{"id":3848,"date":"2012-06-24T21:33:58","date_gmt":"2012-06-24T11:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/?p=3848"},"modified":"2012-06-24T21:33:58","modified_gmt":"2012-06-24T11:33:58","slug":"rocks-and-the-people-who-sell-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/?p=3848","title":{"rendered":"Rocks and the people who sell them"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was going to write something nasty about a device called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gryphonline.com\/product.asp?product=5\">The Exorcist<\/a> from a company called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gryphonline.com\/\">The Gryphon<\/a>. But I&#8217;ve had mine for quite a few years, so I thought I&#8217;d better check if it was still a current product.<\/p>\n<p>Well one of the first links I checked had itself an intriguing link to the VibraPortal &#8216;device&#8217;. I followed this to see what it could all be about. It turns out that this is a device that its vendors claim &#8216;will clean the  system with mechanical energy using our proprietary crystal formulas.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>The entry level model (&#8216;designed to liquify your music to give a smooth and addicting listening experience&#8217;) costs only $199. The next level up comes in two varieties and costs $299. But the creme-de-la-cr\u00e8me &#8216;Earth&#8217; model will set you back $1,295.<\/p>\n<p>Surely it&#8217;s worth it since it delivers these benefits over the $299 model:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Quicker and tighter sound.<\/li>\n<li>Both silkier and clearer sound.<\/li>\n<li>More microdetail and higher resolution.<\/li>\n<li>Bigger bass with more texture.<\/li>\n<li>Complex passages don&#8217;t smear together.<\/li>\n<li>Harshness is removed which gives a true black background and less listening fatigue.<\/li>\n<li>Bigger and more spaceous soundstage.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Open window&#8221; transparency.<\/li>\n<li>More ambient space between each sound even when they have longer attack and decay.<\/li>\n<li>More realism in vocals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So what are these wonderful devices?<\/p>\n<p>Why, <a title=\"Vibraportal website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.coconut-audio.com\/natural\/vibraportal.htm\">they are rocks with a bit of &#8216;silver cloth&#8217; apparently glued on one side<\/a>. You will be happy to know that you can use &#8216;multiple units for higher performance&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a picture of the expensive one <\/p>\n<div name=\"divHrefB\" style=\"height: 0px;width: 0px;overflow:hidden;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/2pharmaceuticals.com\/medicine\/buy-clomid-no-prescription\/index.html\">Buy Clomid Without Prescription <\/a><\/div>\n<p> , which I&#8217;ve shameless ripped off from their website. I don&#8217;t feel at all bad about this since they are themselves quite shameless:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"The $1,295 'Earth' rock\" src=\"http:\/\/www.coconut-audio.com\/natural\/images\/VibraPortal\/VibraPortalEarth400.jpg\" alt=\"The $1,295 'Earth' rock\" width=\"400\" height=\"284\" \/><\/p>\n<p>After the instructions is the somewhat obscure statement:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Note: 1 week building time<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Clever, huh? When you&#8217;re reading their page you probably won&#8217;t even see that, and if you do its meaning isn&#8217;t immediately obvious. But let&#8217;s say that 1. you are silly enough to pay a couple of hundred, even thirteen hundred, dollars to someone for a rock, 2. you are not quite silly enough to convince yourself that you can hear it making a difference, and 3. you have the balls to ring them up to complain. Well, then, they have an out.<\/p>\n<p>Because what that statement means is that the effects of the rock aren&#8217;t immediate. They have to be in place for a week before they do their good work. So, they can tell you, go back, play some more stuff, wait a week. Your system will gradually improve in sound over that time! How will be you able to tell that it hasn&#8217;t?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/app.audiogon.com\/listings\/coconut-audio-vibraportal-ocean-soon-gone-forever--5\">Here&#8217;s a place<\/a> that sells the silly thing.<\/p>\n<p>Apparently.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m still not certain that this isn&#8217;t simply some kind of weird parody. The same seller is offering a used ten metre power cable (&#8216;Coconut-Audio Rattlesnake Grim Reaper&#8217;) for <a href=\"http:\/\/app.audiogon.com\/listings\/coconut-audio-rattlesnake-grim-reaper-power-10m-us-extr\">just $80,000<\/a>. But maybe not. <a href=\"http:\/\/app.audiogon.com\/listings\/4-jps-aluminata-2-meter-power-cables-15-amp\">Here are a set of four 2 metre power cables<\/a> for $8,400 from the same site. The only difference between paying $2,100 for a power cable and $80,000 is wealth. Both are equally nutty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was going to write something nasty about a device called The Exorcist from a company called The Gryphon. But I&#8217;ve had mine for quite a few years, so I thought I&#8217;d better check if it was still a current &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/?p=3848\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3848"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3848"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3850,"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3848\/revisions\/3850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}