John Dunlavy On "Cable Nonsense"

I hate getting involved with religious debates (although I am in this case), but my own experiences agree entirely with John's assertions about speaker cables. As yet, my system shows no real improvement over 12 gauge wire with any higher end cables that I've tried. However, with respect to interconnects, I've found pretty big differences in many of the low to mid-line cables. In fairness, I haven't tried very many higher end IC's, and it wouldn't surprise me if the differences beyond a certain point were somewhat less than dramatic. However, between cables such as Radio Shack Gold, the MIT Terminator series, and Nordost Blue Heaven (relatively low cost cables), I've found that the differences are clearly audible.

As always, your mileage may vary, and I'm willing to accept that other folks do indeed hear differences that I do not. However, since personal musical enjoyment is my only goal, I'm content to spend a wee bit more on IC's where I do hear a difference, save my money on the speaker cables where I don't, and spend the rest of the time sipping wine and playing music.

Cheers,
Ken

Out of curiosity Ken, what speaker cables have you tried using in your current system ? Depending on the specific amp & speaker combo, i have noticed some rather drastic differences on this end. Sean
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Isn't it interesting that Dunlavy sells there own speaker cable for $480/ 8' and yet he claims it sounds no better that $10/ 8' Rat Shack wire?

We should all remember John Dunlavy forgot more about speaker design yesterday than we ever knew. The problem is he seams to be forgetting alot at a very alarming rate! (If you know what I mean) I just spoke with him again two weeks ago, and I still don't have a clue as to what we talked about. I'm not sure old John will be hanging around the plant too much longer, maybe a buy-out is on the horizon.

When I worked at Garland Audio in San Jose, CA, back in 1978, speaker designer Robert Fulton (the massive Fulton "J" was one of his products) walked in with an armload of what looked like suspension cable pilfered from the Golden Gate Bridge. "Where's the fire, Bob?" laughed owner John Garland, eliciting a frown from Fulton.

Fulton went into the sound room and, without so much as a "by your leave," replaced--after some gnashed-teeth grunting--the 12-gauge cable running from an ARC amp to a pair of Maggie Tympani ID's with his "Fulton Gold." Then he put a record on. Within 30 seconds, there was no more laughter, not from Garland, not from any of the rest of his sales staff, including yours truly.

I still hear differences in cable (sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse). And when I read treatises that say they can't exist I'm reminded that from an aerodynamics perspective the bumblebee can't fly, either.