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Only $2,000 to improve your amp's performance

#142
Implosion said:
First thing on my mind was: that sure looks like an Alesis amp



But the truth was even better. A Behringer rip-off of the Alesis :D Now that's a classic.
Click to expand...

David Linn of Linn Audio NH was asked to comment on this topic. He said, "Erm, heh, eh... you can't believe everything you see on the internet... I mean, well, hey the SCREWS on the cover plate are a different color! Those Behringer screws have the wrong resonant frequency to calibrate the standing wave nodes of the reciprocal isolation function! Right? Eh... ooh I know, Behringer ripped US OFF!"

All audiophiles were impersonated for this post.
 
#143
Nikoubis said:
A Behringer rip-off of the Alesis that has had some of its componenets replaced with "high-end audiophile preferred". The others were already of audiophile grade. Everything about this is literally EPIC. :D
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Not as epic as the fact that this "Linn" is not the actual Linn (A Scottish company who truly make some very fine audiophile gear at REASONABLE prices). It's an American company that is relying on the other Linn's good name to sell "modified" gear for outrageous prices. I tired to find reviews of these modified Behringer amps but alas, none exist. I did find several threads on audiophile forums exposing him though...
 
#144
Limeman said:
Not as epic as the fact that this "Linn" is not the actual Linn (A Scottish company who truly make some very fine audiophile gear at REASONABLE prices). It's an American company that is relying on the other Linn's good name to sell "modified" gear for outrageous prices. I tired to find reviews of these modified Behringer amps but alas, none exist. I did find several threads on audiophile forums exposing him though...
Click to expand...

Additionally, his "photo gallery" is a collection of tragic attempts to photoshop the speakers into interior design pictures. I would not be surprised if he has never made a sale.
 
#147
Jason P Bass said:
Additionally, his "photo gallery" is a collection of tragic attempts to photoshop the speakers into interior design pictures. I would not be surprised if he has never made a sale.
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Based on the price to performance ratio he should not have made a single sale, but if that criteria held true this country's largest manufacturer of consumer audio gear for the past 20 years would not have made a single sale either. :rolleyes:
Assuming he makes only one sale for each thousand prospective customers who look at his site he can still make a nice living with his 1500% markup. And since his offerings all come from Parts Express he doesn't even need to carry any inventory.
 
#148
To be clear, when I was posting above, I was joking.

Here is when I am being serious:

Email from me to David Linn:

I was looking at your LANH 500 watt power amp and have a question.

What is the difference between the LANH 500 and the Behringer A500 amplifier? Feel free to be specific and technical because I have an EE degree and can understand it.

Thanks!
[real name here]

Response from David Linn

Jason;

You are right that this is basically a Behringer amp, but it has been modified to give high-end performance. The Behringer is a good design, and has pretty good performance as it is, but some of the components needed to be upgraded to improve the sound. I do not want to give details, since this is proprietary. But if you are familiar with the concept of "POOGE" popularized by the Audio Amateur magazine in the 80's, you will understand what we are doing.

POOGE stands for "Progressive Optimization of Generic Equipment," and over the years there have been specialists who have done this work as a business, and charged quite a bit of money to improve a given device, usually much more than the cost of the original equipment. So we are doing something not too different here, i.e. creating a high-end performance, but starting with some generic equipment, and producing a device that performs like high-end, but still with a price that is below the cost of an equivalent component on the high-end market.

I have had a lot of complaints from audiophiles, like yourself, who say I am cheating or misleading the public (and I don't respond to their emails), so I appreciate your polite inquiry, and I am responding to you. But for the reasons stated above, I may end up dropping this line altogether, given the negative response. I don't want to jeopardize my main business, the speaker systems.

And keep in mind that I don't really expect people to buy these amps at these prices; they are intended only to be give-away percs for buying a speaker system.

I hope this answers your questions.

Regards;

David Linn

So in conclusion

It appears to me that he has performed some modifications to the Behringer A500 amp ($199.95 online), the specifics of which he does not divulge, which is reasonable. However, the skeptics will naturally say, "He didn't change anything except the cover plate". (I'm one of those skeptics, btw.) Giving away a $200 amp with a "$50k" speaker set is not a bad business idea, IMO. But selling that $200 amp, vaguely modified, as a $3500 amplifier is, IMO, shameful (legal, not technically dishonest, but shameful).

Since I'm only skeptical, that means I can be persuaded. But not by this.

PS - I just noticed that his email sig contains a link to "Cheap diet health tips, click here" but the link actually goes to realestatebook.com. None of this makes me feel like ordering a $50,000 set of speakers, free Behringer amp or not.
 
#152
Implosion said:
But the truth was even better. A Behringer rip-off of the Alesis :D Now that's a classic.
Click to expand...

Isn't it that Alesis is a rip off?
Behringer can produce an amp with the same or better specs, that blind tests show people can't hear a difference, and charges less. Looks like the truth is there's no sacred intellectual property in the Alesis look - you can get as good as amp cheaper don't be ripped off buying the expensive one.

Here's a blind test on the behringer
Matrix HiFi --> Blind testing high end full equipments
 
#156
seamonkey said:
Isn't it that Alesis is a rip off?
Behringer can produce an amp with the same or better specs, that blind tests show people can't hear a difference, and charges less. Looks like the truth is there's no sacred intellectual property in the Alesis look - you can get as good as amp cheaper don't be ripped off buying the expensive one.

Here's a blind test on the behringer
Matrix HiFi --> Blind testing high end full equipments
Click to expand...

What they didn't reveal about this particular test is clearly obvious in the attached photo: The 3 in front are both blind AND deaf and the two in the back were weened on low-bit resolution gangsta rap through Walmart $5.00 ear buds.

Intensive online research has revealed that this is apparently a very standardized test group for "blind testing" audio equipment. :rolleyes:
 

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#157
Jason P Bass said:
Additionally, his "photo gallery" is a collection of tragic attempts to photoshop the speakers into interior design pictures. I would not be surprised if he has never made a sale.
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But look, the home page has an image of a musical instrument. A violin-family instrument or grand piano is always proof that it's high-class audiophile stuff. ;)
 
#158
Limeman said:
Hey look everyone... I just did a blind test where 9 out of 10 people couldn't tell the difference between me or Victor Wooten on bass. Sweet...! ;)
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It's true that some people can't make certain distinctions that other people can make with ease. As an analogy, a few people can throw a 97 mph fastball; I sure can't. My inability to do so, in itself, doesn't mean that no one else has the ability. To show that something is possible, it's not necessary that everyone be able to do it; it's enough that someone can.

The thing is, though, that if such a someone really does have a particular ability, he/she is invariably able actually to demonstrate or prove it, not just to assert it. I might have been disinclined to believe that anybody could throw a ball 97 miles per hour, but when you take somebody like Joba Chamberlain out to the ballpark, rig up the radar gun, and find out that, yes, he can throw that hard, then he's proven that he can do it. If he can't prove it, he can't do it.

What bugs me about many self-proclaimed audiophiles is how resistant they are to the idea of any kind of proof other than their own assertions. Surely, if they had such refined powers of auditory discrimination, it would be the easiest thing in the world to prove it--just as it's easy to take a pitcher out to the ballpark and find out if he can really throw 97 mph. Just rig up two sets of cables, say, in a blind test environment, and see if you can bat significantly better than .500 in telling them apart. If your hearing is that good, you could do this easily. Yet that hardly ever seems to happen in "high-end" audio.
 
#159
dude, if they did that, they kniow it would be all over. thanks to the internet they're barely hanging on as it is, and they have to really cultivate suckers...not like before in the 70's and 80's when snake oil flowed like wine. don't know a guy sleeps at night after cashing a $3500 check for selling a behringer power amp, but at least the internet can save a few suckers.

and that's where my respect level for behringer just went up a notch. not by much, but at least behringer makes no bones about using cheap components and shortcuts to get the prices down. and they don't try to tell you it's worth $3500 when it's barely worth what they do charge. and honestly, after reading about that cheap vs expensive test, maybe some of the more expensive brands of gear might as well use cheap stuff, too. for all we know they probably are. hey, my sx basses sound just as good on recordings as any fender or more expensive bass i've owned or played. lots of cheap crap has found its way onto classic recordings as well.
 
#160
Richard Lindsey said:
It's true that some people can't make certain distinctions that other people can make with ease. As an analogy, a few people can throw a 97 mph fastball; I sure can't. My inability to do so, in itself, doesn't mean that no one else has the ability. To show that something is possible, it's not necessary that everyone be able to do it; it's enough that someone can.

The thing is, though, that if such a someone really does have a particular ability, he/she is invariably able actually to demonstrate or prove it, not just to assert it. I might have been disinclined to believe that anybody could throw a ball 97 miles per hour, but when you take somebody like Joba Chamberlain out to the ballpark, rig up the radar gun, and find out that, yes, he can throw that hard, then he's proven that he can do it. If he can't prove it, he can't do it.

What bugs me about many self-proclaimed audiophiles is how resistant they are to the idea of any kind of proof other than their own assertions. Surely, if they had such refined powers of auditory discrimination, it would be the easiest thing in the world to prove it--just as it's easy to take a pitcher out to the ballpark and find out if he can really throw 97 mph. Just rig up two sets of cables, say, in a blind test environment, and see if you can bat significantly better than .500 in telling them apart. If your hearing is that good, you could do this easily. Yet that hardly ever seems to happen in "high-end" audio.
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+1

It's all about the "high priced" pushing the science out of it. They spend a lot of time, effort, and money to convince you you can hear a difference and that science isn't capable of measuring what you can hear. Science can easily measure what you can hear - ear doctors do it every day.
 

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