Shunyata now uses silver ???...


I’ve been a long time fan of the Shunyata brand of cables. One of the rare real science audiophile cable makers, with relatively speaking reasonable prices also.

Shunyata has always turned away from silver. All these years of upgrading their lines...first came the helix virtual tube copper conductors, then the vtx conductors ( simpler virtual tubes) , then the revolution ary Ztron circuit eliminating skin lost of signal, then the even more revolutionary noise reduction circuits.

I’ve followed Caelin journey and numerous posts on forums. He always sweared they tried silver conductors and it never came as a solution to better sound compared to their premium copper. Never. And he also always sweared by their vtx air core surrounded by copper conductors.

And now what, their new line of reference power cables uses what.... SILVER conductors !??? And guess what, they decided to put them inside the virtual air core of the vtx conductors....which are not really vtx conductors anymore when you objectively  realise the truth.....because they filled the empty air core with a darn isolated silver wire !!...

I really think Shunyata have lost it this time... The logic in their science is no more.
My two cents.
A long time customer, now very perplex about their choices.
techno__dude
“Shunyata Research was founded by former military scientist Caelin Gabriel in 1997 with the goal of designing power-line and cable systems that eliminate the deleterious effect noise has on high resolution sound, film, recording and mastering systems."

So that was the goal, eh? Huh. 

Well so much for the narrative. Now here's the truth. My audio mentor Stewart Marcantoni had Weekend Environments, back then the largest Synergistic dealer in the US. I'm in Redmond, Stewart and Caelin are across the Puget Sound in Bremerton. Caelin is just starting out and brings one of his early power cords over to see what Stewart thinks. 

They plug it in and after a minute or so Caelin says well, what do you think? $750? Stewart says nothing, just goes and plugs in another power cord. Which sounds much better. "Wow! What is that? $1100? $1200??"

$300.
Oh. Back to the drawing board.

This is almost verbatim. Its all about the Benjamins.
Anyone ever hear of a guy named P.T. Barnum? Now what was that famous quote of his...........?
The quote you’re thinking of wasn’t his. A quote that was his is, “most people would be much better off if they believed in too much rather than too little.“
This may be asking too much, too complicated, or nuanced, but charging a lot for something, having it be based on science (or not), and being of value, are all completely separate issues. I realize how much fun it is to pretend its all one big bowl of oatmeal. But its not.