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What HiFi Throw Down The Gauntlet.

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maxflinn said:
It seems clear to me that all the anti-Foo talk on fora has impacted Foo sales and this is WHF trying to do their bit to help get Foo sales moving again.

It is absolutely disgraceful that a consumer magazine would behave in this way.
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Why do you think foo sales are falling? An alternative scenario might be that after 40 years of unsuccessfully trying to sell foo into consumer sectors other home audio HDMI cable are finally leading the break out.

It is interesting that the UK magazines are becoming more open in pushing foo in a way that leaves them wide open to getting called.
 
adamdea said:
It seems sensible at this point to link to Channel 4's tricks on the trade, which aired on Monday on how people are persuaded to buy HDMI cables

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/shop-secrets-tricks-of-the-trade/4od
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Cheers for that, Adam, I've mailed the link to a mate who will post it on WHF.

As a magazine covering AV including HDMI cables one might wonder whether WHF should be covering this?
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A nice thought :).

By the way
1) guess what happens in the "blind" test (later on in the show)
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They may have been too stressed to pick the best one :cool:

2) Max, you are going to love their expert witness Adrian Mars.
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What a great guy :p.
 
h.g. said:
Why do you think foo sales are falling? An alternative scenario might be that after 40 years of unsuccessfully trying to sell foo into consumer sectors other home audio HDMI cable are finally leading the break out.

It is interesting that the UK magazines are becoming more open in pushing foo in a way that leaves them wide open to getting called.
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Lately, every time someone starts a thread on a forum asking about digital cables they are told that they can't make a difference (quite rightly, obviously) and that differences are down to expectation bias (again, quite rightly) so I assume that sales of boutique digital cables will be affected by this.

I think the WHF article is designed to counter this and possibly keep cable sellers that advertise in the mag happy.
 
maxflinn said:
Lately, every time someone starts a thread on a forum asking about digital cables they are told that they can't make a difference (quite rightly, obviously) and that differences are down to expectation bias (again, quite rightly) so I assume that sales of boutique digital cables will be affected by this.

I think the WHF article is designed to counter this and possibly keep cable sellers that advertise in the mag happy.
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I think you have a wildly inflated view of your & PFM Polizei's impact on the world at large...
 
Dowser said:
I think you have a wildly inflated view of your & PFM Polizei's impact on the world at large...
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Yes and no. Looks like there is a bit of differentiation happening. Seems technology-related and pro audio forums are becoming increasingly foo-free, while pure audiophile forums are getting more extremely entrenched in the "trust your ears, ignore the man in the white coat hiding behind the curtain" message.
 
Seeing as how the alpha nerds are all gathered in one place, I'd like to ask a question:

I am going to a formal dinner tonight and I am not sure what suit colour is formal enough?

Both a blue suit and a grey suit have similar levels of reflectivity and/or light absorption, but under double-blind conditions there is no identifiable difference between a dark suit and a bright pink suit with leopard skin lapels. I guess I could just go with what I think suits me, but that sounds dangerously subjective.

Similarly, if I am offered a choice of foods, I am concerned about precisely how should I select what I eat, given that I will be unable to send the combustible produce off for laboratory analysis during the meal. This means that I may have to rely on my own decision-making process to extract the correct nutritional value from the meal, and I understand that our sensory mechanics are extremely unreliable, so I may find myself faced with a prawn when a tomato is called for. How do you cope in such a scenario?

I would not wish to make a mistake here, because objectively poor nutrition for the sake of subjectively 'tasty' food sounds like a terrible idea. Worse still, the idea might spread, and we'll find people eating for 'enjoyment', and all that might entail.

Life is pretty difficult for those of us not so scientifically evolved as you guys. We have to make decisions based entirely without instrumentation, and based instead on 'liking stuff' all the time. How do we cope?
 
Alan Sircom said:
We have to make decisions based entirely without instrumentation, and based instead on 'liking stuff' all the time. How do we cope?
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I guess I should just program a function key on my keyboard to automatically produce the paragraph "Everybody is OK with you picking the things you like - the problem is when you claim your own subjective preference is somehow universally valid, and it gets even worse when you use pseudoscience and erroneous logic to try to justify your choice".

But on the other hand, no matter how often it is repeated, it seems to be a concept that just doesn't come across...
 
Alan if pfm should come up in discussion , there is a thread on what to collectively call posters, in the off topic room . Not surprising my suggestion is my favourite .
 
Alan, prawn or tomato, whatever you choose just be sure not to pay more for a plate promised to make either taste nicer ;)
 
Dowser said:
I think you have a wildly inflated view of your & PFM Polizei's impact on the world at large...
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Let's ignore PFM and everyone on it for a minute, in fact let's keep out of hifi which let's face it is a minority concern.

Looking at HDMI cables, which lots and lots of ordinary punters are buying in ordinary high st shops . There is a big market for selling ordinary punters expensive HDMI cables which are sold in those ordinary High St shops.

I have already linked to a Channel 4 program and a Chnnel 5 program both of which give unequivocal advice (except perhaps over long lengths or in wall). Now look at a report by Which

http://www.which.co.uk/news/2010/02/no-need-for-expensive-scart-and-hdmi-leads-204691/

Although it may not be front page news, it's quite clear that responsible and authoritative publications have plainly stated that HDMI cables do not change the way pictures look on a tv screen as long as they are working.

There are many other sources on the net for blind test and technical tests

The interesting thing is that What Hifi seems to take a different line. Is it the interests of its advertisers which sway it? if so why does the same not appear to be the case for the Gadget Show which is sponsored by Currys/PC World

Could it be connected with
1) weakness in the market
2) dependence on fewer advertisers taken from a smaller pool
3) perhaps having a readership which doesn't really want to hear certain things.
4) sincere and impassioned belief
 
maxflinn said:
Alan, prawn or tomato, whatever you choose just be sure not to pay more for a plate promised to make either taste nicer ;)
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Except that the way food is presented is a significant factor for me as to how much I enjoy it.
 
Alan Sircom said:
Seeing as how the alpha nerds are all gathered in one place, I'd like to ask a question:

I am going to a formal dinner tonight and I am not sure what suit colour is formal enough?

Both a blue suit and a grey suit have similar levels of reflectivity and/or light absorption, but under double-blind conditions there is no identifiable difference between a dark suit and a bright pink suit with leopard skin lapels. I guess I could just go with what I think suits me, but that sounds dangerously subjective.

Similarly, if I am offered a choice of foods, I am concerned about precisely how should I select what I eat, given that I will be unable to send the combustible produce off for laboratory analysis during the meal. This means that I may have to rely on my own decision-making process to extract the correct nutritional value from the meal, and I understand that our sensory mechanics are extremely unreliable, so I may find myself faced with a prawn when a tomato is called for. How do you cope in such a scenario?

I would not wish to make a mistake here, because objectively poor nutrition for the sake of subjectively 'tasty' food sounds like a terrible idea. Worse still, the idea might spread, and we'll find people eating for 'enjoyment', and all that might entail.

Life is pretty difficult for those of us not so scientifically evolved as you guys. We have to make decisions based entirely without instrumentation, and based instead on 'liking stuff' all the time. How do we cope?
Click to expand...
Just to clarify: you feel that you are well-placed to defend consumers against the nasty people on internet forums? Or was it writers? I'm a bit confused about who "we" are. Entirely up to you obviously, but I see this as a courageous decision, Minister.

Perhaps you should explain all this to the Consumer Association. About how their spoiling peoples fun in buying stuff.
 
adamdea said:
The interesting thing is that What Hifi seems to take a different line. Is it the interests of its advertisers which sway it? if so why does the same not appear to be the case for the Gadget Show which is sponsored by Currys/PC World

Could it be connected with
1) weakness in the market
2) dependence on fewer advertisers taken from a smaller pool
3) perhaps having a readership which doesn't really want to hear certain things.
4) sincere and impassioned belief
Click to expand...

My guess is that the knock-on effect of admitting that digital cables cannot affect performance would be too damaging, i.e., you'd then have people asking them how digital transports can differ, Blu-Ray players when playing Blu-Rays, satellite boxes, streamers, after-market power supplies for digital products, etc etc, if digital cables cannot, and why their reviews of those products report all these differences.

A potentially expensive can of worms and I don't see them opening it. I'd say they'll just have to try to maintain the status quo.
 
If I can just attempt to nail this in one paragraph to avoid further time-wasting . . .

Until the sale of cigarettes is banned, there is no practical, ethical or legal basis to crusade against the sale of cables. Focus your energy on something productive.
 
adamdea said:
Let's ignore PFM and everyone on it for a minute, in fact let's keep out of hifi which let's face it is a minority concern.

Looking at HDMI cables, which lots and lots of ordinary punters are buying in ordinary high st shops . There is a big market for selling ordinary punters expensive HDMI cables which are sold in those ordinary High St shops.

I have already linked to a Channel 4 program and a Chnnel 5 program both of which give unequivocal advice (except perhaps over long lengths or in wall). Now look at a report by Which

http://www.which.co.uk/news/2010/02/no-need-for-expensive-scart-and-hdmi-leads-204691/

Although it may not be front page news, it's quite clear that responsible and authoritative publications have plainly stated that HDMI cables do not change the way pictures look on a tv screen as long as they are working.

There are many other sources on the net for blind test and technical tests

The interesting thing is that What Hifi seems to take a different line. Is it the interests of its advertisers which sway it? if so why does the same not appear to be the case for the Gadget Show which is sponsored by Currys/PC World

Could it be connected with
1) weakness in the market
2) dependence on fewer advertisers taken from a smaller pool
3) perhaps having a readership which doesn't really want to hear certain things.
4) sincere and impassioned belief
Click to expand...

HDMI cables are a very interesting case in point and aren't helped by the confusion caused by the initial labelling of 1.0 up to 1.4 etc. This eventually led the HDMI alliance to take legal steps to prevent sellers using these numbers attached to the cables, as it is the tx and rx equipment which have the version numbers and the cable merely needs adequate bandwidth to support the data. It's further confused by the fact that there is so much ignorance about what the HDMI signal actually is that most custom installers regard HDMI as the bane of their lives. It's not a 1 and a 0. It's a 5v square wave which is interpreted as digits. It probably isn't HDMI alone causing their problems - ignorant electricians exceeding the bend radius of the cable and yanking things that aren't supposed to be yanked all have an impact on bandwidth and so many suppliers use very poorly made plugs which often cause handshaking issues, so that when you throw HDCP and EDID into the mix it's an absolute bloody minefield. Interestingly I now work with one of the guys who has been involved in writing the spec for HDMI 2.0 and he's not convinced at all that the way a cable is engineered has no impact on quality. That's an aside really, but those who propose simply buying the cheapest HDMI leads do many end users a massive disservice because there are a hell of a lot of installs out there costing tens of thousands of pounds with intermittent issues caused by crappy cables.

It's a very different field to audio because, for example, a 4k 30hz video signal requires 10.2 Gbps bandwidth as opposed to 1.411 Mbps for CD audio bandwidth. i.e. over 7000 times more. The quality of an HDMI cable most definitely does matter.
 
Why would anyone with a genuine interest in Hi-Fi be interested in the opinions of 'what Hi-Fi, I stopped reading that about the same time I gave up childrens comics.
 
pocketkitchen said:
.... That's an aside really, but those who propose simply buying the cheapest HDMI leads do many end users a massive disservice because there are a hell of a lot of installs out there costing tens of thousands of pounds with intermittent issues caused by crappy cables.
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The issues with use over 5m or in wall installs are acknowledged and quite different. But most consumers are just hooking up a box or a dvd/blu ray player over a metre or two at which length there is absolutely no problem. (see linked sources)
It's a very different field to audio because, for example, a 4k 30hz video signal requires 10.2 Gbps bandwidth as opposed to 1.411 Mbps for CD audio bandwidth. i.e. over 7000 times more. The quality of an HDMI cable most definitely does matter.
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I believe you will find that a cheap cable is perfectly capable of carrying 4k, if anyone ever buys it.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2423946,00.asp
 
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