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Thirteen Ways of Listening to a Recording Session (with apologies to Wallace Stevens): Wes Phillips

Compuserve's CEAUDIO forum has been buzzing in recent weeks about audio cables. The subject even spilled over into an April meeting of the New York chapter of the Audio Engineering Society (see Wes Phillips's report in this month's "Industry Update"). Nearly two decades after Polk, Fulton, and Monster Cable raised our collective consciousness about the differences cable choice can make in an audio system, the debate still rages between audiophiles and some members of the engineering community. "High-priced tone controls" is how some engineers dismiss the subject of cables, while admitting that they can sound different. Other engineers adopt the "Hard Objectivist" line that if there are differences to be heard between cables, differences in the lumped electrical parameters of resistance (R), inductance (L), and capacitance (C) are all that are required to explain such differences.

A science-fiction parable I read too many years ago to remember who wrote it used the image of a glass jar stuffed with colored plastic spheres. The story's protagonist was asked whether the glass was full. "Of course," was his reply, whereupon a hidden faucet was turned, the jar filled up with water, and fish swam in the spaces between the balls.

BEETHOVEN: The String Quartets
Emerson String Quartet
Eugene Drucker, 1st violin, Philip Setzer, 1st violin, Lawrence Dutton, viola, David Finckel, cello.
DG, 447 075-2. (7 CDs). 1997. Alison Ames and Roger Wright, exec. prods; Max Wilcox, prod.; Nelson Wong, eng. DDD. TT: 8:18:02.
Music: *****
Sonics: *****