Russ Andrews fined by the Advertising Standards Authority

[Evil Emperor]

No. No it doesn't. I have built an electric circuit with defined physical characteristics, and they are proved science fact, it's been written up and accepted by the scientific community. You may as well say "you can't prove an amplifier makes things louder". Yes I can. Set up the test gear, turn the volume dial, coo look it gets louder, my decibel meter proves it. I can't prove the brakes on my car work? Yes I can, I take it to an MoT station and a trained, approved technician uses established known-science testing and a rolling road to demonstrate that they work, and he dishes out a pass certificate. That's proof. There is no collateral damage, except to bad science and false claims.

No, it's more like making the claim that two similar amplifiers sound different to one another. The first part of the ruling points to ABX testing to substantiate the claims made about mains-borne RFI. AFAIK, the claims you are ascribing to these filters have not been ABX tested (irrespective of other objective tests made, the ASA ruling is specific on this) and therefore would be rejected pending more substantial tests.

So no, no get-out clause.

 

[Rasher]

Saying that Russ Andrews was "fined" is as misleading as a Russ Andrews advert. "Slapped" would be a little more accurate

If you are being literal, then probably no, it isn't

 

[Evil Emperor]

The ASA disagree.

No, they don't.

If Barry Dumbass independently pipes up that he thinks a cable sounds like Manna from Heaven, the company can legitimately quote Mr Dumbass in their literature. Even if his claims are at odds with real-world science.

Do you see any legitimate doctors or medical researchers praising 'the Circulation Booster' on those telemarketing ads? No, you get "My old mum comes round to have her feet zapped" claims from a nobody to legitimate something that may or may not have an effect.

 

[Steven Toy]

The ASA disagree.

How?

 

[colasblue]

I really hope this is the thin end of the wedge!

IMO almost 90% of what hifi manufacturers say in an attempt to create unique selling points for their particular thing is complete and utter arse.

strangely most of my purchases in recent years have been pro equipment which usually comes with the slogan "it doesn't look all that pretty but is reasonably priced and does exactly what it says on the box"

I'm looking forward to this new honesty in marketing.

The exotic high end hifi slogan " buy this blingy thingy which looks very shiney, but was in fact developed in somebody's garage with a minimal amount of anything which could be described as rigorous scientific measurement, and which will sell in very small quantities since objectively it isn't actually very good"

or the budget hi fi slogan "but our substandard chinese made rectangular box rather than theirs because ours does more, costs less, and will work for at least one more week than the guarantee period"

But best of all the cabling one.

"expensive piece of wire which has some fancy connectors and a colourful sheath, but actually sounds exactly the same as an ordinary piece of wire because there is only one type of copper in the world and only a limiited number of cable fabrication techniques"


PS if you think Andrews has made a good living out of foo check out Noel Lee of monster cable fame! One of his "spare" Bentleys was blinged up on one of those car programs you get on Sky.

 

[barrymidd]

There is a lot of sense being talked on this thread at the moment! I can almost "feel" some pfmers creeping over to the Naim forum for a relieving massage of bullshit.
Only Joking!

 

[Evil Emperor]

In the interests of not having this site sued out of all existence, I suggest the last sentence of post #45 be removed fast and stay on topic.

 

[stevec67]

So no, no get-out clause.

Yes there is.

You are arguing black is white.

RA said "reduced RFI, reduced distortion". These are neasurable. He claimed to have test reults. He didn't. The ASA said so. This is after RA had ample time to get his act together and prove it.

"My" filters are established science. It's as measurable as the effect of a resistor in an electric circuit. It's been written up half a century ago. You may as well argue against Ohm's Law. Can I prove it? Yes, pass the oscilloscope. That's the get-out clause, I can prove that a Delta filter reduces spikes on the mains and audible pops, because I can measure it with test equipment in such a way that nobody can argue against it.

 

[wwelly]

I have no problem with him trying to sell whatever he wants, its just making claims in adverts that you cant backup or prove that is a problem...

Sam

And at the same time Apple claim the iPad is "Magical" in their ads....
So when do they get their turn with the ASA?

http://www.apple.com/au/ipad/

 

[Nik]

Well, ain't this the pyrrhic victory...

What's been achieved here? Russ and the audio industry gets its knuckles rapped, redesigns its advertising to point at the shiny shiny instead of the sciency sciency, and any investigation into mains pollution stops dead in its tracks in the UK. This has happened just at the time when the greatest potential mains polluter - the PC - gets to snuggle up to the hi-fi system.


I know there's more to this RF thing than meets the eye - how come my system sucks whenever I have the laptop plugged into the same power distribution block as the rest of my system, even when I'm not using the laptop as a source component? How come it doesn't suck when it's run off a different distribution block? Am I suddenly supposed to ignore this because it flies in the face of the ASA ruling?

This seems to be an obvious repeatable thing for you. All you need is something objective to support it. I'm sure Russ Andrews, plus anyone else selling Kimber or other "audiophile" mains cables, would love to get their hands on it. Obviously, they've failed to find anything objective so far. How hard can it be?

 

[barrymidd]

If Barry Dumbass independently pipes up .

I resemble that remark!

 

[Nik]

Not sure where you are getting your prices from, but the link in the article points here:
http://www.russandrews.com/product....&customer_id=PAA1237014111701KYWGGSXPYLGKRJPJ
Starting at £1,250.00.

Sam

Didn't see that one. I searched for PowerKord Russ Andrews and I saw this (scroll to bottom). So "Other products in the range" is, in fact, missing one or more. It has to be this one, but the same claim is made for the much cheaper ones anyway. Which ones do the ASA refer to?

 

[Nik]

I have no problem with him trying to sell whatever he wants, its just making claims in adverts that you cant backup or prove that is a problem...

Sam

Well, it's not just him. It's Kimber and it's everyone who sells Kimber. It's all the other "audiophile cable" makers and who sells them It's all the hi-fi mags that review these and claim obvious audible improvements.

 

[Ptah]

To answer a question above about Naim's Powerline: "The Power-Line brings gains in all areas of system performance....it represents a striking and significant upgrade...."
Vague enough to be reasonable! This user can provide anecdotal evidence that it works wonders in his system - far better than the Nordost cables which preceded it.

It might help The Register's credibility if they could spell words like 'resistor' and 'effect' ...

 

[Cav]

The issue is not whether a mains cable makes a difference or not for that is subjective, it is manufacturers making objective claims they cannot substantiate.

If there is no objective evidence that a cable can make a difference, then any subjective difference is down to the gullibility of those buying it - and the more they spend the more gullible they become?

 

[Cav]

To answer a question above about Naim's Powerline: "The Power-Line brings gains in all areas of system performance....it represents a striking and significant upgrade...."
Vague enough to be reasonable! This ...

Probably not - where is the objective evidence?

 

[darrylfunk]

what cables do the ASA recommend?

 

[stevec67]

It won't affect the mags. It will affect other manufacturers and quite right too.

If I say "my 75% thicker cables have half the resistance of thin ones, this makes the sound better" then it's easy to disprove. If I just have Ethel saying her foot-activator works wonders on her arthritis, then that's OK.

The mags are OK because they print a couple of easily verifiable facts "the new cable is red. It has copper inside." and then follow on with 2 pages of subjective shite about what it did for perceived frequency extremes and musicality when they listened to it. That's fine, we can filter out the verifiable facts from the magazine-selling nonsense ourselves, and if we choose not to then it's not as if the mag has anything to gain from this belief.

 

[Evil Emperor]

Yes there is.

You are arguing black is white.

RA said "reduced RFI, reduced distortion". These are neasurable. He claimed to have test reults. He didn't. The ASA said so. This is after RA had ample time to get his act together and prove it.

"My" filters are established science. It's as measurable as the effect of a resistor in an electric circuit. It's been written up half a century ago. You may as well argue against Ohm's Law. Can I prove it? Yes, pass the oscilloscope. That's the get-out clause, I can prove that a Delta filter reduces spikes on the mains and audible pops, because I can measure it with test equipment in such a way that nobody can argue against it.

Not quite. RA presented test results that were rejected by the ASA's experts, with the proviso that an ABX test should be considered the final arbiter of legitimacy.

So, it doesn't really matter how much you can measure or what you can measure, because this ruling has laid down that it all comes down to ABX testing, and if such tests have not been run, any claims made regarding the efficacy of a filter would not be allowed to be advertised as such.

Forget Ohm's Law. You could have Ohm and Volta and Faraday themselves on your side, any claims made would need to be backed up by listening tests and if you don't got them, you don't got an advertising campaign.

 

[Evil Emperor]

This seems to be an obvious repeatable thing for you. All you need is something objective to support it. I'm sure Russ Andrews, plus anyone else selling Kimber or other "audiophile" mains cables, would love to get their hands on it. Obviously, they've failed to find anything objective so far. How hard can it be?

Judging by how crappy my system sounds when my laptop is on the same distribution block, if there's nothing objective that can be found, I'd say we are testing the wrong things.