I sometimes think I'm in the wrong line of work.
Each week I read James Randi's weekly newsletter [1] where he mentions the latest scams and fuzzy New Age thinking going on in the world, and some of the scams are just …
People believe and pay money for this stuff?
One of the many recent scams [2] is this CD (Compact Disc), DVD (Digital Video Disc) and LP (Long Playing (vinyl record)) demagnetizer.
Yes.
It's a degausser for plastic discs [3].
Demagnetizing both sides of optical media before play results in a greater sense of power, dynamics, and resolution, with cleaner, blacker backgrounds and a larger, more stable soundstage, vivid tonal colors and deeper extension at both ends of the frequency range. Demagnetization also allows the delicacy, refinement and nuance of a performance to shine through, along with micro- and macro-dynamics you need to realize the full potential of music and movies.
“Blacker backgrounds?”
We're talking about sounds, right? Not paintings, right?
“Blacker backgrounds.”
Sheesh.
And here's a demagnitizer that sells for $400.00! What a deal! $400.00 for “four patented electromagnetic beams that penetrate the disc during rotation; in addition to this the rotation speed has been increased for an even dispersion of the specialized beams. What this means is that you can expect far more hidden information to be retrieved. The patented processes ability to reduce the noise floor even further, allows you to enhance your listening pleasure to the extreme.”
As I asked Wlofie the other day, “Is it morally wrong to separate a fool from his money?”
Is it?
[1] http://www.randi.org/jr/archive.html
[2] http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-11/111706rampa.html#i6
[3] http://forum.stereophile.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/323/password//sort/1/cat/all/page/1