Too good a post to waste


On a thread that is a running example of the textual equivalent of nonstop cat videos. So here it is again.


I could understand the cables are snake-oil doubters and take them seriously- in 1980. Back then there was no internet, Stereo Review was pretty much it, and Julian Hirsch was the Oracle of all things audio. Stereo Review and Julian Hirsch said if it measures the same it sounds the same. Wire is wire, and that was that. 

Even then though J. Gordon Holt had already started the movement that was to become Stereophile. JGH took the opposing view that our listening experience is what counts. Its nice if you can measure it but if you can’t that’s your problem not ours. 

Stereo Review and the measurers owned the market back then. The market gave us amplifier wars, as manufacturers competed for ever more power with ever lower distortion. For years this went on, until one day "measures great sounds bad" became a thing.

Could be some here besides me lived through and remember this. If you did, and if you were reading JGH back then, I tip my hat to you, sir! I fell prey to Hirsch and his siren song that you can have it all for cheap and don’t really have to learn to listen. Talk about snake-oil! A lot of us bought into it. Sorry to say.

But anyway like I was saying it was easy to believe the lie back then because it was so prevalent and also because what wire there was that sounded better didn’t really sound a whole lot better.

Now though even budget wire sounds so much better than what comes off a reel you’d have to be deaf not to notice. Really good wires sound so good you’d notice even if you ARE deaf! No kidding. My aunt Bessie was deaf as a stone but she could FEEL the sound at a high enough volume, knew it was music. The dynamic punch of my CTS cables is so much greater than ordinary 14 ga wire I would bet my deaf from birth aunt Bessie could "hear" the difference. Certain so-called audiophiles here, I'm not so sure.

Oh and not done beating the dead horse quite yet, according to my calendar its 2020, a solid 40 years past 1980. Stereo Review is dead and buried. Stereophile lives on. A whole multi-billion dollar industry built on wire not being wire thrives. Maybe the measurement people can chalk up and quantify from that just how many years, and billions, they are out of date and in denial. 
128x128millercarbon

Showing 6 responses by tomic601

Uber you know the answer, no bigger ego exists save that of his hero Dumpsterfire.
Motivation to update the LinkedIn profile....

mine was sadly out of date, of course....
i have some vampire, and Fulton and even the first Monster in my vintage system, which i would put up as sonically satisfying...

LONG live Al !!!!
my super deluxe Crate and Barrel lamp came with 6’ of cord, and included the new four charm quark particle....
Ya, reading them listening to and selling gear in 1979 based on Dr Matti Otolla research And the brilliant Jim Thiel wired with as I recall Fulton Brown.. Vandersteen since 1977.....

before that Bozak and McIntosh... the legendary concert grands, 240 MX-110Z ( 1965 )

also had good fortune to meet Karl Neiring of Sensible Sound about that time a big Proponent of Dynaco / Hafler /  ModificationS, etc..

no list of publications complete without a mention of Dick Hardesty ( of Havens and Hardesty )