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 Maybe the measurement people can chalk up and quantify from that just how many years, and billions, they are out of date and in denial. 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
Sorry but it was either that or Beavis and Butthead chortling, "He said double blind testing. Huh. Huh. Huh." Which would be cool, and more the level of respect it merits. But they never said it. Sigh.
HI,
Talking about DIY cables, manufacturers that offer a finished product also, cook this from different materials compared to the ones offered for DIY, even if specs and plugs are the same. Learned it myself when trying to replicate a couple of Furutechs.
geoffkait, as I re read my post I did not differentiate between cheap or expensive cables. The comment included ALL cables. Helloo, comments like your are usually made by people who have no idea how to use a soldering iron so they have to belittle the ones that do. 
You can not possibly have the best cables for your system unless you make them for yourself. Even if you are using the best cable made they are still longer than they have to be because you are stuck with stock sizes. Those of us who can make our own cables and power cords have a distinct advantage over those who can not. 
petg60, totally false. 99% of the difference is marketing BS the other 1% is the color. I also have a much nicer soldering iron than the ones used in China.