Sam, i don't have a "vendetta" against AP in specific. It's against "scam artists" in general. I am just amazed at the amount of "hoopla" surrounding these wires and have to wonder why. I tried them and found them lacking in two of my systems that are completely different from each other. My girlfriend even commented on how bad they sounded. We put them into my brothers system, which again is quite different than the other two, and had similar results. While i know that components and cables do perform differently in various systems and combinations, that's a 100% negative rating in three different systems from three different people. Believe me, i was wanting to like these things. My girlfriend could care less about things of this nature, yet took the time to comment how bad the AP's sounded and how much better my Goertz sound without any form of prodding from me. My brother is skeptical of EVERYTHING pertaining to wire and cables. He becomes a believer when he hears or sees the difference. It was a fair test. I've talked to others that came out with almost identical results, so i know that we're not alone in our observations. My comments about their design geometry are quite simple. They show pictures of all of these other designs, badmouth them and then say how great their design is. How can you do this and then change your design to something that you just got done badmouthing ??? If you were to believe their "white paper", you would think that their original geometry was infallible. According to them, it was based on computer designs and articulate electrical measurements. If the original was so far beyond everything else, why would you want to change the geometry ? After all, this changes all of the electrical characteristics ( inductance, capacitance, impedance, magnetic fields, etc ). Their measurements, computer formulations and theories must all have pretty wide tolerances / margins for error to them. I was initially told that they changed the design for the silver cables because of the differences in the metals and their conductivity. Sounds reasonable If you don't really understand these things. The hole in that theory is that the newer 14 gauge cables are copper and use the same design as the silver cables do. This is NOT the design that they show all the fancy pictures and claim that all of the research went into. The bottom line is that i think that these folks are good at marketing and don't mind lying to your face. While the prices are not astronomical compared to many others on the market, they are still "wire bandits" nonetheless. This is not all that different from many companies on the market today. The difference between the other Wire Bandits and AP is that they say and show you one product to your face and then sell you something different, hoping that you won't notice. Would you like to be the "victim" of a scam like that or would you rather that someone told you what was up before you made a mistake ? I think that the answer is obvious. Listen with your ears, analyze with your mind and enjoy with your heart. Sean >
