Since you brought math up into this equation. I think everyone should listen to Xenakis on the Erato label, since his compositions are based on mathematics.
Are audiophiles still out of their minds?
I've been in this hobby for 30 years and owned many gears throughout the years, but never that many cables. I know cables can make a difference in sound quality of your system, but never dramatic like changing speakers, amplifiers, or even more importantly room treatment. Yes, I've evaluated many vaunted cables at dealers and at home over the years, but never heard dramatic effect that I would plunk $5000 for a cable. The most I've ever spent was $2700 for pair of speaker cables, and I kinda regret it to this day. So when I see cable manufacturers charging 5 figures for their latest and "greatest" speaker cables, PC, and ICs, I have to ask myself who buys this stuff. Why would you buy a $10k+ cable, when there are so many great speakers, amplifiers, DACs for that kind of money, or room treatment that would have greater effect on your systems sound? May be I'm getting ornery with age, like the water boy says in Adam Sandler's movie.
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dracule1 OP937 posts06-17-2016 12:36amBTW, I was a chemistry major in college, so I do have more than basic understanding of physics and materials science. Ok Drac, I will give you credit for your humor. That is friggin hilarious. |
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Inna, ok. I'll call them "wonderfully rich". How's that for political correctness? I wasn't trying to start a class war, as I wouldn't mind being "wonderfully rich" myself. But I wouldn't spend $10k for cables even if I hit a record Power Ball jackpot. Oh yes. There are other countries that make excellent classical guitars besides Spain. If I had the money, I would spend $10k on a classical guitar made by a master luthier. My favorite classical guitarist is Julian Bream, an Englishman, who was trained by the father of modern classical guitar Andre Segovia, a Spaniard. European cheese? I thought velveeta was the bomb! I'm glad I don't have expensive taste in cheese. I have taste buds of a goat. |
Dracule1, let's just not call them 'filthy rich', they are simply rich. We don't want to start a class civil war here, really. If you ask me, I would never pay $70k for any cables regardless of my finances. Yes, it's too much! And how much is not too much? Well, I am not sure, $15k for a masterpiece perhaps. I had no idea that great acoustic guitars are also made in England and France, I thought only in Spain. Yes, I have a high tolerance for the absurd but not unlimited. And I am tired of paying $20 per pound for my favourite European cheese ! Too much, goddamn it ! |
"The OP just appears to enjoy making others feel bad......period. If you corner him with facts which demonstrate the preposterous nature of his claims, he will retaliate with a personal dagger like his endless insults to Geoff, his comments to folkfreak regarding the SQ of his DCS stack or to me regarding my Nordost cables, the merits of which are laughable on their face." Actually, I like making people feel good, if you’ve read my posts. 😘 As for those who feel bad because of my views on audiophile cables, get over it. It’s just an Audiogon discussion thread. I like Geoff. He’s just a smartass. I see no harm in him. Folkfreak is so rich he doesn’t know what to do with his money, by his own admission. He had his say and left because he has better things to do. Watts, You on the other hand, are a disturbed individual. You keep stalking me. You give me the creeps, man. 😱😳😮 |
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"From the OP’s perspective I could probably advocate the point that most components are seriously overpriced too. As an example, you can get a great if not outstanding sounding acoustic guitar made by a famous Spanish master for, say, $7k-$10k. It takes talent and decades of work to be able to build an instrument like that. What equipment can you get for $10K ? Decent sounding Rowland or Gryphon integrated? Not much. So they are overpriced big time too, correct?" Being a classical guitarist myself, I really appreciate your comment here. England, France, and Spain all have master luthiers who have devoted their entire adult lives to their craft. Some of these guitars can take months to build and are true works of musical art, yet their prices are still less than most of these overmarketed cables. Intolerable, no? I guess not to the filthy rich audiophiles - my apologies to the filthy rich audiophiles for offending their delicate egos. |
Inna, "Dracule1, unless you are a rocket scientist you cannot say if this kind of science is required or not to design or build a great cable. You simply are not qualified to judge it from this angle. And another point. Some people have enough funds for everything including $70k cables, but I don't think that you do. Nor do I. Yes, wealth distribution in this country is far from fair. I don't like it but I can tolerate it unless it is totally out of control. Can you?" Goodpoint. I'm not a rocket scientist, but I have physicist friends and colleagues, one of whom works for NASA and another of whom is a die hard audiophile! When I show some of them, who are not audiophiles, cable prices and cable manufacturer's white sheets, they can't believe the cost and the unsupported dribble. They go on to shred every voodoo claim by these high priced manufacturers. So can I get some love here 😘? BTW, I was a chemistry major in college, so I do have more than basic understanding of physics and materials science. If I save up for several years, I could afford $70k cables, but why would I waste my money on them? I would put that into my retirement account. You don't think $100k for audio wire is totally out of control? I guess we just have very different tolerance levels for the absurd. Anyway, thanks for your input. |
From the OP's perspective I could probably advocate the point that most components are seriously overpriced too. As an example, you can get a great if not outstanding sounding acoustic guitar made by a famous Spanish master for, say, $7k-$10k. It takes talent and decades of work to be able to build an instrument like that. What equipment can you get for $10K ? Decent sounding Rowland or Gryphon integrated? Not much. So they are overpriced big time too, correct? |
This post speaks volumes----a lot of butt hurt here. |
inna and others here left shaking their heads, I design and build high precision electrical components for folks like Mercedes Benz (S-Series), US Military (M-1 Abrams Tank and F-16 Fighter Jet), and the National Atomic Particle Accelerator (Fermi Lab). I suppose we could discuss Gauss's laws, Maxwell Equations, eddy currents, skin effect etc., but it would serve no purpose here. Get close to the the facts and the OP will revert to anecdotal gibberish or personal insult. The OP just appears to enjoy making others feel bad......period. If you corner him with facts which demonstrate the preposterous nature of his claims, he will retaliate with a personal dagger like his endless insults to Geoff, his comments to folkfreak regarding the SQ of his DCS stack or to me regarding my Nordost cables, the merits of which are laughable on their face. His stock in trade seams to be the nebulous because that allows him to play his game. For instance, when I point out the vagaries of using poorly designed DBT's (i.e., those lacking degrees of freedom, statistical significance or variable control), in his very next posts he references two more DBT's of dubious design and doubles down on their use as justification of an irrational position. Poorly designed experiments are used in marketing and politics; not to determine the truth. This is not the behavior of a person seeking the truth, but rather avoiding it because it gets in the way of his joy ride. There are literally thousands of permutations of a DBT-DOE that can create completely misleading results. Take components with an impedance matching too close to parity. The worse a cables impedance characteristics the better the system is likely to perform. A coat hanger will likely sound better than a Nordost wire and a long coat hanger will sound better than a short one. This proves absolutely nothing. No thoughtful electrical engineer would question that a nordost wire mated with a system designed to work best with the nordost wire will reach sonic heights well beyond a system made with the equivalent design approach using a coat hanger. Yet people get these issues confused, or worse, knowingly use the confusion for devious purposes. |
Dracule1, unless you are a rocket scientist you cannot say if this kind of science is required or not to design or build a great cable. You simply are not qualified to judge it from this angle. And another point. Some people have enough funds for everything including $70k cables, but I don't think that you do. Nor do I. Yes, wealth distribution in this country is far from fair. I don't like it but I can tolerate it unless it is totally out of control. Can you? |
Facten, "ask dracule1 a question , what's the difference in making a decision to purchase an expensive (new or used) DAC like the Golden Gate when there are presumably good sounding less expensive DACs, and someone making a decision to purchase expensive vs inexpensive cables?" Glad you asked, but let me rephrase you're question to be consistent with my original post. Why spend tens of thousands of dollar on wire when other components in your system like acoustic room treatment, speakers, DACs, turntables, amps make more of a difference in sound and often cost less than wire? For example, a 10' pair of Nordost Odin 2 speaker wire retails for $46k. That's close to 3x the cost of the Golden Gate DAC. And more than 12x the cost of my acoutic room treatment. Which do you honestly think makes more of an improvement in your system? IME, the audio wire loses embarrassingly. The GG DAC is hand built, contains components that require in-depth knowledge of engineering, is orders of magnitude more complex in parts and construction, etc. Acoustic room treatment makes the biggest improvement IME. OTOH, there's no rocket science in audio wire construction (I know high priced cable manufacturers will argue otw. E.g. electrons in our wire travel at the speed of light. 😒) . Audiophile wire can be made in miles by a machine unless you're boutique one man operation working out of your home. Most of these high prices wire is copper, not gold or palladium or platinum. There's nothing about audiophile wire that justifies some of the stratospheric prices asked by many of these cable manufacturers. |
geoffkait3,587 posts06-15-2016 12:00pmTo my knowledge no audiophile ever thought his sound was unacceptable. Even when it sounds like cats being tortured.or acceptable for that matter. geoffkait3,587 posts06-15-2016 4:26pm Thus the square of the imaginary number 3i is -9.True but still hard to imagine. |
Wow! Let the record show that on 6-15-2016 at 5:26 pm EDT Geoff submitted a post that I actually agree with 100% :-) As for the meaning of Czarivey's post to which he was responding, I'm not sure but my guess would be he was implying that a reason sonic quality should not be characterized in percentage terms is that a component of such assessments tends to be imaginary in many cases :-) JL35, thanks very much for your comments earlier in the thread about my post that was quoted by Wattsperchannel. Regards, -- Al |
whart930 posts06-15-2016 3:16pmDon’t take the "percentages" as literal, folks. I don’t, and perhaps I didn’t make that clear enough in my earlier post.In algebra of complex numbers, each number can be represented with real and imaginary part similar to (5+3i) where 5 is real number and 3 is imaginary followed by letter ’i’. Don't take it for multiplication with variable. It's different case |
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Whart wrote, "For someone at home, striving to get the best sound obtainable-- that last 5% is often challenging and as I think Mike Lavigne said here somewhere, often makes the biggest difference once everything else is dialed in." It’s highly probable that the remaining percentage is a long way from 5%, not to be too argumentative about it, but I’d put a number on closer to 50%. There are simply too many things out there these days that have the potential to double the performance. It all depends on where a particular system happens to lie in the overall scale of things. I know what you’re thinking, "But MY system has only 5% to go until the Absolute Sound." There are no absolutes. Cheers |
Dracule1, I currently run older Purist Audio Colossus fluid cables that cost over $1k new. In the past I tried couple of $300 cables from Audioquest and Cardas, I also tried a few inexpensive interconnects from them, from Purist and Tara. The probability that any $300 cable will sound better with any components than what I have now is extremely low though not zero. However, I could, if I could get a hold of them, try DiMarzio super M-path cables. They were, I think, $600 new but no longer made, I guess. I have his $150 M-path RCA cable and it's very good especially with analog source, but $800 older Purist Maximus and $1200 Colossus are better. Yes, in my system to my ear. But for $150 it is a hell of a cable. |
The money issue is a little bit of a red herring. I’ve been to people’s homes with expensive gear in place, but very poor set-up, and no thought to maximizing what the person has--I’m not talking about expensive tweaks, but basic stuff, like layout, AC power, turntable set-up and isolation, room treatment, etc. I’m sure all of you have had the experience of hearing a system that doesn’t purport to be state of the art that sounds great, because care was taken in the selection and set up of the components as a system in a given room. For someone at home, striving to get the best sound obtainable-- that last 5% is often challenging and as I think Mike Lavigne said here somewhere, often makes the biggest difference once everything else is dialed in. Cables can be part of the equation- not necessarily the most expensive, but the ones that make the system shine with the fewest negatives. I’m not an absolutist about any of this- if you think old WE cable, or some very basic, inexpensive product sounds good in your system, go for it. This hobby started as DIY and I respect the people who are willing to do the work on that level too, rather than just buying the latest sonic bauble. In the long run, I’d bet some of us have spent more money on switching gear, "upgrading," changing components and buying modestly priced "tweaks" over the years that are now in the graveyard of forgotten audio than the cost of some fancy cable. Anybody doing this hobby for any length of time realizes that they are really doing it for themselves- few family members or outsiders are going to care much one way or the other. I appreciate the lure of "OMG, this cable will change your life," but hopefully, most of us have been around long enough to realize that you have to make evaluations based on listening in your system, hopefully over enough time to hear not only the "positives" of any change, but the negatives as well. Remember how, in the old Absolute Sound days when Harry P. was in top form, and he would write about a component that had no sonic signature, was absolutely revealing, and gave him a entirely new perspective on the rest of the gear? And some issues later, that same piece of gear was revealed to be flawed in some way? (Not faulting HP, it was the nature of his adventure, in those days, and was quite fun to read about). But, that elusive chase for the ideal? The pinnacle? At some point --at least for me--it is a tail chasing exercise and consumes more money, time and effort than the results. I think if you buy good gear, it can give pleasure for a long time. That might include cables that, after evaluation, seem to "gel" with your particular combination of components and your ears. At that point, it can be money well spent if it enables you to use the system for its intrinsic purpose, rather than listening solely to figure out what needs to be improved. Not an easy place to get to-- but we all have that point of diminishing returns where expectations, money, research, time and effort lead us (or ought to lead us) to a place where we say "hey, this sounds really great- I know where the weaknesses are, and I’m happy with the cost/benefit I’ve struck to get there." That point is obviously a very individual choice, and depends as much on the obsessive nature of the enthusiast as it does on their finances. I would assume, perhaps wrongly, that some reason and judgement goes into drawing those lines for each of us. |
Mapman wrote, "I don’t see a problem. We know that everyone will never agree on exactly the same solution and that everyone wants the best sound possible that they can afford." Pretty sure audiophiles don't think too much about affordability. Any more than a rat in a crack experiment. But it's pretty to think so. |
I’ve stated many times that I do not think ANY two things are exactly the same so I do not think "wire is wire", a fuse is a fuse, etc. The debate is always about various paths people take to a good solution and cost is always a part of that discussion. I don’t see a problem. We know that everyone will never agree on exactly the same solution and that everyone wants the best sound possible that they can afford. |
The original quote about looking for rational was yours. The rest of the comments about spending too much or not is simply the general theme of ALL of these type of cable threads. The names change, but the basic comments stay the same. "Wire is wire" "No, it's not" Same as it ever was, year after year, decade after decade..... |
mapman, I was not quoting you , if you look I prefaced the post dracule1 , they are his quotes. I'll ask dracule1 a question , what's the difference in making a decision to purchase an expensive (new or used) DAC like the Golden Gate when there are presumably good sounding less expensive DACs, and someone making a decision to purchase expensive vs inexpensive cables? |
