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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 Maybe the measurement people can chalk up and quantify from that just how many years, and billions, they are out of date and in denial. 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
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
Its not a swamp, any more than pre-amps or speakers are a swamp. The only difference is the everyone can talk about speakers and amps without mosquitoes, snakes, and crocodiles coming after you. Its not the wire that makes the swamp but the putrid creatures lurking in wait for unsuspecting victims. You go looking for better sound with speakers no problem. You go looking for better sound with wires the swamp creatures come after you.

Starting from ordinary wire everything is a huge step up. There's even bigger steps up from there, but that's where it gets a little more of a challenge. Not because there aren't lots better, but because wire is no different than anything else. You have to pay just as much attention to listener reviews of wire as anything else. Do that and you will be amazed how much better your system can get doing nothing more than upgrading wire.
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mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,196 posts
 
You go looking for better sound with wires the swamp creatures come after you.
The same brain primitive creatures instead of listening experiments will kill you if you speak not of wires but of some crystals or stones effects on sound quality.... :)


I use more than 20 kind of stones like an equalizer or like the changing of tubes in an amplifier and with the greatest of success, the only prerequisite was using your discriminative ears... This subject is so touchy than re-reading now my own post I judge it near trolling and provocative.... Truth is sometimes.... …..I am not a sheep and never been one....
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
Once built a $1200 budget system for a friend. While it was burning in I was playing around. Everyone thinks cables are such a small part. Hardly anyone understands the truth- because they have not done this: I put a $1200 interconnect in this $1200 system. It was SHOCKING how good this little budget system was with that interconnect in there! 

I am NOT saying to spend half your budget on one interconnect. What I AM saying is anyone thinks wire is only 5% has a lot to learn.
roberttdid
534 posts
 
Shocking that you never considered it wasn't the $1,200 interconnect, but perhaps you, or maybe just the act of wiping dirty contacts, or the other interconnect was faulty.
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