[bigshot]

I think a lot of equipment manufacturers figure that if their product measures a little better than the competition, that is a selling point. It * is * better, regardless if that improvement makes any difference to human ears. If their customers want to write glowing testimonials claiming they hear night and day differences, it isn’t their job to argue with happy customers. So they pass along the glowing, baseless reviews without comment. They don’t have to outright lie if their customers do the lying for them. They just point to the small, imperceptible improvement in specs and let people make of that what they will.

It isn’t evil to just be an advocate for your product, right? You’re not responsible for claims made by customers, right?

 

[FunkyBassMan]

fallacies (science doesn’t know everything...)

"Science doesn't know everything" is a fallacy?

It's hard to imagine something more wrong.

 

[Ryokan]

That's not strictly true. Affluence is only an effect of a cause, the underlying cause is the mentality and circumstance. If this individual got into wealth through hard work and sound analysis, they might have spent that money on equipment with the highest rate of variance in quality, transducers for instance, instead of components that don't have as much of an effect. Someone who lucked out in the lottery might be more cavalier about that money because they don't have as much of an investment in the process of earning that money.

All different scenarios apply. Boutique cable makers sell to folk who like their products just for the look and feel.

 

[FunkyBassMan]

I think a lot of equipment manufacturers figure that if their product measures a little better than the competition, that is a selling point. It * is * better, regardless if that improvement makes any difference to human ears. If their customers want to write glowing testimonials claiming they hear night and day differences, it isn’t their job to argue with happy customers. So they pass along the glowing, baseless reviews without comment. They don’t have to outright lie if their customers do the lying for them. They just point to the small, imperceptible improvement in specs and let people make of that what they will.

It isn’t evil to just be an advocate for your product, right? You’re not responsible for claims made by customers, right?

Has any maker of any product in the history of the world been entirely forthcoming about all the plusses and minuses of their product?

It sounds like you need to take time away from this forum and start writing your representative in congress. Your beef is with capitalism.

 

[gregorio]

And yet there are still technical people designing and manufacturing those cables.
I want to know what motivates those technical people. Is it greed? Is it the lack of ethical jobs? I don't think I could work on something I know can't be true and claim it is true to sell it to Keith, DDS in Marina Del Rey.

This goes back to what I stated previously; in the vast majority of cases the technical people/engineers are doing the best they can with the resources they’re allocated and the design parameters they’re instructed. They have nothing to be ethically concerned about, they are not setting the retail price and they are not making claims to consumers, in fact in many cases they are legally precluded from discussing the product with anyone outside the company. There are some exceptions, a few of the smaller boutique audiophile manufacturers, where the owner is also the marketer and one of the engineers but that’s relatively rare, typically the public have no direct contact with the actual engineers.

I remember a famous exception sometime after Sony launched the SACD. The usual marketers/representatives couldn’t answer the technical questions many reviewers/the audio press had, so Sony organised a press conference with the head engineer of their SACD development team. It was all predictably quite technical but in the questions section at the end, he was asked if any listening testing was done and exactly what the audible benefits were (over CD). He replied they actually did quite extensive double blind testing, which had not identified any audible differences! He seemed unaware that this admission completely contradicted Sony’s own marketing and unsurprisingly, he never again spoke at a Sony press conference. A video of the event was available on YouTube many years ago but I haven’t been able to find it more recently.

G

 

[KinGensai]

All different scenarios apply. Boutique cable makers sell to folk who like their products just for the look and feel.

I do agree they look quite nice. I just don't want to spend transducer money on that lol.

 

[gregorio]

"Science doesn't know everything" is a fallacy?

“"Science doesn't know everything" (also "Science can't explain X") is an argument that asserts that, because of science's lack of knowledge about something, something else must be true. … The argument is an informal fallacy and a prime example of an argument from ignorance.” - RationalWiki (emphasis mine).

It's hard to imagine something more wrong.

Have you really never heard of the “Science doesn’t know everything“ fallacy, despite its widespread use? Are you not even able “to imagine” what it might mean when I’ve actually given it’s context as a fallacy, or even the ability to go and look it up if you lack both the knowledge AND the imagination? Wow!

G

 

[FunkyBassMan]

“"Science doesn't know everything" (also "Science can't explain X") is an argument that asserts that, because of science's lack of knowledge about something, something else must be true. …

Incorrect. "Science doesn't know everything" does not in any way "assert that lack of knowledge about something means something else must be true."

"Science doesn't know everything" is a statement of fact, and is unquestionably 100% accurate.

I will refrain from the personal insults that you always hurl.

 

[gregorio]

Incorrect. "Science doesn't know everything" does not in any way "assert that lack of knowledge about something means something else must be true."

So that’s a “No” then to both of my questions, even though I provided you the link. That’s funny lol!

G

 

[FunkyBassMan]

So that’s a “No” then to both of my questions, even though I provided you the link. That’s funny lol!

G

Ah, your usual "say the person said something they never said" tactic.

I'd recommend reading what things say. Is that too much to ask?

 

[gregorio]

Ah, your usual "say the person said something they never said" tactic.

You didn’t need to say it, you demonstrated it.

I'd recommend reading what things say.

What “things”, presumably not online encyclopaedias? lol.

G

 

[FunkyBassMan]

You didn’t need to say it

As you clearly enjoy arguing against things people don't say but that you invent, I'd recommend a mirror.

 

[KinGensai]

@gregorio
You are correct about argument from ignorance being a fallacy, but I don't think AussieMick is guilty of that one in particular because I don't see a positive claim in the quote that is reliant on an unproven negative claim, he's just claiming ignorance on the topic. The way I parse it, he's saying "I'm not sure DACs are transparent, so I will continue looking until I am", not "I'm not sure DACs are transparent, therefore they are not".

 

[bigshot]

"Science doesn't know everything" is a fallacy?
It's hard to imagine something more wrong.

Just because you don't know something, it doesn't mean nobody knows anything. Your ignorance isn't contagious (thank goodness!)

Has any maker of any product in the history of the world been entirely forthcoming about all the plusses and minuses of their product?

You were the one who said that "new and improved" always meant new and improved. I don't think you really have a point. You're just posting to be contrary.

 

[bigshot]

The way I parse it, he's saying "I'm not sure DACs are transparent, so I will continue looking until I am", not "I'm not sure DACs are transparent, therefore they are not".

I thought he said that he heard a difference so he believed that DACs weren't transparent. We've already pointed out how important controls are to prevent expectation bias and perceptual error, but he doesn't believe in those either. So he's in an endless loop of ignorance- he doesn't understand how it works and he won't do the one thing necessary to be able to understand.

Unless I'm mixing him up with another poster... that's possible. They all sound the same after a while. Whenever one of them says, "We don't know everything, so we can't know anything." I glaze over and stop paying attention.