is this foam any good?

dj-kurt · Post by **dj-kurt** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 1:32 am

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Acoustic-Foam-Sou ... dZViewItem

Found this on ebay.Does anyone know it it compares to anything like the auralex stuff?

Thanx

Post by **sharward** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 4:52 am

I don't know if it's the same as the Foam By Mail crap... It might be though. See this thread.

Ethan Winer · Post by **Ethan Winer** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 7:42 am

> See this thread <

Sheesh, I'm the one who paid IBM's acoustics lab $400 to discover that Foam by Mail is a ripoff, and that link sends readers to another site - as if they broke the story.

--Ethan

dj-kurt · Post by **dj-kurt** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 9:25 am

Thanx.I dont think i'll be buying any of it.I think i'll probably use the diy route

Eric_Desart · Post by **Eric_Desart** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 8:12 am

Ethan Winer wrote:> See this thread <

Sheesh, I'm the one who paid IBM's acoustics lab $400 to discover that Foam by Mail is a ripoff, and that link sends readers to another site - as if they broke the story.

--Ethan

You must be joking (but with a very poor one)
Credit where it belongs. And it belongs in Studiotips
Sharward's link was right where it belongs.

You did NOT broke the story. I did.
It toke me exact 6 months trying to let you identify this foam which you presented as unidentified typical foam to enhance the superiority of MiniTraps.
US people helped me to sent them over to Belgium to investigate them.
This costed all parties involved more than the 400 $ you paid (purchase, special packing, special transport, import duties).
You measured them April 15, 2004
On my explicit request, recognizing this measurement immediately as junk foam not representative for whatever acoustic foam, you refused to identify it in public with as argument : respect for the supplier

Here you find the real story:
Breaking the Foam by Mail Story posted October 15 2004 (check rest of page too for EW and ED)

And even after it is proven dat the published data of FBM is fraudulent, and you couldn't do anything else anymore than identifying FBM (but still waited couple of months until much more people knew) on your site, you still use it for the same purpose knowing that no layman site visitor will know that this measurement is in no way representative for whatever type of acoustic foam. They assume you enter it as representative foam (not the worst acoustics foam for this purpose available on the face of this earth)
Nowhere you make ANY reservation for this foam.

http://www.realtraps.com/data.htm
And this is what you STILL write in very bold in the left green margin

http://www.realtraps.com/data.htm wrote:"One standard MiniTrap is nearly six times more effective than the same four-foot length of corner foam at 100 Hz and all lower frequencies."

And this quote and shown measurement (numerical and in graph) is based on this junk foam. Hence you just use it to mislead people. There isn't another corner foam measurement shown.
And now you will also claim the honor of the work of others which tried and (partly) succeeded to protect people against your more than questionable info and methods.

The ONLY and SINGLE reason that People know this is FBM, is the above linked story, which costed me a lot of energy and money (the latter not only me). Without it you should never have mentioned it anywhere.
Basically you made it only public after I did and publically confronted you with it. It should indeed look stupid if the whole net knew before you yourself identified it.

So I broke the story, not you.
Therefore I got even assistance from others. And we had to spend significant money and energy in order to be able to protect people against it. You did nothing to protect people against it, and your site still doesn't. You just (mis)use it to sell RealTraps, knowing that laymen have no idea about foam differences.

The cynical thing is that YOU POSSES REAL LENRD MEASUREMENTS.
It's not for nothing you still use this junk copycat LENRD foam measurements.

But being honest should get you in trouble with all those Reviews in Audio Magazines and Press Releases, isn't it?
Lots refer to it, orchestrated by you, as additional pseudo objective/scientific proof of the RealTraps superiority.
Hence we speak about ten thousands of people.
And you know that most reviewers won't see this either, they just trust you, and you won't tell them.

Please don't claim whatever honor about this story. There is none for you, not the slightest bit.

Another quote in very bold in the left green margin

http://www.realtraps.com/data.htm wrote:"Even with the added advantage of being placed in a corner, the corner foam performed far worse than its published specs."

Since the thread of Oct 15, 2004, referred higher up YOU KNOW beyond ANY REASONABLE doubt that this are falsified numbers.
And it's YOU not ME that should check the validity of numbers you use on your site to convince others from whatever.
Already from within the first couple of weeks of your measurement dated April 15, 2004 you were clearly warned that those numbers were very questionable.
You did nothing to check them since they served your purpose. And you continued using them even after you got proof (provided by others doing YOUR job), they were false.

How can fraudulent practices of another company contribute to anything related to RealTraps????
You give it a stupid explanation in relation to advantages of corner placing, knowing that you talk nonsense.
Those published specs are just falsified numbers without ever being measured as such, nothing else, and you know that.

All those things were clearly discussed and mentioned to you several times, without you doing anything about it. You just plain ignore it.
Basically for me this tells about Ethan Winer.

And to make this clear:
I have no interest in whatever foam and am even a typical mineral wool user.
I only like honest practices.
I accidentally have a background allowing me to see that measurements are reasonable or not for traditional materials.
99 % of site visitors and magazine readers don't. They just rely on the assumption that people presenting themselves as experts give objective, representative information.
Not even the reviewers recognize such measurements for what they are, as lots of related articles and reviews proof.
If a reviewer for the first time experiments with good corner absorption and then feels covered by such unreal measurement differences, that can possibly influence such review as well.
Reviewers are also human beings which can't be specialized in everything and sensitive to external factors, even when they are extremely integer and don't want to. As many others they are subject to deadlines and planning.

One of many, many examples (hence this is not SOS specific):
SOS Review sept : http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep04/a ... ltraps.htm
SOS wrote:However, when having his Mini Traps and Micro Traps lab-tested, Ethan went to the extra expense of having some rival foam-based products measured under exactly the same conditions to provide the more comparative results you can see in the graph below.
For any magazine reader, this comment by SOS validates those unreal comparisons as representative.
They have nothing else to go on.
At the time of this review those junk copycats were still undifined. The referred graph relates to them, compared with the RealTraps.
Not difficult to be better than those copycats: ANYTHING is.

I don't mind people buying whatever they prefer, as long as they can base themselves on integer not-misleading information to make up their mind based on their own priorities.
What I DO mind are this kind of extremely questionable practices.

PS: Note that this is only part of the way measurement data comparisons are misleading presented on this site.
E.g. Stipulations of the related ASTM and ISO standards related to the compatibility of measurements in function of comparisons are ignored as non-existing, as if those standards were written for the baker rather than the acoustic world. This results in comparison tables and graphs for the wall applications which have NOTHING to do with one another, suggesting ..... guess ..... unreal absorption differences between products to the benifit of RealTrap products (did anyone guessed wrong?).

ckgdrums · Post by **ckgdrums** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 9:08 pm

Uhhhh...WOW!

Ethan Winer · Post by **Ethan Winer** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 4:53 am

Chuck,

> Uhhhh...WOW! <

Yeah, no kidding. Eric is a bitter old man who gets a bug up his butt from time to time. It's probably due to typical "holiday depression" because he always starts trouble around this time of year. He did the exact same thing somewhere else last year.

All I can imagine is that Eric is very jealous of me, so he attacks me in forums like this when he's feeling depressed. It's probably best just to pity him and ignore him.

--Ethan

Eric_Desart · Post by **Eric_Desart** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 5:36 am

Ethan Winer wrote:Chuck,

> Uhhhh...WOW! <

Yeah, no kidding. Eric is a bitter old man who gets a bug up his butt from time to time. It's probably due to typical "holiday depression" because he always starts trouble around this time of year. He did the exact same thing somewhere else last year.

All I can imagine is that Eric is very jealous of me, so he attacks me in forums like this when he's feeling depressed. It's probably best just to pity him and ignore him.

--Ethan

That must be about the cheapest response anyone could think of.
Have you noticed that you NEVER defend your so-called case with arguments against me? Of course you need to have them.

My whole message is filled with plain factual statements.

But I can imagine you asking people to ignore me. I expose the real Ethan isn't it?

Post by **sharward** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 5:39 am

OK, folks -- so there you have it. The rebuttal to Eric's barrage of evidence and persuasive argument is a weak personal attack:

Accusation of being a "bitter old man"
Accusation of "holiday depression"
Accusation of jealousy
Appeal to ignore him

Notice there's no actual rebuttal -- just a dismissive "wave of hand." Even if all of the above accusations were true, to allow every single one of Eric's points to go undefended is astounding to me.

Factor in the fact that Eric does not profit from calling Ethan's reputation and practices into question, I'd have to say... Game, Set, and Match: Eric Desart.

Ethan Winer · Post by **Ethan Winer** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 5:50 am

> The rebuttal to Eric's barrage of evidence and persuasive argument is a weak personal attack <

You haven't been around here very long have you?

Paulkent · Post by **Paulkent** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 7:02 am

As an aside..

Eric, I love the fact that your signature says 'best Regards'

even at the end of a fairly fierce post! Kind of takes the edge off.. hehe nice.

Paul

Post by **sharward** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 7:51 am

Ethan Winer wrote:You haven't been around here very long have you?

As of this moment...

Joined: 02 Jan 2005
Posts: 1584

If you call 50 weeks "not very long" and disregard the fact that I'm the most active poster here over the past year, then I guess I'm just a newbie in your eyes.

Still no rebuttal. Nice!

ckgdrums · Post by **ckgdrums** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 8:25 am

Maybe we could agree to disagree and leave it at that. It is Christmas after all.

Post by **sharward** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 8:32 am

I can agree to that.

bert Stoltenborg · Post by **bert Stoltenborg** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 9:35 am

I fucking hate political and diplomatic stuff.....
Wasn't chistmas about a guy being nailed to a cross because he said stuff some other guys didn't like?