Why Do Cables Matter?

I was awarded 10 US Patents over my engineering career and several EU Patents.  (Before I went into management).  Some, but not all of the EU Patents overlap the US ones.  Most but not all of my inventions made it into production.  My little brother has 9-10 US Patents too and he is a Purdue grad.  Go figure.

It is expensive to apply for a patent and time consuming.  I had to work with the legal team to develop the art and the claims as well as research of all patent databases to verify no prior claims.  Unless someone has a lot of time and money on their hands to write up some fantastical inventions and pay a legal team to submit it for a patent, well it wouldn’t make sense to me.  The sole purpose of the patent is to protect the invention for a time allowing the inventors to profit from their ideas.  Even holding a patent is not a guarantee someone will not copy it.  Lot’s of time and legal fees involved in defending patent rights.  So I don’t understand how someone would be rolling on the floor with laughter reading patent claims.  I’d rather watch Gillian’s Island reruns.

A few observations on intellectual property.

1. Having protectable IP is important to inventors who may wish to licence their IP and not use it themselves.

2. It can be vital when looking to raise external capital.

3. Just because something is patented doesn't necessarily mean it is has utility - or at least not commercial utility.

4. People who work in public service don't do it to maximise their earnings. It doesn't necessarily imply that their abilities or work is of lesser quality.

5. Natually, patent examiners are not infallible - that's why people end up in litigation. That said, patent examinership looks like an area that's ripe for the application of AI.

I trained as a biological oceanographer, and my experience with electronics beyond plugging them in and turning them on is taking delicate research instruments out of the ocean where a seal leaked and trying to resuscitate them 1,000 away from the nearest electronics shop, wiring my house and building custom power cables for audio equipment that I hope will not destroy audio gear or cause a fire.  I have a rudimentary understanding of resistance, capacitance and continuity, and beyond that, it’s pretty much try something in my current system and see how it sounds.

Scientists are professional skeptics, and are paid to knock the crap out of ideas until they either wither or hold up under scrutiny.  I have had plenty of my ideas beaten down and a few hold up.  With any audio gear, I am always a skeptic until I hear the results for myself.  If I am making a large audio investment ( for me), I will seek second opinions and have arranged blind tests with people whose ears I trust.  Through my audio journey, I have determined that cables matter a lot, but results don’t always match linearly with investment.

All that said, I am perfectly comfortable having my ideas and comments challenged here by people who have a lot more formal training and experience in this field than I do.  I brought up the patent process as a possible place where different concepts and claims for exotic or new audio cable designs get vetted by a neutral third party out of the glare of advertising and competing claims of glory in the marketplace.  Based on y’all’s comments, this suggestion was misguided.  Both my brother and his son are electrical engineers who have patents for things I completely don’t understand, and they are not at liberty to divulge the intended use.  Perhaps I should have asked them first about the patent process before bringing it up here.  LOL

BTW, I referenced Caelin Gabriel’s patents in this thread because I am aware that he has an engineering background and I know (from effective marketing on his part) that he has patented a number of his product ideas.  I own some of his gear and it works well enough, but I would not call myself a fan boy.

So I don’t understand how someone would be rolling on the floor with laughter reading patent claims.

@tonywinga 

Because the claims defy physics, particularly in HiFi.

I read plenty of claims for products on which something we made could possibly infringe - at least in a lawyer's mind - and had to write arguments invalidating the claims from prior art.

United States Issues Patent Number 10,000,000 in 2018. The twenty-five years from 1993 to 2018 double the number of patents of the previous TWO HUNDRED years. 

Many, many times I dissuaded our teams from applying because although the product might be clever and unique, it was based on fundamentals that would not survive a knowledgeable examiner. Perhaps I should have relented and 'collected' some more... 😏

@knownothing My argument was just called a name it wasn't dealt with as you say. My argument is that you can't get more information out of the recording than the original. I recorded original recording for 35 years I've been to the Oscars and Emmys and technical Emmys all more than once. The principle is easy if you put a Ferrari body around a Volkswagen it doesn't make it go faster or turn better. If you original recording has an information value of 7 you can't change any component and get 7.5 out of the recording this is a physics idea not an audiophile idea no matter how resolving your system is. 

Bottlenecks are parts of the recording that limit the amount of information you can put in the recording, you can have a movie with 192hz sample rate music and then mix the movie in 48k sample rate ant the 192hz music will not stick out as higher quality in the mix, the signal is limited to 48k. Audiophiles use examples explaining how cables tune their system, it is only possible to tune their system down not up because you can't create more information via the cable no matter how expensive it is. When AI is incorporated into audio that's another story but for now just understand it is a law called entropy not an idea that is limiting as well as audiophiles not understanding simple physics. 

If you would like to interact with the argument that would be great the first thing you have to do is disprove the 2nd law of thermodynamics (entropy).