Are audiophiles still out of their minds?

What troubles me more than any price that someone can sell something and the price for which someone is willing to pay for something, is the reality that there are two sets of rules in our current so-called, but in reality no longer, capitalist society. One set of rules is for those of us who may complain about prices from time to time, but by and large play by a set of rules that is fair. We call ’em as we see ’em and expect a fair deal and quality.

Then there’s the set of rules that I’ll bet none-to-very-few-of-us has access to. Who here can buy a credit default swap for 7 figures or higher and gain from someone else’s failure? Who here can sequester $Ms in off-shore tax-free havens? Who here is able to buy or sell equities on secondary markets with nanosecond transactions? I have to place a bid and then wait hours before it is denied or confirmed, all the while the market shifts and moves out of my purview.

Some are able to transact these things in an informed manner, or have agents who have access to such transaction capabilities, but they don’t care about the price of an audio cable or component and whether it is priced too high. And by the way I was raised, such second sets of rules accessible by some and not all is NOT free market capitalism and never will be.

So I don’t complain about the prices of audio gear; there are far more important fish to fry.

There is no use for this thread. Nobody, who considers themselves member of the scam police, will heed those who say some expensive cables are worth it. Nor will the scam police ever embrace at least some expensive cables.

I have had expensive and awful cables and inexpensive and awful cables and rejected both.

almarg
6,473 posts
06-19-2016 3:39pm
Geoffkait: Hey, Al, correct me if I’m wrong but the whole point of thorough and conscientious testing is to eliminate all those persnickety variables you refer to, or at least as many as you can.

to which Al replied,

"Well, of course, Geoff. Not sure what your point is, though, with respect to my comment about expensive in-wall wiring vs. Romex. Obviously not many of us are going to do A/B comparisons of those alternatives. And I see little if any reason to expect the findings of those few people who may do such comparisons to be applicable to other systems and installations, considering all of the variables I cited."

My point is of course you can construct absurd cases where some generic wire might win in a shoot out with a superior wire due to some contrived assemblage of variables. But those case can be thrown out. They’re outliers. You cannot put the genie back n the bottle. Not with cables and wire, not with fuses. Simply saying we can’t easily perform an AB test doesn’t actually mean your argument is valid. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too. One trusts wire directionality is one of your variables.

My point is of course you can construct absurd cases where some generic wire might win in a shoot out with a superior wire due to some contrived assemblage of variables. But those case can be thrown out. They’re outliers. You cannot put the genie back n the bottle. Not with cables and wire, not with fuses.  Simply saying we can’t easily perform an AB test doesn’t actually mean your argument is valid. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too. One trusts wire directionality is one of your variables.

Geoff, I wasn’t constructing any cases, absurd or otherwise. And I wasn’t addressing cables or fuses. My point in mentioning all of those variables was to convey the thought that the results provided by expensive in-wall wiring in comparison with Romex are (a)unlikely to have much if any predictability, and (b)are unlikely to have much if any consistency among different systems and installations.

Regards,
-- Al

Al,

To point out the problems with poorly designed experiments, I gave an example above of how inferior interconnects can help with impedance matching between components; however, I can't think of a scenario where a combination of the variables you list would make well designed AC wires perform worse than romex (save for an extreme example of a reduced voltage drop leaving voltage above the component spec which, frankly, is hard for me to conceive). You always do a good job of pointing out the existence of each end of the bell curve but in this case I am not in agreement. Can you be specific with a scenario I am missing.

BTW,  I use 10 gauge Furutech OCC in my walls because I like the way it looks on my oscilloscope.