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FOT Community => Links => Topic started by: Pat K on October 15, 2009, 03:33:33 PM

Title: "New Hope For The Ape-Eared" in real life
Post by: Pat K on October 15, 2009, 03:33:33 PM
This entire site is completely insane, but the "Brilliant Pebbles" stereo mod here takes the cake. They are selling little bags of rocks for between $39-$159 that you are supposed to tape to your stereo cables to make them sound better:

http://machinadynamica.com/machina31.htm

My favorite quote from the customer comments section: "I don't necessarily understand how they work, but I hear the difference they make."
Title: Re: "New Hope For The Ape-Eared" in real life
Post by: Christina on October 15, 2009, 03:41:05 PM
This entire site is completely insane, but the "Brilliant Pebbles" stereo mod here takes the cake. They are selling little bags of rocks for between $39-$159 that you are supposed to tape to your stereo cables to make them sound better:


Is this like that weird thing where you're supposed to take a marker and draw around the edges of your CDs to make them sound better?
Title: Re: "New Hope For The Ape-Eared" in real life
Post by: colonel panic on October 15, 2009, 03:42:11 PM
this is too good.

"We employ a number of highly-specialized, proprietary techniques in the preparation/assembly of Brilliant Pebbles to enhance the crystals' inherent characteristics."

This entire site is completely insane, but the "Brilliant Pebbles" stereo mod here takes the cake. They are selling little bags of rocks for between $39-$159 that you are supposed to tape to your stereo cables to make them sound better:

http://machinadynamica.com/machina31.htm

My favorite quote from the customer comments section: "I don't necessarily understand how they work, but I hear the difference they make."

Title: Re: "New Hope For The Ape-Eared" in real life
Post by: yesno on October 15, 2009, 03:47:50 PM
1996 Daniel Goleman VITAL LIES SIMPLE TRUTHS: The Psychology of Self Deception, Simon & Schuster, ISBN 978-0684831077, page 24

Quote
"I stole the word from Molière," Bateson once explained to me. "At the end of his Bourgois Gentilhomme, there is a dog-Latin coda in which a group of medieval doctors are giving an oral quiz to a candidate for his oral exam. They ask him, 'Why is it, candidate, that opium puts people to sleep?' And the candidate triumphantly replies, 'Because, learned doctors, it contains a 'dormitive principle.'" That is to say, it puts people to sleep because it puts people to sleep.

I stole the quote from here.   http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dormitive_principle

The "dormitive principle" example is pretty common in intro epistemology/philosophy of science courses.

Apparently these rocks have a "make things sound good" nature.
Title: Re: "New Hope For The Ape-Eared" in real life
Post by: colonel panic on October 15, 2009, 03:54:17 PM
The same company (and now my favorite love-to-hate company), Machina Dynamica, also produces a Clever Little Clock. Which is a Timex clock w/ a sticker on it:

http://www.sciencepunk.com/2006/11/machina-dynamicas-clever-little-clock/

Title: Re: "New Hope For The Ape-Eared" in real life
Post by: Pat K on October 15, 2009, 04:21:22 PM
They also sell plastic covers for all the wall outlets in your "listening room" that are made out of some kind of special plastic that's supposed to make your music sound better. ($30 a piece)

I love how it's a given that the minute atomic properties of these little rocks are supposed to have such a huge positive effect on your sound quality, but the plastic bags and scotch tape(!) all over the place apparently have no negative effects.

...Or, for example, the clothes you're wearing. I wonder if any of these audiophiles stand nude in the middle of their "listening rooms" to avoid the sound-dampening effects of synthetic fabrics? Now that I think about it, they'd probably buy some sort of special "sound clothes" to wear instead.

(Now I'm going to go on google and see if anyone's thought of that yet. If not...KA-CHING!!)
Title: Re: "New Hope For The Ape-Eared" in real life
Post by: Pat K on October 15, 2009, 04:28:06 PM
The same company (and now my favorite love-to-hate company), Machina Dynamica, also produces a Clever Little Clock. Which is a Timex clock w/ a sticker on it:

http://www.sciencepunk.com/2006/11/machina-dynamicas-clever-little-clock/

Customer comment about the Clever Little Clock:

"The sound is more open, liquid and organic. Very interesting."

Is this guy even talking about music anymore?
Title: Re: "New Hope For The Ape-Eared" in real life
Post by: buffcoat on October 15, 2009, 10:38:39 PM
Existence is suffering.
The origin of suffering is desire.