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#1
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$6800 Audioquest cables
Despite an apparent 20% saving, reviewers at Amazon just don't seem to
be taking the offer seriously :-) http://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-K2-...pr_product_top One refurbished for a mere $5k! I also noticed that 17% of people who viewed these cables bought $12.99 RCA speaker wire instead! How could they? Anyway, read the customer reviews - they're rather amusing. Rob --- Rob Tweed Company: M/Gateway Developments Ltd Registered in England: No 3220901 Registered Office: 58 Francis Road,Ashford, Kent TN23 7UR Web-site: http://www.mgateway.com |
#2
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On Sun, 28 Nov 2010 21:20:59 -0800, Rob Tweed wrote
(in article ): Despite an apparent 20% saving, reviewers at Amazon just don't seem to be taking the offer seriously :-) http://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-K2-terminated-speaker- cable/dp/B000J36XR2/ref =cm_cr_pr_product_top One refurbished for a mere $5k! I also noticed that 17% of people who viewed these cables bought $12.99 RCA speaker wire instead! How could they? Anyway, read the customer reviews - they're rather amusing. Rob --- Rob Tweed Company: M/Gateway Developments Ltd Registered in England: No 3220901 Registered Office: 58 Francis Road,Ashford, Kent TN23 7UR Web-site: http://www.mgateway.com Yeah, How could they, indeed! After all, at only 523 times the price of the Radio Shack cables, the Audioquests are a bargain, right? And I've this suspension bridge, conveniently located in New York City, between Manhattan and Brooklyn that I'll gladly sell you cheap! |
#3
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On 11/29/2010 12:20 AM, Rob Tweed wrote:
Despite an apparent 20% saving, reviewers at Amazon just don't seem to be taking the offer seriously :-) http://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-K2-...pr_product_top Anyway, read the customer reviews - they're rather amusing. In case Amazon decides to take down the reviews, I'll post a couple here for posterity: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// I have only a little time..., November 15, 2010 By Whisper This review is from: AudioQuest K2 terminated speaker cable - UST plugs 8' (2.44m) pair (Electronics) We live underground. We speak with our hands. We wear the earplugs all our lives. PLEASE! You must listen! We cannot maintain the link for long... I will type as fast as I can. DO NOT USE THE CABLES! We were fools, fools to develop such a thing! Sound was never meant to be this clear, this pure, this... accurate. For a few short days, we marveled. Then the... whispers... began. Were they Aramaic? Hyperborean? Some even more ancient tongue, first spoken by elder races under the red light of dying suns far from here? We do not know, but somehow, slowly... we began to UNDERSTAND. No, no, please! I don't want to remember! YOU WILL NOT MAKE ME REMEMBER! I saw brave men claw their own eyes out... oh, god, the screaming... the mobs of feral children feasting on corpses, the shadows MOVING, the fires burning in the air! The CHANTING! WHY CAN'T I FORGET THE WORDS??? We live underground. We speak with our hands. We wear the earplugs all our lives. Do not use the cables! /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// If only Heracles had such power!, March 19, 2009 By Valannin "Pantheon Outcast" This review is from: AudioQuest K2 terminated speaker cable - UST plugs 8' (2.44m) pair (Electronics) If there is one cable I would whole-heartedly trust to my Chimera-hunting needs, this would be the cable. No other cable has the tensile strength to properly and efficiently garrote a lycanthrope, asphyxiate an Esquilax or even gag a mermaid. Last week, using my trusty AudioQuest K2 (retrofitted with lead weights, bright orange latex paint and a generous coating of crushed glass stolen from the window of an abandoned church at midnight), I managed to snuff 3 golden unicorns in swift succession! Pros: Quickly tears through scales, fur, bone, and adamantium with ease Coils and uncoils from hip holster (optional) quickly and quietly For a product fabricated from 1,000 Onyx Dragon fetuses, the price is unbelievably reasonable! Cons: Shipping from the R'lyeh took far too long Doesn't come in 10' lengths (which would be perfect for hydra, cerberii and other multi-headed creatures) After every use, I can feel 6 ounces of my soul slipping from my core into the ether. But this may be due to the fact that I prefer to work without gloves. YMMV. Overall, I would recommend that any hunter buy one, nay, two, of these immediately, and experience the difference that upgrading to the K2 will make in your next quest! ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// |
#4
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On Nov 29, 12:20=A0am, Rob Tweed wrote:
Despite an apparent 20% saving, reviewers at Amazon just don't seem to be taking the offer seriously :-) http://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-K2-...cable/dp/B000J... One refurbished for a mere $5k! How do you refurbish a cable?! |
#5
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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$6800 Audioquest cables
"bob" wrote in message
On Nov 29, 12:20=A0am, Rob Tweed wrote: Despite an apparent 20% saving, reviewers at Amazon just don't seem to be taking the offer seriously :-) http://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-K2-...cable/dp/B000J... One refurbished for a mere $5k! How do you refurbish a cable?! Perform a simple continuity test, wipe it off with a cloth, and run it through the packaging line, again. A good deal of so-called refurbished product never had any fault other than not being wanted, once obtained. |
#6
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On Tue, 30 Nov 2010 03:50:50 -0800, bob wrote
(in article ): On Nov 29, 12:20=A0am, Rob Tweed wrote: Despite an apparent 20% saving, reviewers at Amazon just don't seem to be taking the offer seriously :-) http://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-K2-...cable/dp/B000J... One refurbished for a mere $5k! How do you refurbish a cable?! I dunno, put new connectors on it, perhaps? All I can tell you is at that price, the cable had better be solid gold. It won't be a very good conductor of an audio signal (compared to copper), but at least, by weight, it might be worth what AudioQuest is asking for it - because that's the ONLY way it would be! |
#7
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On Tue, 30 Nov 2010 04:50:06 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ): "bob" wrote in message On Nov 29, 12:20=A0am, Rob Tweed wrote: Despite an apparent 20% saving, reviewers at Amazon just don't seem to be taking the offer seriously :-) http://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-K2-...cable/dp/B000J... One refurbished for a mere $5k! How do you refurbish a cable?! Perform a simple continuity test, wipe it off with a cloth, and run it through the packaging line, again. A good deal of so-called refurbished product never had any fault other than not being wanted, once obtained. Yeah, that makes sense, Some guy buys it for $6800, realized that it did nothing that the $12 Radio Shack cable he replaced with it didn't do, and sent it back for a refund. |
#8
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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$6800 Audioquest cables
Arny Krueger wrote:
: "bob" wrote in message 0: : How do you refurbish a cable?! : Perform a simple continuity test, wipe it off with a cloth, and run it : through the packaging line, again. : A good deal of so-called refurbished product never had any fault other than : not being wanted, once obtained. I can't speak to the cable world, but for a lot of technology (computers and electronics, as well as more mechanical things like tools) an item sold as refurbished is very likely to have gone through more rigorous testing before being returned to market than a typical new unit of the same type. So it works, and costs less to boot. I suppose very high end audio equipment may be tested thoroughly unit-by-unit, but there are likely exceptions. -- Andy Barss |
#9
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On Nov 30, 7:50=A0am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"bob" wrote in message How do you refurbish a cable?! Perform a simple continuity test, wipe it off with a cloth, and run it through the packaging line, again. IOW, the second time they sell it, they make sure it conducts electricity first. |
#10
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On 11/29/2010 12:20 AM, Rob Tweed wrote:
Despite an apparent 20% saving, reviewers at Amazon just don't seem to be taking the offer seriously :-) http://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-K2-...pr_product_top Anyway, read the customer reviews - they're rather amusing. Frankly, I didn't find the reviews amusing at all. Usually, things that are predictable aren't funny. My comment is: who bloody cares? Yes, there are expensive - gasp! even overpriced! - audio products. So what? It is easy to find overpriced merchandise is almost any product category. Some people find value in these products. So what? What difference does it make to you or me? |
#11
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On Wed, 1 Dec 2010 11:36:18 -0800, C. Leeds wrote
(in article ): On 11/29/2010 12:20 AM, Rob Tweed wrote: Despite an apparent 20% saving, reviewers at Amazon just don't seem to be taking the offer seriously :-) http://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-K2-...p/B000J36XR2/r ef=cm_cr_pr_product_top Anyway, read the customer reviews - they're rather amusing. Frankly, I didn't find the reviews amusing at all. Usually, things that are predictable aren't funny. My comment is: who bloody cares? Yes, there are expensive - gasp! even overpriced! - audio products. So what? It is easy to find overpriced merchandise is almost any product category. Some people find value in these products. So what? What difference does it make to you or me? Sometimes It's just fun to make light of suckers and the snake oil they buy. Besides, if one cannot join the upper classes, one should applaud anyone, like Bill Lowe of AudioQuest, who is doing his best to deplete them! 8^) |
#12
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On 12/1/2010 3:24 PM, Audio Empire wrote (about buyers of expensive
audio cables): Sometimes It's just fun to make light of suckers and the snake oil they buy. That some people may enjoy buying and owning expensive cables doesn't necessarily make them suckers. If they enjoy it, who are you to criticize? And it's only "snake oil" if the product doesn't deliver what the buyer expected. |
#13
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On Wed, 1 Dec 2010 13:12:24 -0800, C. Leeds wrote
(in article ): On 12/1/2010 3:24 PM, Audio Empire wrote (about buyers of expensive audio cables): Sometimes It's just fun to make light of suckers and the snake oil they buy. That some people may enjoy buying and owning expensive cables doesn't necessarily make them suckers. If they enjoy it, who are you to criticize? And it's only "snake oil" if the product doesn't deliver what the buyer expected. If they *know* that they're just buying "bling", I'd agree with you, but you'd be surprised at how many people have been duped into buying these hyper-expensive cables thinking that they actually "do" something. Besides, buying expensive cables for looks is one thing, but there is NOTHING that one can do to a speaker cable to make it worth $6800, even if it were made of gold. |
#14
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On 12/1/2010 1:12 PM, C. Leeds wrote:
On 12/1/2010 3:24 PM, Audio Empire wrote (about buyers of expensive audio cables): Sometimes It's just fun to make light of suckers and the snake oil they buy. That some people may enjoy buying and owning expensive cables doesn't necessarily make them suckers. If they enjoy it, who are you to criticize? And it's only "snake oil" if the product doesn't deliver what the buyer expected. And who's to say what is too expensive? Is a $5000 amp better than a $500 amp with the same specs? While I would agree that cables are an extreme example of overpriced audio equipment, it seems that this sort of hype is what the high end business is built on to some degree or another. Some equipment selection decisions are made on strictly non-audio criteria. Maybe you get great satisfaction from the looks of $6.8K cables. I'm sure many equipment choices are based on looks. Fine with me, it's your money. |
#15
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On Dec 1, 4:12=A0pm, "C. Leeds" wrote:
And it's only "snake oil" if the product doesn't deliver what the buyer expected. "Snake oil" really describes the disconnect between what the manufacturer promises and what the product delivers. Some people may take laetrile because they like the taste, but it's still snake oil. But to ease any hurt feelings here, I for one promise to never, ever make fun of anyone who admits to buying high-priced cables solely for the bling factor. bob |
#16
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On Wed, 1 Dec 2010 21:15:18 -0800, bob wrote
(in article ): On Dec 1, 4:12=A0pm, "C. Leeds" wrote: And it's only "snake oil" if the product doesn't deliver what the buyer expected. "Snake oil" really describes the disconnect between what the manufacturer promises and what the product delivers. Some people may take laetrile because they like the taste, but it's still snake oil. But to ease any hurt feelings here, I for one promise to never, ever make fun of anyone who admits to buying high-priced cables solely for the bling factor. bob Very wise course. If someone has enough money that $6800 is "chump change" and realizes that they're buying these cables merely on looks (and believe me, for the money, those Audioquest cables are far from the most-bling-for-the-buck!), then I say go for it. But those who actually expect these cables to actually make their systems sound better, tsk, tsk, tsk. |
#17
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On 12/1/2010 5:57 PM, Audio Empire wrote (about high-priced audio cables):
...you'd be surprised at how many people have been duped into buying these hyper-expensive cables thinking that they actually "do" something. Okay, I'll ask: how many people have been duped? Why don't we hear from them in this group, or elsewhere? Please tell us. ...there is NOTHING that one can do to a speaker cable to make it worth $6800, even if it were made of gold. That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it. You're also free to enjoy mocking those who buy these cables. Some others apparently find value in these sorts of products, however. |
#18
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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$6800 Audioquest cables
"C. Leeds" wrote in message
On 12/1/2010 5:57 PM, Audio Empire wrote (about high-priced audio cables): ...you'd be surprised at how many people have been duped into buying these hyper-expensive cables thinking that they actually "do" something. If it happens its only because there is a large group of people who are happy to do the duping. Okay, I'll ask: how many people have been duped? Why don't we hear from them in this group, or elsewhere? Please tell us. We do hear from people who realize that they have been duped this way from time to time. As a rule, people who are duped feel very humiliated. There are very few people who will add to their personal humilation by going public. Or, haven't you noticed all of the privacy surrounding groups like Al-anon, etc.? ...there is NOTHING that one can do to a speaker cable to make it worth $6800, even if it were made of gold. I suspect that a $6,800 speaker cable could be made with quite a bit of gold, and still be highly profitable for its producer. That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it. You're also free to enjoy mocking those who buy these cables. The ability to use a retail web site to mock its prospective customers is a byproduct of modern web-based merchandising that I for one would have never predicted. The basic strategy comes under that ancient strategy "damning with faint praise". Only in this case, the praise is carefully calculated to be just a little bit over-the-top. Given all of the hype that surrounds these products, there's quite a bit of latitude that is left in "a little over the top". Some others apparently find value in these sorts of products, however. This statement could be interpreted in the same light as the ones above it. I'm quite sure that "Some others apparently find value..." in crack. The guy who broke into my car downtown a few weeks ago probably did. |
#19
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On Thu, 2 Dec 2010 05:46:13 -0800, C. Leeds wrote
(in article ): On 12/1/2010 5:57 PM, Audio Empire wrote (about high-priced audio cables): ...you'd be surprised at how many people have been duped into buying these hyper-expensive cables thinking that they actually "do" something. Okay, I'll ask: how many people have been duped? Why don't we hear from them in this group, or elsewhere? Please tell us. Well, obviously I don't have any actual sales figures, but the sheer number of companies making and selling expensive cables indicate that it must be a lucrative market, or they wouldn't make so many different brands. SOMEBODY is buying them, surely. ...there is NOTHING that one can do to a speaker cable to make it worth $6800, even if it were made of gold. That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it. Lots of things in audio are opinions. This just doesn't happen to be one of them. Physics and DBTs both tell us that cables have NO sound, indeed cannot have any sound unless they are something else other than just interconnects and speaker cables. Of course if I make an expensive "cable" with a big metal, wood, or epoxy box in the middle of it full of capacitors, resistors and inductors, I'm no longer selling cables, am I? I'm selling in-line filters, which of course DO have a sound of their own. But that's a different story. Now, to make an odious analogy, Physics also tells us that one cannot flap their arms and fly like a bird, either, but if you insist on climbing to the top of the barn and leaping off, I certainly cannot stop you. I do feel, however, that it is my duty as a fellow human being to point out to you that if you insist on jumping off the end of the barn roof, and flapping your arms wildly, that you will likely die. I likewise feel it's my duty to tell people less technically schooled than I am that fancy cables are snake oil, and that they're wasting their money by buying them. If, after understanding that the cables will not enhance their stereo system's sound in any way shape or form, they decide to go ahead and purchase them, then I have no problem with that. I figure that they probably have their reasons and those reasons obviously have little to do with the performance of their audio systems. I also feel that magazines like 'Stereophile' and 'The Absolute Sound', both of whom foster this mythology are doing their readership a grave injustice, by proliferating the notion that cables, mere CONDUCTORS, actually affect sound. I have seen only one magazine, a British one at that, actually step forward and say that the idea of cable sound is patent nonsense and that the fact that cables and interconnects have no sound can be easily proved by both mathematics and double-blind listening tests. Kudos to them. You're also free to enjoy mocking those who buy these cables. Some others apparently find value in these sorts of products, however. Actually, they probably don't. Like those who bought tonics and elixirs from the old 19th century medicine show salesmen, people who buy expensive cables probably believe that the cables make a difference due to expectational bias (These cables cost $6800/pair. They had BETTER improve the sound of my system). But alas, these cables won't even give the the buyer that feeling of well-being that they often got from the medicine show salesman's product, because the cables aren't 25% alcohol! 8^) |
#20
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On 2010-12-03 02:18, Audio Empire wrote:
[...] I have seen only one magazine, a British one at that, actually step forward and say that the idea of cable sound is patent nonsense and that the fact that cables and interconnects have no sound can be easily proved by both mathematics and double-blind listening tests. Kudos to them. Which magazine is that? /August |
#21
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On 2010-12-02 15:38, Arny Krueger wrote:
We do hear from people who realize that they have been duped this way from time to time. As a rule, people who are duped feel very humiliated. There are very few people who will add to their personal humilation by going public. Or, haven't you noticed all of the privacy surrounding groups like Al-anon, etc.? I can admit having been duped, although I have not spent this kind of money on speaker wire. After reading about blind testing of speaker wire in this group I replaced my Kimber wire with a thin and cheap standard copper wire. And (of course) my system sounded just as good as before. I also never really liked the pretentious looks (thickness) of my so called high-end speaker wire. /August |
#22
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On 12/1/2010 5:57 PM, Audio Empire wrote (about high-priced audio cables):
...you'd be surprised at how many people have been duped into buying these hyper-expensive cables thinking that they actually "do" something. I answered: Okay, I'll ask: how many people have been duped? Why don't we hear from them in this group, or elsewhere? Please tell us. on 12/2/2010 9:38 AM, Arny Krueger wrote: ...As a rule, people who are duped feel very humiliated. There are very few people who will add to their personal humilation by going public. Or, haven't you noticed all of the privacy surrounding groups like Al-anon, etc.? Don't be silly, Arny. What could be more anonymous than Usenet???? That we don't hear from the alleged legions of swindled cable buyers suggests they're mythical - and that their "fleecing" is a red herring. It seems likely to me that the buyer of a set of $12K cables knows exactly what they are buying, and finds value in it. |
#23
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On 12/3/2010 10:17 AM, August Karlstrom wrote:
I can admit having been duped, although I have not spent this kind of money on speaker wire. After reading about blind testing of speaker wire in this group I replaced my Kimber wire with a thin and cheap standard copper wire. And (of course) my system sounded just as good as before. Please explain how you were "duped." Did you expect results you didn't achieve? Did you seek a refund from the retailer? |
#24
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On Fri, 3 Dec 2010 07:17:10 -0800, August Karlstrom wrote
(in article ): On 2010-12-02 15:38, Arny Krueger wrote: We do hear from people who realize that they have been duped this way from time to time. As a rule, people who are duped feel very humiliated. There are very few people who will add to their personal humilation by going public. Or, haven't you noticed all of the privacy surrounding groups like Al-anon, etc.? I can admit having been duped, although I have not spent this kind of money on speaker wire. After reading about blind testing of speaker wire in this group I replaced my Kimber wire with a thin and cheap standard copper wire. And (of course) my system sounded just as good as before. I also never really liked the pretentious looks (thickness) of my so called high-end speaker wire. /August Yes, DBTs, in this case, merely conform that which the maths/physics tell us must be so. Would that DBTs were always that cut and dry, but, unfortunately, they aren't . In most cases, the things we are testing for are so subtle and conditional (like the difference between the sound of amplifiers and preamps), that a small error in set-up can skew the results to either make all the test units sound the same when they really don't, or make them all sound different from one another when they are really pretty much the same. I've been privy to so many "suspicious" DBTs over the last couple of years that If I didn't set the test up, or at least witness it, myself, I've started to look upon most of them with a jaundiced eye. There is something else going-on as well. I don't believe that everybody hears the same way. I'm not saying that the mechanisms are wildly different from person to person, but I am saying that people don't listen for the same things and that there are some things that people simply don't "hear" . I know this is true with the visual sense. There is a difference between what people see (and probably hear) and what they notice. I once attended a HD-DVD demonstration in which a 480p DVD of a recent James Bond movie was played on one HD-DVD player and a High-Definition disc of the same movie was played on another, identical player. Both were connected to the same 60-inch LCD television monitor via HDMI and the TV was being switched between the two inputs by a salesman from the remote control. There were about 20 people in the room watching the demonstration. About HALF of them said that they didn't see any difference, but to me it was like night and day. These people weren't sight-impaired, but in a "blind" test, they couldn't NOTICE the difference between up-converted 480p and real 1080p material. I have a good friend who, to this very day, when he is over at my place is constantly asking whether or not what we are watching is HD. He doesn't notice the difference. I'm pretty sure this works for hearing as well, but I have no proof and all of this is just anecdotal. |
#25
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On Fri, 3 Dec 2010 07:17:51 -0800, C. Leeds wrote
(in article ): On 12/1/2010 5:57 PM, Audio Empire wrote (about high-priced audio cables): ...you'd be surprised at how many people have been duped into buying these hyper-expensive cables thinking that they actually "do" something. I answered: Okay, I'll ask: how many people have been duped? Why don't we hear from them in this group, or elsewhere? Please tell us. on 12/2/2010 9:38 AM, Arny Krueger wrote: ...As a rule, people who are duped feel very humiliated. There are very few people who will add to their personal humilation by going public. Or, haven't you noticed all of the privacy surrounding groups like Al-anon, etc.? Don't be silly, Arny. What could be more anonymous than Usenet???? That we don't hear from the alleged legions of swindled cable buyers suggests they're mythical - and that their "fleecing" is a red herring. It seems likely to me that the buyer of a set of $12K cables knows exactly what they are buying, and finds value in it. IMHO, you are overlooking the obvious. People have poor aural memory. That's one reason why DBTs are relied upon so heavily. If a person's expectational bias tells him that his new, expensive wire purchase has made his system sound better (whether it actually did or not) what are the chances that he would ever revisit the question? For most people the answer to that is that chances are very poor. So, most people who buy expensive cable don't KNOW that they have been sold mouse-milk that does nothing more than a cheap, simple alternative (such as lamp cord vs high-end speaker cable). Not knowing, they merely accept their new purchase as "better" and move on. |
#26
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On Fri, 3 Dec 2010 07:33:10 -0800, C. Leeds wrote
(in article ): On 12/3/2010 10:17 AM, August Karlstrom wrote: I can admit having been duped, although I have not spent this kind of money on speaker wire. After reading about blind testing of speaker wire in this group I replaced my Kimber wire with a thin and cheap standard copper wire. And (of course) my system sounded just as good as before. Please explain how you were "duped." Did you expect results you didn't achieve? Did you seek a refund from the retailer? Seems clear enough to me. He bought the Kimber cable expecting it to make a difference in the sound of his stereo, and when he changed to an (adequate sized, one would hope) length of standard copper wire (lamp cord?), he heard NO difference. This told him that the Kimber had no discernible sonic signature and was neither an improvement nor a degradation from regular, cheap copper wire. I also doubt that he could get a refund from a dealer on wire any more than a snake-oil salesman would refund a customer because the customer found that the snake-oil did nothing (except perhaps make him and his family drunk). |
#27
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On Fri, 3 Dec 2010 07:15:49 -0800, August Karlstrom wrote
(in article ): On 2010-12-03 02:18, Audio Empire wrote: [...] I have seen only one magazine, a British one at that, actually step forward and say that the idea of cable sound is patent nonsense and that the fact that cables and interconnects have no sound can be easily proved by both mathematics and double-blind listening tests. Kudos to them. Which magazine is that? /August Hi-Fi+. They have a column every month called "The Hi-Fi Heretic". About a year ago the author dedicated his entire column to cable mythology and pretty much cited all of the technical reasons why interconnects and speaker wire are all the same and have no sonic signature. I've never seen any other publication admit that. Even the normally, very pragmatic "Hi-Fi News and Record Review" which I regard as the best English language audio hobby magazines extant, still "reviews" cables and interconnects. |
#28
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$6800 Audioquest cables
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
... On Fri, 3 Dec 2010 07:33:10 -0800, C. Leeds wrote (in article ): On 12/3/2010 10:17 AM, August Karlstrom wrote: I can admit having been duped, although I have not spent this kind of money on speaker wire. After reading about blind testing of speaker wire in this group I replaced my Kimber wire with a thin and cheap standard copper wire. And (of course) my system sounded just as good as before. Please explain how you were "duped." Did you expect results you didn't achieve? Did you seek a refund from the retailer? Seems clear enough to me. He bought the Kimber cable expecting it to make a difference in the sound of his stereo, and when he changed to an (adequate sized, one would hope) length of standard copper wire (lamp cord?), he heard NO difference. This told him that the Kimber had no discernible sonic signature and was neither an improvement nor a degradation from regular, cheap copper wire. I also doubt that he could get a refund from a dealer on wire any more than a snake-oil salesman would refund a customer because the customer found that the snake-oil did nothing (except perhaps make him and his family drunk). No such thing. His expectations after all the discussion here was that changing to the cheaper wire would not change anything. And it did not. "Expectations" run both ways, and without a good blind test, he may simply have gotten what he expected. |
#29
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On Fri, 3 Dec 2010 14:51:35 -0800, Harry Lavo wrote
(in article ): "Audio Empire" wrote in message ... On Fri, 3 Dec 2010 07:33:10 -0800, C. Leeds wrote (in article ): On 12/3/2010 10:17 AM, August Karlstrom wrote: I can admit having been duped, although I have not spent this kind of money on speaker wire. After reading about blind testing of speaker wire in this group I replaced my Kimber wire with a thin and cheap standard copper wire. And (of course) my system sounded just as good as before. Please explain how you were "duped." Did you expect results you didn't achieve? Did you seek a refund from the retailer? Seems clear enough to me. He bought the Kimber cable expecting it to make a difference in the sound of his stereo, and when he changed to an (adequate sized, one would hope) length of standard copper wire (lamp cord?), he heard NO difference. This told him that the Kimber had no discernible sonic signature and was neither an improvement nor a degradation from regular, cheap copper wire. I also doubt that he could get a refund from a dealer on wire any more than a snake-oil salesman would refund a customer because the customer found that the snake-oil did nothing (except perhaps make him and his family drunk). No such thing. His expectations after all the discussion here was that changing to the cheaper wire would not change anything. And it did not. "Expectations" run both ways, and without a good blind test, he may simply have gotten what he expected. You certainly have a very valid point. OTOH, I was merely giving my take on what I THOUGHT he was trying to say about "being duped". I really have no way of knowing what his expectations were with either cable and whether or not they were fulfilled. |
#30
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On Dec 3, 12:31=A0pm, Audio Empire wrote:
Yes, DBTs, in this case, merely conform that which the maths/physics tell= us must be so. =A0 Let's be careful here. Physics can *only* tell us how a change in components/cables affects the electrical signal. Psychoacoustics (including DBTs) tells us whether that change is audible. Would that DBTs were always that cut and dry, but, unfortunately, they aren't . In most cases, the things we are testing for= are so subtle and conditional (like the difference between the sound of amplifiers and preamps), that a small error in set-up can skew the result= s to either make all the test units sound the same when they really don't, or = make them all sound different from one another when they are really pretty muc= h the same. I've been privy to so many "suspicious" DBTs over the last coup= le of years that If I didn't set the test up, or at least witness it, myself= , I've started to look upon most of them with a jaundiced eye. =A0 Any DBT result should be viewed skeptically. There are many ways to screw them up and get either false positives or false negatives. That said, there's now a body of scientific findings we can draw on for answers, and new results that disagree with that body of findings deserve much greater scrutiny than new results that merely confirm it. There is something else going-on as well. I don't believe that everybody hears the same way. I'm not saying that the mechanisms are wildly differe= nt from person to person, but I am saying that people don't listen for the s= ame things and that there are some things that people simply don't "hear" . That people listen for different things does not mean that they listen differently. And the important thing for a DBT is that they listen for the *right* things. That is why a good DBT includes some form of "training." Training can be as simple as listening sighted first, to identify possible differences, and then trying to hear those same differences blind. Or it can involve focusing subjects on a particular aspect of the sound that is hypothesized to be different. But the goal is always to focus them on the aspects of the sound that are most likely to be different, to maximize the possibility of a positive result. I know this is true with the visual sense. There is a difference between wh= at people see (and probably hear) and what they notice. I once attended a HD= -DVD demonstration in which a 480p DVD of a recent James Bond movie was played= on one HD-DVD player and a High-Definition disc of the same movie was played= on another, identical player. Both were connected to the same 60-inch LCD television monitor via HDMI and the TV was being switched between the two inputs =A0by a salesman from the remote control. There were about 20 peop= le in the room watching the demonstration. About HALF of them said that they di= dn't see any difference, but to me it was like night and day. These people wer= en't sight-impaired, but in a "blind" test, they couldn't NOTICE the differenc= e between up-converted 480p and real 1080p material. I have a good friend w= ho, to this very day, when he is over at my place is constantly asking whethe= r or not what we are watching is HD. He doesn't notice the difference. I'm pre= tty sure this works for hearing as well, but I have no proof and all of this = is just anecdotal. That can certainly happen for hearing as well. You can easily imagine 20 people listening to a change in cables, with half of them saying they hear a difference and half saying they don't. The question in both visual and auditory cases is, which half is right? And the way you answer that question, again in both cases, is with a "blind" forced-choice test. bob |
#31
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On Fri, 3 Dec 2010 21:48:42 -0800, bob wrote
(in article ): On Dec 3, 12:31=A0pm, Audio Empire wrote: Yes, DBTs, in this case, merely conform that which the maths/physics tell= us must be so. =A0 Let's be careful here. Physics can *only* tell us how a change in components/cables affects the electrical signal. Psychoacoustics (including DBTs) tells us whether that change is audible. Since physics tells us that the effects that cable characteristics have on interconnects and speaker cable are insignificant at audio frequencies and that the measured effects amount to figures well below the threshold of audibility, I feel pretty safe is saying that the results of DBTs which show, universally, that there is no difference between similar interconnects and speaker cables, regardless of the cable technology used, pretty much tally with what the physics and the maths predict. Would that DBTs were always that cut and dry, but, unfortunately, they aren't . In most cases, the things we are testing for= are so subtle and conditional (like the difference between the sound of amplifiers and preamps), that a small error in set-up can skew the result= s to either make all the test units sound the same when they really don't, or = make them all sound different from one another when they are really pretty muc= h the same. I've been privy to so many "suspicious" DBTs over the last coup= le of years that If I didn't set the test up, or at least witness it, myself= , I've started to look upon most of them with a jaundiced eye. =A0 Any DBT result should be viewed skeptically. There are many ways to screw them up and get either false positives or false negatives. That said, there's now a body of scientific findings we can draw on for answers, and new results that disagree with that body of findings deserve much greater scrutiny than new results that merely confirm it. That's right. The fact that *I* feel better about DBTs where I have had a hand in the setup or, have at least, observed the setup, is merely placing my confidence in the results more in my "comfort zone" rather than actually removing the possibility of error - which, of course, is still there. There is something else going-on as well. I don't believe that everybody hears the same way. I'm not saying that the mechanisms are wildly differe= nt from person to person, but I am saying that people don't listen for the s= ame things and that there are some things that people simply don't "hear" . That people listen for different things does not mean that they listen differently. And the important thing for a DBT is that they listen for the *right* things. That is why a good DBT includes some form of "training." Training can be as simple as listening sighted first, to identify possible differences, and then trying to hear those same differences blind. Or it can involve focusing subjects on a particular aspect of the sound that is hypothesized to be different. But the goal is always to focus them on the aspects of the sound that are most likely to be different, to maximize the possibility of a positive result. Agreed. Buy most often, this "training" does not occur. I know this is true with the visual sense. There is a difference between wh= at people see (and probably hear) and what they notice. I once attended a HD= -DVD demonstration in which a 480p DVD of a recent James Bond movie was played= on one HD-DVD player and a High-Definition disc of the same movie was played= on another, identical player. Both were connected to the same 60-inch LCD television monitor via HDMI and the TV was being switched between the two inputs =A0by a salesman from the remote control. There were about 20 peop= le in the room watching the demonstration. About HALF of them said that they di= dn't see any difference, but to me it was like night and day. These people wer= en't sight-impaired, but in a "blind" test, they couldn't NOTICE the differenc= e between up-converted 480p and real 1080p material. I have a good friend w= ho, to this very day, when he is over at my place is constantly asking whethe= r or not what we are watching is HD. He doesn't notice the difference. I'm pre= tty sure this works for hearing as well, but I have no proof and all of this = is just anecdotal. That can certainly happen for hearing as well. You can easily imagine 20 people listening to a change in cables, with half of them saying they hear a difference and half saying they don't. The question in both visual and auditory cases is, which half is right? And the way you answer that question, again in both cases, is with a "blind" forced-choice test. OK, I understand what you are saying, and to a degree, I agree with you. OTOH, I have never been party to a DBT on speaker cables or interconnects where anyone could tell the slightest difference, statistically speaking, between the test samples. However I have experienced your above scenario WRT amplifiers, preamps DACs and CD players - IOW, situations where the variables in design parameters do not allow physics to so easily predict the "expected" outcome of the DBT. |
#32
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On 12/3/2010 3:29 PM, Audio Empire wrote:
I also doubt that he could get a refund from a dealer on wire any more than a snake-oil salesman would refund a customer because the customer found that the snake-oil did nothing (except perhaps make him and his family drunk). Weren't you in the audio retailing business, Audio Empire? I seem to recall that was your claim - please let me know if I'm mistaken. I can tell you this: every single audio item I ever purchased new was sold with a money-back guarantee. That includes phono cartridges, speakers, electronics and - believe it or not - cables. At the price of the high end, I wouldn't have it any other way. |
#33
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On 12/4/2010 12:47 AM, Dick Pierce wrote:
Do your own freakin' research: prove to the rest of us that no one has ever admitted to being duped about cables. Pardon me, but I've never made the claim that no one has been duped, so I won't be doing the "freakin' research." Sorry. Besides, what you demand is a logical impossibility. A negative can't be proven. Sorry again, Dick. The alleged legions of duped cable buyers is just a red herring. Some people here simply can't accept that some buyers will spend thousands of dollars on cables. Piercealso writes: Why have only a small portion of the people duped by Bernie Madoff come forward to admit in public they were duped? WHy have only a small portion of Enron victims stood up and said "I got duped" or the equivalent? Or the people who bought deeds to swamplands in Florida? Has any cable manufacturer been convicted of a felony and sent to prison for duping his customers? If not, you can't compare this to Madoff or Enron. You're beyond silly here. |
#34
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On 12/2/2010 8:18 PM, Audio Empire wrote:
...there is NOTHING that one can do to a speaker cable to make it worth $6800, even if it were made of gold. I answered: That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it. Now Empire sez: Lots of things in audio are opinions. This just doesn't happen to be one of them. Physics and DBTs.... No, you've made a value judgment that these cables aren't "worth" the price, and that "NOTHING" could make them worth it. That is your value judgment. The buyers of these products make their own value judgment. There is no right or wrong with preferences such as this - it's just a simple, personal preference. You can't logically use science to condemn someone else's preference. I understand that you think these cables are preposterous. What I think is absurd is your flat-out refusal to accept that others disagree with your set of values. AudioEmpire also wrote: I likewise feel it's my duty to tell people less technically schooled than I am that fancy cables are snake oil, and that they're wasting their money by buying them. No, it would be a waste of money for you to buy them. Some others find value in these products. That's their prerogative. |
#35
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$6800 Audioquest cables
"C. Leeds" wrote in message
On 12/3/2010 10:17 AM, August Karlstrom wrote: I can admit having been duped, although I have not spent this kind of money on speaker wire. After reading about blind testing of speaker wire in this group I replaced my Kimber wire with a thin and cheap standard copper wire. And (of course) my system sounded just as good as before. Please explain how you were "duped." Seems pretty clear. Did you expect results you didn't achieve? What is unclear about "my system sounded just as good as before."? Did you seek a refund from the retailer? Does getting a cash refund for the price of the potentially fraudulent sale offset the losses in time, travel, and mental anguish? Note that high end products are often sold by creating anxiety in people about the sound of their audio systems. They are told, at least by implication that their anguish will be relieved by an expenditure of considerable amounts of money. They make the investment, but if they are perceptive they will realize that they have been sold the emperor's speaker cable. Then, they undergo additional anxiety over the realization that they have been duped. |
#36
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$6800 Audioquest cables
"C. Leeds" wrote in message
On 12/4/2010 12:47 AM, Dick Pierce wrote: Do your own freakin' research: prove to the rest of us that no one has ever admitted to being duped about cables. Pardon me, but I've never made the claim that no one has been duped, so I won't be doing the "freakin' research." Sorry. Besides, what you demand is a logical impossibility. A negative can't be proven. Sorry again, Dick. The alleged legions of duped cable buyers is just a red herring. It seems like a very real piece of rotten fish. If duped cable buyers don't exist then either nobody is actually buying these products, or their benefits eixt but elude bench tests and properly-done listening tests. Some people here simply can't accept that some buyers will spend thousands of dollars on cables. A person who can't accept that some people spend thousands of dollars on cables might say things like "The alleged legions of duped cable buyers is just a red herring." A person who can accept that some people spend thousands of dollars on cables might say things like "The legions of duped cable buyers are real and signficiant ." Which are you? Pierce also writes: Why have only a small portion of the people duped by Bernie Madoff come forward to admit in public they were duped? WHy have only a small portion of Enron victims stood up and said "I got duped" or the equivalent? Or the people who bought deeds to swamplands in Florida? Has any cable manufacturer been convicted of a felony and sent to prison for duping his customers? We all know that much petty fraud goes unpunished. If not, you can't compare this to Madoff or Enron. Common sense suggests that there is a big difference in the problem of enforcing the law related to fraud when the losses are distributed among 100s or thousands of consumers, and when the losses are concentrated in one or just a few instances like Madoff and Enron. You're beyond silly here. It would seem that avoiding the application of common sense is more than a little silly. |
#37
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On 12/4/2010 11:31 AM, Arny Krueger wrote:
Note that high end products are often sold by creating anxiety in people about the sound of their audio systems. In my decades of buying audio equipment, I have never witnessed this approach that you say happens "often." It looks like another red herring. They are told, at least by implication that their anguish will be relieved by an expenditure of considerable amounts of money. Who tells customers this?? Examples, please. They make the investment... No, audio equipment really doesn't qualify as a investment. It's an expense - the purchase of a depreciating asset. The audio component that actually appreciates in value is very rare, indeed. but if they are perceptive they will realize that they have been sold the emperor's speaker cable. Then, they undergo additional anxiety over the realization that they have been duped. Examples, please. Otherwise, you simply repeat the canard. It's a red herring. |
#38
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On 12/4/2010 8:45 AM, C. Leeds wrote:
On 12/2/2010 8:18 PM, Audio Empire wrote: ...there is NOTHING that one can do to a speaker cable to make it worth $6800, even if it were made of gold. I answered: That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it. Now Empire sez: Lots of things in audio are opinions. This just doesn't happen to be one of them. Physics and DBTs.... No, you've made a value judgment that these cables aren't "worth" the price, and that "NOTHING" could make them worth it. That is your value judgment. The buyers of these products make their own value judgment. There is no right or wrong with preferences such as this - it's just a simple, personal preference. You can't logically use science to condemn someone else's preference. Seemed pretty clear that he was referring to *technical* (i.e. performance) value or worth. In that context, he certainly can use science to ascertain their relative worth, and clearly that answer is zero additional value relative to mundane cable. Hence all the discussion surrounding the "bling" factor. Clearly, if pride of ownership, or aesthetic appreciation of 'firehose' cable is worth the price to you as a consumer, then you have received value for your money, and no one so far has claimed anything different as far as I have seen. If, however, you have purchased such cables based on claims of their 'musicality' relative to other more mundane cables, then you have indeed been duped. And as to why are there not "legions" of the duped posting here; get real. Add up everyone whose ever posted here, on any subject, over the last say 15 years, and one would be hard pressed to accurately refer to that list as "legion". and I for one am not interested in searching Facebook where legions apparently do go to post. Keith |
#39
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On 12/4/2010 11:10 AM, C. Leeds wrote:
On 12/4/2010 11:31 AM, Arny Krueger wrote: Note that high end products are often sold by creating anxiety in people about the sound of their audio systems. In my decades of buying audio equipment, I have never witnessed this approach that you say happens "often." It looks like another red herring. They are told, at least by implication that their anguish will be relieved by an expenditure of considerable amounts of money. Who tells customers this?? Examples, please. They make the investment... No, audio equipment really doesn't qualify as a investment. It's an expense - the purchase of a depreciating asset. The audio component that actually appreciates in value is very rare, indeed. but if they are perceptive they will realize that they have been sold the emperor's speaker cable. Then, they undergo additional anxiety over the realization that they have been duped. Examples, please. Otherwise, you simply repeat the canard. It's a red herring. Well, how about "Sounds Like Music" in Phoenix? Out of business now - like most high end stereo shops these days - but for decades they relentlessly peddled the idea that any high end system purchase just *had* entail at least 15% of the total *price* being reserved for cables and interconnects. Notice their use of *price* as the explicit indicator of cable performance. Their schtick was that the better amp and speaker you bought, the better the interconnects and speaker cable *had* to be, or you just couldn't get all the performance out of the expensive stuff you were already buying. Audio Nervosa anyone? Neither Red, nor Herring, just pure unabashed sales driven BS. While they may not have been emblematic, neither were they unique by any means. Keith |
#40
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$6800 Audioquest cables
On Sat, 4 Dec 2010 07:31:16 -0800, C. Leeds wrote
(in article ): On 12/3/2010 3:29 PM, Audio Empire wrote: I also doubt that he could get a refund from a dealer on wire any more than a snake-oil salesman would refund a customer because the customer found that the snake-oil did nothing (except perhaps make him and his family drunk). Weren't you in the audio retailing business, Audio Empire? I seem to recall that was your claim - please let me know if I'm mistaken. Nope. The closes I've ever been to the audio retail business was working for a local Radio Shack one summer while I was in college. I'll guarantee you that doesn't count! I can tell you this: every single audio item I ever purchased new was sold with a money-back guarantee. That includes phono cartridges, speakers, electronics and - believe it or not - cables. At the price of the high end, I wouldn't have it any other way. Well, perhaps there are some retailers that would take cable/interconnects back for a refund. |
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