Thiel Owners

Much Thanks! tomthiel
I certainly would not say your experience is thin nor dated. There is knowledge on board. Perhaps a little dusting of the mind's attic is in order?Reminds me of The Grateful Dead tune, "Attics of my Life".Happy Listening!

I whole heartedly agree with you, prof, which is why I haven’t spent much on cable myself. However, when I upgraded my amp to monoblocks and needed longer interconnects, I took the opportunity to get some "better" second hand cables. I don’t need speaker cables that long anymore and as Tom has recommended I will be looking to get a shorter run. However, I’m just waiting to get some good, used Goertz at this point.

The two aspects of cables that would cause me to spend additional money isn’t necessarily about performance, but about: 1) its simplicity, and 2) investment potential.

First, you can argue that cable technology really hasn’t changed since it’s invention, short of better insulation materials. Anything else IMHO really doesn’t improve its capacitance or inductance, and resistance is a function of gauge. (Yes, I’m simplifying this a great deal). So unlike equipment that will wear much more quickly or become obsolete due to change in standards or technological advancements, cables will stand the test of time. It’s not like they don’t age, since copper does oxidize and dielectrics can lose their properties over time, but cables age much better than everything else in the audio chain.

Second, commodity metal prices increase over time. In the ’90s, copper sold at $0.80 to $1.00 per pound. Today it’s around $3. (Silver has been much more volatile, with prices of $8 per ounce in the ’90s and around $60 today. In the early 80s, speculators cause silver to run up to $100, so that may happen again. You don’t really see that with copper.)

Therefore, I am more apt to spend money on a nice set of cables knowing that it would last and I could possibly get my investment back if I sold it. I would also most likely go through many iterations of source equipment, D/A converters, processors, amps, and maybe even speakers before I needed to replace the cables.

But the reason I don’t spend additional money on cables is exactly about performance. I just can’t justify spending $3000 on a pair of speaker cables because I just don’t see the performance lift for the money. Alas, I am not a billionaire playboy like Bruce Wayne. Otherwise, I would get those Goertz AG3s and "speakers that you can hug with your arms and your legs." [reference to Lord Business in response to Bruce Wayne when Bruce said "You’re telling me that you have a machine to control the universe but you can’t listen to tunes and surround sound?" - The Lego Move 2014]

prof

“Fortunately I don’t burn much brain-fuel over the wires in my speaker (or otherwise). Whatever Thiel chose, it met the values and specs they were going for, and the results are speakers that are still highly competitive with anything today, whatever wiring those other speakers may be using.

For me I’ve got enough in this hobby to obsess about, without throwing concerns about high end wires/cables in to the fray. I’m as prone to thoughts of upgraditis as anyone else. Having recently acquired a high end turntable, now I have to think about things like VTA, VTF etc - I’ve gotta draw the line somewhere and my skepticism about the high end cable/wires industry makes dropping concerns for expensive cabling an easy move for me.”


Shirley Temple: I don’t go all the way.
J. Edgar Hoover: I don’t go all the way, either.

“There’s sometimes a fine line between skepticism and superstition.”

😀

Who died and made you moderator?