First, I appreciate the non-flaming conversation we are having...
Respectfully, for you to think that a pair of budget (under $1K) subs is going to make for a system (say your Sierra 1's) that will beat the Forest or something in that quality/price it just isn't going to happen.
Same
But let's be careful not to put words in other people's mouths! I don't think I've ever said that the Sierras would beat Forests, as I said, I really would not expect so given that the Forests cost 4 times as much as the Sierras. But, I don't think the gap between both is that big. Certainly didn't seem to me when I heard the Forests. And in my case, certainly not worth 3000$ in my book, and certainly not for the majority of people. For a few audiophiles it might be, for a few others it might not be... But again, if you're going to compare apples to apples, as I said, adding sub or a pair of subs to cheaper bookshelves could be considered. Hell, rereading this, I even felt like editing this (I just did) to say that I'd even be cautious that I feel like the Forests are superior... (Ouch!) Pricewise it seems a nobrainer, but last time I heard the forests, my reaction was simply, wow, is this it? Almost 15000$ system for this? Wow... Does this even really sound any better than at home? Jeeze it's hard to say... (And the answer is yes and no, some things better, some things not, in the end, the answer is, yes and no... But given prices of most stuff I compare to, it's not even worth answering that question...)
Remember, 90% of music occupies the range from 300hz-20Khz. Now, if you're talking about a pair of Dynaudio Contour 1.4's and a truly fine sub, I completely concur.
In bass I would much rather have resolution and detail with a cutoff at 25hz, than sloppy boom at 20hz any day. Most subs are sloppy IMHO until you get around $2k (price point used for the sake of the debate), then you get to hear the true bass from the great jazz recordings and such.
Would the subs make the Sierras outshine the Forests from 300hz up? Maybe not, but man, I don't know what kind of crappy subs you've heard, but a decent 1000$ sub would dance around the Forests in bass quality... A 1000$ sub, 12 or a 15 inch bass woofer, optimally located for bass frequency, optimized cabinet, even adding
servo technology to assure that the sub's FR will be flat from 20 to 80hz or whatever crossover point you use, will just plainly
ridicule the bass of the Forests. Where the forests will fart weird noises and will be unable to reproduce lower frequencies, the dual subs, or even one sub, will be able to do it with ease.
So forget 100hz up, 100hz down, the forests lose, hands down, in a no contest not even in the race loss. 100hz up, as I said, my belief, is that the Sierras aren't far behind the Forests. Maybe the Forest setups I've heard weren't optimal, but honestly I wouldn't have expected the Sierras to sound much worst were they in the same rooms and systems...
Problem is, short of a blind test with the two speakers in the same room, and even then... It's hard to really have an absolute evaluation and comparison of the two. Even harder to put a value on the improvement worth of one versus the other... Or, what would be better or worst, for each attributed... (1 has mids a bit more forward, is that good, or bad? Who knows!)
But I had a 4000$ gift certificate for speakers, I'd go for sub(s), and a pair of bookshlelves over Forests any day of the week, without a second thought. The speakers probably wouldn't be Ascend Sierras as for 2-3k I'm sure I'd find speakers that I would prefer, but with my own money, I haven't found anything which made me reach for the CC. I've heard many speakers I'd consider superior, but their price premium hasn't been worth it for me for now. Somewhat hoping that changes, but as I said, to really get a worthwhile improvement over sierras usually costs more than couple thousands over the Sierras, and all too often sadly are priced in the 'ridiculous' pricing category...
Onto the medical.
The "new" drug was not a part of any trial. It's track record is outstanding. My physician doesn't see sales reps. His undergraduate background is pharmacology. He's quite conservative and only prescribed the drug in question because of its track record and lack of side effects.
As for homeopathy, my daughter's freedom from migraines for 6+ years now can be directly attributed to her classically trained physician who also studied homeopathic medicine. After going thru all sorts of treatments, and medications, this physician looked at her records and suggested an all-natural vegetarian diet. To see my daughter free of pain tells me that a properly trained doctor who then studies homeopathic medicine and uses logic/science to treat patients is a-ok.
You're threading on dangerous grounds here. Homeopathic is pretty much the case study for bogus medicine. Just so we're clear:
Homeopathy (also spelled Homoeopathy or Homœopathy) is a form of alternative medicine, first proposed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann in 1796, that attempts to treat patients with heavily diluted preparations which are thought to cause effects similar to the symptoms presented. Homeopathic remedies are prepared by serial dilution with shaking by forceful striking, which homeopaths term "succussion," after each dilution under the assumption that this increases the effect of the treatment. Homeopaths call this process "potentization". Dilution often continues until none of the original substance remains.[1]
Apart from the symptoms of the disease, homeopaths use aspects of the patient's physical and psychological state in recommending remedies.[2] Homeopathic reference books known as repertories are then consulted, and a remedy is selected based on the totality of symptoms. Homeopathic remedies are considered safe, with rare exceptions.[3] Some homeopaths have, however, been criticized for putting patients at risk with advice to avoid conventional medicine such as vaccinations,[4] anti-malarial drugs,[5] and antibiotics.[6] In many countries, the laws that govern the regulation and testing of conventional drugs do not apply to homeopathic remedies.[7]
Claims of homeopathy's efficacy beyond the placebo effect are unsupported by the collective weight of scientific and clinical evidence. While some studies have positive results, systematic reviews of all the published trials fail to conclusively demonstrate efficacy. Furthermore, higher quality trials tend to report less positive results,[15][18] and most positive studies have not been replicated or show methodological problems that prevent them from being considered unambiguous evidence of homeopathy's efficacy.
Homeopathic remedies generally contain few or no pharmacologically active molecules,[21] and for such remedies to have pharmacological effect would violate fundamental principles of science.[12][22] Modern homeopaths have proposed that water has a memory that allows homeopathic preparations to work without any of the original substance; however, the physics of water are well understood, and no known mechanism permits such a memory. The lack of convincing scientific evidence supporting homeopathy's efficacy and its use of remedies lacking active ingredients have caused homeopathy to be described as pseudoscience, quackery, a "cruel deception",[30] useless, "an outrage to human reason",[31] and a delusion.[32]
As such, a doctor having also studied homeopathy doesn't make one a bad doctor, or a charlatan. Just like having a rapper take a country singing class wouldn't make him a bad rapper, chose he to rap as he always did instead of trying to introduce country singing in his rap. So if this doctor just wasted his time studying a worthless pseudoscience, doesn't necessarily means he's a bad doctor because he did so. He might still practice real medicine without the silly hokus pokus of homeopathy. But it is absolutely impossible to reconcile logic, science, and homeopathy. If you hold true to logic and science, homeopathy's flawed concepts will inevitably crumble away leaving nothing but silly concepts brought forth by 1800s physicians... In the time where bleeding patients was considered medicine...
Is your daughter really free of migraine? Quite possibly, is it because of homeopathy? Uh nope... "all-natural vegetarian diet." isn't homeopathy. She's probably lucky to have found a good physician, even if he did waste his time with homeopathy... But to reach any kind of validation from that one non-homeopathic remedy is really a false conclusion. It has really nothing to do with homeopathy...
But to go back to scams, pretending that a couple ml of water with no active ingredient is medicine and will cure ailments and improve health, and selling it at ridiculous prices, is the exact definition of a scam. So is selling a power cord for hundreds of dollars claiming that it'll improve the sound of your stereo. Both absolutely bogus claims, uttered to mislead potential uninformed and unaware customers, into selling them something which does absolutely nothing of what it's claimed to.
Real drugs have to withstand an important and very demanding battery of tests. Their effects have to be demonstrated, examined, studied, etc. If one doesn't work on a patient, then he's unlucky, but legally sold drugs are regulated and so aren't scams. All tests done on power cables and the such have demonstrated that they fail to do what they claim. They've never withstood any test with a minimal amount of rigor. So really, there's two extremes. Total shams, versus extremely regulated field. Homeopathy here falls in sham, never proved its concepts to be true, not regulated in the least.
