As an avid audiophile who has spent many years listening to components and cables...I disagree. Since every dealer I have ever dealt with offers cables for in-home audition before purchasing, whether or not they make a difference is very easy to determine for yourself. And, it is absolutely...free.

I trust the consumer can determine fair value for themselves.

For the sake of establishing your point of reference for futher discussion, what cables do you use?

I like Parts Express dayton be the way to go. But then i know my system isn't revealing enough to let me hear teh differences, between real audiophile wire and just wire, and just connectors, and audio grade stuff. I do have some 10ga..gonna hook up for speaker wire, to see if I hear a difference to 12ga..now in place. Just cus' these are low impedance suckin' some current speakers, I'm sure not revelaing enough to let me hear different connecotrs, at the ends of this generic "pro sound" nice flexible wire...JSC I do beleive, and i think they are actually a mfg. of wire products, not just a marketeer. Like Belden who actually makes wire, like Carol cable, Soutwire etc, who actually make wire, not get labels printed for their audio grade packaging. Nuetrik, Switchcraft, actually make connectors. Dayton is the marketters at Parts Express, where sanity is in control of the connector and wire bin.

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Monty, this is standard sales talk, I suspect that you know that as well as I do.

I have heard that all to often, blah, blah, blah, if you cant hear a difference - well bring it back !!!

Clearly a win to no loss proposition for the salesman.

Your Pal

Uncle Louballoo

Well, yeah? If you want to sell a product, whether it is cables or components, a home audition is kinda standard. If after the audition the perspective customer doesn't think the item is of any value then it doesn't cost them anything.

In what way is that a bad thing? How is the consumer harmed by trying different cables for free, with no obligation to purchase?

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Maxwells equations and skin effect are two examples real scientific principles that are often quoted to explain [non existent] short comings of realistically priced cables. This is nonsense. These principles have no effect in the audio band. It is just BS.

While some of the claims for some cables' principles of operation raise my eyebrows a tad, the claim that they are all "nonsense" is incorrect. See, for example, www.stereophile.com/reference/1095cable , which starts from first principles to demonstrate that there may well an optimum conductor size for audio signal transmission.

See also my own examination of possible reasons for audible cable differences at www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/84. Since I wrote that essay in the spring of 1995, no-one has yet refuted any of my conjectures.

Most importantly, if you try an expensive cable in your system and don't hear any improvement in sound quality compared with your regular cable, don't buy it. If you do hear a difference that you like, don't pay attention to the manufacturer's explanation, just buy it and enjoy your music.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Louballoo, you call yourself an audiophile? Last I checked the definition of an audiophile according to Merriam

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Yes, RG it is possible to be an audiophile and a skeptic other wise we would be impossible to tell the genuinely good products from the useless and over priced.

Well I find it helps to actually TRY a sampling of products in one's own system before going off making sweeping statements based on articles, reviews or pulling out the ole DBT card!

Monty...please try to talk some sense into your relatives.

RG

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Good Lord Monty, I would have expected more. Supporting an ages old pathetic little sales gimmick.

I'm sure your not going to earn your keep with posts like that !

Do I have to start worrying about being voted off the island?

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Monty...please try to talk some sense into your relatives.

I would if they could keep from stepping on their knuckles.

Lou back to your old tricks again I see, going to try to ruin this site to?. People check out this ULR Lou is laughing it up at cdnav.com, a site with 15 or so registered users(been up for months). He has been banned from canuckaudiomart for this very reason.

http://cdnav.com/cdnav/viewtopic.php?t=175

Why, I'm shocked, just shocked I tell you. Whodathunkit?

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1) There is no scientific/engineering basis for Interconnects & Speaker wire to cost more than $50.

This is incorrect, as I have tried to tell you earlier in this thread.

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2) There has never been a DBT that supports the claims of the "High End" cable industry.

This is also incorrect. In addition, many of the published DBTs that have been claimed to "prove" that no differences between cables exists have been methodologically flawed. See, for example, www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/107.

Please note that the rules of this forum forbid the discussion of DBTs in threads that are not specifically about that subject. Please refrain from doing so. Messages from you in this thread that continue to discuss the subject of blind testing in an audio context will be deleted. You are welcome to start another thread on that subject alone.

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Your Pal and Voice of the independant Audiophile

It's "independent," if you wish to be pedantically correct.

Your editor
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Wow JA. I read ...107 and what an indictment. Looks like politics or agenda at work?

Looks like one has to beware not only of agendas on one end of the spectrum, but also agendas on the other end of the spectrum.

How else can one describe what most of those on the panel stated? Ignorance? I doubt it.

Frankly, I'm sick and tired of every self designated authority telling me what I can and can't hear in my system in my home. P**s off Louballoo. For years I believed people like you who screamed the loudest that DBT proved there is no difference in cables, not! If I and many other audiophiles hear differences that you can't or won't hear leave us alone to our "fantasies". It's my money and my ears and mind I have to please, not yours.
I don't care what you believe or test for. Leave me with the option to spend my money on what I want. Most of the time people who rely on DBT use gear and speakers I consider offensive to my ears. If you can't hear differences it is up to you to prove we/I can't, not the opposite.
I've been actively involved in this hobby since 1967. Thank God I stopped listening to blowhards like you and started to rely on my own ears. My system started sounding better as soon as I left the J. Hirsch (everything sounds the same) camp.
In conclusion, everything sounds different including cables. Getting those differences to work synergistically is what system matching is all about.

Amen to that!!!! Well said.

I just wanted to chime in and say that as a poor audiophile (i net over 33k a year in debt) I have used those bluejeans cables, and found that they were suseptable to too much RF interference (I have a previous post on this somewhere). I find that if I want a 8ft interconnect with great RF rejection I have to pay more than 50 bucks, this is an absolutely audible difference, infact I bet i could record it on an MD player and upload it for any nay sayers.

I don't know about 1000$ cables, but anyone who thinks you can't tell the difference between a bluejeans cable and something of higher quality construction probably dosent live near a radio tower.

I'm also non-rich and RS cables work just fine. BTW,buying overpriced cables for a $79 player doesnt work for me.

www.procosound.com Nuetrik connectors, real stuff priced for mortals. www.sweetwater.com

If cables are such a scam then why would most high end equipment manufactures recommend them for use with their components? An electronic or speaker manufacturer has no vested interest in us buying these cables yet they recommend that to get the best out of their gear we do so. When going on factory tours or visiting the homes of these manufacturers they use better cables themselves. Before you come back with the answer that they are in bed together consider the fact that most of the speaker and electronics manufacturers will NOT recommend SPECIFIC brands.

I believe that the true scam is these

Read this month's Nordost review.....pages and pages of double talk if you ask me. Speaker wire made with 24ga ?!!! I could probably melt that junk. The reviewers have more ways of saying nothing than a good trial lawyer. Every month, a differetn twist a different breakthrough. Companaies like Belden, Carol Cable, SouthWire, make the actual wire, marketters made the full page ads. Everyone with the nonsense twist of the month, high profits is the big motivator. I know of one favorite high end maker that shuns the cable BS. www.avahigi.com Real electrical designer, not magic twists and truns. Look inside your high end amp, see what kind of AC line cord is in there, look at what connects the outputs.....What, no magic ckt board foil That's next.

DUP-

I didn't want to hear the difference between cables. I consider myself an "open-minded skeptic." I am aware that most of these cable companies, even the established ones are buying their cable from people like Beldin, but it isn't the Beldin that you or I can order. It is custom made for them, and the changes go much deeper than the names on the jacket. Do I have scientific explanations for those differences? No, no I don't. Would I like them? Sure. Am I willing to hold my breath and wait for them? Not on your life. I want to enjoy my music and my system now! If high-end cables aren't your thing that's cool but why do you have to insult those of us who feel very strongly that there IS a difference? Do you think that you are "saving" us? If so stop trying we are doing what we are free to do. I learned a long time ago that you can't save people from themselves.

I did read the Nordost review and to be quite honest I have tried Nordost in my system and HATED it. I've heard it in other systems and still HATED it. But that's just more evidence that different cables sound different. Just because a cable is more expensive than what I own doesn't mean that it is going to sound better in my system. Their product is unique and others find it to be a good product in their system. They are entitled to their opinion that Nordost is the most neutral, or the most pleasing, or what ever drives their decision.

If i'm not mistaken, I believe most of the better cable guys source their wire from Cardas. Cardas has an interesting and convincing process of drawing their wire. Cardas also provides much of the silver wire to the industry, though George isn't convinced of the sonic benefits over high purity copper...not to mention it is expensive as all get out.

And, for you fans of blind testing, Cardas was once involved in a year long blind test of cables conducted by one of the big recording studios. The blind results were overwhelmingly in favor of two particular brands, Cardas being one of them. Oh, and Cardas is a big believer in measuring the electrical characteristics of each construction technique he uses.

Cardas has a good website once you learn to navigate it.

Monty-

Yes, Cardas is also among the handful of suppliers. Beldin was just a single example, which is why I said "like Beldin." George Cardas is one of the most innovative thinkers in audio. Have you ever tried his wood blocks? One of the cheapest and most effective audio tweaks around. Of particular interest to me is the number of manufacturers that use Cardas IN their products. http://www.cardas.com/content.php?area=m...string=Domestic
http://www.cardas.com/content.php?area=m...nal&cat=int

Well now I'm convinced!!! As Long as Bybeeeeeee uses it, I know it's all for real!!!!! How many electrons are you catching tonight!!! Yeah, real inovator!!! How bout' them WOOd blocks. In Audio Adviser they show nice pictures of Kimber, Cardas, and any other wire magacian. they all have their own method of magic, how come so many differet trys, if they are all experts in making wires that sound good? Surely by now they musta' found the right twist, been years and years They invented the compact disc in less years than all these magic wire makers keep coming up with the next "break through"....and all these differences that are so audible, you mean there are that many systems out there that are either so bad that any different pice of wire changes it's sound, OR are they soooo good, that you can easily hear the difference in teh color of the plating on a mgic outlet? can it be both? so bad that the improvements really do work, or so good that you can hear teh change in the insulation of a pice of wire? Which is it? Mapingo discs or Ayre wood blocks, which one does it?

I see you still have not read the information I suggested (on another string below), in a FIRST year engineering book used at colleges and universities. Instead you seem to believe in mystical magic; that one can negate physics/physical laws by simply not willing to accept them.

I am wondering what gives you the right to reject information/knowledge from those with degrees writing text books recognized by colleges and universities?

Please don't try including all cables/ICs over $50.00 in your indictment list. It just is not so.