2. cables
  3. 124957-818

Are audiophiles still out of their minds?

I've been in this hobby for 30 years and owned many gears throughout the years, but never that many cables.  I know cables can make a difference in sound quality of your system, but never dramatic like changing speakers, amplifiers, or even more importantly room treatment. Yes, I've evaluated many vaunted cables at dealers and at home over the years, but never heard dramatic effect that I would plunk $5000 for a cable. The most I've ever spent was $2700 for pair of speaker cables, and I kinda regret it to this day.  So when I see cable manufacturers charging 5 figures for their latest and "greatest" speaker cables, PC, and ICs, I have to ask myself who buys this stuff. Why would you buy a $10k+ cable, when there are so many great speakers, amplifiers, DACs for that kind of money, or room treatment that would have greater effect on your systems sound?  May be I'm getting ornery with age, like the water boy says in Adam Sandler's movie.
dracule1
dracule1 OP
1,085 posts
 
O_holter, yes there cable manufacturers who are genuinely trying to make great sounding cables at a reasonable cost. I’ve never evaluated JPS. It’s nice to hear they are willing to support customers who bought their cable used. It’s only during the early 1990’s, did we see a slew of cable manufacturers start charging over $1000. Clever marketing, over the top reviews by top mags at the time, and a big dose of support by gullible audiophiles catapulted cable prices to the obscene we see today.
dracule1 OP
1,085 posts
 
One notable point. Most of the legendary designers of high end audio like Neson Pass, Bob Carver, Arney Nudell, Peter Walker, etc do/did not use or believe in these fairy dust audiophile cables. These are legends that cable manufactures who hock megabuck cables would freely give or give at cost their cables just for marketing reasons. I have had long conversations with one of these legends who opened my eyes on what goes behind the scenes in high end audio. There are so many fallacies that audiophiles will believe and defend to this very day.
mitch2
4,082 posts
 
One notable point. Most of the legendary designers of high end audio like Neson Pass, Bob Carver, Arney Nudell, Peter Walker, etc do or did not use or believe in these fairy dust audiophile cables.
They probably don't believe in "audiophile" fuses either.

However, there are well-respected manufacturers who do believe in high end/priced cables being different/better so courses for horses, just like with the folks on this thread.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Lots of notable people don’t believe in things like high end cables, or say wire directionality or aftermarket fuses or fuse directionality and other things that have been around like forever. But that in itself doesn’t mean they’re not true. That’s what we in the biz refer to as an Appeal to Authority, which as you probably know is a logical fallacy. You know, kind of like claiming because Einstein didn’t believe in quantum mechanics that quantum mechanics is not real. Besides, there are lots of other notable and legendary designers who DO believe in high end cables. Do you really think all legendary designers think alike?

How long has the cable controversy been around, gee, gotta be 35 years? I hate to judge before all the facts are in but I suspect the cable debate is not going to go away anytime real soon. Well, hopefully, anyway.

geoff kait
machina dramatica
no goats no glory
dracule1 OP
1,085 posts
 
Mitch,

"However, there are well-respected manufacturers who do believe in high end/priced cables being different/better so courses for horses, just like with the folks on this thread."

Some of them also manufacture speakers and recommend their extremely expensive cables for their speakers. Incredibly, some of their cables cost more than their speakers. Go figure.

As as my conversation with one of the legends of audio revealed, many of these well-respected manufactures who "believe" in high priced cables use/promote those cables more for marketing reasons than their inherent value. 


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