It's all very well being full of enthusiasm for a product, but, as Samuel said, statements such as 'product x bests products y and z in all areas' are meaningless, if not dubious. Reviewing hi-fi components is a difficult business and IMO the biggest constraint on any view expressed is not factual (other system components, room, ac supply, etc) but neurological, i.e. the manner in which the brain of the reviewer interprets the data supplied by his/her auditory system. The appreciation of music could be said to involve three elements: genetics (how innately musical we are); upbringing (the music we were exposed to as children), and metaphysics (the ability of music to transcend time and space in the mind of the listener). If the reviewer is a well-known musician or personal friend, then we MAY be in a position to judge on the first two elements and hence decide how relevant the review's contents are to us. If this is not the case, then how are we to make such a judgement? Personally, I value a reviewer's opinions more if the musical examples (assuming there are any) he/she cites suggest similar tastes and if a genuine love of music is apparent in the text. (Some critics talk in very general terms, e.g. lows/mids/highs, transparency, soundstaging, classical/rock/jazz, etc, without ever discussing how their ENGAGEMENT with the music was affected.) Of course, forums such as this are generally not the place for such a considered approach, so, in the interests of balance, I'll end by saying that I found the FIM Gold speaker cable to sound warm and slow (I haven't heard the power cord) and that I listen mostly to jazz and modern classical.
