Cable Snake Oil Antidote

(Note - directed at no particular person) It’s ironic that folks who accept the 10 Biggest Lies In Audio as being real lies accuse those who believe they are actually true of being gullible. If they accept all ten Lies lock stock and barrel they must have some pretty strong beliefs in Peter Aczel or something, who the heck knows? Surely at least one or two must be a little bit debatable, no? I say they are ALL TRUE. Any takers? 🤠

“But you can’t PROVE it!” - Juror number 3, the obstreperous last holdout, 12 Angry Men

addendum: I’ll give Peter Aczel one thing. That boy sure had a way with words. To whit,

“1. The Cable Lie
Logically this is not the lie to start with because cables are accessories, not primary components. But it is the hugest, dirtiest, most cynical, most intelligence-insulting and, above all, most fraudulently profitable lie in audio, and therefore must go to the head of the list.”

Wow 😳

geoffkait

I’ll give Peter Aczel one thing. That boy sure has a way with words.

Agreed! His writing style was refined and focused, and I often enjoyed reading his renderings. (Of course, I never paid for a subscription - that would support his Crusade.) He cultivated controversy, then used his magazine as a firehose in an attempt to extinguish it. After all, angry voices get attention. But like Julian Hirsch before him, I suspect his work often produced unintended consequences: After listeners realized how very wrong he was, they left him behind forever. Hence, his magazine was never profitable and its publishing schedule was unreliable.

I bumped into Aczel once - quite by accident and not in an audio venue - and found him quite charming. His in-person style was very different from what his writings might lead you to expect. I suspect the same would be true of many of this forum’s members.

Aczel was not just a writer; he was a showman. And he knew it. Unfortunately, uncritical readers often didn’t recognize that.

I myself have been involved with high end audio for well over 45 years now am in complete agreement with Michael Fremer that wires most certainly make a difference.  No doubt about it.  Actually Roy Gregory did an overall comparison over 10 years ago at the Denver Audio Show how, simply starting with a quality power cord, next an Audience power conditioner, next interconnects, finally speaker wires how each step most certainly made a difference-for the good.  I have found the same today.  Living in Boulder, I have found that simply adding a top of the line MG Audio Design interconnect between my McIntosh MR74 tuner to my Audio Research LS27 preamplifier can create an audio experience that still totally amazes me today.  The overall audio quality actually depends upon what, Say KGNU happens to be playing at the time.  With an overall quality audio system with the right wire loom, as the English say, even a 45 year old FM tuner can create a sound that can compete with other audio systems using records, SACD's, high resolution bases systems.  That is what power conditioning and the "right" wires can achieve by themself-make an ancient, generally overlooked audio delivery system to come into their own.  I would bet that way back in the late 1960's-early 70's that many purchasers of Quat electrostatic speakers in fact used them to listen to the BBC on FM radio as their principal audio source.

In fact, Peter was right all ten times. Guess who is the troll.

Peter’s article seems correct to me, though it is a bit excessively emphatic in some of its points.