[[email protected]]

Hi All,

I heard a lot about Audio perfectionist Journals and would like to
buy the printed journals from #9 to #16. The Journals #3 to #8 are in
the form of soft copy, I was wondering if I could get those versions
free on the net. So, could somebody help me find those or send it to
my email if you could.

Thank you

sandy

[bob]

On Jul 15, 5:06 pm, wrote:
Hi All,

I heard a lot about Audio perfectionist Journals and would like to
buy the printed journals from #9 to #16. The Journals #3 to #8 are in
the form of soft copy, I was wondering if I could get those versions
free on the net. So, could somebody help me find those or send it to
my email if you could.

If they are posted on the Web somewhere, it is certainly not with
Richard Hardesty's permission. You aren't asking us to help you steal
them, are you?

Hardesty is an interesting character, though I'm not sure anybody's
"Collects Works on Audio" is worth $260. He has an objectivist's
respect for measurements and the importance of accuracy. But he's also
a Golden Ear. I can't recall reading anything he's written about
cables, but he believes that amplifiers are audibly distinguishable,
and has no use for DBTs.

He's also a champion of time-/phase-coherent speakers. I haven't read
his more recent numbers, but when he started APJ, if a speaker wasn't
made by Dunlavy, Thiel or Vandersteen, it was junk.

And don't get him started on Wilson.

bob

[dezza]

I laugh to myself now, when I think that I paid for some of the
journals
from Hardesty. Actualy they WERE issues 3-8.
I must admit though, that if you don't know any better, they are
addictive
in the way they are written. you realy fell like you are getting some
secret
information that the other consumers don't know, but in the end you
realy are directed
towards a small group of products that left me feeling a little
suspect.
Perhaps those products are the bees knees, I don't know.

The reason I laugh is because I now have totaly different beliefs
(regarding different sounding amps)
to those that I had just a couple of years ago. I have seen the light
and owe it all to Peter Aczel, editor & publisher
of "The Audio Critic" http://www.theaudiocritic.com/
I have never heard of a more honest reviewer of audio products. He has
saved me a bunch of money,
that is for sure. When I first became aware of this website I
purchased all of his back issues and had them
posted to me. These are all now available on his site for FREE in pdf.
I have learnt more from his work than everything else combined.

My only question is who will replace him when he is gone ?

Dezza.

[[email protected]]

dezza, wondering about the future asks:

My only question is who will replace him [Peter Aczel] when he is gone ?

Probably no one. There may be too many obstacles. From a strictly
practical standpoint one has to have a lot of spare time (and money) in
order to edit any kind of worthwhile information source. And who has time?
I'm guessing that the demands of any regular publishing schedule (even
on-line) means a full time job; it's probably too much for one person. I'm
also guessing that trying to find several people with a lot of time on
their hands is even more difficult than finding one.

Stereophile and Absolute Sound still show up on the newsstands (as far as I
know), but they have advertisers that carry a percentage of their cost.
Without advertisers can anyone make any money, or even break even? Readers
of the Audio Critic are not interested in reading the former magazines, and
their advertisers--those that maybe could spend a few dollars advertising
in something like the Audio Critic--are likely not interested in using the
Audio Critic given the latter's editorial slant (here I am just
speculating, but it would surprise me if I was wrong).

Are there even any mainstream magazines, anymore? Hi Fidelity merged into
Stereo Review which became Sound & Vision. Does anyone care? I guess
Stereophile and Absolute Sound are now the mainstream. What a bizarre and
ironic turn of events. The entire hi-fi publishing scene is like a bad
T.S. Eliot dream. But at least Eliot is sometimes interesting to read.

The truth is, there were never many good sources out there...ever. Of the
mainstreams, Audio was probably the most interesting. But with the
exception of a few older guys, who even remembers them?

The hi fi scene has to a large part always been about snake oil and magic. I
don't know why this is. Contrast hi-fi with the computer scene. Computer
geeks are just as committed to their interests as hi-fi nuts, but I've
never heard a geek ever say something as stupid as to wonder out loud
whether his data would transmit across the front side bus better if only
the motherboard used magic capacitors, or longing to connect his hard drive
using special HoseMonster cable. It's almost an embarrassment to be an
audiophile given the tin-foil hat stuff coming from certain sections of the
so-called high-end. And it is even more depressing to know that many
audiophiles consider tweako stuff to be the "high-end."

If you want my advice (not that you asked for it) you should buy and iPod
and go find another hobby. Otherwise you could wind up being cynical. And
who wants that?

mp

[Steven Sullivan]

wrote:
Are there even any mainstream magazines, anymore? Hi Fidelity merged into
Stereo Review which became Sound & Vision. Does anyone care? I guess
Stereophile and Absolute Sound are now the mainstream.

S&V and Home Theater magazine are probably more the
'mainstream' than TAS or Stereophile, for audio, still, even though
they do lots of video coverage too.

Then there's Sensible Sound, which in terms of the gear it covers, is more
mainstream that TAS or Stereophile, but too text-heavy and probably too
technical to appeal to today's 'mainstream' readers.

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

[bob]

On Jul 18, 6:49 pm, dezza wrote:
The reason I laugh is because I now have totaly different beliefs
(regarding different sounding amps)
to those that I had just a couple of years ago. I have seen the light
and owe it all to Peter Aczel, editor & publisher
of "The Audio Critic" http://www.theaudiocritic.com/
I have never heard of a more honest reviewer of audio products. He has
saved me a bunch of money,
that is for sure. When I first became aware of this website I
purchased all of his back issues and had them
posted to me. These are all now available on his site for FREE in pdf.
I have learnt more from his work than everything else combined.

My only question is who will replace him when he is gone ?

The closest you're likely to come is David Rich, who used to write for
TAC and now writes for The Sensible Sound. He's not the crusader Aczel
was, but he knows what he's talking about.

bob

[[email protected]]

Steven Sullivan wrote:

S&V and Home Theater magazine are probably more the
'mainstream' than TAS or Stereophile, for audio, still, even though
they do lots of video coverage too.

Then there's Sensible Sound, which in terms of the gear it covers, is more
mainstream that TAS or Stereophile, but too text-heavy and probably too
technical to appeal to today's 'mainstream' readers.

I understand (I believe this was mentioned here, once) that David Rich
writes for Sensible Sound? That cannot be a bad thing.

The last time I was at a major outlet the audio section was pretty weak. I
remember seeing Stereophile, Absolute Sound, S&V, and a Brit mag--must have
been Hi Fi News.

There were a lot of musician magazines--mostly rock oriented with pictures
on the cover of guys you probably wouldn't want your daughter to date (no
offense to the guys, they might all be nice lads, it's just what they
looked like), and a handful of semi-pro magazines telling you how to set up
a recording studio in your closet. This last group probably contains
useful information.

Last time I actually opened the covers, Stereophile and Absolute Sound
appeared more as wish-books, although I am not sure who is doing the
wishing. They reviewed very high priced gear using descriptive terms such
as "pace and timing." I don't know how a preamp, or a dozen feet of
speaker wire can have pace and timing--hell, I don't even know what that
means (unless we are talking about the difference between Solti and
Karajan).

The two magazine's prose style was, as I recall, ponderous and typical of
what you'd expect to find within the psychology of the self absorbed. I do
not mind ponderous text, but this was not Proust. On the plus side, there
were plenty of nice pictures--thus, one was not held hostage by bad
writing. For me there was nothing too much of interest; triode amps
selling for 10 large are not my thing. But, to be fair, these magazines
are not written for people like me.

mp

[Robert Sink]

dezza writes:

I laugh to myself now, when I think that I paid for some of the
journals
from Hardesty. Actualy they WERE issues 3-8.
I must admit though, that if you don't know any better, they are
addictive
in the way they are written. you realy fell like you are getting some
secret
information that the other consumers don't know, but in the end you
realy are directed
towards a small group of products that left me feeling a little
suspect.
Perhaps those products are the bees knees, I don't know.
[...]

I was ale to fulfill my dream of having a true audiophile class system
two Decembers ago.

I did it primarily with the help of "The Audio Perfectionist" for two
reasons: to learn some fundamentals (which I think I have) and to not
throw money away on stuff that I'll just remorse over later; This is
in direct contrast to reading the journals and thinking you're gonna
get off cheap, because pretty much everything they recommend is in the
multi-thousand dollar range.

Having said that, I followed Hardesty's recommended components for a
high-end 2 channel + home theater system and purchased most of the
stuff used off of Audiogon. Have I ever heard anything better?
Absolutely not, but I've only had the chance to listen to
audiophile-quality rig twice in my life.

Hardesty and newly-assimilated Shane Buettner are pretty much
ever-increasingly of the mindset, that if you don't listen to vinyl
and if you don't listen to vinyl on a $3-5k setup, you're just aren't
hearing the music.

I guess I also am a little suspicious of, on one hand, when the
journal warns about tweaks and whatnot being a rip-off and actually
detrimental to the sound in a lot of cases, yet I'm amazed that they
can recommend ~$10k Audioquest Everest bi-wired speaker cables
(nothing against Audioquest, but that just seems like a ridiculous
amount of mony to pay for speaker cables).

Overall, I'm pleased with my results (minus some skepticism) and
wouldn't mind hearing my system on $10k speaker cables...

[George Graves]

On Thu, 2 Aug 2007 15:41:48 -0700, Robert Sink wrote
(in article ):

dezza writes:

I laugh to myself now, when I think that I paid for some of the
journals
from Hardesty. Actualy they WERE issues 3-8.
I must admit though, that if you don't know any better, they are
addictive
in the way they are written. you realy fell like you are getting some
secret
information that the other consumers don't know, but in the end you
realy are directed
towards a small group of products that left me feeling a little
suspect.
Perhaps those products are the bees knees, I don't know.
[...]

I was ale to fulfill my dream of having a true audiophile class system
two Decembers ago.

I did it primarily with the help of "The Audio Perfectionist" for two
reasons: to learn some fundamentals (which I think I have) and to not
throw money away on stuff that I'll just remorse over later; This is
in direct contrast to reading the journals and thinking you're gonna
get off cheap, because pretty much everything they recommend is in the
multi-thousand dollar range.

Having said that, I followed Hardesty's recommended components for a
high-end 2 channel + home theater system and purchased most of the
stuff used off of Audiogon. Have I ever heard anything better?
Absolutely not, but I've only had the chance to listen to
audiophile-quality rig twice in my life.

Hardesty and newly-assimilated Shane Buettner are pretty much
ever-increasingly of the mindset, that if you don't listen to vinyl
and if you don't listen to vinyl on a $3-5k setup, you're just aren't
hearing the music.

I guess I also am a little suspicious of, on one hand, when the
journal warns about tweaks and whatnot being a rip-off and actually
detrimental to the sound in a lot of cases, yet I'm amazed that they
can recommend ~$10k Audioquest Everest bi-wired speaker cables
(nothing against Audioquest, but that just seems like a ridiculous
amount of mony to pay for speaker cables).

Well, you are right. $10K IS a ridiculous amount to pay for speaker cables.

While Bill Low (the head of AudioQuest) and others are free in this economic
system to charge what they want for their products, and it is certainly true
that people have an equal right to buy or not buy said products, there is
really no way that anyone can justify $10,000 speaker cables no matter how
well they're made EXCEPT that the AudioQuest Everest cables are made from
SILVER wire which is selling at around $13/ounce now. I don't know how much
these cables weigh, but if they have three pounds of silver in them, that's
more than $600 for the RAW silver alone. As a reviewer, I get to hear all
kinds of cables, and yeah, they do, all, sound "different". Setting aside,
for the moment, that "different" doesn't necessarily mean "better", and how
one defines better in the face of these incredibly tiny differences is purely
a matter of taste, The fact of the matter is that in cables, less than in any
other audio component, there is simply NO correlation between price and sound
"quality", and above a certain price point, there is no improvement in build
quality either. I've heard inexpensive cables that I thought were far more
passive (adding nothing and removing nothing that I could detect to.from the
sound) than some megabuck offerings. But that's neither here nor there.
Expensive cables are for the rich - so they can brag. There can be no other
explanation. There is nothing about speaker cables that you can measure and
correlate with what you hear. Yes, cables have resistance, they also have
capacitance and together these form an impedance curve across the audio
spectrum. One would think the lower the impedance, the better, yet 16 gauge
LAMP CORD often exhibits less impedance over the audio range than do many
high-priced, high-tech speaker cables availabe. What speaker cables do is
form a passive and very subtle "tone control". If you like that particular
alteration to your speaker's sound, buy that cable. Don't want to spend
thousands on cables? then don't listen to those cables in your system. My
advice is to buy cables that are well made, offer low resistance per foot,
and don't sweat the tiny differences that you might hear in the "presence"
region (4-7KHz where most of these high-end cables seem to concentrate their
"effect" ).

Interconnects? For me, two criteria only: quasi- balanced (you can
distinguish these because they all have an arrow on them pointing in one
direction) and a good quality RCA plug (the locking style that Monster USED
to use seems to be the best AFAIC). That's it. Interconnects are, again, a
matter of taste because they all alter the sound from what it was with your
old interconnects, but the differences are, again, tiny. I don't sweat 'em.
One can make oneself crazy with this particular tail-chase.


Overall, I'm pleased with my results (minus some skepticism) and
wouldn't mind hearing my system on $10k speaker cables...

You're better off NOT sweating that kind of audio minutia. You'll convince
yourself that the $10,000 cables sound better than anything else you've ever
heard (after all, they cost TEN GRAND) even if they don't. Who knows?

[Arny Krueger]

"George Graves" wrote in message
...

While Bill Low (the head of AudioQuest)

Irony in last names, anybody?

and others are free in this economic
system to charge what they want for their products, and it is certainly
true
that people have an equal right to buy or not buy said products, there is
really no way that anyone can justify $10,000 speaker cables no matter how
well they're made EXCEPT that the AudioQuest Everest cables are made from
SILVER wire which is selling at around $13/ounce now. I don't know how
much
these cables weigh, but if they have three pounds of silver in them,
that's
more than $600 for the RAW silver alone.

Seems like a very expensive way to obtain silver.

As a reviewer, I get to hear all
kinds of cables, and yeah, they do, all, sound "different".

That probably tells us more about the reviewer than we might have wanted to
know. The idea that every cable sounds different from the next is even less
probable than the idea that cables with like electrical characteristics
sound different.

Setting aside, for the moment,

Yes, let's ignore the 500 pound gorilla in the room. ;-)

that "different" doesn't necessarily mean "better", and how
one defines better in the face of these incredibly tiny differences is
purely
a matter of taste,

What's the difference between "incredibly tiny differences" and "for all
practical purposes, sounds the same"?

The fact of the matter is that in cables, less than in any
other audio component, there is simply NO correlation between price and
sound
"quality",

Logically follows from the improbable idea that they all sound different in
an odd sort of way.

and above a certain price point, there is no improvement in build
quality either.

Your discussion of Audioquest Everests passed over what I find to be the
most amusing property - the polarizing supply.

Since you brought up build quality, would increasing the shield polarizing
field generator by 20% make them sound significantly different?

I note that these cables are more like 12,000 than 10,000 and that's in
either pounds or dollars, depending on the country you buy them in.

I also notice that someone has a hardly used set on sale for about $3,000.
So much for residual value, eh?

I've heard inexpensive cables that I thought were far more
passive (adding nothing and removing nothing that I could detect to.from
the
sound) than some megabuck offerings.

Here's a trick question. What do you call someone who always hears a
difference?

But that's neither here nor there.
Expensive cables are for the rich - so they can brag.

Or people who have lots of power to move. I can think of $12,000 dollar
cables that are worth every penny, but they have a lot more than 3 punds of
conductor in them!

There can be no other explanation.

IME the same explanation works for an amazingly but depressingly large
segment of audio's high end.

There is nothing about speaker cables that you can measure and
correlate with what you hear.

Ah, so you're saying that the effects of high end cables effects are
metaphysical?

Yes, cables have resistance, they also have
capacitance and together these form an impedance curve across the audio
spectrum.

You forgot about inductance and skin effect, all of which are measurable and
contribute to a cable's impedance curve in the audio range. Since you don't
seem to know about these effects and at least one of them is so strong that
on a really bad day it can give rise to audible effects, perhaps you want to
revise your position that "There is nothing about speaker cables that you
can measure and correlate with what you hear"?

One would think the lower the impedance, the better, yet 16 gauge
LAMP CORD often exhibits less impedance over the audio range than do many
high-priced, high-tech speaker cables availabe.

Now that's a depressing thought.

What speaker cables do is
form a passive and very subtle "tone control".

That would be metaphysical tone?

If you like that particular
alteration to your speaker's sound, buy that cable. Don't want to spend
thousands on cables? then don't listen to those cables in your system. My
advice is to buy cables that are well made, offer low resistance per foot,
and don't sweat the tiny differences that you might hear in the "presence"
region (4-7KHz where most of these high-end cables seem to concentrate
their
"effect" ).

Anything this general has to relate to state of mind, not state of matter.
Since states of mind are especially variable across just about any
population of individuals, this finding would thus have very limited value.

Interconnects? For me, two criteria only: quasi- balanced (you can
distinguish these because they all have an arrow on them pointing in one
direction) and a good quality RCA plug (the locking style that Monster
USED
to use seems to be the best AFAIC).

It's no doubt a statement about where my life has gone lately that most of
the milage of audio interconnects that I've bought and installed in the last
three years was truely balanced, and of course connected to equipment with
balanced audio interfaces.

[Steven Sullivan]

Robert Sink wrote:
Hardesty and newly-assimilated Shane Buettner are pretty much
ever-increasingly of the mindset, that if you don't listen to vinyl
and if you don't listen to vinyl on a $3-5k setup, you're just aren't
hearing the music.

Which is ultimately silly, given that the biggest coloration
to sound for the home listener, are , by far, from the speakers and
room acoustics. Whether your front end is vinyl or digital pales
in comparison, to the effect those two factors have on the sound.
And credible 'audiophile' magazine shoudl be hammering those
two points home...but afaik, none do except for Peter Aczel's.

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

[George Graves]

On Fri, 3 Aug 2007 16:28:41 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"George Graves" wrote in message
...

While Bill Low (the head of AudioQuest)

Irony in last names, anybody?

and others are free in this economic
system to charge what they want for their products, and it is certainly
true
that people have an equal right to buy or not buy said products, there is
really no way that anyone can justify $10,000 speaker cables no matter how
well they're made EXCEPT that the AudioQuest Everest cables are made from
SILVER wire which is selling at around $13/ounce now. I don't know how
much
these cables weigh, but if they have three pounds of silver in them,
that's
more than $600 for the RAW silver alone.

Seems like a very expensive way to obtain silver.

As a reviewer, I get to hear all
kinds of cables, and yeah, they do, all, sound "different".

That probably tells us more about the reviewer than we might have wanted to
know. The idea that every cable sounds different from the next is even less
probable than the idea that cables with like electrical characteristics
sound different.

Setting aside, for the moment,

Yes, let's ignore the 500 pound gorilla in the room. ;-)

You sure like to jump to conclusions, don't you?

that "different" doesn't necessarily mean "better", and how
one defines better in the face of these incredibly tiny differences is
purely
a matter of taste,

What's the difference between "incredibly tiny differences" and "for all
practical purposes, sounds the same"?

Very little, which is my point, in case you missed it.

The fact of the matter is that in cables, less than in any
other audio component, there is simply NO correlation between price and
sound
"quality",

Logically follows from the improbable idea that they all sound different in
an odd sort of way.

Sure it makes sense. How else can you correlate the fact that in many cases,
$20 worth of 16 GA lamp cord sounds more neutral than a set of megabuck
cables?

and above a certain price point, there is no improvement in build
quality either.

Your discussion of Audioquest Everests passed over what I find to be the
most amusing property - the polarizing supply.

I wasn't actually discussing the Everests, just using the cables that another
poster mentioned as an example of what one gets usually not being commiserate
with what one is asked to spend. At least Audioquest does give one silver
conductors for one's money, although I'm not sure that over a 15 ft run, the
difference between silver and solid copper would be noticeable in any
concrete way.

Since you brought up build quality, would increasing the shield polarizing
field generator by 20% make them sound significantly different?

I have no idea. The whole idea of a shield polarizing field on SPEAKER cables
is somewhat specious to me given the signal amplitude and frequency range
that we're dealing with. If it were picovolts and UHF signals in an
electrically noisy environment, there MIGHT be something to it. But with
10-50 volt swings over 20-20KHz, I damn doubt if it doesn ANYTHING at all.

I note that these cables are more like 12,000 than 10,000 and that's in
either pounds or dollars, depending on the country you buy them in.

That's irrelevant to someone like me (because I wouldn't spend that much on
cables even if I were as rich a Bill Gates.).

I also notice that someone has a hardly used set on sale for about $3,000.
So much for residual value, eh?

Speaks volumes. While some might think that's a bargain, I wouldn't pay even
that for them. My Monster M1's are just fine, thank you.

I've heard inexpensive cables that I thought were far more
passive (adding nothing and removing nothing that I could detect to.from
the
sound) than some megabuck offerings.

Here's a trick question. What do you call someone who always hears a
difference?

Here's another trick question. What do you call somebody who NEVER hears a
difference?

But that's neither here nor there.
Expensive cables are for the rich - so they can brag.

Or people who have lots of power to move. I can think of $12,000 dollar
cables that are worth every penny, but they have a lot more than 3 punds of
conductor in them!

Gimme a break. In audio, the average speaker cable run is about 15 ft. A 4
ga. stranded copper speaker cable can handle THOUSANDS of Watts before even
getting warm - and even so, the speakers being driven would have to be damned
inefficient!

There can be no other explanation.

IME the same explanation works for an amazingly but depressingly large
segment of audio's high end.

Well, you pays your dollar, and you takes your chances.

There is nothing about speaker cables that you can measure and
correlate with what you hear.

Ah, so you're saying that the effects of high end cables effects are
metaphysical?

Nope. I'm saying that they are like cigarettes to me. This guy prefers
Camels, and that guy prefers Marlboros. They all taste the same to me
(lousy). But In speaker cables, I prefer NO taste at all.

Yes, cables have resistance, they also have
capacitance and together these form an impedance curve across the audio
spectrum.

You forgot about inductance and skin effect, all of which are measurable and
contribute to a cable's impedance curve in the audio range. Since you don't
seem to know about these effects and at least one of them is so strong that
on a really bad day it can give rise to audible effects, perhaps you want to
revise your position that "There is nothing about speaker cables that you
can measure and correlate with what you hear"?

I know all about inductance and skin effect, but I suspect that the word
"impedence" covers most of that. And yeah, I forgot to mention inductance.
So crucify me. Doesn't matter, the point is unchanged by the omission.

One would think the lower the impedance, the better, yet 16 gauge
LAMP CORD often exhibits less impedance over the audio range than do many
high-priced, high-tech speaker cables availabe.

Now that's a depressing thought.

Yet very true.

What speaker cables do is
form a passive and very subtle "tone control".

That would be metaphysical tone?

Not at all. Just a very slight change of tonal quality in the upper
mid-range/lower treble region. The only time that one will ever hear it or
notice it is in a direct swap in a system one lives with. After that, the
difference makes no difference (unless one swaps the old cables back). My
attitude is that a difference that makes no difference is not really any
difference at all.

If you like that particular
alteration to your speaker's sound, buy that cable. Don't want to spend
thousands on cables? then don't listen to those cables in your system. My
advice is to buy cables that are well made, offer low resistance per foot,
and don't sweat the tiny differences that you might hear in the "presence"
region (4-7KHz where most of these high-end cables seem to concentrate
their
"effect" ).

Anything this general has to relate to state of mind, not state of matter.

That's your opinion and you are entitled to it. I can often hear the
difference in speaker cables, but it almost never makes any real difference.
I'm like you in one respect, I've become very skeptical about cables because
the differences we are talking about are only apparent in direct comparison
and they are so subtle that 2 minutes into listening to the new ones, those
differences fade into the extreme background. It's not like a new, vastly
better amplifier, phono cartridge or speaker system where one smiles at the
improvement in their system's performance every time that they sit down to
listen and say to themselves, "I'm sure glad I bought that!" No, expensive
cables (as opposed to quality cables) are a waste of money.

Since states of mind are especially variable across just about any
population of individuals, this finding would thus have very limited value.

The differences aren't worth spending great deals of money on, that's for
sure (unless of course, you have so much that its pocket change to you, and
you just like to spend money for spending' sake).

Interconnects? For me, two criteria only: quasi- balanced (you can
distinguish these because they all have an arrow on them pointing in one
direction) and a good quality RCA plug (the locking style that Monster
USED to use seems to be the best AFAIC).

It's no doubt a statement about where my life has gone lately that most of
the milage of audio interconnects that I've bought and installed in the last
three years was truely balanced, and of course connected to equipment with
balanced audio interfaces.

Hurrah for you. But most of us are stuck with RCA connectors and
quasi-balanced is about as good as one can do there. They are damned
effective too at rejecting hum and noise, especially in the so-called
"star-shield" configuration. One can actually measure the difference in S/N
in a lot of systems. I only buy quasi-balanced RCA interconnects (and I too
use fully balanced where and when practicable) and what I look for are good
quality connectors (that give a good, gas-tight seal) and decent build
quality. Cost and exotic materials (like oxygen-free pure crystalene copper)
mean nothing to me because you can't HEAR these things no matter what
theoretical advantage that the seller might quote to justify them.

[[email protected]]

Steven Sullivan wrote:

Robert Sink wrote:
Hardesty and newly-assimilated Shane Buettner are pretty much
ever-increasingly of the mindset, that if you don't listen to vinyl
and if you don't listen to vinyl on a $3-5k setup, you're just aren't
hearing the music.

Which is ultimately silly, given that the biggest coloration
to sound for the home listener, are , by far, from the speakers and
room acoustics...

But with a speaker the flaws are obvious and embarrasing. Better to worry
about the esoteric and the mysterious. Besides, analog reproduction is
women's jewelry for men. Yoshiaki Sugano made a brilliant discovery when
he found he could sell semi-prescious stones to men simply by hollowing
them out and placing a phono cartridge on the inside. Damned clever, if you
ask me.

mp

[Steven Sullivan]

wrote:
Steven Sullivan wrote:

Robert Sink wrote:
Hardesty and newly-assimilated Shane Buettner are pretty much
ever-increasingly of the mindset, that if you don't listen to vinyl
and if you don't listen to vinyl on a $3-5k setup, you're just aren't
hearing the music.

Which is ultimately silly, given that the biggest coloration
to sound for the home listener, are , by far, from the speakers and
room acoustics...

But with a speaker the flaws are obvious and embarrasing.

Actually, research to date suggests people are as much at the mercy of
non-audible biases when choosing speakers, as they are for other gear. So
some loudspeakers with 'obvious and embarrassing' flaws may still get rave
reviews.

Better to worry
about the esoteric and the mysterious.

No, better to upgrade what actually makes the biggest difference to the
sound.

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

[Arny Krueger]

"George Graves" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 3 Aug 2007 16:28:41 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"George Graves" wrote in message
...

As a reviewer, I get to hear all
kinds of cables, and yeah, they do, all, sound "different".

That probably tells us more about the reviewer than we might have wanted
to
know. The idea that every cable sounds different from the next is even
less
probable than the idea that cables with like electrical characteristics
sound different.

Setting aside, for the moment,

Yes, let's ignore the 500 pound gorilla in the room. ;-)

You sure like to jump to conclusions, don't you?

What jump?

that "different" doesn't necessarily mean "better", and how
one defines better in the face of these incredibly tiny differences is
purely
a matter of taste,

What's the difference between "incredibly tiny differences" and "for all
practical purposes, sounds the same"?

Very little, which is my point, in case you missed it.

Are you saying that they are the same, for all practical purposes?

The fact of the matter is that in cables, less than in any
other audio component, there is simply NO correlation between price and
sound
"quality",

Logically follows from the improbable idea that they all sound different
in
an odd sort of way.

Sure it makes sense. How else can you correlate the fact that in many
cases,
$20 worth of 16 GA lamp cord sounds more neutral than a set of megabuck
cables?

I can easily correlate such perceptions with illusions. The major
difference between an illusion and a truthful perception is that the
truthful perception is reliable. Most perceptions of sonic differences
among halfways decent cables (which 16 gauge lamp cord in reasonable
lengthsm and anything electrically more conductive qualifies as) are fail
standard reliability tests. Therefore, the perceptions are illusions.
Illusions need not make any sense.

and above a certain price point, there is no improvement in build
quality either.

Your discussion of Audioquest Everests passed over what I find to be the
most amusing property - the polarizing supply.

I wasn't actually discussing the Everests, just using the cables that
another
poster mentioned as an example of what one gets usually not being
commiserate
with what one is asked to spend. At least Audioquest does give one silver
conductors for one's money, although I'm not sure that over a 15 ft run,
the
difference between silver and solid copper would be noticeable in any
concrete way.

The usual rule of thumb is that increasing the size of a silver conductor by
one wire size (say, from 13 gauge to 12 gauge), makes the slightly larger
copper conductor equally conductive.

Since you brought up build quality, would increasing the shield
polarizing
field generator by 20% make them sound significantly different?

I have no idea. The whole idea of a shield polarizing field on SPEAKER
cables
is somewhat specious to me given the signal amplitude and frequency range
that we're dealing with. If it were picovolts and UHF signals in an
electrically noisy environment, there MIGHT be something to it. But with
10-50 volt swings over 20-20KHz, I damn doubt if it doesn ANYTHING at all.

You mean, it sounds the same?

I note that these cables are more like 12,000 than 10,000 and that's in
either pounds or dollars, depending on the country you buy them in.

That's irrelevant to someone like me (because I wouldn't spend that much
on
cables even if I were as rich a Bill Gates.).

I also notice that someone has a hardly used set on sale for about
$3,000.
So much for residual value, eh?

Speaks volumes. While some might think that's a bargain, I wouldn't pay
even
that for them. My Monster M1's are just fine, thank you.

It appears that Monster M1's are no longer in new production. There are now
Monster M 1.x speaker cables of various kinds depending on the value of x.

I've heard inexpensive cables that I thought were far more
passive (adding nothing and removing nothing that I could detect to.from
the
sound) than some megabuck offerings.

Here's a trick question. What do you call someone who always hears a
difference?

Here's another trick question. What do you call somebody who NEVER hears a
difference?

First answer my question.

But that's neither here nor there.
Expensive cables are for the rich - so they can brag.

Or people who have lots of power to move. I can think of $12,000 dollar
cables that are worth every penny, but they have a lot more than 3 punds
of
conductor in them!

Gimme a break. In audio, the average speaker cable run is about 15 ft. A 4
ga. stranded copper speaker cable can handle THOUSANDS of Watts before
even
getting warm - and even so, the speakers being driven would have to be
damned
inefficient!

I wasn't talking about hifi speaker cables.

There can be no other explanation.

Sure, they are cables for a very large generator or motor.

IME the same explanation works for an amazingly but depressingly large
segment of audio's high end.

Well, you pays your dollar, and you takes your chances.

Or don't pay so many dollars and take no chances. Just make technologically
sound decisions - never a risk.

There is nothing about speaker cables that you can measure and
correlate with what you hear.

Ah, so you're saying that the effects of high end cables effects are
metaphysical?

Nope. I'm saying that they are like cigarettes to me. This guy prefers
Camels, and that guy prefers Marlboros. They all taste the same to me
(lousy). But In speaker cables, I prefer NO taste at all.

I obtain no taste at all for pennies per foot. I call it living better
through established technology.

Yes, cables have resistance, they also have
capacitance and together these form an impedance curve across the audio
spectrum.

You forgot about inductance and skin effect, all of which are measurable
and
contribute to a cable's impedance curve in the audio range. Since you
don't
seem to know about these effects and at least one of them is so strong
that
on a really bad day it can give rise to audible effects, perhaps you want
to
revise your position that "There is nothing about speaker cables that you
can measure and correlate with what you hear"?

I know all about inductance and skin effect, but I suspect that the word
"impedence" covers most of that.

Not as you used it.

And yeah, I forgot to mention inductance.

There you go - straight answers are good things.

So crucify me. Doesn't matter, the point is unchanged by the omission.

It's not crucifixion, its understanding technology and representing it
accurately.

One would think the lower the impedance, the better, yet 16 gauge
LAMP CORD often exhibits less impedance over the audio range than do
many
high-priced, high-tech speaker cables availabe.

Now that's a depressing thought.

Yet very true.

I don't know about that. IME most high end speaker cables run around 12-13
gauge or heavier.

What speaker cables do is
form a passive and very subtle "tone control".

That would be metaphysical tone?

Not at all. Just a very slight change of tonal quality in the upper
mid-range/lower treble region. The only time that one will ever hear it or
notice it is in a direct swap in a system one lives with. After that, the
difference makes no difference (unless one swaps the old cables back). My
attitude is that a difference that makes no difference is not really any
difference at all.

Unlikely unless the cables are exceptionally long for their design or
otherwist poorly chosen.

If you like that particular
alteration to your speaker's sound, buy that cable. Don't want to spend
thousands on cables? then don't listen to those cables in your system.
My
advice is to buy cables that are well made, offer low resistance per
foot,
and don't sweat the tiny differences that you might hear in the
"presence"
region (4-7KHz where most of these high-end cables seem to concentrate
their
"effect" ).

Anything this general has to relate to state of mind, not state of
matter.

That's your opinion and you are entitled to it.

No, that's established technology.

I can often hear the
difference in speaker cables,

Metaphysically speaking, no doubt.

but it almost never makes any real difference.

That would appear to be double talk.