Snake oil thread

My old boss, who's a good guy with good taste in music and equipment, just bought a $2k USB cable. He was skeptical but decided to keep it after a 30-day trial.

I really couldn't imagine buying such a thing, but if it makes you happy?

But, yeah, pricey cables, fancy power strips, ethernet filters... Not for me. They're just... boring.

I've bought a few slightly more expensive RCA and speaker cables, but I really can't be arsed to AB that kinda stuff.

 

I’m definitely a more tweak-y guy on the whole than probably is the mean for SBAF but man, unsure if anything has made me want to nope out of the hobby recently more than the hype around QSA fuses and “treatments” and like all sorts of junk (e.g 50 cent ground lifter plugs) with tactically placed gem stones and maybe carbon based strips on them that they’re charging 5k and above for. Just a Chinese company blatantly ripping all these ORFAS dudes off with the “but the R&D!” excuse when confronted on price and the ORFAS dudes are still “I know, but just trust me bro” over them. They’re literally working on a 10k fuse that is moar betterer than the 5k one because they know they have a market now. It’s like a parody of itself.


^$7k


^$5k “PowerJitter Power Conditioner”

You can’t make this stuff up.

 

Somebody could raid the clearance bin at a hardware store for "product development" and make a killing.

 

Box o' dirt (or should I say ground?) anyone? https://www.ebay.com/itm/ENTREQ-Min...8-b036-474a-902e-33e6375c48df&redirect=mobile

 

Ahhh... the good old grounding boxes.

Earth is just earth, right? So why not put it in a wooden box.

 

The video is hilarious. Dude can barely breath he's so enamored by this power strip's German engineering.

 

I wouldn't laugh too much at the video nor commentator.

 

Why? I thought the combination of music and commentator were humorous. I can't take back laughs that were laughed.

Edit: As the video was on the product page I assumed it was made by the creator of the product. My apologies if he's a nice guy and not related to the company. I still find the video humorous.

 

Hmmm... I find it ridiculous. Although, when he gasps "breathtaking," at the end, one supposes he had to stop filming to wipe the semen off his super-classy extension box.

The music was quite nice. I usually hate background music on a speech video. This one would have better without the speech.

 

Why? Does he know where we live?

 

The late Peter Breuninger of avshowrooms

 

Here's one I came across

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/dollar500-audiophile-sata-ssd-cable-with-superstar-crystals-listed

Here's the description in the ebay listing

Item description from the seller
The best SATA cable ever made, but also the last one; we can't build more of it because the crystals are depleted from planet Earth! I have been using it in my system for 4 years, but it's still in excellent condition. The cable is 0.5m long with standard SATA 3.0 connectors. Internally it has our classic Superstar Crystal Formula which is optimized for source components, so it's perfect for the computer. The ends are built from wood and black quartz crystals for extra strength. The tubing is 25mm thick and contains twice the Crystal Formula over the 20mm version.

And here on youtube is the sellers response to the tomshardware article. This is even more crazy as he talks about the size of the plastic conduit, the crystals "clean" the sound and the 100 rocks on his dac to improve the sound; ok, maybe there is some damping that could occur, but his description is how it "cleans the sound. Black rocks are recommended for the amp and colored rocks for the DAC.

 

Oh man, Audiophile Rocks/Patrick is like the OG tweak grifter dude. He has been going at it for years now. Gotta hand it to him for persistence, I guess.

He was selling a 1 million USD power cable at one point out of his flat in Eastern Europe. Had a ton of bizarre videos on his channel about his “proprietary” slow lifting exercise technique, equally bizarre photos with semi nude models posing with his ridiculous looking frosted garden hose power cables covering their bits etc. Dude seems a little off.

 

That, I suppose, is one way of putting it!


Wonderful write-up from Tom's Hardware.

About the author:

And beyond.... Far beyond!

 

wait, this is OG Patrick82??

 

Was thinking the same. His posts on Head-fi are legendary
It has to be the same dude tbh, the chances of another person that not only is an audiophile, but also acts like him are quite slim.

 

Yep, the same.

 

We posted at the same time haha.
I remember reading that he used Nordost Valhalla power cords as in wall cables or something like that, among many other things. Truly entertaining ngl.

 

Holy shit man. LMAO

 

Would buy these. https://boingboing.net/2023/03/07/these-weird-headphones-are-for-cleaning-out-ear-wax.html
(graphic wax flushing scene near the end of the video)
Although not really snake oil.

 

"some people are selfish and they care more about their money than their sound" - Patrick

He must occasionally sell some stuff for him to have kept doing it for so long. I find his antics hilarious, tbh.


Is there any sound logic behind CD treatments like the auric illuminator? My guess would be no if you didn't have issues prior, but what do I know without having tried? Do CD players wind up doing a lot of work over normal levels of surface imperfection?