What do you think about this cable company?

I have been approached several times by people asking me to review cables. Thankfully, this has not happened in the past year and a half. My hope is that as the economy turned down, taking high end audio with it, the fire has been quenched somewhat.

Of the experiences I have had with this type of thing, only one has been positive. The company was forthright, we agreed to terms prior to all this happening. When the time came, the cables were excellent, I give them my personal recommendation.

All of the other offers(8 - 10) either did not come to fruition or ended up worse than neutral. After 2 or 3 rounds of this, I set up a list of things we needed to come to terms on before I went any further than the initial contacts.

My conditions for reviewing cable were:
1) Having the cable broken in is a plus.
2) To review a cable is not such a fabulous experience. I take listening to your cable seriously. It is work. You have entrusted me with this task, it is my obligation to do my best. But, you have not bestowed a gift or any priveledge upon me.
3) I do not pay you for your cable. Some companies made this whole charade up to be nothing more than a sale. "Of course, with the 30 day if you don't like them..." You can get that deal anywhere. I should pay shipping back to your company, fair is fair
4) This is a review, NOT A SALE!
5) Understand this, I believe that cable is overpriced and overhyped. I doubt you will ever get me to say that a $1000+ cable is a steal. I also do not believe that cable is the key to world peace. Just so you know where my biases are
6) I will not reconfigure my system to show your cable the way you want. Telling me that my whatever component needs to be replaced with something with a different type of sound is not an option. "We want you to review this cable, but it sounds better with a [warmer CD player]/[less warm CD player]/[solid state this]/[tube that]." Sorry, maybe I or my system are not the best fit for a review of your cable
7) I write what I honestly hear in my system, with my tastes. I will do my best to find out as much as I can about the sound of your cable. I will do my best to highlight its strengths. If I do not think your cables are the "best I have ever heard, taking my system to heights I never believed possible" you will not become a big crybaby telling me I don't know what I am talking about, that I am the only person in this big blue world who feels that way, or start asking me questions like how long I have listened and why do I feel competent to give an opinion.
8) I am not here to provide you with a testimonial unless we work something out about that first. Do you view this as an opportunity to see what a cross section of people find your product or a way to create ad copy? Please understand you are probably going to profit from someone writing about your product in a positive light and attaching their name to it.
9) Again, this is a review. NOT A SALE!

While I agree that this whole thing became a mess, in my experience, when reviewing cables that is the norm, not the exception. I also think that Onhwy61's point of you "reviewing" the cable in order to receive a deep discount questions your motive and objectivity in the review. Is your goal to perform a cable comparison or upgrade your system? Please do not take this as an attack, I mean no malice here. But, it's a major contention I have with audio reviewers, praise in return for product.

I like these rules Trelja. I am going to cut and paste them and save them.

Also, folks I did not buy my new Rega P9 solefy for the review. However, I was motivated to upgrade my vinyl for the review. I probably would have put off buying a new TT for a bit if I did not think I was going to be reviewing these cables.

The only reasons why I asked for a discount on the cables was because of the following:
1 - I am putting a lot of my time into reviewing the cables, if I like them, I would like to be able to afford them.
2 - I do not put ANY cables or components into my system that I CANNOT afford. It is very painful to remove a component from your system that is superior in your system than the component that it replaced. I learned this a long time ago...
3 - I could not afford the cables at full retail price.

Frankly, I did not care either way if I liked the cables or not. This was going to be the beauty of the review. I had no insentive either way to like them or not like them. If the cables did not work better than the SPM/QF in my system, I could easily write that review and send the cables back. If I liked the cables better, I could write that review, and sell my QF and SPM and raise a bit more cash and buy the cables.

I am not one to equate more $$$ with better cables or even components. For example, I would love to try the Analysis Plus Oval Crystal (Analysis Plus is NOT the above manufacturer mentioned above) cables in my system and discover that they are better than the SPM/QF combo. This would be great because it would save me $$$ since the AP runs about 1/3 the cost of the Nordost cables. I could sell my Nordost and sink the $$$ into vinyl, heh heh. I am looking at Demoing some of the AP cables right now. AP and their dealers are much better to deal with than the above mentioned one. And if I found out my Nordost was still better, well the AP dealer would take back the cables.

KF

Tok20000, please do not take my earlier post as a personal indictment against you. It was not my intention to question your integrity and if I have done so, then I sincerely apologize.

However, the situation you described does raise ethical issues. Let's say the cables you were offered sold for $1,000 MSRP and that after your review you could have acquired them at a 50% discount. In effect, the distributor has given you $500 of monetary consideration for your efforts. That's why I would use the term "paid endorsement". I used to think that one of the most powerful comments a reviewer can make about a product is that they purchased the review sample. I guess I should now take such comments with a grain of salt.

Are we speaking about Orbeck? They seem to be the rudest company that ever spammed me. And, they have the nerve...

No, Orbeck did send me an email, but they were very polite. Orbeck did not take me up on my offer that I made to them in my post on their thead.

Always read a review with a grain of salt no matter who is doing the review. This is my motto. I tend to read reviews for mainly entertainment value, and to get some idea of what a piece sounds like (but I still want to hear for myslef). This can also be applied to listening to any system or speakers in an audio store. People listen to a set of speakers in a store, and come to some conclusions about them right then... Many times they forget they are also hearing all the equipment driving the speakers. Personal home demonstration is best with any component.

Always remember that professional reviewers tend to make less than $300 per review AND do get at least 40% off retail any high end stuff they buy. Companies also have a habbit of sending them gifts CDs and audio associated products. They also write reviews for magazines that have advertising that is bought by the same manufacturers that they are reviewing. I see this as a small conflict of interest. I think it was funny all the controversy brought about when Stereophile started advertising BMW cars in the magazine. Many people went into an uproar. Heck, I applauded the car ads. At least these car ads do not represent a conflict of interest like audio manufacturers advertising in a publication while their products are being reviewed.

I think independant audiophiles do not have the nearly as much conflict of interest as reviewers for audio publications. This is why I wanted to do the review. I wanted to give the Audiogon community an honest opinion about these cables in my system. But of coarse, my review would be in my system only, and for this reason, anything I had to say should still be taken with a grain of salt. Unless you have the exactly same gear as I do... then you should take everything I say as Gosphel.

:-)

KF