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Too good a post to waste

On a thread that is a running example of the textual equivalent of nonstop cat videos. So here it is again.


I could understand the cables are snake-oil doubters and take them seriously- in 1980. Back then there was no internet, Stereo Review was pretty much it, and Julian Hirsch was the Oracle of all things audio. Stereo Review and Julian Hirsch said if it measures the same it sounds the same. Wire is wire, and that was that. 

Even then though J. Gordon Holt had already started the movement that was to become Stereophile. JGH took the opposing view that our listening experience is what counts. Its nice if you can measure it but if you can’t that’s your problem not ours. 

Stereo Review and the measurers owned the market back then. The market gave us amplifier wars, as manufacturers competed for ever more power with ever lower distortion. For years this went on, until one day "measures great sounds bad" became a thing.

Could be some here besides me lived through and remember this. If you did, and if you were reading JGH back then, I tip my hat to you, sir! I fell prey to Hirsch and his siren song that you can have it all for cheap and don’t really have to learn to listen. Talk about snake-oil! A lot of us bought into it. Sorry to say.

But anyway like I was saying it was easy to believe the lie back then because it was so prevalent and also because what wire there was that sounded better didn’t really sound a whole lot better.

Now though even budget wire sounds so much better than what comes off a reel you’d have to be deaf not to notice. Really good wires sound so good you’d notice even if you ARE deaf! No kidding. My aunt Bessie was deaf as a stone but she could FEEL the sound at a high enough volume, knew it was music. The dynamic punch of my CTS cables is so much greater than ordinary 14 ga wire I would bet my deaf from birth aunt Bessie could "hear" the difference. Certain so-called audiophiles here, I'm not so sure.

Oh and not done beating the dead horse quite yet, according to my calendar its 2020, a solid 40 years past 1980. Stereo Review is dead and buried. Stereophile lives on. A whole multi-billion dollar industry built on wire not being wire thrives. Maybe the measurement people can chalk up and quantify from that just how many years, and billions, they are out of date and in denial. 
128x128millercarbon
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 

mijostyn
As always the answer lies somewhere in the middle. The reason there are so many manufacturers of cables is quite simple. HUGE profit margin.

>>>>>I have a feeling that statement, a favorite of the pseudo skeptic crowd, is probably not true. In reality, you can make more money selling inexpensive cables, you know like Monster Cable or say, Anti Cables. Do the math. Multiply the number of cables sold by the price per cable. Who Do you think makes more money, Ford or Ferrari? Hel-loo! 
tuberist
951 posts
 
Chuck,
I never liked Hirsch because I could hear sonic differences he claimed he could not show in measurements. He had no credibility with me. BTW, I recently went to a Triode Wire Labs loom and my system took a good leap forward; pretty much like a component change.
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
Yes, it is fairly easy to hear differences - if you actually try and hear the differences. That's the problem with people like Hirsch. They put themselves up as authoritative. Some fall for it. I did. Well I was young and a nerd into science and it seemed to make sense that all you needed from wire was that it be thick enough. It didn't help that in 1975 Puyallup, WA there really was nothing to choose from but gauge. 

By the 1990's though this had changed and the first time I compared my old patch cords with entry level Wireworld the improvement was obvious, and I mean immediately. Heard it even before I made it back to the chair.


jafreeman's avatar
jafreeman
689 posts
 
It's amazing how many seasoned audiophiles still cling to the "wire is wire" meme.  

I have made AC cords from DIY bulk AC cable that are as good as anything sold for $2K and up---for a lot less. 
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,011 posts
 
No concrete wire is only a designed abstract wire, particular audio environment exist coupled to different ears...

A wire exist only "connected" to a particular audio system for some peculiar ears...


But why so much thread about wire and nothing about the more fundamental question linked to the basic multidimensional problem :HOW to embed an audio system?


Half of the thread are about cables, and their directionality.... It is like a thread about cars speaking half the time about plugs..... :)


I apologize to millercarbon for my post.....And to all others.... My best to all....
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