a great take on big$ cables

Differences in copper or silver should be relatively small, as Mr. Russell's website shows. Their sonic impact should be subtle.

But my ears tell me that with many cables there is an immediate and not very subtle impact on the sound (I don't need any double blind testing to hear this). To me, that means that these cables are not just wires, they are designed to have a sonic impact. Cable designers want to achieve a certain effect (ie, "silky smooth" or "natural-sounding bass"), and combine materials with cable geometries and passive circuit elements to get that effect. In other words, the cables are designed to be filters to produce certain effects.

For myself, I want to spend the money on the active circuits. If a cable changes the sound, I don't want it. I use what other people may think are crap cables, but you know what? They don't have any sound at all, they let me hear the amp and preamp and speakers, and most importantly the music.

Someone should make a little $100 box that implements a tunable band-pass filter to put in the interconnect lines. I bet that you could make such a box with some knobs that would let you make your interconnect sound like "silver" or "copper" or "quantum equalized equipotential polarized dialectric" cables. Zip cord plus a box like this would be as good as any $15000 cable.

On the other hand, I plan to audition Transparent cables on the advice of a friend. Through their extensive R&D, they may have found ways to make my system better, and that's worth listening to.

I should make a disclosure: I will shortly be introducing a new cable that smooths out the quantum time smearing effect. This effect happens because there are many parallel universes where our multiple selves are listing to music at the same time, producing an interdimensional resonance in a previously unknown tiny organ in our brains. If that resonance is disturbed, it can make us feel that something is wrong. Due to quantum time effects, some of those universes get out of sync by a few tiny time quantum steps, causes smearing of the inter-dimensional image and disturbing the resonance. This is why so many people are alternately happy and unhappy when listing to their systems. My cables use a proprietary quark-based dithering technique to smooth out this quantum staircasing and restore the resonance, bringing back the feeling that everything is fine.

The resonance can also be enhanced with my secret nutrient formula based on a 6000-year-old Assyrian recipe that uses 100% natural ingredients. Just down a few bottles of this while you are listening to my cables, and I guarantee you will feel good about your music. You won't even have to turn on your system to feel the effect. In fact, all you need are the cables and the nutrient to have a pleasant evening.

You guys act like it's all real, as though facts and truth are the same thing. Rocks are hard, that's a fact (yes, yes, I know that not all rocks are hard, but let's pick nits later). But truth is a concept, like beauty. Its really all in your heads. Are we really what we seem? Or could be we be artifacts living in something like the Matrix? Or just the dream of a sleeping god? Ultimately there is no way to know; one can obsess about it and either go nuts or found a religion, or one can just get on with having the experience. If it feels real, treat it like its real. Our brains use data from all our senses together. Close your eyes, hold your nose and taste a lemon; it'll taste different, but it's still a lemon. The fact that your senses act synergystically does not invalidate the experience. And not knowing why also does not invalidate the experience. You don't need to know why a rock is hard to get bashed in the head.

I'm an engineer, and there have been many times in the past that I've confused facts with truth, it's an occupational hazard. When someone refers to the studies like those on Mr. Russell's website, they are bringing just as much preconceived baggage into their experience as anyone else, under the illusion that they hold The Truth. So what if copper1 is the same as copper2? Duh! What does that have to do with cables that are made by people in different ways to acheive specific effects, and just happen to use conductors? Are all cars the same because they are made of metal and plastic?

Double blind testing is needed when there are subtle differences, and remember that "subtle" will vary: a trained perfume maker would not need double blind testing where a pig farmer might.

These different cables whack me right in the ear, I don't need to close my eyes to be sure I'm not being swayed by pretty colors or esoteric theories (although I bet scientific studies would show that things sound better if you're happy!).

Whew! Sorry for the rampage, I just drank some coffee (and actually I have done double blind tests to see if premium coffee is any different). Come to think of it, I've done a lots testing of beer too. It's all different, but that's OK with me. Savor the experience.

Cables that have larger capacitive or inductive characteristics than plain old speaker wire could act as filters on the audio signal, shifting it's tonal balance.

If you've ever messed around putting caps and resistors in a phono stage to match a cartridge, its likely you've heard the difference these reactive circuit elements can make, for example moving the perceived depth of someone's voice forward or backward in the soundstage.

I think this is a physical effect, not imaginary.

Pabelson: yes, I have seen that, thanks. I'm still curious what it sounds like. I mean, there are filters in most other components, why not in the cables? ;-(