Ok, you might be used to the increasing preponderance of audiophile snakeoil turning up on computers (jplayer, anyone?), but this one temporarily deprived me of the ability to speak:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/817872/testing-changes-that-could-affect-audio-performance-with-different-file-copying-software
Surely no-one can be that dishonest/stupid? It has to be trolling, right? <whimpers>
This is common knowledge. At the Computeraudiophile forum these things are long known. The audio canal heroes over there use special, selected USB sticks powered by ultimate linear PSUs. You also need approved 1-port USB hubs for such copy processes. Being way above the age of 70 helps also.
That's just sad...
At least the 1st response is logical.
Just as a Star Trek transporter essentially kills you by deconstructing you down at the subatomic level, so too are your music files irrevocably destroyed once you copy/move the data to other locations...
...but downloading them over the internet is fine.
"I know this sounds a bit hard to believe, but it’s true because I have no idea how computers work."
"I know this sounds a bit hard to believe, but it’s true because I have no idea how computers work."
Exactly this! This way you can trust your ears only. Knowlegde creates a negative bias that prevents us from hearing the real things.
Most likely an add for an even more magic disk refresher.
Most likely an add for an even more magic disk refresher.
I'm guessing so, as it's from the "Fidelizer" people- trying to sneak in an on-forum spam without paying to be a "sponsor". More woowoo lies to try to fleece the technologically illiterate.
I like how the author pre-emptively dismissed foobar2000 as an ABX tool. Very smooth!
The proof of how powerful cognitive biases are.
Inability to think rationally and scientific illiteracy also don't really help in that situation.
"done without pretense"
I've seen this excuse used for not performing a properly controlled test here as well.
That's just sad...
At least the 1st response is logical.
So is another one, a few posts down:
My BS meter just exploded!
At least we can infer that many out there are fortunately not buying into all that BS, so ludicrous it is.
>"many" out there
Head-fi has a history of banning people who are rational. That can't possibly help the ratio.
There was a similar post at HeadFi that i had a good go at shutting down.
http://www.head-fi.org/t/755060/drastic-sound-quality-improvement-rewrite-data-audiophile-software-from-japan
Ok, you might be used to the increasing preponderance of audiophile snakeoil turning up on computers (jplayer, anyone?), but this one temporarily deprived me of the ability to speak:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/817872/testing-changes-that-could-affect-audio-performance-with-different-file-copying-software
Surely no-one can be that dishonest/stupid? It has to be trolling, right? <whimpers>
Two words: Sighted Evaluation. It is interesting how placebophiles (Thanks Greynol for that word) talk themselves out of the obvious and well-known solution to their self-induced conundrum. As a fairly successful trial lawyer told me: People read what they want to read, hear what they want to hear, and believe what they want to believe.
Someone please tell this clown that the "review" of the data rewrite software he linked talks about analog music, and that this does not apply to digital data.
Also, please explain RAID and checksumming (in filesystems or files themselves, see FLAC) to him and how a read error would look like and how a silently corrupted block in an audio file would sound like.
Basically, give this man a Computers for Dummies book.
I somehow can't believe he does not know enough basics. He most likely is fishing for people that go beyond.
The computeraudiophile crowd is a fact. There's a market: people are going to sell them stuff that they think they want to buy.
When a bunch of people get together to fantasize about snake oil, snake oil sellers will materialise.
I somehow can't believe he does not know enough basics. He most likely is fishing for people that go beyond.
The Placbophile crowd feels only the need to understand the evidence of their ears (in sighted evaluations).
Biased? Not a chance! ;-)
...but downloading them over the internet is fine.
Avoid BitTorrent though. You do not want file segments that have been through different hard drives (and even worse, different file copiers on different OSes). Unless you could get your hand on the virgin file from the studio, you will unfortunately have to do one copying operation - but that does not mean you want to BitTorrent your way to every STD in the universe.
...but downloading them over the internet is fine.
Avoid BitTorrent though. You do not want file segments that have been through different hard drives (and even worse, different file copiers on different OSes). Unless you could get your hand on the virgin file from the studio, you will unfortunately have to do one copying operation - but that does not mean you want to BitTorrent your way to every STD in the universe.
Avoid anything that even smells like packet switching! ;-)
Back in the earyl 1970s one of the first packet switched computer networks, Tymnet, was grasping for credibility. Some (mostly management types) could not understand how all those packets from all those hosts and clients could be sent down the same wire and then disentangled at the other end. The techie response was that if it worked for object code that had to be bit perfect to work at all, it must be good enough for text files and all the rest.
The standard way to connect computers in those days involved dedicated digital lines that processed serial binary data. A modem connection is an example of such a thing. When one needed to exceed the capabilities of modems and voice grade lines, one signed up for a so-called dedicated lines that was synchronous at its core. Time division multiplexing was used to move fixed collections of multiple slower lines over long distances.
Modern placebophiles are merely locked into the mid-late 60s. Perhaps coincidentally, they also seem to favor the standard high performance audio media of the day - LPs, and the standard high performance audio components of the day - tubes.
Noticing biases in other fields, I think some significant portion of it comes down to tribalism. Whatever group the person identifies with just has to right. Reasoning and evidence getting too far outside the group norm are to be avoided at all costs. Logic be darned. The data must be wrong if it doesn't agree with the ideology.
As far as digital data storage/copying works, until data integrity is maintained (by CRC and other standard error correcting mechanisms - like in general data), the digital path could not be a cause of described phenomenons. If the data integrity is not maintained then the storage subsystem has a problem and the user will have issues with other files too, not only with audio.
>"many" out there
Head-fi has a history of banning people who are rational. That can't possibly help the ratio.
My bad for posting that whilst nodding off in front of the PC when it was past bed time.
All this blatant snake oil peddling reminds me of program shown on BBC2 this week, delving into the happy-go-lucky world of so called "clean diets":
Every time any miraculous bloggers', vloggers' or other similarly unqualified person's boisterous claim were put through their paces by either a dietitian or nutritionist, they were instantaneously deemed as nothing more than BS. With even one or two founders of some of those
cults diets being currently either imprisoned or facing serious charges or professing medicine without a degree.
I guess when it comes to charlatanism there will aways be three sides to each story:
- the
charlatans themselves, who either have overt financial interest into divulging said bad science or somehow hint at its benefits expecting this way, to create a trend;
-
science-abiding folks, who prefer to stick to good old empirical science - either by educating themselves or just heeding to science per se, as defended by previous researches;
- the
suckers, who will believe at anything that has a mysterious aura to them - the more fantastic it is, the more effective it probably is and therefore, the more expensive it must be.
Post it on 3 different forums, get people involved, exchange PMs with with the chosen ones -> market created.
I bet several forum lurkers can't sleep well in the wait of J-Copy :)
One reason more such threads should rot in the recycler as early as possible.
>"many" out there
Head-fi has a history of banning people who are rational. That can't possibly help the ratio.
Been there, done that. Ditto for DIY Audio.
As far as digital data storage/copying works, until data integrity is maintained (by CRC and other standard error correcting mechanisms - like in general data), the digital path could not be a cause of described phenomenons. If the data integrity is not maintained then the storage subsystem has a problem and the user will have issues with other files too, not only with audio.
I guess reading the comments around here that make no sense in the light of that true factoid, the ludicrousness of worrying about bit rot on modern error-detecting, error-correcting media is both obvious to some of us and bears repeating to the great unwashed.
I found the thread starter at Head-Fi, WindowsX already is part of the bits are never the same elite and already reached Superpowers cetification. Identical File hearers (http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/everything-matters-29725/index3.html#post578840)
Did he forget Barry Diament?
Did he forget Barry Diament?
He surely is listed as Barry D
Well of course he is. One can't fallaciously argue from authority about bits not being bits without also including Barry D. Did he also include Marlene?
Ok, you might be used to the increasing preponderance of audiophile snakeoil turning up on computers (jplayer, anyone?), but this one temporarily deprived me of the ability to speak:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/817872/testing-changes-that-could-affect-audio-performance-with-different-file-copying-software
Surely no-one can be that dishonest/stupid? It has to be trolling, right? <whimpers>
Head-fi is at again I see.
I stopped using it a long time ago but I bet you there's a wav vs flac thread somewhere there too.