The Intellectual People Podcast - Galen Gareis (Former Belden Wire Designer)

This entire debate is a living proof of what I state at the beginning of these thread ---- the position of Galen is a lose / lose proposition.

The "objectivists" hate cable. They believe they do nothing, just as most of the things audio.

They basically have the following attitude:

1) Cable manufacturers that do not mention anything on technical aspects of their building process: snake oil. Hate.

2) Cable manufacturers who explain all technical aspects, and provide measurements: hate even more. Big time snake oil. Why? Because it rattles their own theory and the foundation of their beliefs.

This is why this is all lose / lose. No matter what technical explanation one provides, objectivists will never be happy. They will always say things like: beyond audible effects, measurements are done wrong, no impact on sound, blah, blah, blah....

No Doug your article is an attempt to draw attention to both your writing and the cables. An attempt to sell both. I am done and I will try to refrain from commenting in the future because you obviously dont see the problem and never will.

Some very interesting comments for sure!  

Guys, I think maybe the point here is missed...Galen, knew cables sounded different and went about trying to "measure" why, but more importantly challenge himself to design a cable that both measured well and sounded great.  To his credit he states that the better copper wire (Ultra Pure OFC) sounds better but can't be measured...even though the basic measurements are the same - got it? An engineer admitting to audiophiles what we have been saying - "I don't care about measurement, it sounds better!" Many engineers would never admit this- ...Lot's of variables go into design (not just resistance, capacitance and inductance) and the variables are interdependent...i.e. change one and the others change. So which ones are most important? If you read his papers and watch the video I think he would suggest TIME. Then it seems he challenged himself to design a cable by measurement and then see if the design parameters resulted in a good sounding cable by listening...so, he used measurements and his ears. And sent his cables to a lot of audiophiles for listening tests...I really can't fault him for his approach. Why don't you just audition them like every other cable you are interested in? See if you like them? 

I wouldn't fault Doug for listening and posting his listening results. He liked them - compared to other very well respected expensive cables. Just because he listed the manufacturers design goals - which btw, MANY cable reviews I read state some, if not all design goals and approaches, doesn't diminish what he heard when he tested the cables on multiple systems... I appreciate when reviewers write their opinions as it broadens my choices and thinking when frankly, I can't begin to test as many things as dozens of various reviewers can. 

Interestingly, referring to time.... The liquid metal works best (compared to all other potentials in the 'cable' world) in the time domain.

re reviewers, one reads their works and then becomes familiar with how that person does things, and from that, one can gain useful information for one's own self search in the audio world. It's a simple equation.