn’t really do anything it’s probably not worth spending any time or money on?

Or, similar to the reasons we don’t want to give homeopathic medicines to cancer patients, even though millions of people (still) believe in their efficacy and it’s a multi billion dollar global market. Believing that something works is not the same thing as something actually working.

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Doing something and being proven scientifically to do that thing are different.

The entire dental floss industry is based on a premise which has never been scientifically demonstrated as true. The US government was forced to remove its recommendation to floss because it’s benefit is not supported by science. Dentists continue to recommend flossing to patients completely unaware of the fact it’s never been proven to benefit oral health.

Many pharmaceuticals have been scientifically proven to be effective but scientists don’t know why they work.

So dental floss is snake oil and many drugs are magic.

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Fair enough, i guess in our case we mainly care that a product does something, rather than nothing.

Scientific (objective) is just the manner in which we can do tests to confirm this, since purely subjective reports about efficacy are not always reliable, and they also often can be contradictive when it comes to audiophile products. So a first step is to determine if anything at all is objectively taking place.

Though of course in the case of illness the power of the mind can be very significant (psychosomatic) - maybe true for hifi too?

Flossing can certainly remove/reduce food residues between the teeth, which can reduce bacterial decay of the same in the mouth, with its adverse effect on breath odour. I presume you’re challenging the theory that removing decaying food from contact with the teeth reduces attack on tooth enamel or on dentine beneath if the enamel is already porous? (I have no knowledge as to whether that is proven.)

Most psychosomatic effects in health are temporary, it would be interesting to have more data about this for Hifi. :blush:

Is that the Padded Cell beckoning……?

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For our next ‘how can’t they work’ thread we’ll look at those speaker isolator feet. Which also convert in their case vibrations (mechanical energy) into heat!

Can’t be much heat, eh?

As a person uninterested in expending effort on optimizing hifi, I’m not the target audience for this thingy or any other tweaky item. Broadly these products claim to improve sound quality which is likely the only thing that matters to potential consumers. While sound quality might have some objective meaning (it doesn’t IMO), “improved sound quality” is absolutely subjective. Subjective testing is the only way to determine if it actually improves sound quality.

There is evidence that placebo/nocebo effects are real. So it is possible for this thingy to improve sound quality while not doing anything quantifiable. It’s also possible to degrade sound quality while doing something which theoretically should be beneficial.

Only problem I see with these things is that they tend to enforce perpetual discontent. This thread is a good example of the phenomenon. Most people can’t reasonably afford these marginal tweaks. A set of this majority will believe these things do work but can never experience it personally. A subset of the unfortunate believers will accrue discontent from the mere existence of these things. The 5% that can benefit from these things are offset by the 10% that are damaged. So we end up with a net negative impact. The numbers are clearly unknown but I’m sure it’s always a negative.

Not much can be done about all this until we destroy capitalism and institute a Dictatorship of the Proletariat. When I’m appointed Chairman, these things will not exist and the proles will have Bartoks and the previous members of the bourgeoisie will have Bartoks with minor cosmetic imperfections. Until then money will continue to flow to entities with better information.

Workers of the world unite!

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I’m stating the fact that flossing has never been scientifically proven to be beneficial.

I’m not taking a position on the merits of flossing.

Christ, this is tedious.

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Rather than blaspheming, why not add something useful, or simply ignore the thread? It’s not compulsory to slag things off.

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