@geoffkait
"Randi got the million from Johnny Carson when he died to go after spoon benders and dowsers. A quick search turns up Randi’s net worth at 1.5 Million. Most likely Randi got cold feet thinking, gee, I know the Challenge is rigged but maybe these crazy audiophiles really can hear the difference between $25,000 cables and bog standard cables. After all, Randi didn’t know anything whatsoever about audio. He just saw audiophiles as a rich source of entertainment and self promotion. Besides, he didn’t run the James Randi Educational Foundation and host retreats on his yacht in the Caribbean on just his looks. Of course Randi would say it was Fremer who got cold,feet. Duh!"
There’s no doubt that Carson loved Randi, but he didn’t gift anything material to Randi personally nor apparently during his lifetime. Randi did receive union scale for each episode he appeared. The Carson Foundation has gifted to the educational foundation in Randi’s name over the years. In short, not that that it matters to any of us, but Randi isn’t worth $1.5.
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Randi went after several audiophiles, including your humble scribe and audio insider. There was going to be a Million Dollar Challenge for the Intelligent Chip circa 2005 but it fell through due to considerable distrust on both sides. That’s when Kramer formerly of Butthole Surfers was the middle man between the chip challenger Wellfed and Randi. Someone actually signed up for the Million Dollar Challenge for the Intelligent Chip but flunked the test. Duh! Regardless of whether Johnny Carson gave Randi any money, Randi was definitely not a pauper. He was almost certainly able to back up his Million Dollar Challenge if he lost, which I don’t think he ever did. Of course, his blind tests were fairly well rigged to prevent such an occurrence. 1986A $273,000 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship was awarded to James Randi for his investigations of the claims of Uri Geller and TV " faith healers" [152]Honorary membership, Israeli Society for Promoting the Art of Magic. [150] |
Yes, he went through the MacArthur grant in short order. Listen, he and his husband live a reasonable middle class existence in Florida but they went through most of his meager savings fighting to keep his husband from doing serious jail time over passport/immigration fraud IIRC. Nonetheless, the educational foundation was always the backstop for the "challenges". That was a well thought our hedge against a "challenge loss". Back to the topic at hand...
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geoffkait19,588 posts01-31-2020 7:54amFremer didn’t go through with the Million Dollar challenge because The Amazing Randi got cold feet and it was Randi who blinked first.
Actually it was Pear Cables that blinked. Not Randi. Fremer wouldn't buy the cables on his own. Wanted to use his own. Randi's advisers wisely advised against it due to tampering concerns. If I was sure I could win $1,000,000 I'd certainly spend $7,250 on cables. The whole story, including emails, are on Reddit. |
A long time ago Julian Hirsch founder of "Stereo Review" set up a test in which he invited twenty experienced high-end audiophiles to audition a very expensive high end system. Mark Levinson, Linn Sondek TT, Dahlquist, etc. Over 10K in gear (which was really big bucks 50 years ago).
After listening all the participants waxed enthusiastically about how excellent the sound was. The best they ever heard. Hirsch then informed them that, in fact, they had been listening to a $300.00 Pioneer receiver which he had hidden from view. They were furious. This tells us a lot about things like the sound of speaker wires.
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It was all rigged so in fact the details don’t matter. Nobody’s going to give a million dollars away to anybody for any audio related test. If Kramer was supposed to the Randi Foundation’s key to audiophile myths they were barking up the wrong tree. Randi just needed stuff to publish in his newsletter since he was apparently unable to find any more spoon benders or ghost whisperers.
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hombre
A long time ago Julian Hirsch founder of "Stereo Review" set up a test in which he invited twenty experienced high-end audiophiles to audition a very expensive high end system. Mark Levinson, Linn Sondek TT, Dahlquist, etc. Over 10K in gear (which was really big bucks 50 years ago). After listening all the participants waxed enthusiastically about how excellent the sound was. The best they ever heard. Hirsch then informed them that, in fact, they had been listening to a $300.00 Pioneer receiver which he had hidden from view. They were furious. This tells us a lot about things like the sound of speaker wires. >>>>Chances are excellent you just made all that up. Apologies for using a preposition at the end of a sentence. Besides, blinds tests don’t mean anything. Didn’t you get the memo? |
doesn’t all this cable arguing and insulting come down to the fact that there is a Point of Diminishing Returns ... spend what you can afford and what makes a differnce to you as the listener. $3000 interconnects will not make a cheap amp sound better and expensive speaker cables won’t make speakers, of which you don’t like the sound, suddenly make you fall in love with them.
bad cables will degrade the sound of good equipment, but it is up to each listener to decide where their point of diminishing returns lies.
Some call it bang for the buck.
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The most important aspect of any power cord, interconnect or speaker cable is conductivity. All other properties are secondary.
I always orient my power cords and XLR cables correctly. So do you I suppose.
Mark Waldrup could have a second career as a televangelist. I avoid him.
Think for yourself and have fun. This is just an entertainment.
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darkstar
The most important aspect of any power cord, interconnect or speaker cable is conductivity. All other properties are secondary. >>>>That can’t be true since copper cables frequently sound better than silver cables. Furthermore, since copper and silver are only 5% different in terms of conductivity you can probably eliminate conductivity entirely from consideration. Since virtually all cables are either copper or silver it looks like you choices of conductor material is rather limited anyway. 😛 |
Geoffkait,
Poor wording on my part. I meant electrical connection. |
My reality.
Lise and I each have a favorite PC for the Dac. It's just not the same one
She comes home from work and walks in while I'm listening. "So you put your cord back in didn't you?"
Busted! Lol
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I always purchase Belden wire. Saved thousands of dollars.
Getting a dCS Bartok with the money I saved. |
I always purchase Belden wire. Saved thousands of dollars.
Getting a dCS Bartok with the money I saved. |
This forum and this post (subject) in particular are like politics and religion. You NEVER will change anyone's mind here. They ignore science and we ignore their "ears." Personally, I'll always err on the side of science because I've tried the expensive stuff a number of times and never heard a (positive) difference. All things being equal, I'm glad I'm on the science side as I save tons of money and don't appear the fool. |
I saved a fortune not buying those $13,000.00 power cords, we now live quite comfortably in a double wide deluxe .
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I agree. Vodka lifts all veils. The more the better. |
All you who revel in your ignorance make me laugh. I suppose mostly you have mid-fi systems with insufficient resolution to allow differences to be heard.
It is ironic that some of the greatest audiophiles (Dave Wilson) were recording engineers frustrated with inadequate equipment.
Most modern engineers produce garbage, and mix for trash speakers.
I am very happy that true music lovers have spent decades refining their knowledge, using oscilloscopes and ears, referencing live music and recording it, to produce fabulous cables far better than what was available even ten years ago. |
"I suppose mostly you have mid-fi systems with insufficient resolution to allow differences to be heard." You could not be more wrong. Most of us have equipment with high resolution which makes us enjoy garbage that modern engineers produce and mix for our trash speakers. It is all about synergy. Once you realize that Bose wireless speaker actually is a revolutionary step ahead of your most recent fabulous cables, you will have arrived to the world of true audiophiles and connoisseurs of advanced technology. |
The most important aspect of any power cord, interconnect or speaker cable is conductivity. All other properties are secondary. Some recent developments in cable design seem to strongly indicate that bandwidth may well trump conductivity as the most important aspect ( at least for audio) Conductivity is admittedly important in the quantitative sense whereas wide bandwidth is critical to qualitative issues such as reduced cable generated noise, and noise floor. |
I put my favourite power cord on display,.
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Anyone who has read a review of the AudioQuest Hurricane power cord and not (rpt not) come away thinking, well, maybe there really is something to all this power cord stuff - you know, polishing the surface of the conductor and honoring the inherent directionality of wire - yes, gentle readers, even in an obvious case of alternating signal 🔛- must be in some sort of catatonic state. 😳
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Back in the day I used to eagerly await the arrival of every issue of Stereo Review magazine. Julian Hirsch was notorious for his dismissal of audiophile nonsense. Not that I always agreed with him. He famously said all CD players sound the same and that all properly designed amplifiers sound the same. But back then he was probably mostly right.
Not so much today. He asserted that 99% of the sound quality was a product of two components; the phono cartridge and the speakers. Everything in between, he thought, was mostly irrelevant. Of course he wouldn't be tolerated by today's audiophiles, me included. But the argument can be made that he was responsible for the popularization and development of the home audio hobby. |
That was Really Boring!!! |
The most esteemed and marketplace successful cable designers turn out to have little or no education in physics or relevant engineering in the way cables or conductors work but they have a smattering of knowledge about some of it. For me it takes only one fraud to discredit them completely. Many cable designers describe skin effect as a grievous source of distortion in speaker cables. They minimize the skin effect by reducing the distance from the surface of the cable to the center by either using a bundle of many insulated thin conductors or ribbon cables. If they really knew their physics and calculated how much the effective cross section of current carrying conductor is diminished by skin effect at 20 kHz for 8 gauge speaker wire that diminution would be a fraction of a percent. There are online calculators which will calculate it for you without having to put together an integral from a graduate school E&M text. the total attenuation of a 20 kHz current for 8 gauge wire in series with a 4 Ohm speaker is only a fraction of a percent, something nobody can hear. The other claims calculate similarly embarrassing results, such as the static electric changes of energy in dipole molecules in the insulation of the cable. While bad connections can make a difference, you don't need to spend hundreds let alone thousands and in one case $70,000 for the "best" speaker cables. I use 8 gauge speaker cables with black insulation for the - and ruby red insulation for the + because I like the way it looks. Save your money and demand graduate school credentials of any "engineer" who designs cables.
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"Some recent developments in cable design..." People still develop them? Why not work on improving wireless transfer instead? |
"...successful cable designers..." ...design good-looking cables and, just like with any fashion item, they should be paid for it. Is that design more worth than a Birkin bag to you is on you. |
drbarney1
The most esteemed and marketplace successful cable designers turn out to have little or no education in physics or relevant engineering in the way cables or conductors work but they have a smattering of knowledge about some of it. For me it takes only one fraud to discredit them completely. Many cable designers describe skin effect as a grievous source of distortion in speaker cables. They minimize the skin effect by reducing the distance from the surface of the cable to the center by either using a bundle of many insulated thin conductors or ribbon cables. If they really knew their physics and calculated how much the effective cross section of current carrying conductor is diminished by skin effect at 20 kHz for 8 gauge speaker wire that diminution would be a fraction of a percent. >>>>>That’s pretty funny stuff. You obviously must think the signal is the audio waveform. That’s gold, Jerry, gold! |
Drbarney I like watching “Shark Tank” hopefully someday a completely new power cord design will be presented on a episode ,being 2020 I believe someday soon there will be a break through.
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"Be sure to set your DVR for the next episode of:
CABLE CONFLICT! *Brash air horns*
...having gone through extended trials and tests, Dirk, Mark, and Frank have opted for the 'Direct Opt'! Each will select their favorite 1 meter interconnect and lash each other bloody until the LAS {Last Audioholic Standing} prevails! Cable terminations attached, of course! Miss this?!
Of Course Not! 12:00GMT Sunday! Snooze, You Lose!
Be There, Be Aware!"
(Brought to you by USUK, a division of Burns Cycallit Plastic, LTD.) |
*!*
I....I think I just heard an infrasonic sound.....
There it is Again!
YES! Time for....*drooling*
LUNCH! *scrambles off*...... |
:Hi, my name is Pavlov and I’m an Audioholic..."
*murmurs from the group* "Hi.", "Glad you’re here..." (etc.)
"...and I'm not insane...."
*group goes stone quiet* |
Hombre ,,Julianne Hirsch once claimed he didn’t need to listen to any particular component hooked up in a system to know how it performs. He simply glossed over the spec sheet. Some believed Hirssch was part of a group of highly advanced thinkers.
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Cables do matter.
i am an ordinary joe blow, but have a good ear. I wasn’t sure about cables etc.
I just got a new preamp and tried 12 gauge “single grain” generic copper speaker wire cause it was easy and laying around.
I thought my moderately priced system ( thiel 2.4, Psaudio pre and amp) sounded crappy. My mind was telling me I wasted 8k on the system I cobbled together . I
reinstalled my 2 inch thick cables which I can’t remember who made them (?RCAudio?).
Big improvement. I won’t use fancy terms , just that no doubt they made a difference.
Don’t care why they do matter.
dave |
hombreJulian Hirsch founder of "Stereo Review" set up a test ... Julian Hirsch was not the founder of Stereo Review. ... he invited twenty experienced high-end audiophiles to audition a very expensive high end system ...
After listening all the participants waxed enthusiastically about how excellent the sound was ... in fact, they had been listening to a $300.00 Pioneer receiver ... They were furious. That’s fiction. Pure fiction. (And in fact, Hirsch did not setup his own listening tests.) But even if it were true, it proves nothing. It would be just a parlor trick. |
I'm an unpaid professional listener. I'm also an oxymoron. |
I have a high end system which is not SOTA. Instead of buying newer gear, I purchase newer designed cabling. The cabling does not carry SOTA pricing as it is made by Grover Huffman who I don't know if he has an education in physics or relevant engineering in the way cables or conductors work but they have a smattering of knowledge about some of it.
He is a genius though. As to skin effect, he uses a novel approach by flattening the conductors through a pair of steel rollers. The smaller conductors have a textured, embossed surface which permits the higher frequencies to travel along the minimum of surface area while the lower frequencies travel through the more mass areas and larger cables. I don't know if it works that way but his cables beat out most of the high end SOTA sold at 10X-30X his prices. I have been his beta tester for two decades. I still have to pay for his cables which adorn my two audio and two video systems. So, I rather pay $7,500 for those four systems cabling (power, ICs, speaker, digital) than upgrade my equipment for 10X that much.
By upgrading my cables (and tweaks in the past several years), I have saved myself $50,000 to $100,000 to attain near SOTA sound.
Local acquaintances with near SOTA (or they think SOTA) systems because they spent $500K to $850K think they sound good find out how wrong they are when they hear my more modest system. When they install Grover Huffman cables and remove the dreadful High Fidelity cables, their systems become listenable and enjoyable. Removing/replacing Transparent Audio cables result in more enjoyable results. These are $100K looms of wiring. Something is wrong when some SOTA cabling ruins the sound at very high prices.
At a previous audio show, there were three high end rooms with three levels of Transparent cable in each one. Moving from the least expensive to the most expensive ($100K+) resulted in worse and worse sound. I don't know if this proves anything other than paying more doesn't always get you more.
The most honest test of my changing gear and wiring is my wife who has zero interest in audiophilia and only cares about how the music sounds. She was a harsh critic for about 10+ years of my changes until about 10 years ago when she found my audio systems sounding better and better. Yes, I had an inferior sounding main system for decades. Upgrading my equipment in 2006 did not resolve the problems. Upgrading my cabling (as well as the designers' knowledge and ability) resulted in maximizing her (and my) enjoyment. Tweaks were also involved (Hallographs, Stillpoints, SR HFTs/fuses/outlets) and PPS E-Mats. Then last year I improved the system to really high end sound with a custom designed and built listening room for $165K. |
For that much did you put your house up on springs?
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fleschler, "I don’t know if it works that way but his cables beat out most of the high end SOTA sold at 10X-30X his prices." Does he provide you with those 10X-30X his prices cables for comparison or you buy them yourself? On a side note, $7500 for cables is not exactly cheap. They may be good, but "affordable" they are not. |
A $100,000 in wire alone was purchased for a single system ? did I read that right. ? why waste time , money , design and production of a audio component when you can market lengths of wire off a drum from one of a handful of producers of wire.
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Looking at Grover Huffman's website, it really does not seem that cables are as obscenely priced as some on the market. They seem to be priced just right for "it may be worth trying". If they are truly that good, they may be a bargain.
Unfortunately, there are no clear pictures of finished cables to get the idea how they would look in the room.
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I know what numbers mean. 1066, 1588, 2525, 5500, 17,000, 29,999, 250,000, 1,000,000
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@hombre,
"A long time ago Julian Hirsch founder of "Stereo Review" set up a test in which he invited twenty experienced high-end audiophiles to audition a very expensive high end system. Mark Levinson, Linn Sondek TT, Dahlquist, etc. Over 10K in gear (which was really big bucks 50 years ago).
After listening all the participants waxed enthusiastically about how excellent the sound was. The best they ever heard. Hirsch then informed them that, in fact, they had been listening to a $300.00 Pioneer receiver which he had hidden from view. They were furious. This tells us a lot about things like the sound of speaker wires."
There are innumerous similar examples in the history of audio. Every working journalist is aware of them, and almost every working journalist is happy to continue to keep turning a blind eye to them (and also a deaf ear and closed mouth).
No real need for anybody here to ask why, is there? Far b$tt£r to pretend they weren't valid, didn't happen or maybe never ever even existed.
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Then last year I improved the system to really high end sound with a custom designed and built listening room for $165K.
WOW, I bet it sounds wonderful, Some day.
The little lady uses, her Fathers, old tube set in her room. I listen to my Gear in my room.
We paid 55 thousand for the house 40 years ago. We both use HIGH quality cable. That I made!!! There is NO substitute for quality cabling.
A total of 1500.00 USD. For all the Knob and tube upgrades, 3 20 amp outlets with copper and 3 quality power maintenance and conditioners. 300.00 each. I think TOTAL 2 thousand, including ALL the interconnect too.
I also built bass traps and sound treatment panels for 320.00. I't in a 15 x 20 x 9 room.
I built the room 31 years ago for 5,900. hundred dollars. including permits and inspections. I drove every nail, by hand, down to the last nail in the roofing. I liked it..
I rebuilt most of my old gear, with a few new addition along the way.
BUT someone did offer me 225,000. for ALL (or most) of my old Mac Gear. (lots of it) The house who KNOWS, Bay Area. 20 X
the original cost.
Speakers, well there is a standing army, in the speaker shed.LOL
What's good sound worth???
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I feel proud of my 400 dollars approx. for Amp+Dac+speakers, with good cable (Morrow m3 being the most expansive then i know cables makes a difference)...
Some will be shocked by how good my S.Q. is...I will repeat my mantra:
No upgrading of an electronic components would by itself be an assurance of an optimal peak audiophile S.Q. not even for the more costly...Cables are not the most impactful upgrades at all...It is an illusion to thought that...
1 Mechanical controlled environment of vibrations and resonance...
2 Acoustical treatment of rooms not only and mostly by acoustic materials, but more than that with S.G. (Schumann Generator modified) and different resonators Helmholtz one and others...
3 Cleaning of the noise floor at ALL levels of the house electrical flowing grid...( I use my onw homemade low costs devices)
After that my humble system will blow your mind and ashamed anyone that has paid too much for what they had... Think about that my system cost under 500 bucks... The tweaks cost more but not much more...:)
Cables are important like any other electronic components, but only that, no electronic components made miracles...An electronic component made miracle only if you compared in general with gear of a lower category, or compared with gear in the same level but non efficiently treated... The embeddings of a system is the key to peak potential S.Q. nothing else...except for the engineer marketing that need you to buy an upgrade instead of thinking about the embeddings of your actual system...
I know my system can be beat, but by very costly one indeed, and preferably by a way better embeddings...But for my ratio price/ final S.Q. my happiness is self contained... :)
To the beginners here: dont buy, think....
I know all that I say by experience, because I go with the same gear to sound quality like " shit" to astronomical transformation without any changes except in the embeddings... And my dac is very good, my speakers were the best Mission has ever made, and the Sansui AU 7700 one of the best Sansui...
never mind that they were good gear when I listen to these before the modifications in the embeddings, I was more than frustrated...The same system now made me smile at any more possible upgrade because when you have it music is music...Imaging, timbre, dynamic, you know when it is there or not....I will not pay for the 15,000 dollars I need to had a real upgrade of the electronic components...I cannot and I am not too much in temptation now... :) Lesson learned : treat the triple embeddings, dont buy....
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I read the two previous posts and....well... I'm just sitting here with my coffee scratching my head. (?????)
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I understand you.... I would scatch my head too, if my own post were not one of the 2. :) |
Did you get any splinters? 😬
Even more confusing to the public-at-large is that the sound per se is completely vulnerable to things that are not even remotely connected to the audio system - Not the house AC, the house wiring, cabling, electronics or room treatments. Since perception is to a large degree subconscious there is nothing you can do about this insidious problem as long as you’re blissfully ignorant of it. RF treatments, vibration control and isolation are so old school. The real challenge for John Q Public is to get beyond those old school ideas, as charming as they are, even oft times effective.
“Sometimes to create you must first destroy.” - Robot David in Prometheus
”Everything is relative.” - A. Einstein
The pistols are poppin’ and the power is down
I’d like to try somethin’ but I’m so far from town
The sun keeps shinin’ and the North Wind keeps picking up speed
Gonna forget about myself for a while, gonna go out and see what others need
Gonna raise me an army, some tough sons of bitches
I’ll recruit my army from the orphanages
I been to St. Herman’s church and I’ve said my religious vows
I’ve sucked the milk out of a thousand cows
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Not sure the point of the poem...but it does rhyme. +1 for that Mr. Geoff. |
@glupson My four systems which use GH cables cost $7500. That includes 3 amp/2 turntable/2 CD/1 DAK/2 pre-amp/2 Bryston BIT-20/2 receivers (TV) power cables (12X), 11X I.C. pairs (RCA) and 4 speaker cables. That’s 27 cables or $278 average each (only 1/3 are Pharoah quality, others are Empress or EX+).
@geofkait I’ve outlined the construction of the listening room several times in these forums and I sure you’ve read them. No springs but 12" thick, 3000 psi, steel reinforced concrete foundation for the room. The room was designed by Acoustic Fields and has 16" multi-layered, activated carbon bass filtered walls/doors (no other openings).
As to acquaintances with high cost cabling, the gentleman with $105,000 of High Fidelity cables has an AvantGarde Trio, 3 pairs of Basshorns,, Rel subwoofers, a Caliburn/Cobra/Colibri $200K+ turntable. another $100K VIva & in electronics which include 1/2 Hz tunable isolation platforms and $10K schumann resinators (forgot names of last two). GH and I use various sources to compare cabling such as at people's homes, gifted/donated cables from GH clients and at many local audio shows. No, we haven't heard the majority of cables made (who has), but a smattering of dozens of high end/SOTA cables with price tags in the five figure range. By far, the worst was High Fidelity cables, auditioned in 7 or 8 systems. Yuk! |
