Musing following some cable posts...

[Robbo]

Ian,

Stop talking about music and musicians. This is a hifi forum.

Aviator is good, although you mean avatar. It's Sun Ra, one of the finest musicians who ever lived. Aviator is quite appropriate, he was born on Saturn, or so he claimed.

My hearing is excellent, btw.

-- Ian

 

[Jimbo]

Aviator is good, although you mean avatar. It's Sun Ra, one of the finest musicians who ever lived. Aviator is quite appropriate, he was born on Saturn, or so he claimed.

My hearing is excellent, btw.

-- Ian

Cant be that excellent if you dont hear difference's between interconnects.

 

[Effem]

Well if someone cares to come along with £35 worth of commerically available cables and better or equal the ones I have in my system right now I'll write them a cheque for a £1000.

 

[sideshowbob]

Cant be that excellent if you dont hear difference's between interconnects.

That really is the lamest come-back I have ever read.

I thought you believers kept insisting everyone should use their ears. Well, I have used my ears, and it's quite obvious to me that there is no need to spend large sums of money on bits of wire and connectors. After all, "boutique" cable is no more than cheap wire in a nice sheath with fancy packaging and a lot of pseudo-scientific marketing gibberish to justify the mark-up. There is no good reason for audio wire to be expensive.

-- Ian

 

[Effem]

Well if you are so convinced of that young sir there's a cheque for £1k waiting for you

 

[Lynn SkeptiK]

There is no good reason for audio wire to be expensive.

-- Ian

What?


Don't you know that the more expensive it is, the better it sounds. What's in it is totally besides the point!

 

[Effem]

Well then take up the offer of £1k plus unlimited bragging rights that yours is the righteous path, instead of making banal statements

 

[sideshowbob]

Well if you are so convinced of that young sir there's a cheque for £1k waiting for you

Wow. That's two whole 2m "Jupiter" power leads with £10 change. Or a pair of Tannoy 15" DC drivers. I wonder which would be the better investment, in a pure sound quality sense

How do you price your product range, btw? What is it about the Jupiter that makes it £495 for 2m rather than the £39.50 for the "Halo"? If you were to tell me materials cost justifies that price differential, I'd love to see the figures demonstrating that the Jupiter costs over 10 times as much to make. If it's performance, I'd love to see some measurements indicating the ways in which the Jupiter is better than the Halo, or, indeed, any standard IEC kettle lead.

Anyway, strange as it may seem, I can't really be bothered with yet another cable debate, but I do wish Pete would stop posting deliberately provocative threads. Fact is, plenty of people do use cheap wire (even those who have paid a lot for it without realising how much it costs if they got it from RS Components instead...), and no boutique cable company has ever demonstrated their product performs any better under measurement than any other cable, largely because audio cables have a pretty simple job to do and most boutique cable simply is cheap cable in a fancy package. End of story.

-- Ian

 

[Effem]

Wow. That's nearly two whole 2m "Jupiter" power leads. Or a pair of Tannoy 15" DC drivers. I wonder what would be a better investment, in a pure sound quality sense

How do you price your product range, btw? What is it about the Jupiter that makes it £495 for 2m rather than the £39.50 for the "Halo"? If you were to tell me materials cost justifies that price differential, I'd love to see the figures demonstrating that the Jupiter costs over 10 times as much to make. If it's performance, I'd love to see some measurements indicating the ways in which the Jupiter is better than the Halo, or, indeed, any standard IEC kettle lead.

Anyway, strange as it may seem, I can't really be bothered with yet another cable debate, but I do wish Pete would stop posting deliberately provocative threads. Fact is, plenty of people do use cheap wire (even those who have paid a lot for it without realising how much it really should have costed them...), and no boutique cable company has ever demonstrated their product performs any better under measurement than any other cable. End of story.

-- Ian

Pure horseshit.

It's not another cable debate at all it's a test of YOUR faith. I stand to lose £1000 and the risk of being humiliated and you want to pass up a unique golden opportunity like that?

 

[sideshowbob]

Look, it's pointless arguing with you. IMO a bunch of freebie red and black ICs will sound just the same as any cable you can make. I'm prepared to take £1K off you if you're prepared to publish independently-verified performance measurements for your products against any cheap alternative, but, of course, there is no way you will ever allow your cables to be subject to either properly conducted independent ABX testing or independent measurement.

If you can prove your cables are so superior, James Randi and others have much more then £1K to give you, so why not take them up on their challenge?

I have done many cable tests in my time, blind and sighted, and it's quite obvious to me, and many others, that "horseshit" is a very good description of the exaggerated claims made by cable merchants.

-- Ian

 

[Effem]

You are backpeddling my friend.

I'll accomodate and feed you, give you best of my hospitality for the time you are here. There will be no underhand tatics and you can bring a chaperone or two if it bothers you. They can be cynics/sceptics and I will match the number with independant listeners.

Bring with you no more than £35 worth of commerical cabling and swap it out with mine in my system. Then, according to yoir statement you will have the quickest/easiest £1k you ever will so you can then brag about it for eternity on every forum on the globe.

 

[sideshowbob]

I am not back-pedalling, I just know you aren't very serious.

Do you have test equipment and the facilities to conduct an ABX test? Do you have measurement equipment to analyse cable performance? Are you prepared to allow independent third party testing of the cables and organising of the ABX methodology? I have no interest in listening to cables if the test isn't conducted properly, or the equipment is not available to make adequate measurements. What I would suggest is we contact Ben Goldacre, who writes the Bad Science column in The Guardian, and get him to sponsor the test, as he has in the past expressed an interest in doing precisely this:

http://www.badscience.net/?p=202

It would also be a good idea to contact James Randi, after all, you're set to make a lot of money if you can pass his test criteria, so it would make sense to get him involved in constructing a suitable test methodology.

But if it's just the usual sighted A/B or single-blind test with a bunch of believers and a bunch of sceptics, it's just a waste of time, I've already done it many times before with many different cables, and there's no reason to believe the results would be any different this time.

If you're serious, now would be a good time to finally move the debate along and get some properly verified independent testing of the performance of cheap wire in a fancy sheath at a high price, versus cheap wire with no pretensions to being anything else.

-- Ian

 

[RobHolt]

You are backpeddling my friend.

I'll accomodate and feed you, give you best of my hospitality for the time you are here. There will be no underhand tatics and you can bring a chaperone or two if it bothers you. They can be cynics/sceptics and I will match the number with independant listeners.

Bring with you no more than £35 worth of commerical cabling and swap it out with mine in my system. Then, according to yoir statement you will have the quickest/easiest £1k you ever will so you can then brag about it for eternity on every forum on the globe.

No he isn't, I suspect that like me Ian is sick to the back teeth of reading this unsubstantiated, unprovable shit every week.

Your offer isn't a serious attempt to prove anything.

 

[melorib]

Chicken... :NADowner:

 

[Dev]

Chicken... :NADowner:

Constructive as ever, but can someone explain to me how Ian or anyone else can winn this £1k? Am I to understand that Ian or any cable sceptic just has to turn up with a cheapo cable, plug it into Effem's system and if he hears no difference he gets £1k? Sounds simple enough, what if the said sceptic lies or like countless sceptics genuinle hears no difference? No arguments and no questions asked?

I didn't see anyone proposing a test methodology.

 

[RobHolt]

Chicken... :NADowner:

Been there and done it.

Blind and sighted. Results were as you'd expect from people trying to hear differences where none exist. Most hear nothing and on the blind test a few even think the freebie cable sounds better than the direct feed. Any preferences that are expressed appear to be completely random.

In other words, it is all horse shit and there is no difference.

 

[Jimbo]

That really is the lamest come-back I have ever read.

I thought you believers kept insisting everyone should use their ears. Well, I have used my ears, and it's quite obvious to me that there is no need to spend large sums of money on bits of wire and connectors. After all, "boutique" cable is no more than cheap wire in a nice sheath with fancy packaging and a lot of pseudo-scientific marketing gibberish to justify the mark-up. There is no good reason for audio wire to be expensive.

-- Ian

Just proves your hearing is not excellent then. Jim with exceptional hearing

 

[sideshowbob]

You really do need to develop a more convincing argument. There are many people who disagree with you about cables, and it seems highly unlikely to be because you can hear better than all of them.

I last had my hearing professionally tested a month ago, which is why I know it is surprisingly acute, especially in the HF, for someone of my age. So try a better argument if you can think of one, or do me a favour and just ignore me if you can't think of anything sensible to contribute.

-- Ian

 

[Jimbo]

If we put some of Pete's cables in there then it would be a night and day difference. But the sceptics wouldnt want to come to your test because it would smash their cosy little world they live in. Come on you sceptics lets have a friendly meet and see what happens. Jim.

 

[Jimbo]

You really do need to develop a more convincing argument. There are many people who disagree with you about cables, and it seems highly unlikely to be because you can hear better than all of them.

I last had my hearing professionally tested a month ago, which is why I know it is surprisingly acute, especially in the HF, for someone of my age. So try a better argument if you can think of one, or do me a favour and just ignore me if you can't think of anything sensible to contribute.

-- Ian

Hope my last post was sensible for you. So what do you think. Jim.