Synergistic Research: SCAM

[DrT]

Why is a demonstration in which a product is added, then removed, as proof of its effect "snake oil salesman tactics"?? ...and how does a money back guarantee stand with products based on "fairy dust and magic"? In a recent conversation with Gordon Rankin (another I consider a genius for his literal invention of digital audio) he related how Mpingo discs transformed the sound of one of his AXPONA rooms a few years ago. Mpingo discs, Shun Mook monks; ummmm okay ...yet a scientific & educated person like Mr Rankin attests that they do indeed work. Audio is a funny endeavor; it is very subjective (the polar opposite of objective). Two different audio components can scientifically measure the same, yet sound very different. How? Two people listen to the same piece of music and one loves it while the other considers it awful. With Synergistic Research products I merely appreciate what they've done in my system, in my listening room, with my ears. They optimized my system and took it to a much higher level.

BTW, I have no dog in this fight. Am not friends with anyone at SR, don't work in the audio biz, get nothing for my opinion (except attacks from the naysayers). I suspect much of the SR attacks are from those who either cannot afford their products or those that require a scientific explanation before they will accept what their ears are telling them. There is also the law of diminishing returns; a $7000 subwoofer will have a much more profound effect on the listening experience than a $7000 SR Vibratron - (so I suggest buying the Vibratron after you already have the sub...). 

[DrT]

One addition; Synergistic Research cables and the Galileo SX active ground unit are tuneable. The tuning bullets can soften or sharpen the sound of the cables and there are four different sound & soundstage formats with the Galileo SX. These changes are very noticeable and are a great way to tune the sound of your system, your room, and your preferences. I know of no other gear that has this ability and is reminiscent of being able to tune the sound of tube gear via tube rolling. A very nice feature.  

[Blackmorec]

Three observations here

1. I’m amazed that some of you can’t hear differences in the video. Im not a big fan of video recordings as they hide or lose 90% of the details and subtleties of the musical presentation yet I can still hear differences via my iPad Pro + Shure 535s in 

Ambience

Atmosphere

Air

Decay

Sweetness 

Depth

Hardness/sharpness/naturalness of voices and percussive instruments 

Bass 

 

2. Its always the same names populating this type of Snake Oil thread. It doesn’t bother me in the least that you hear no differences…..but as you’re so fond of pointing out, its just your subjective opinion and it clearly doesn’t match mine. 

 

3. A lot of SRs marketing hyperbole does lack any kind of scientific basis which can be very irritating, but here’s my take on this:

 

We either can’t or don't know how to measure some of the things that change the way we perceive sounds.  Our ears are exquisitely sensitive to certain changes in sound waves and we have to correlate those changes with things we can measure…and this is where we still have a lot of progress to make. For example, you can take two versions of the exact same bit-perfect data stream, one created using cheap switched mode power supplies and the other produced with super-high quality linear supplies and they sound very different,  the former sounding very unnatural vs the latter and missing a great deal of detail, presumably lost in the extra noise produced by the cheap SMPSs, yet people insist that 2 matching bit-perfect data streams cannot sound different.  Ted Denney III has found ways to manipulate certain parameters that affect the way we hear music but many are not recognised by science simply because they’ve never been thoroughly investigated, at least not that I’m aware of.  Ive tried quite a few SR products….some I’ve liked and kept, others I’ve returned because the changes did not match my system, but I haven’t had a single one that didn't make a very clearly discernible difference. But hearing sound quality differences in hi-fi is like tasting the qualities of wine. Don’t expect a great wine to bowl you over if you’ve just eaten a gourmet salad dressed in the finest balsamic.  

[DrT]

Thank you Blackmorec; spot on!

[pkane2001]

Those who create and market products that can't be tested or measured using existing scientific methods, especially those that are in a direct contradiction to known science, are not inventing new things. They are making things up. The claim that a product is beyond known science is a frequently used marketing tactic for selling snake oil, one that relies on the ignorance of the consumer. 

[Samuel T Cogley]

This thread was inactive for 5 years.  Someone would have had to have known to look for it.  Of course, one could just search for "Synergistic Research" and see what results are returned.

 

This thread has a title that could be considered negative if you're interested in the success of Synergistic Research.

 

The very first post of a new forum member dusts off this long inactive thread to extol the virtues of Synergistic Research.

 

The.

Very.

First.

Post.

 

That's all I really need to know.

 

 

[Blackmorec]

9 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

Those who create and market products that can't be tested or measured using existing scientific methods, especially those that are in a direct contradiction to known science, are not inventing new things. They are making things up. The claim that a product is beyond known science is a frequently used marketing tactic for selling snake oil, one that relies on the ignorance of the consumer. 

How many PhD theses would you guess are published each year?  Probably quite a few. And each thesis represents new scientific knowledge that builds on what we already know. 

But in science, a researcher has to have the skill and training, an interest in the subject and sufficient funding to spend the time and effort to look into it.  I can guarantee you that a great number of very interesting topics go completely unresearched due to lack of those 3 necessities and so it is with hi-fi.

Suppose my local university discovers a new carbon material and I manage to get hold of some,  wrap it around a power cable and hear a massive improvement in sound quality.  Do you think that before I try to commercialise my finding I invest years of time, effort and cash trying to discover the exact effect this material has?  Who’s going to pay for the highly specialised expertise required to do that testing?  

Because something isn’t researched doesn’t mean it can’t be tested or measured and because something appears to contradict known science simply indicates that its not yet well understood.This is especially true when it comes to senses and the brain. 

Science is all about making new discoveries but in some way your post implies that we already know everything.  Take it from me as someone who spent their entire working life in and around science….we most assuredly don’t.  If we did, think how dull and boring the next thousand years would be. 

 

 

[pkane2001]

23 minutes ago, Blackmorec said:

How many PhD theses would you guess are published each year?  Probably quite a few. And each thesis represents new scientific knowledge that builds on what we already know. 

But in science, a researcher has to have the skill and training, an interest in the subject and sufficient funding to spend the time and effort to look into it.  I can guarantee you that a great number of very interesting topics go completely unresearched due to lack of those 3 necessities and so it is with hi-fi.

Suppose my local university discovers a new carbon material and I manage to get hold of some,  wrap it around a power cable and hear a massive improvement in sound quality.  Do you think that before I try to commercialise my finding I invest years of time, effort and cash trying to discover the exact effect this material has?  Who’s going to pay for the highly specialised expertise required to do that testing?  

Because something isn’t researched doesn’t mean it can’t be tested or measured and because something appears to contradict known science simply indicates that its not yet well understood.This is especially true when it comes to senses and the brain. 

Science is all about making new discoveries but in some way your post implies that we already know everything.  Take it from me as someone who spent their entire working life in and around science….we most assuredly don’t.  If we did, think how dull and boring the next thousand years would be. 

 

Audio isn't very special. It's a narrow and limited field that involves a number of much larger and wider disciplines in science and engineering, from EM theory, to wave propagation  in matter, to signal processing and electronics. Audio is just a tiny subset of these, larger disciplines. New science that invalidates old can't exist in a vacuum, it must either fit in to known scientific frameworks or propose a new, consistent and falsifiable framework to replace them. None of this is done by SR, and for a reason.

 

It is, of course, easy for someone not trained in these disciplines to imagine that anyone "with a fresh perspective" can just invent a radical new way to make things better. These kinds of inventions happen very infrequently, and those that violate known science must, by necessity, be revolutionary. Sorry, but the only revolutionary invention at Synergistic Research is their marketing.

 

[fas42]

Same old, same old ...

 

There is nothing interesting here, just more quibbling about whether worrying about the integrity of a system matters or not. In the airline industry you concern yourself about everything; because if you don't, planes crash and people die. In audio, you just get substandard SQ... which is no big deal .

 

People who have learnt that all sorts of 'minor' aspects make a difference will either use that to optimise setups that they use, like myself ; or start a company, to make money - or both.

 

You don't prove that a plane will crash if some part of the safety procedures, or maintenance regime is not followed - experience has informed you that following careful 'rituals' is necessary to ensure best results ... and likewise in audio there are NO big mysteries. But dressing them up in nonsense may help make more sales ... and so it goes, .

 

The "radical new way to make things better" is to accept that highest integrity of a reproduction chain is crucial, if a "magic specialness" to what you hear is desired. But that ain't gonna happen, soon, because too many people have invested too much ego in what they currently believe ... such is life.

[DrT]

Thank you Blackmorec; spot on!

[DrT]

ummmmm.... okay fas42; sure thing; whatever...you...say.  But, seriously, do you really work on airplanes??

[JoeWhip]

I generally try to stay out of these types of threads. I will say that I find the fact that the OP’s first post here was like this. Curious. As for demos, beware of any demo where the person giving the demo tells you what you will hear before you hear it. Far to many people will hear just that. Even if it isn’t there. That is just human nature and people who give these kind of demos know it and exploit it. As a retired trial lawyer, I know most of these tricks. A proper demo presenter says nothing, does the playback and asks questions of the audience as to their impression. You rarely see that type of demo at an audio show.

[fas42]

21 minutes ago, DrT said:

ummmmm.... okay fas42; sure thing; whatever...you...say.  But, seriously, do you really work on airplanes??

 

Do you need to work in the car industry to appreciate that the best driver experience occurs when all parts of a vehicle are operating as well they should?

[Confused]

If we are doing car and aircraft analogies.

 

In terms of safety, performance and similar considerations, car and aircraft designers tend to take due consideration of the laws of physics.

 

Many Synergistic Research products do not.

 

Sorry, that is not a very good analogy., Maybe just a fact?

[fas42]

The whole audio industry has a very poor grasp of what is essential, and what is of minor importance, when creating new products ... if this were not the case, why do we still have audio shows where expensive rigs are almost unlistenable in one room, and SOTA, subjectively, in the next? The floundering shows no strong signs of  abating any time soon - and into this mess steps the "snake oil" merchants, who by trial and error, good guessing, and intuition, bring forth various products which improve, for at least some systems, their integrity. The fact that they don't really know what's going on they work around by coming up with BS explanations - well, mankind managed to survive and evolve for thousand of years, using nonsense reasons for why certain things were effective; we are still not at the stage of Perfect Enlightenment, where absolutely everything is known for why something works, and something else doesn't - only some groups of people want to live in the fantasy that we are, in Total Control, .

 

Audio reproduction is fragile. Still. If it were otherwise, every system would sound just like the next. Until we reach the state of decent accuracy, some companies will 'exploit' the lack of refinement by selling stuff which helps, even if they don't understand why.

[Confused]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

The whole audio industry has a very poor grasp of what is essential, and what is of minor importance, when creating new products ... if this were not the case, why do we still have audio shows where expensive rigs are almost unlistenable in one room, and SOTA, subjectively, in the next?

At the last show I visited there was nothing I would classify as "unlistenable", but some rooms were not as good as others for sure, and not in order of cost of the kit.

 

My view is that 99% of this is related to the basic set-up in the room.

 

I know that you will not agree with this, by the way! 🙂

 

A a converse argument. At the last show I visited I spent a lot of time listening to many headphones, in two different rooms, different headphones and electronics.

 

Some kit I liked more than others, but nominally everything I tried sounded very good.

 

In one room operated by a UK dealer who specialises in headphones they must have had a dozen or more systems running simultaneously. So not an ideal environment form an electrical interference perspective, but nevertheless everything sounded good.

 

The only one difference to this and the speaker based systems really, the room.

 

(That's not me in the picture, by the way)

 

 

[DrT]

fas42, you echo my thoughts. I don't understand the principles behind many of Synergistic Research's products and the explanations offered by them do indeed sound far fetched; but I do know what I hear when their items are inplace. Most of their items are high-quality cables and power cords, and acknowledged by most, these do indeed have an effect on the sound. I was very skeptical of their Vibratron until we tried a PMR Novum (the brass candy dish-looking thing) that had a nice effect especially on poor acoustic recordings. Now, added to our system, the Vibratron has an even greater effect than the PMR, in the sound's 'smoothness' and in the size of the soundstage. The other items we've purchased from SR seem to lower the noise floor which also has a positive effect. Besides that, tailoring the sound to our room & our preference via their bullets on their cables and four different sonic profiles of their Galileo SX active ground system also makes a noticeable difference in both the sound and soundstage. Those things all add up to a not-so-subtle improvement in the system's sound. I do not understand how these things work, and maybe Ted Denney doesn't either, but perhaps he discovered them by trial & error and experimentation. That said I can forcibly attest that they do indeed work - and the effect is obvious.

[Racerxnet]

High quality cables that were purchased, and you forgot about the other 1000 feet from the pole/transformer to the breaker box. Then from the romex to the wall plug. Of course, the manufacturer never thought about noise on the line and so you purchased some filters for the amps and pre. You want to hear a change for the money spent, and confirmation bias fullfilled the need. It always improves no matter what. The more spent, the better the improvement. 

[fas42]

11 hours ago, Confused said:

At the last show I visited there was nothing I would classify as "unlistenable", but some rooms were not as good as others for sure, and not in order of cost of the kit.

 

My last show visit had plenty of rooms that were just mediocre; as satisfying as listening to a kitchen radio; a TAD room that sounded like a bar PA rig - very few that delivered a SQ that justified their expense.

 

11 hours ago, Confused said:

My view is that 99% of this is related to the basic set-up in the room.

 

I know that you will not agree with this, by the way! 🙂

 

Of course not, . The rule of thumb is, at the moment the sound leaves the driver surface the damage is done; room fiddling just alleviates what you hear. Competent playback means that the illusion is maintained, no matter how close to the speaker your ears are.

 

11 hours ago, Confused said:

A a converse argument. At the last show I visited I spent a lot of time listening to many headphones, in two different rooms, different headphones and electronics.

 

Some kit I liked more than others, but nominally everything I tried sounded very good.

 

In one room operated by a UK dealer who specialises in headphones they must have had a dozen or more systems running simultaneously. So not an ideal environment form an electrical interference perspective, but nevertheless everything sounded good.

 

The only one difference to this and the speaker based systems really, the room.

 

(That's not me in the picture, by the way)

 

 

 

Headphones are much easier to get right. For a variety of reasons. But the longest I could put up with wearing such things is about 10 minutes - I just get irritated by the physical nature of them.

[fas42]

9 hours ago, DrT said:

The other items we've purchased from SR seem to lower the noise floor which also has a positive effect. Besides that, tailoring the sound to our room & our preference via their bullets on their cables and four different sonic profiles of their Galileo SX active ground system also makes a noticeable difference in both the sound and soundstage. Those things all add up to a not-so-subtle improvement in the system's sound. I do not understand how these things work, and maybe Ted Denney doesn't either, but perhaps he discovered them by trial & error and experimentation. That said I can forcibly attest that they do indeed work - and the effect is obvious.

 

Lowering the "noise floor" is the name of the game. If you have a system which is on the edge of the necessary SQ, then doing something which pushes it over to the necessary integrity can be quite a shock- this happened to me many decades ago. At that time I didn't have a handle on the cause and effect link, so I spent months and months with a setup that kept flipping between below and above required quality; this guaranteed I had a rock solid understanding of the difference in the subjective standard .

 

The noise back then came from static - but I didn't know this; I gave up on solving that one. Static and noise originating from the physical structure of, say, cables is a biggy - this is why the SR devices do help, when a setup has too much interference in parts of the chain - currently, I'm still finding adjusting the cables in my present system absolutely critical to optimising SQ; the slightest misstep is enough to degrade what I hear, giving me unsatisfactory sound.

[Racerxnet]

Frank,

Maybe its the cheap class D amps and the price point needing to be met that causes you to chase tail so much. A manufacturer can only go so far with a $400.00 set-up. 

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

this is why the SR devices do help

How exactly do they work again. This reminds me of the final question on Jeopardy with the music and time limit for an answer. Bump, Babump bump bump bump bump. And you fail.... 

[fas42]

47 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

Frank,

Maybe its the cheap class D amps and the price point needing to be met that causes you to chase tail so much. A manufacturer can only go so far with a $400.00 set-up. 

 

A cheap setup can work well, when it's highly integrated. As soon you introduce multiple power supplies, and cables into the equation, then you can go on that mad road many audiophiles follow, . Currently, the technology has progressed to the point that excellent value for solutions are possible, and the smart manufacturers are producing goods that have high potential.

 

47 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

How exactly do they work again. This reminds me of the final question on Jeopardy with the music and time limit for an answer. Bump, Babump bump bump bump bump. And you fail.... 

 

They work, because they are a workaround for weaknesses in how audio systems function as a system. In general. If you have an above swimming pool with lots of leaks, the best solution is to buy a liner which has been made properly, with high integrity material which can resist lots of abuse, and handle all sorts of weather conditions. Failing that, buy a kit of all types of band aids, which you use to patch the current pool ... which sorta works, . And that's what SR provides - all sorts of fix-its .

 

But audiophiles are obsessed with bling ... if it comes in a fancy wooden box, with cotton gloves to install it ... well, gosh, it must be fabulous! With the right price tag too, of course ...

 

Audio doesn't need this nonsense. You want accurate replay of the recording; which is possible, very cheaply ... then, add bling to taste ...

[Confused]

13 hours ago, Racerxnet said:

High quality cables that were purchased, and you forgot about the other 1000 feet from the pole/transformer to the breaker box. Then from the romex to the wall plug. Of course, the manufacturer never thought about noise on the line and so you purchased some filters for the amps and pre. You want to hear a change for the money spent, and confirmation bias fullfilled the need. It always improves no matter what. The more spent, the better the improvement. 

This comment reminds me of the one time I was at a dealer. They were demonstrating a system that was being fed from a Shunyata power conditioner. (Shunyata, not to be confused with Synergistic)

 

Now this is fine for me. The Shunyata power conditioners seem to be reasonably well engineered and respected devices. Depending on the quality of your own domestic mains and the sensitivity of your own hifi kit to clean mains, maybe such a product could help? There are certainly technical reasons why this might be the case.

 

So far so good. The bit that puzzled me though was why this super duper power conditioner, that presumably can filter out and correct all mains nasties that proceed it, needed a £3.5K power cord between the wall and the conditioner itself.

[Confused]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

But audiophiles are obsessed with bling ... if it comes in a fancy wooden box, with cotton gloves to install it ... well, gosh, it must be fabulous! With the right price tag too, of course ...

Excellent, that's another one for my collection.

[Confused]

7 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Lowering the "noise floor" is the name of the game. If you have a system which is on the edge of the necessary SQ, then doing something which pushes it over to the necessary integrity can be quite a shock- this happened to me many decades ago. At that time I didn't have a handle on the cause and effect link, so I spent months and months with a setup that kept flipping between below and above required quality; this guaranteed I had a rock solid understanding of the difference in the subjective standard .

 

The noise back then came from static - but I didn't know this; I gave up on solving that one. Static and noise originating from the physical structure of, say, cables is a biggy - this is why the SR devices do help, when a setup has too much interference in parts of the chain - currently, I'm still finding adjusting the cables in my present system absolutely critical to optimising SQ; the slightest misstep is enough to degrade what I hear, giving me unsatisfactory sound.

I sometimes wonder about claims of "lowering the noise floor".

 

On another forum, I once mentioned that with no music playing, I could set my system to maximum volume, and hear absolutely nothing, no hum, no buzz, genuinely I could not hear any sound of any kind. So what is this noise floor that people refer to, does it suddenly appear only when music is playing?

 

In response to this, someone pointed out that some DACs effectively cut the output if no signal is being received. A fair point I think.

 

Later I tried an experiment. I ran my system using HQplayer, and set the HQplayer volume to -60dBFS. I ran my system at full volume. Even going right up to one speaker, I could hear no noise, nothing, just very very quiet music. Note that in normal circumstances I cannot run the system at full volume, the SPLs reach genuinely painful and levels before I get to full volume.

 

Maybe I am still missing something here, but the more objective types point out that most modern kit has noise levels that are so low that it is essentially beyond the threshold of human hearing. When I try an experiment to establish if this is also true subjectively, I find that indeed it is.