(Not a) good explanation of jitter in TAS
Reply #34 – 2009-07-07 17:39:37
The purpose of marketing "information" is to provoke a feeling (a warm and positive non-rational response) toward a product or service. It has nothing whatsoever to do with rational thought and as such surely has no place on this forum. That goes for all marketing and PR. Elections are analogous to the audio world. The more money that is spent on marketing and PR the more the focus is on (a) personal feelings toward the individual candidate (do you like him, is he a stand-up guy, would you have a beer with him) as against (b) the party's manifesto (i.e. the substantive rational expression of policy). You can't enjoy a beer with healthcare policy. The same goes with audio. Very often what is called audiophile seems to me nothing more than the regurgitation of marketing / PR (a) whereas the focus at HA is (b) - rational and scientific information. The two are completely at odds with oneanother. All marketing is merely emotional manipulation, and often it's hard to fight against precisely because it bypasses the rational. Which is why many of the recent audiophile threads on HA are like yelling at someone that part of the car's spec is not a gorgeous woman and no, she won't fall in love with you even if you do buy it. If someone has fallen in love with the fantasy (e.g. the audiophile and his cables), rationality is not going to cure them, because that's the very thing they've chosen to abandon to gain the warm fuzziness of their delusions. The sale and marketing of real world phenomena for profit (e. g. Coca Cola) makes sense. Well it makes sense in the same way as "a criminal is someone with insufficient capital to form a corporation" makes sense. It "makes sense" when conscience is removed from the equation, and consciences don't get incorporated. But in fact, it has the opposite effect - it makes nonsense , in that it profoundly distorts market mechanisms, which rely on rational choices based on as close as possible to perfect information (i.e. hard spec style data) about products and services. I think it would be helpful to make a stronger connection between the way businesses sell their products (marketing) and all this irrational BS that keeps popping up on HA - they are profoundly connected IMO. C. [EDIT: grammar]