Little Things That Irk You IX

[QualityChimp]

AI chat filling up the smiles thread.

Bloody robots taking over everywhere!

[Hirst]

I'm in to my audio and do love good sound but even I find Audiophiles too much at times.
I mean, I've been blasted for using equalisation. To me it gives a fuller sound that I'm looking for but to those audiophile guys, I'm ruining everything. Bollocks. If it sounds better to me then that's all that matters. Right? Er.....

I had one of them go nuts at me because I get my optical audio cables from a discount shop, insisting that it will impact on the sound in some way. It’s digital, zeroes and ones! It’ll either work perfectly or it simply won’t work at all. They harped on about interference etc. I’ve never experienced it in decades of using them. Maybe a thicker cable might help durability or something but as long as those zeroes and ones can come down the pipe it won’t have a problem.

[Lebowski]

do you remember the £100-£200 Gold plated Monster HDMI cables Currys and Comet used to sell, with staff swearing by the amazing picture it gave you over the standard £10-£20 cables, really crazy to think people bought them in the 90s was like modern day snake oil.

[Atticus]

The 'up-sell' as a concept is an irk of mine. Way to demolish a customer relationship right after you've built it up.

[dataDave]

To be fair, if you’re spending £20,000 or more on a home theatre setup you want the expensive cabling just to ensure that you’re not compromising your chain in any way. You might not hear any difference, but it’s a peace of mind thing. Allocating an additional 5% of your budget towards cabling seems like a good call to me.

It makes even more sense if you’re installing cables behind walls. It’s worth investing as to never repeat all that work, at least not for a very good reason.

[dataDave]

I actively wanted some ‘decent’ cables for my setup and the guys in the shop told me not to waste my money. At least I got away with a €108 coax lead (it had to be in white!!).

[dataDave]

do you remember the £100-£200 Gold plated Monster HDMI cables Currys and Comet used to sell, with staff swearing by the amazing picture it gave you over the standard £10-£20 cables, really crazy to think people bought them in the 90s was like modern day snake oil.

I used to try upselling £5 RGB SCART leads to people buying consoles when I worked at GameStation one Christmas. It’s astonishing just how many people couldn’t tell the difference between RGB and composite or just didn’t care. I wondered at times why manufacturers even bothered producing goods with these kinds of capabilities.

EDIT: Could have sworn I was repeating myself, then looked a few posts up. xD

[dataDave]

I'm in to my audio and do love good sound but even I find Audiophiles too much at times.
I mean, I've been blasted for using equalisation. To me it gives a fuller sound that I'm looking for but to those audiophile guys, I'm ruining everything. Bollocks. If it sounds better to me then that's all that matters. Right? Er.....

You mean volume equalisation? So it’ll artificially make quiet bits more audible, while reducing spikes in volume? Sometimes that can be a lot more comfortable on the ears, especially if you’re using big headphones, or if you’re watching a ‘volatile’ movie at night and you don’t want the police at your door, but it’s not how the audio was engineered by the producer/artist/developer. Sometimes it’s a great workaround for poorly produced audio.

[Lebowski]

To be fair, if you’re spending £20,000 or more on a home theatre setup you want the expensive cabling just to ensure that you’re not compromising your chain in any way. You might not hear any difference, but it’s a peace of mind thing. Allocating an additional 5% of your budget towards cabling seems like a good call to me.

It makes even more sense if you’re installing cables behind walls. It’s worth investing as to never repeat all that work, at least not for a very good reason.

Are you saying you'd spend £200 on a HDMI cable???

[Asura]

Are you saying you'd spend £200 on a HDMI cable???

If you can afford 20k on a hifi setup then I have a £200 HDMI cable you can buy

[Asura]

The 'up-sell' as a concept is an irk of mine. Way to demolish a customer relationship right after you've built it up.

Just to say, this is because it works. Genuinely. It doesn't apply to everyone, but for the vast majority of people, retail theory suggests that purchases are like rolling downhill. It's easy to stand still, but once you fall and start rolling, stopping is harder. Once you've got a customer who has committed to a purchase, selling them something on top is very easy.

I get that it's annoying. But it's like complaining about YouTubers saying "like and subscribe"; ultimately they do it because it works, and if it didn't work, they would stop.

[wakka]

Of course it works...do you want fries with that? Still a valid irk!

[Asura]

Of course it works...do you want fries with that? Still a valid irk!

You can go large on that little irk for 30p Wakka

[Yakumo]

You mean volume equalisation? So it’ll artificially make quiet bits more audible, while reducing spikes in volume? Sometimes that can be a lot more comfortable on the ears, especially if you’re using big headphones, or if you’re watching a ‘volatile’ movie at night and you don’t want the police at your door, but it’s not how the audio was engineered by the producer/artist/developer. Sometimes it’s a great workaround for poorly produced audio.

No, I mean like a graphic equaliser to boost base, alter the mid range and fix the highs.

[Atticus]

Just to say, this is because it works. Genuinely. It doesn't apply to everyone, but for the vast majority of people, retail theory suggests that purchases are like rolling downhill. It's easy to stand still, but once you fall and start rolling, stopping is harder. Once you've got a customer who has committed to a purchase, selling them something on top is very easy.

It's fair to say there are some I accept and some I don't.

The worst, from personal experience, involved Oak Furniture Land. We just needed a basic unit for the hall. They had a sale, we saw something that fit the bill and asked to buy it. Then we're sat down. The guy says 'can I just ask, are you going to put anything on it?' ... followed by a wince, anticipating our reply. 'yes' we said ... 'maybe a phone, some flowers ...'. He winced again. Then went into a whole spiel, the crux of which was a recommended £100+ subscription to wax. But that wasn't all. The next bit was a lesson on the nature of wood and how it 'can' open up over time ... cue the fear-led insurance pitch. At this point my wife said 'can I stop you there, I have no trust in the product any more. We're done'. The guy had a sale in the bag and messed it up royally. I know they're trained like that and have targets but it's poor form and it's not sustainable. We saw the guy a few minutes later outside having a smoke, getting his head together.