Grover Huffman GH RCA ZX+ cables vs...

I'll 3rd Mofi's opinion and add mine.
"A sound that appeals to inexperienced listeners." smacks of snobbery. Please enlighten us. In what way do Grover ICs appeal to the inexperienced listener but which your superior listening skills have enabled you to reject? Maybe we can one day attain the heights from which you make these pronouncements.

Ghosthouse,

With all due respect this has nothing at all to do with snobbery. As noted earlier, it has to do with a multi-year comparison of cables from many companies. And may I reiterate, my comments apply equally to a whole host of cable makers, not only to Grover Huffman cables. I can add Pangea and Gabriel Gold to that long list. This is not a matter of superior listening skills. It is a matter of superior cables where anyone can easily hear the difference -- if given the opportunity to do A/B comparisons. People who are initially impressed with, for instance, Grover Huffman or Pangea or Gabriel Gold cables don't have enough experience with enough cable companies to make valid comparisons.

For instance, of you come to Grover Huffman cables from, let's say, Kimber or Pangea or Gabriel Gold or ASI or HiDiamond, inexperienced listeners may be initially impressed with the dynamics and transparency of Grover Huffman cables. But, on closer examination, these cables fall short. Listeners but may not note the lack of harmonics, the thinness in the sound with Grover Huffman cables, the lack of continuity, the lack of layering, the poor imaging with a lack of air around instruments and vocals, and the constriction of the sound stage. In short, there is a lack or realness in the sound quality with Grover Huffman cables -- and with cables from many other companies.

These are some of the most obvious short-comings with cables that may impress folks who have not heard cables from, for instance, David Elrod or Shunyata. While the latter are not perfect cables, they easily make up for the shortcomings of lesser cables and outclass them handily. This can be easily heard when doing A/B comparisons. Over the years I have done careful A/B testing of countless cables from a whole host of cable makers -- power cords, digital cables, ICs and speaker cables. I have done thousands of tests. Most people do not have the time and the opportunity -- and the inclination -- to do such testing. This is not being snobbish. It's just a fact of life.

Of course, there is a price to be paid to enjoy the benefits of certain cables from certain cable makers. Pangea and Grover Huffman cables offer good value at their price points. No doubt about it. But what they have to offer in terms of sound quality should not be confused with the sound of cables from companies that clearly outclass them.

Sabai, your response doesn't mate with the fundamental reality of high end audio. If you are so experienced, you must have learned that component, particularly cable, selection is not exclusively about "better", like a football game score, but about synergy, more like cooking. Cables that sound great in one system/room/listener context are often terrible in others, and vice versa, irrespective of brand or price. Thus your preferences are just that, and nothing more than that. Any other conclusion is self-delusion.
That's what I've learned in 46 years of evaluating many hundreds of components and cables, at all price levels. There is no such thing as best- one size will never fit all- just like shoes.

Jmbatkh,

You're absolutely right about synergy. But the quality of the synergy is what I am taking about. That's what really matters. You cannot get superior synergy with, for instance, Grover Huffman or Pangea or Gabriel Gold or so many other cable companies. No matter how hard you try. They simply do not have the necessary properties. They may fit some systems, granted. But the systems they fit will not be delivering what I term superior sound quality. This is not just a matter of preferences. It is a matter of quality that can be heard by A/B-ing cables from different companies.

For instance, I believe that in virtually any system the synergy of, let's say, Shunyata cables will be far superior to, let's say, the synergy of Grover Huffman cables. There is nothing delusional about this. It is a simply matter of auditioning these various cables side by side to know there are indeed superior cables out there. Of course, one size will never fit absolutely all. But I am not talking about one-size-fits-all. I am talking about taking a broad spectrum of mid and high and systems and inserting these cables to verify that the properties of some are, indeed, superior to others over that broad spectrum -- with exceptions granted.

Jmbatkh,

My comments (above) have no bearing on how much we enjoy our systems, no matter how evolved they may be. I use to get immense pleasure from my crystal radio and then my transistor radio. And then my first real system in 1967. It is very true that one may not need exceptional cables to enjoy one's system immensely. But exceptional cables -- well-chosen for system synergy -- will surely elevate the sound quality of top components.