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Who thinks $5K speaker cable really better than generic 14AWG cable?

I recently ordered high end speaker, power amp, and preamp to be installed in couple more weeks. So the next search are interconnect and speaker cable. After challenging the dealer and 3 of my so called audiophile friends, I think the only reason I would buy expensive cable is for its appearance to match with the high end gears but not for sound performance. I personally found out that $5K cable vs $10 cable are no difference, at least not to our ears. Prior to this, I was totally believe that cable makes a difference but not after this and reading few articles online.

Here is how I found out.

After the purchase of my system, I went to another dealer to ask for cable opinion (because the original dealer doesn't carry the brand I want) and once I told him my gears, he suggested me the high end expensive cable ranging from $5 - 10K pair, depending on length. He also suggested the minimum length must be 8-12ft. If longer than 12ft, I should upgrade to even more expensive series. So I challenged him that if he can show me the difference, I would purchase all 7 AQ Redwood cables from him.

It's a blind test and I would connect 3 different cables - 1 is the Audioquest Redwood, 1 is Cardas Audio Clear, and 1 my own generic 14AWG about 7ft. Same gears, same source, same song..... he started saying the first cable sound much better, wide, deep, bla...bla...bla......and second is decently good...bla...bla...bla.. and the last one sounded crappy and bla...bla...bla... BUT THE REALITY, I NEVER CHANGED THE CABLE, its the same 14AWG cable. I didn't disclosed and move on to second test. I told him I connected audioquest redwood but actually 14AWG and he started to praise the sound quality and next one I am connected the 14awg but actually is Redwood and he started to give negative comment. WOW!!!! Just blew me right off.

I did the same test with 3 of my audiophile friends and they all have difference inputs but no one really got it right. Especially the part where I use same generic 14awg cable and they all start to give different feedback!!!

SO WHAT DO YOU ALL THINK? OR I AM THE LAST PERSON TO FIND OUT THAT EXPENSIVE CABLE JUST A RIP OFF?
sautan904

Showing 3 responses by teo_audio

teo_audio
2,197 posts
 
Hearing varies from person to person as much as intelligence and mental orientation and conditioning.

Smart in one way does not specifically relate back to smart ears. Cognitive capacity in the mind can also express itself in cognitive capacity of hearing in ears and mind as a pair. This cognitive variance in speed and precision (as a pair) from person to person (Human IQ of 100 vs 200)... can be as high as a million to one. It's a non-linear equation.

This definitely DOES encompass human HEARING function as it is a ear/brain function, tied to neural functionality and interconnectedness, tied to it as much as vision, motor drive, intelligence, and so on.

From Wikipedia:

Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon in which the mind responds to a stimulus, usually an image or a sound, by perceiving a familiar pattern where none exists...

This holds true for cable deniers and cable believers.

To hear new things, one has to defeat this mechanism as it is tied to hearing function.

So one can have a dumb ear/brain combination and project this form of blindness, this forced blindness, upon others..others who don’t suffer from it.

And audiophile arguments are born. Like this thread.

The more difficult a problem is to solve, the more fundamental the error in the formulation of the question.

It gets into how the whole thing comes down to small variances in the signal, and some of us who design and work on gear, know how this works.

The lore holder and lore workers are not going to explain exactly how they make a living to the pouting, demanding, demanding, and dismissive deniers . Not gonna happen any time soon.

That: Some may help you.... but they don’t owe the denying forceful types - anything.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Before a given thing is in the textbooks, it gets worked out like this. The lore is the component that is tightly held, or not easy to understand, then it works it’s way into the common lexicon..then it is in the textbooks and is accepted...

Then the deniers move on to the next thing they want to pout about as a being a false paradigm (not in the dogmatic books, so it can’t be real!!) for fools to follow....

Rinse - repeat.
teo_audio
2,197 posts
 
Hearing varies from person to person as much as intelligence and mental orientation and conditioning.

Smart in one way does not specifically relate back to smart ears. Cognitive capacity in the mind can also express itself in cognitive capacity of hearing in ears and mind as a pair. This cognitive variance in speed and precision (as a pair) from person to person (Human IQ of 100 vs 200)... can be as high as a million to one. It’s a non-linear equation.

This definitely DOES encompass human HEARING function as it is a ear/brain function, tied to neural functionality and interconnectedness, tied to it as much as vision, motor drive, intelligence, and so on.


To clarify.. what is that ratio? It is: every increase in 5 ’IQ’ points is roughly equivalent to a required rumination time to reach a functional conclusion with said problem..this requisite time ---is halved. Roughly, and overall, in humanity. Each 5 iq points higher - half the time to figure a thing out.

Thus, the average person, IQ 100, working on a problem, may take lets say..114 years of 24/7 work to reach a satisfactory conclusion in a given problem scenario. the 200 IQ person can reach successful conclusion with the same problem, in one hour. All things being equal, which they are not.

Then comes hearing function, which is wholly integrated with this neural system, and thus suffers similar (not exact but similar) ratios and considerations.

You might have a person who in this lifetime will never hear a given thing.... when someone with really good and well trained ears and connected neural function....might hear it in 30 seconds or less.

No mystery.

Thankfully the brain is plastic so ignorance is a matter of will, in some ways, and it is not truly a native state.

Unless one forces it.

Audiophile, fix thyself.
teo_audio
2,197 posts
 
trolling of this nature is all about saying something and hoping the mirror of it will come back, and make the issuer of such missives..feel comfortable in their own skin. that the ego gets what it wants, which is to be comfortable and in charge. The body’s high level programming, responsible for the voice in the head effect, as a rolling moving awareness loop. It’s not the real mind. The real mind is far more intelligent and is in the unconscious aspects.

Said differently, very few people actually understand and live with the word ’consciousness’. Most are on a rose colored glasses version of an ego driven/filtered autopilot. As in likely...99% of the population. If not more. Not quite 100% --- but frighteningly close.

Generally, +75% of the people reading this will somehow put themselves in that 0.5% or less remainder.

Part of human psychology. Which is why Jung had it right and Freud was, in the end, an idiot. And Bernays an opportunistic roving butcher. Eating the world, like all his contacts and connections.

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