Mapman,
I am flattered that you follow my comments. I am in favor of whatever works -- and whatever works better than something similar. I have a lot of tweaks in my system. I do not remember having nay-sayed a product I have not tried. We all speculate on things we have not heard but nay-saying without auditioning is not a wise habit to get into.
But when it comes to my personal limited budget, I do nay-say price and marketing. Which is not to say the products may not work, and work well in some cases. I can think of a couple here -- the Synergistic Research HFT pimples at $60 a pop come to mind. First off, I have never heard them. But I am convinced they work, and probably very well, since I have made my own version that work great in my system -- at about $1 each.
I was thinking about how to develop this kind of tweak when Ozzy tweaked my curiosity with his version. I came up with a variation on the theme that is really excellent. I have about 40 in my listening room -- total cost about $40 vs. $2,400 for the SR pimples.
Frankly, if HFTs were the culmination of my life's work, as Ted Denney claims for his life, I would have demonstrated the HFTs on a real system, not on a Bose wave. After all, he does mount expensive systems at shows. So, this I cannot figure out. Something so "revolutionary" deserved a better introduction, IMO. In any case, to my eyes, HFTs look like a cross between Franck Tchang "Sugar Cubes" and the PMR resonator.
The HFT markeing Youtube that Peter Breuninger (nodding and nodding) and Peter Hansen appear in is rather comical. They talk to the audience as though they were talking to a classroom of morons. They show you how to take each pimple out of the box, how to put the Blu-Tack on the back and how to put them on the wall. Thank you.
SR needed a good marketing plan so they call HFTs transducers. IMO, they are not transducers. They are simple resonators. You cannot sell one pimple at a time so they sell them in 5-packs -- $300 beats $60 -- with the sales pitch of 4 "levels" of 5 pimples per "level". $1,200. Nice. My pimples are not the culmination of anything but they do take the system to a higher level -- one of many levels -- at a total cost of about $40.
Another heavily marketed product that comes to mind is the Nordost Qx4. I am sure it works, and works very well, even though I have never tried it. Because I use the precursor in my system, QRT Symphony Pros. They are great. But they do not need to be packaged in a lead-heavy container that presumably contains a few light components. Sorry, they DO need to be packaged like this so Nordost can charge nearly $3000 each vs. $600 new for their precursors that I have been fortunate enough to pick up for around $200 each used.
I notice that all the reviews I have read on the Qx4 say that Nordost dropped off 4 or 6 units for reviewing and testing. Now, you'd think with that price tag that one Qx4 would do for a normal audio system. Sorry, they say you will want and will need several more. Let's see now. $3,000 x 6 = $18,000. Nice.
I love products that work. But I don't always love the marketing and the price of admission. So, I do my best to get something close to the "real thing" at a fraction of the cost, whenever possible. Some folks can simply throw money at their system. I am not in that category.
