stereophile

what's your idea about stereophile reviews?
do you believe they help us to buy best stuff?

 

No. I've had an electronic subscription for a couple of years and shall not continue. It seems to review stuff 'way out of my price range, so there's nothing relevant for me. The fact that the people there also believe in cables and green pens and similar daft things means that, in my opinion, everything they say must be taken with a large bag of salt.

 

i think magazines don't try to find best price/performance products and recommend to users, they just review products for their business

 

It's all about advertising, amir...

 

Tones,

Does that mean that you don't believe that different cables can lead to different results?

 

Correct. I have never observed any difference. It's all just copper wire after all, with added cosmetics/pseudo-science.

 

Not if you use silver.

 

Which also makes no difference.

 

There seems to be a difference between copper.
Some of it is higher priced than other.

 

Aha, you've noticed, have you?

It should always be remembered that normal, everyday copper, is amazingly pure and, while we're at it, essentially oxygen-free. That magical differences can suddenly appear by mucking around at the third or fourth decimal place is, in my opinion, frankly ridiculous. And yes, I have listened to so-called LOFC cables against bog-standard ones and I can hear no difference. I am aware that people on this and other forum do hear differences. I respect these as people of integrity and no small experience, and I accept that they hear a difference, for whatever reason. It gives an idea as to how subjective the whole business is and that it's unwise ever to pontificate. This is what galls me about the magazines. They describe in absolute terms these magical differences in cables, which to many of us simply exist in the reviewer's imagination. But then, I guess they're preaching to the converted and not to the magazine haters such as myself.

Even more amazingly, one of the big German magazines "Stereo" had nice things to say about the Shakti Hallograph, surely the biggest con ever perpetrated. Just try not to laugh too hard...

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/hallograph.htm

 

Hi Tones.

We are like-minded in our scepticism with many products.

I occasionally hear differences in speaker cables, but its rare and I don't necessarily see the differences as an improvement. Usually just an attenuation of a particular frequency.

Interconnects, again, most sound exactly the same to me. I have heard some where I can say - yes that sounds a little different. Again, a big enough wow factor has never happened to make me part with reddies.

Power cables, - suprised me somewhat - but at a bake-off once I could hear differences. Once again though - its nothing that I would say is an out and out improvement worth my hard earned.

To be fair, I'd have a huge amount of fun trying all different varieties of the above - if they cost say ten pounds each. Having made the decision that I can live without the changes, it became easy for me not to spend a lot of money on it.

I havent heard every cable ever made, and I havent heard vast quantities of systems. Im sure that in some systems and for some people these things make worthwhile differences. Thats great I think, because they will enjoy their systems more.

My reluctance to experiment with cabling has always been around 2 factors - 1) the price of the damn things, 2) the fact that there always seems to be somewhere else in my system that would benefit more from the cash....like a re-valve, or changing the caps in a pre-amp or whatever.

If you get the chance, why not pick up a can/bottle of anti-static computer cleaning fluid. The type of stuff they sell for xerox machines. As a sceptic, I can hear a change here. It will cost you about 3 quid to have a play with this, and it can be used (if you dont hear a difference) to clean the very computer you're looking at! Mrs Tones would be pleased!

(oh, forgot to mention you give your cd's a once over with it, and they sound different. Amazing!)...

Like I said before, its the COST of tweaks which puts me off playing with them - so heres a really cheap one!

 

Thanks for the hint, Bottleneck. I shall certainly try it and report back. However, I may be too hardened a sceptic now. I believe that many believers hear something that they want to hear, perhaps subconsciously. It might well be that I have the reverse disease - I don't hear because my scientific background rebels against this sort of stuff, and therefore I don't want to hear. Which suits me just fine! I waste no money and buy CDs instead.

P.S. Do you happen to know what's in it? Some solvents will "craze" acrylics (the top coating in CDs).

 

Hi tones.....
I agree I listen to two esentially the same cables [silver simple twisted pair] one was the latest 99.999% flavour of the month the other bog standard pureity off the shelf silver wire. There was no difference.....and I can hear the differences between cables usually. In fact in that instance I prefered the second one after prolonged listening.

I can demonstrate the difference between copper and silver....on my system though the only real way is to have cables that are identical but just of different materials.

I find copper gives a big round rosy warm presentation ....very appealing in certain systems. Silver is fast clean dynamic precise imaging. This is repeatable.... I can even let people have the materials to try for them selves !

Only once in the last couple of years have I had the "Bl**dy Hell where did that come from " reaction listing to a well known track. This was to a joke IC that I made using a material thats not supposed to be any good ![ still experimenting but things are loking intresting]

As to magazines ......well I was involed with a small company a while back, making amps ....we got chatting to a renown review [who will remain nameless]in the bar at a famous london show [95' I think], who basically said he'd write a fab review if he could keep the gear !! It was pretty, but I ask you !

From that point I stopped buying mags except a quick look in WH smiths to see what the flavour of the month is.

 

Now tell me cables don't make a difference to video...

If *I* can see a huge difference between a Cambridge standard SCART (£10) and their "supreme" one at £20, even on VHS, when I've a sixth of a normal person's eyesight, you're deluding yourself if you can't.

If it works in video, it also works in audio (though admittedly, a lot of it is willy waving). Mind you, try using Litz cable on a Naim amp and tell me that cables don't make a difference - the sound of BANG!SMOKE!SILENCE! is certainly different to the sound of music

 

Copper is rose-coloured, and was used for the old 1d coins which are big and round.

Silver is more expensive, and has word associations, like "quicksilver" (although that's mercury).

Your observations seem to tie in very neatly with the visual appearance of these two different metals. Do you find that glass shelves give a "glassy" sound, or that spikes tend to "sharpen" the sound?

 

Of course, you could be seeing (sort of) what you want to see, Dom. If you can delude yourself aurally, why not visually? Having said that, I've never tried different video cables, but I've tried plenty of audio ones and they don't work.

 

The same thing crossed my mind. People do attribute the characteristics of the material (actual or perceived) to the sound. Glass shelves give a brighter sound, as does silver, wood gives a more natural, warm sound, that sort of thing.

 

I saw that candle stick article too (don't buy any dynaudio floorstanders without them). They can easily compete with Totem beaks and Penance's (in)sanity test.

 

That's what will cause the different sound.

 

The author of that particular review has lost all credibility with me ages ago.