Thuaveta

Thanks - for some reason, works in Chrome, not Safari. Ooohwell. And yes, call me cynical, but I do think it's marketing. It's smart marketing, with a target market that's probably different from your, say, Furutech outlet cover customer, but marketing nonetheless. In terms of the message that's being communicated, it's the same FUD that you see from other brands: "I hear this, it's massive" and simultaneously "it's impossible to measure it, some days I'm not sure it's real". I'd wager the tactic here is twofold, and might be a way of responding to ASR-type coverage of Shiiit's USB engineering. He's messaging both to invested customers (by selling 'em a "cheap" fix), and prospective customers (who might've read the less-than-glowing coverage).

The link appears to be dead. What did the individual say ?

Brothers've gotta make a living, my friend. What were they going to say ? "The new upgraded Unison USB interface makes no difference whatsoever. The upgrade is available for purchase today at Schiit.com, for $150, or for $200 including installation by Schiit." ?

The engineer in you is possibly using the wrong tools: what's behind MQA likely has little to do with hard science, and much to do with marketing (let's not insult psychologists by calling it anything else). Trying to make BS's and followers' science claims make sense in reality is assuming the solution to changing a lightbulb necessarily includes the use of a hammer.

Because of Brandolini's law. No it isn't. Being suckered into wasting (more) time to counter bullshit is not being civil: it's being a sucker, since by even treating the con as a valid hypothesis, you're reinforcing it. It's also giving a con man more importance than he's worth.

Totally agreed. It isn't the incentive I have an issue with, much the contrary, in the sense that it's great that they offer an upgrade path with a good discount to their existing customers. It's the way they're framing it, even though being honest and calling it "30% discount for the lazy" maybe wouldn't work as well...

For the curious, here's what an actual "sustainable" approach in the smart speaker space might look like. Is it also marketing bullshit ? Probably, because we all know there aren't that many people who're going to bother. But we can also probably agree that it's a very different type of bullshit.

It's quite literally their justification for the whole program. In their own words, "The Trade Up is a program designed to help customers that are interested in upgrading to the next generation of Sonos products and experiences with a generous discount when they recycle their old products." They call this program "The simple, sustainable way to upgrade your Sonos system.". So no, I don't think I was over the top there.

Well, let's just say https://twitter.com/atomicthumbs/status/1210662988828442624 looks pretty ugly. Not that it should come as a surprise from them, mind you.

Well, I'd counter it doesn't seem possible to have a discussion about even standards of discussion without triggering the fragile egos of conmen snake oil salesmen, and having them sidetrack it to shill their products. Given that, why should we refrain from calling a lie a lie ?

re: 3a, it's a seductive, because it'll lower the load on you, and I'd suspect might keep some of your more narcissistically sensitive advertisers happy, and their customers reassured in their choices, but it's ultimately a bad idea. Part of what makes CA/AS interesting is the people it attracts and the debates it fosters. If you artificially sanitize it by banning seven dirty words from conversations, just because some people are too fragile to hear 'em, then why even bother ? The MQA thread is a perfect example of this: would the community have been able to have such a vigorous debate without a bunch of objectivists playing ball-trap with the BS marketing ?

Remember a simple axiom: the more deluded there are, the more deluded they are. In practice, if many members either own or have pre-ordered a product whose manufacturer or engineer makes said claim, or any another from that brand or designed by that individual, expect them not to listen to anything you say. So do it for the others.

from memory, intro about the whole "best of lists", LaSalla talks about how Google appears to favor aggregate, best-of-list reviews and how those are used by shills, quite a bit of talk on shills on amazon, the lexicon thing is about 10 minutes in (just checked that), there's talk about the tension between marketing as a profession and credibility, in the context of the evolution of what's trusted going from mags to fora to amazon reviews, a discussion of how a critical review is protected speech and how some manufacturers pull advertising in retaliation for not stellar reviews, how reviewers seem to "borrow" equipment for indefinite periods of time, with some of the usual "we're awesome" type stuff woven in with a discussion of how audioholics' measurements generated a healthy discussion to develop common power rating standards for HT amps.

This related comment on ASR is intriguing. @The Computer Audiophile, my hunch would be that reaching out to whomever wrote it, and see if they'd be interested in expanding on it, might make for some really interesting reading. It's tangentially related to what @crenca was saying, but some people might find this audioholics video of interest. There's a reminder of the Lexicon Oppo rebrand in there.