Pear Cable CEO Calls James Randi's $1 Million Offer a Hoax

[Gr8wight]

The educational benefit of this particular challenge far outweighs any risk that JREF will loose the million. This challenge will teach the audiofiles that a proper double blind test will not only help them avoid paying for questionable products but will allow them to determine what actually does make their systems sound better. Teaching the practical use of science is what JREF is about.

Unfortunately, that is not the case. There is a lot of experience in this area. Mr. Randi is confident in offering the challenge prize in this instance because many double blind listening tests have been done over the years, demonstrating that the audiophiles cannot live up to their "golden ears" claims. However, useless audiophile gadgetry still sells like hotcakes because the audiophiles, like any other group of woo believers, come up with all kinds of outrageous excuses to explain away their failures. For illumination of this, visit the Michael Anda: Audio Critic thread in the MDC forum.

 

[bob_conklin]

I'm ashamed

Wow! I'm really in awe at the doubt here. I haven't spent the time to monitor a thread like this in a while. The reason I do is becuase of the ammount of long time suppoters doing a tap dance.

This industry diverted a firestorm of criticism and have no intention of putting anything to a test. It's been like that before there was a JREF.

Anyone else read Robert Pease? It's about time that we took his torch. I'm ashamed for all of the doubters on test 100 of this myth.

I am an elecronics engineer. I'm not going into the techincal details any more than a physics professor would go into to the magnetics of a wine tasting (**sorry**). If there are enough wine testers proclaiming the difference of a magnet around the mouth of the bottle, would there be shadow of a doubt?

Shame on the skeptical comminity here.

I'll take bets now.

 

[Dan O.]

The Michael Anda case is a perfect example. Here we have a kid that is throwing his money away on superstition. If he actually saw his peers doing blind A/B testing he might learn to use it himself and get back to believing in reality.

 

[circuit_bent]

Say what?

Wow! I'm really in awe at the doubt here. I haven't spent the time to monitor a thread like this in a while. The reason I do is becuase of the ammount of long time suppoters doing a tap dance.

This industry diverted a firestorm of criticism and have no intention of putting anything to a test. It's been like that before there was a JREF.

Anyone else read Robert Pease? It's about time that we took his torch. I'm ashamed for all of the doubters on test 100 of this myth.

I am an elecronics engineer. I'm not going into the techincal details any more than a physics professor would go into to the magnetics of a wine tasting (**sorry**). If there are enough wine testers proclaiming the difference of a magnet around the mouth of the bottle, would there be shadow of a doubt?

Shame on the skeptical comminity here.

I'll take bets now.

Watchu talkin' 'bout Willis?

Does anyone know what this guy is getting at? I can't make sense of it.

 

[circuit_bent]

Michael Anda is scum

The Michael Anda case is a perfect example. Here we have a kid that is throwing his money away on superstition. If he actually saw his peers doing blind A/B testing he might learn to use it himself and get back to believing in reality.

Wow, I just read through the correspondence between Michael Anda and Kramer.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36074

A very depressing read. I think Kramer should apply for the MDC on the grounds that he still has his sanity after that farce. The problem is that there's always going to be nuts like this.

I wonder if an ordinary person who viewed the correspondence would think that Anda was anything but a weasel. I fear that some might interpret JREF's approach as overly terse. I'm playing devil's advocate here.

I don't know how practical it is, but some graphics showing exactly how the JREF intended to conduct the test perhaps with some animation to show the course of events would help a lot to understand the complete nature of the proposed test. It did get pretty complex there.

I would like to come to JREF and look at the proposed tests for these people in a graphical way. I'm sure there's a few graphic/animation masters here.

Then it would be clear that Anda and others are dodging extremely sound and reasonable tests. It would make them rightfully look ridiculous.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Watchu talkin' 'bout Willis?

Does anyone know what this guy is getting at? I can't make sense of it.

Beats me. I can't really understand what any of this is getting at.

I'm not sure why Randi chose this as a tagert of paranormal debunking. Ok, I can see it maybe a little bit, sort of.

I can't understand Pear's reluctance to the test. I don't think Pear has anythin gto lose. If I was Adam Blake, I'd just on this sweet wagon like it was the last ride to heaven. Any test is going to be base don chance, so even if unlikely, there is a chance you could win. Or maybe the cables are the real deal. Either way, you not only get $1 million cash, but also huge publicity for the world's first proven paranormally good cables.

Of course to win the challenge, I would expect that Pear wil have to guess which cable is which and have a hugely high degree of accuracy. So let's say it turns out Pear is only perceived as better significantly more often (say 65%), but not to the extent of needed to win the challenge (say 98%). Well, Pear can say that even when tested by the greatest of skeptics, Pear cables have proven to be significantly better than competitors' cables--just not "paranoramally" better, which would only be expected by a goofball like James Randi.

Or if Pear cables come in less than average, then Pear can simply use the normal outs or fall back on its scientific data and consumer testimonials and danceable reviews. Pear isn't the only company that sells $5000+ cables. If you have the high price cables chosen to be tested as paranormal, that must mean that you were chosen because you are the best.

If I was Pear, I'd be eating this up! I'd jump on the lottery chance for winning the challenge without hesitation. I'd also start an ad campian that Pear cables are so damn good that they have fooled James Randi into thinking they are "paranoramal".

 

[pipelineaudio]

Unfortunately, that is not the case. There is a lot of experience in this area. Mr. Randi is confident in offering the challenge prize in this instance because many double blind listening tests have been done over the years, demonstrating that the audiophiles cannot live up to their "golden ears" claims. However, useless audiophile gadgetry still sells like hotcakes because the audiophiles, like any other group of woo believers, come up with all kinds of outrageous excuses to explain away their failures. For illumination of this, visit the Michael Anda: Audio Critic thread in the MDC forum.

Randi's million is as good as gone if you are designing the test

Im seriously worried on this one. I dont mean to single you out, theres a LOT of people on here speaking of designing this test in a way that would be stupid easy to cheat and win.

I dont know of any tests that disprove ALL "golden ears"

I know of plenty of tests proving cables malarchy to be nonsense, but disproving "golden ears"? Youd have to define that first

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Wow, I just read through the correspondence between Michael Anda and Kramer.

A very depressing read. I think Kramer should apply for the MDC on the grounds that he still has his sanity after that farce. The problem is that there's always going to be nuts like this.

I wonder if an ordinary person who viewed the correspondence would think that Anda was anything but a weasel.

If you read through the challenge logs, I think you will find that Kramer's sanity was pushed much farther in other cases, and that Anda wasn't (relatively) a nut. The challenge log has clear cases of nuts and Kramer's patience dealing with them.

Anda was actually one of the few comprehensible people who got close to an agreed protocol. I was sure it was going to be tested. I still can’t understand what went wrong. It should have been such a simple test. And JREF bent over backwards to try to make it happens. As I recall, Anda would have been allowed to do the test at his home, with his own equipment, during a time of his choosing, with breaks that he wanted, and other concessions. That wasn’t good enough and Anda continued on and on and on and on with specifics and vanities and whatnot that didn’t matter. For some reason Anda started treating the protocol discussions like a murder trial proceeding and objecting to every detail and insisting on insignificant specifications.

Jeeze, puh-leeze. You aren’t writing the constitution of the world in stone to affect all humanity forever. Just specify how you can do what you claim you can do under controlled conditions and then do it. It is easy. I do it at work almost every day. I’m on a tirade here. Grrrrrrr…..

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

I dont mean to single you out, theres a LOT of people on here speaking of designing this test in a way that would be stupid easy to cheat and win.

I'm single, stupid, and easy. Enlighten me and all of us on the design flaws and the ways of cheating. I imagine Randi and the JREF staff wouldn't mind hearing them either. What's the scoop?

 

[pipelineaudio]

If the test is something like "prove to me someone can hear a difference between these and some other cables, consistantly, it is a no brainer they could EASILY set it up to do it.

All they have to do is use crappy cables as theirs

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

If the test is something like "prove to me someone can hear a difference between these and some other cables, consistantly, it is a no brainer they could EASILY set it up to do it.

All they have to do is use crappy cables as theirs

Jeepers. This has only been raised about a jillion times in this thread. A number of preventative measures have been not only proposed but discussed at length over many, many posts.

What else do you have?

 

[pipelineaudio]

Jeepers. This has only been raised about a jillion times in this thread. A number of preventative measures have been not only proposed but discussed at length over many, many posts.

What else do you have?

thats funny because people keep saying again that theyre talking about a listening test, like for instance the one I responded to

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

thats funny because people keep saying again that theyre talking about a listening test, like for instance the one I responded to

Sorry, you lost me. It IS a listening test.

You said:

Im seriously worried on this one...theres a LOT of people on here speaking of designing this test in a way that would be stupid easy to cheat and win.

You have me worried too, and curious about what these "stupid easy" ways to cheat and win would be. Concerns about sneaking in bad cables has been addressed ad nauseam.

I simply want to know what the other "stupid easy" ways to cheat and win this challenge are. I’m not playing games or nitpicking semantics. If there is some obvious trick that has been overlooked in this thread I would seriously like to know what it is.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Why would he have to "sneak in" bad cables? They could be bad from the start

How has this been adressed ad nauseum?

 

[Minkster]

Yes, it would, VERY MUCH

There is a near constant battle in the proaudio world about where to set bandwidth and dynamic range limits to be sure everything relevant (plus a little headroom) is captured.

Something like this would stand the community on its ear (hardy har har). Entire areas where things are thought to be "good enough" would have to be re-examined

not that Im holding my breath

Maybe it would be important to the tiny fraction of people who give a damn about high-end audio.

Would it be important to science on the whole though? Enough to risk the entire credibility of the skeptical movement? Hell no

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Why would he have to "sneak in" bad cables? They could be bad from the start

How has this been adressed ad nauseum?

Well. here you go. Straight from this thread:

Post 42

One critical thing would be what is defined as a normal or standard speaker cable to compare against the PEAR cable. My guess is PEAR would try and use a substandard cable to compare against theirs. My point is if PEAR use a bad enough cable as the standard theirs will come out as showing a difference in quality to that. First thing to be resolved in any challenge is to set a bench mark cable to challenge the PEAR cable.

Post 44

Has any outsider measured PEAR cables to see if they are "good" cables in the first place and are not designed to change the sound in some way?

Post 77

Think he can't make a special cable that will alter the sound in a way so only he knows what to listen for?

Post 126

The problem being, the magic cables don't have to sound better at all, just different. They could be worse than the standard cables, but the open test would distinguish which is which immediately. Of course, I'm sure this has all been considered and accounted for...

Post 129

Don't they have a distribution chain? My point is that the cable must be a stock version. Therefore, they can't bring cables to the trial, but they could be purchased from a regular outlet.

Post 139

I heard it's actually not uncommon for the woowoo cables (high-end is definitely the wrong word here) to sound different because they're actually worse than well-made normal cables, electrically speaking.

After this post, the general discussion addresses issues of Pear cables being substandard cables or Pear substituting actual Pear cables with substandard cables.

Post 210

Prior to the test, both JREF and Pear should conduct non-blind tests of the system using both cables. This allows JREF to make sure the cables provided by Pear are not substandard cables that will sound different.

Post 214

If Michael Fremer is the one taking the test and he needs to detect between some 'regular cable' and his '$$$ cable' (detect a difference and not which one is more pleasing since that is subjective) then what if, say the mid frequency response of the 'regular cable' is 0dB (very good) but the mid frequency response of the '$$$ cable' is +/- 2dB (worse and noticable). Michael Fremer will undoubtedly notice the audio difference coming from the two cables and precisely determine which of the two cables is currently being used.

Post 217

What's to stop Pear from just making a wonky cable and using it for the test?

And...

Post 250

If the test is something like "prove to me someone can hear a difference between these and some other cables, consistantly, it is a no brainer they could EASILY set it up to do it. All they have to do is use crappy cables as theirs

 

[RemieV]

To address the individuals who continue commenting that Pear is somehow being tested - so far as I know, Pear is not being tested. Michael Fremer, the editor of Stereophile, is the one who responded to the Challenge.

I have very little to contribute to a technical conversation about speaker cables. I simply am not well versed in audio equipment. I can say, however, that Randi has consultants for this protocol. To my knowledge, none of them have suggested calling off the cable challenge. Since I am not well versed in speaker cables, I cannot speak to their reasoning, but I am sure that it is sound.

If you would like to voice your concerns, e-mail challenge@randi.org. Your concerns will be reviewed and forwarded to the proper place.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

To address the individuals who continue commenting that Pear is somehow being tested - so far as I know, Pear is not being tested. Michael Fremer, the editor of Stereophile, is the one who responded to the Challenge.

Thank you. I got confused and got the impression that Adam Blake (and therefore Pear) was accepting the challenge. Not that it really actually makes any difference from my stand point.

 

[brettDbass]

I'd like to bump my question again here, as I think it could have some relevance but want to garner the opinion of more forumites than just Robinson on the matter.

Here's a little something that popped into my head whilst reading Swift today, for your general consideration.

Randi states "there is a point beyond which no ear can benefit from the expense of conductors" and I certainly agree with this, but only so far as for the production of single tones.

Is there any possibility that overtones may make an appreciable difference to the listener when an improvement to the non-audible frequencies is made?

I ask only because I don't know ~ I hope that all possibilities such as this have been ruled out or taken into account before these discussions began!

 

[Cuddles]

I can't understand Pear's reluctance to the test.

There's a very good explanation for their reluctance. They can't do what they claim. If they actually believed their claims, there would be no possible reason for them not taking the challenge.

Also, something people seem to keep forgetting is what they actually claim. They do not claim that their cables are different, they claim that they are better. They do not claim that a few people with "golden ears" can hear the difference, they claim that anyone on any audio system will hear the difference. Most of the concerns brought up here are therefore irrelevant.

A test really is very simple. Buy, from a shop, a few of their cables and a few of the type to be compared. Get a few random people off the street. With the entire audio system hidden from view, play a piece of music to them several times, randomly selecting the cable used each time. The listener notes when they think it sounds better. Alternatively, play the music once with one cable, then again with the other cable and the listener notes which one sounds better.

That's it. No way of cheating. No broken cables. No golden ears. Just testing what they actually claim, not some people would like them to be claiming.