[Arny Krueger]

wrote in message
...
This week's stereophile in its online offerings has a gem of an article.

'AudioQuest Headquarters Tour'

http://www.stereophile.com/content/a...dquarters-tour

Notably missing from the pictures - any identifiable machinery for actually
making wire.

I see some workstations that could be used for making cables, but so could
my dining room table.

If one would want to produce subjective results guaranteed, the "tests"
described at the wire company could not have been setup more perfectly.

"The first demo involved a simple setup and premise: one inexpensive
micro-component system, different speaker cables—stock and
AudioQuest—connected to each speaker and a balance control. As you listen
you or someone else switches from one speaker/cable to the other using the
balance control. And back again as many times as you'd like. It took one
swap to hear a difference and few more to hear it again and again since it
was not subtle—the AudioQuest speaker cable improved the presentation and
the most obvious change can be described as lending the music a more natural
voice. Or if you prefer, the micro system simply sounded better with the
AudioQuest cable. "

The obvious flaw in this evaluation is that it is based on the idea that two
different speakers in two different places possibly even playing two
different channels can be reasonbly be expected to sound the same.

Of course they heard a difference, and we don't even have to invoke the
well-known flaws in sighted evaluations to dismiss it.

See if you can spot the obvious flaws in the "tests"? Extra points for
those who spot the attempts to vaccinate the author's remarks against
these flaws?

I nominate:

"You could also keep your eyes closed for this one, I didn't, but the
improvement in sound quality was easily and readily apparent after the first
swap".

For an even more interesting question, why did they bother when the
outcomes were predictable? Might it have something to do with trying to
vainly evoke science in support of a marketing department?

In an alternative universe the ragazine that published this stuff actually
points out the grevious flaws in the sales pitches, err listening
evaluations.


Moving on we have:

"Next up was the new favorite bugaboo on the block—the HDMI audio cable.
Yes, we're going there. One modest system, two HDMI cables—stock and
AudioQuest. Listen, swap, listen. Blind or not your choice but I preferred
to watch everyone's reaction, which was the same as mine—wow! The difference
was not subtle and can be summed up as a lack of compression when the music
was played using the AudioQuest HDMI cable as compared to the stock piece of
crap. The change in the quality of the vocals stood out so much that it
enhanced the emotional impact of the song.

HDMI audio is of course digital, and thus subject to the usual caveat that a
proper digital link adds or subtracts nothing to or from the music unless it
is so flawed that the detected errors cause it to mute.

The details of the alleged "blind or not" evaluation are not given, so we
must presume that it was single blind. Of course we all know that single
blind evaluations are well-known to be subject to experimenter bias, and
this has been widely known since the 19th century fiasco of "Clever Hans the
talking horse". Thanks Stereophile for providing new evidence of this!

"Listen, swap, listen. Shane swapped the USB cables from the external 2TB
hard drive to the Mac mini and from that to the Ayre player from stock to
AudioQuest and back again. He also introduced a few levels of AudioQuest USB
cables—the Carbon, Cinnamon DBS, and the Diamond, as well as adding and
taking away AudioQuest Q Feet isolation devices under the external hard
drive and Mac mini. In each and every case, the improvement when moving up
the USB cable line or adding isolation to things that spin was readily
apparent to everyone. In fact swapping just one stock USB cable for an
AudioQuest Carbon improved the sound quality to such an extent as to render
the music more engrossing. More groovy, if you will, as if the band had just
hired a better bass player or drummer or both and the lead singer had
removed his scarf from covering the microphone."

Sighted evaluation, natch.

The final insult to our intelligence:

"(A Free AudioQuest Tip: If your external hard drive offers both Firewire
and USB, you can improve the sound quality of your computer-based playback
by using Firewire from your hard drive to your computer and USB from your
computer to your DAC.) "

The latter comment about USB contradicts what several Stereophile tests of
USB DACs in their description of USB links using adapative mode versus
asynchronous mode. Suffice it to say, "real audiophiles" stick with coax
and sidestep that controvery, as it any of it actually matters. ;-)

Well, SP presents itself to its advertisers as being a journal of opinoin,
and therefore not necessarily facts.

Opinions are like butt holes - everybody has one, and all of them naturally
stink every once in a while... ;-)