Cables more hype than value?

Let me add something to the mix. I spent half my life as a professional musician and I was fortunate to get into the NY recording scene very early and I was doing demos in the 80s up at RCA studios and other famous ones as well. I thought I was pretty much a hotshot and I made my first recording. When I listened to the playback, I was astounded. The playback did not sound at all as good as what I THOUGHT I played - it was much worse. I then realized that I wasn't hearing was I was playing, but hearing what I thought I was playing. Somehow, my brain got into the middle of the ear/music making parts and twisted things around. It took me a long time of playing and listening to playbacks to sync them up to a point where I could hear what I played in real time and it would sound on tape just as I heard it in the studio - but that took time. Time to get that funhouse out of your brain that makes you think you're great when you're not. The brain that makes a skinny woman see herself in the mirror and think she's fat. I can guarantee you the drugs and alcohol were the 3-in-1 oil that kept the ears wired directly to the performance without the freakin brain stickin' it's nose in and convincing you that you're hearing what you played.

Maybe this will make some sense to some - once the human mind gets in the middle of things, a lot of strange roads are taken. I think that through years of training, I can actually hear what I'm hearing, uneffected by whatever funhouse mirror the brain adds into the process.

I don't think everyone will undertstand this, but I know some of you will. I do respect all of your view though. Rok - I do own a pair of 10 gauge Beldens with welded connectors and they're fine. I could problably live with them and enjoy my music just as much. I don't own any crazy wires, but I do think my ViVa speaker cables make the speakers sound far more open and clear, as if the window to the band is open wider. But when I get bored, I'll go back to the beldens for a few months and enjoy them and then swithch back to the ViVas and did the more open, less hi-fi presentation.

Gentlemen and Ladies - please don't let our disagreements divide us. We are predominantly a dying breed, so let's enjoy the waning years. Any of you are invited by to listen to some beatuful music and have a steak. Really.

03-08-13: Irvrobinson
At least with active components there are measured differences, and it's a matter of argument over what's audible.

Here Irv, you are implying that if it cannot be measured, it cannot be heard. So don't say that you and Rok aren't making any implications or statements about science being your master. We say if it can be heard but not measured, science hasn't figured out what to measure yet.

I can take two speakers that measure the same, yet they will not sound the same, why is that? Science can't explain that..........yet.

03-09-13: Audiolabyrinth
I have a financial incentive,,I will bet thousands of dollars that anybody that can not hear a difference between Taralabs zero gold,nordost odin against whatever cables that a non believer that cables do not make a difference can produce!

Easy there big fella, you do understand that if you don't want to hear differences, you won't. Hell, for thousands of dollars, I would tell you that I couldn't hear any difference either. ;)

The audio road is littered with stuff that measured great and sounded like crap.

OK, Rock. My cable vs. the cheapo cable OF YOUR CHOICE! Let's tweak this challenge: you send me the cheapo, non-audiophile (generic, "came-in-the-box") cable of your choice and I will live with it for one week. Then you come over, and we do the test as stated above. Yes, my cable is store bought, and not tweaked.

You win, you get my copy of KOB. I win, you stop your rants against cables and Coltrane; that's enough for me. We post the results. The invitation is open; just let me know.