Mapleshade tweaks

"... some like to build and some like to just buy it finished."

There seems to be this syndrome of DIYers knocking manufacturers and their pricing. I started out as a DYIer myself but IME most of my customers don't want to bother.

Regarding build quality, depending on the product, this varies, but the price is commensurate.

I purchased the Clearview Golden Parallel Long-run speaker wire for a nieghbor that needed a long run but couldn't afford 1k for wire. The wire sounded terrible, even after a long break in. It would be fine for a 2nd bedroom set-up or a run to rear speakers in an HT rig, but for two channel mains we had as good sonics using zip cord.

Judsauce,

Not to beat a dead horse but I'm guessing this was a matter of taste or compatibility. What specifically was your complaint?

My experiences have been variable. The Samson racks are as good as it gets, as far as I am concerned. I have two of them. I also have a Mapleshade-modified Scott tuner, and I can assure you that the difference between it and the stock version is several orders of magnitude. It will stand up to virtually any tuner ever made.

On the negative side, I did not care for the ICs at all. It's difficult to say how much was due to the fundamental character of the ICs and how much was interaction with the speakers (SoundLabs). Quite a number of highly regarded ICs have not sounded good on these, so I would certainly suspect at least some mismatch there.

RCCC - Blanket pronouncements with no backing facts are utterly useless. We might as well be on a Y@hoo message board.

Slaw3 - thanks for giving us a few facts to work with, but perhaps statements such as "And they have great copy writers, saying things that can't be proved but sound darned good. The products themselves ...um, don't" need not be quite so all-encompassing when you've (apparently) listened to only the cables. As it happens, I would agree with you - at least in the case of the ICs in my particular system, but conversely they make at least two products that I wouldn't voluntarily do without.