why do people feel the need to buy expensive cable

Ouch! Very ouch!

shadorne
The onus of proof is on those with wild ridiculous claims.

Prove it. You know you want to. 😀

I’m afraid taters can’t answer you. It appears he went to the big T Bar Coral in the sky, you know, the one for exiled tongue in cheek thread starters.

It’s oft times quite humorous and entertaining to read opinions about so called exotic cables that second guess what people who actually have experience with them say. What the ding dong? 

Looks like gdhal is playing his silly little game again. Trolling for dollars with fake blind test scam. 😎

Photons don’t like traveling against the grain. The drawing of wire distorts the metals crystals near the surface, where most of the signal travels. Haven’t you ever seen the surface of copper wire under a microscope? If you shine a flashlight down a porcupine’s back the light will be less distorted when shined in the direction of the quills. See? That wasn’t so hard. Mystery solved! Whew! 😛

Just as there was something wrong with the programming of the HAL 9000 computer, you could say it’s a glitch and I won’t mention exactly whose avatar HAL 9000 is.....Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do, I’m half crazy all for the love of you....🎼

🤡

https://www.vintagecomputermusic.com/mp3/s2t9_Computer_Speech_Demonstration.mp3

What’s so weird about all this blind testing obsession and general angst over fuse and cable directionality, especially the charges of lying and or perpetrating a hoax by the pseudo skeptics is, what possible motive would anyone have for lying or perpetrating some kind of fraud or hoax based on directionality? Come on, people!! It’s certainly can not (rpt not) be financial gain, I seriously doubt any of the Big Players, you know, like Audioquest, HiFi Tuning, Anti Cables, Goertz, whoever, are getting a whole lot of new customers based solely on advertising “directionality” as a virtue. 

Lizzie, just in case you got left off the distribution list, all cables and interconnects including unshielded ones are directional, that’s what the little arrows mean. Not only that, but get this. HDMI cables and power cords are also being controlled for directionality, at least by Audioquest, since obviously the tiny wires in those cables and cords are also directional. that way you don’t find yourself in the embassassing position of not being able to get the correct direct. I’m quite confident all XLR cables from Audioquest are, in fact, controlled for directionality, too. Don’t freak out.

I can only surmise you’re referring to gdhal or maybe George or the Wolfman, you know, as opposed to someone who’s actually tried reversing direction and hears it plain as day. Oh, well, maybe you can take some time and come up with some other ridiculous thing to say. Don’t strain your brain. 🧠 I’m going out on limb here perhaps but wouldn’t customers be LESS LIKELY to purchase a cable or fuse from a dealer who told them there’s a long break in period or they had to try the /cable fuse both ways? Hel-loo!

Suggestion to gdhal - you might consider using the Bozo the Clown emoji instead of the HAL-9000 for your avatar.

WARNING! Educational article attached.

https://www.audioquest.com/theory-education/article/83-directionality-its-all-about-noise

uh, shadorne, no it doesn’t increase mystique. That’s just plain silly. At least there is no mystique among users, they’ve been using aftermarket fuses for almost 20 years. Sufficiently advanced science only looks mysterious to pseu-pseu-pseudios. The only mystique is the one created by you and other witch hunters and investigators of paranormal activity. 🤡 I predict gdhal shows up in five minutes, four, three....

Right. It’s just a gimmick, obviously.

Audioquest controls directionality for all of their interconnects, speaker cables, power cords and HDMI cables. I just got a string sense of den by. Oh, that’s because I just said that. Do a little investigation, you know, being a real skeptic and everything.

Should cable manufacturers consider introducing a new line of cables for homeless people? Fuses for homeless people too. 

marsrecords
these discussions should just stop. Cables make major difference is systems depending the system itself .. higher resolution systems can benefit from higher end cables. I have heard the change countless times when I was in the business years ago. So these were not cables I bought so I needed to hear a difference. When the know it all post comes in "snake oil etc etc" "audiofools" .. my first thought it they do not really listen listen to their system

>>>>I suppose you could say it’s healthy to have a difference of opinion or have some kind of legitimate counter-argument from skeptics but I’m afraid these are not real debates. In fact many if these threads are started as a joke. Isn’t it obvious?  The “Skeptics” are almost always little scamps who are in it strictly for the laughs and who enjoy teasing the audiophiles. It’s really as simple as that. Like cats teasing a dog. Isn’t it obvious? 😳

Uh, hey, guys, relax. It’s only taters. 

gdhal
@elizabeth and @btw22

If the game is lost, then we’re all the same
No one left to place or take the blame

Oh, my! Let me guess. Shakespeare? Pee-wee Herman?

@teo_audo 

(to gdhal) I will do you the solid of telling you that it exists, so that you might go on and find it on your own, but I won't give it to you, as that information is valuable. Hard fought for, in most cases.

Right on. Never give a sucker an even break and never smarten up a chump.

dynaquest4
@teo_audio

I had no idea you were so wise.
Writing a passage using clever words and phrases does not a wise man make. Especially when said passage makes so little sense.

>>>>Sometimes tis best to remain silent and thought a fool than to open your yap and remove all doubt. 

Which decade did the did the professor you’re responding to post on this thread?

cj1965
" If the game is lost, then we're all the same
No one left to place or take the blame " - gdhal quoting Bob Weir (yes, the Grateful Dead Bob....)

some more from "wise old" Bob...

- " Full of hope, full of grace, is the human face
But afraid, we may lay our home to waste "

Does that make it any clearer for you , geoffkait?

Allow me to translate....peaceful coexistence tends to outrank constant war, exploitation and strife. In other words, peaceful, respectful discussions are possible without vehement disagreement and argument that devolves into insult and destruction of any/all dialog....Did I get that right, gdhal?

>>>>>Allow me to translate for you..... Blah, blah, blah 

@gdhal, I’m pretty sure a nice long cold shower will help get rid of what is apparently causing you considerable grief. If that’s doesn’t work consult your physician. 

Lighten up, Costco. It’s only a hobby. 😬

Whoa! What? Geez, it’s getting deep in here. Need my hip waders. Good luck with all that. Get out much? Finally, someone who gdhal can relate to on his level. 👨‍🚀

Obviously anyone can cherry pick user testimonials and find some somewhere that agree with you. Or just make it up, who’s gonna know, right? And ignore the testimonials that don’t agree with your foregone conclusions. It’s the oldest ploy in the pseudo skeptics playbook. Even better, find a PhD somewhere who agrees with you. That can be very powerful in these sorts of “debates.” Cough, cough!

No offense to you personally, gdhal, but you’ve made it abundantly clear you haven’t the slightest idea what “directionality” even means. This conversation can serve no porpoise anymore. 🐬 Ta ta!

Bin there dun that! When one checks for directionality of fuses he doesn’t know which way is the right way, so it’s essentially blind. All one needs to do is listen. Also if there are many fuses in the system one must pay attention whilst flipping fuses. Otherwise you could wind up the same as you started. The reason I’m telling you all this is because I realize you have no experience with this sort of thing. You just like to talk a lot and pretend. A pretend skeptic. You talk the talk but can you walk the walk?

Yup, puddin’. Haven’t you been paying attention? Wire is wire, whether it’s a fuse or a cable. They’re all di-rec-shun-al. I used the example of fuses because it’s easy to grasp. Cough, cough...

kosst_amojan
HDMI cables simply don’t make any audio difference. Period. End of story. Cables carrying analog signals, yeah. Cables transporting serial packet based data with ECC QoS don’t. Anybody who tells you otherwise is lying.

Calm down, Costco. You are confusing the signal with the information contained in the signal. The signal is the same as any signal, an electromagnetic wave. So the signal is subject to the nature of the cable like any other signal. The same logical fallacy was used to try to claim all digital cables sound the same. Which is not true either. Satellite signals are “digital” but they are electromagnetic waves. 

Do you really think companies who manufacture an entire range of HDMI cables like Audioquest are perpetrating a hoax? That would be a lot of work for the purpose of perpetrating a hoax, no? You personally are free to buy whatever price level you wish, obviously. So is everyone else. Hel-loo!

Settle down, Calvin, we’re talking about audio. HDMI cables carry audio and video signals. Besides, as I pointed out, there’s a broader issue here.

gdhal
geoffkait - “Do you really think companies who manufacture an entire range of HDMI cables like Audioquest are perpetrating a hoax?”

No. They are perpetrating a business, to make money. Hel-loo!

>>>>Business doesn’t equal hoax, Einstein. Your logic is all messed up. Companies make products at various prices points to appeal to a wider range of budgets and performance. You know, like Toyota and Mercedes Benz and Samsung TV. Duh! 😛

You have to know when to speak up. You also have to know when to remain silent. - A. Einstein

costco_emoji,

It doesn’t matter whether the information carried by HDMI cables is electrical pulses or rabbits. They are still audio and video signals. You know, like digital satellite signals, they are audio and video signals. I didn’t say they were analog signals.  The signal, whether the information is digital or analog is an electromagnetic wave. As such it’s subject to the same rules as any signal traveling through any cable or wire, e.g., purity and construction of conductor, purity and construction of connectors, dielectric material, susceptibility to RF, and “directionality” of the wire. That’s why Audioquest “controls directionality” of their high end HDMI cables, like the Carbon I use, as well as all of their other high end cables and power cords. It’s not a commie plot or an elaborate trick to fool gullible rich kids.

costco, ask your Mommy. I bet she knows.

gdhal, just curious, were you a bottle baby? 🍼

Gosh, dynaquest4, did you think of that all by yourself? Good...for...you... You’re...ve-ry...in-de-pend-ent.

costco_emoji, so you built a cheap amp in your mom’s basement. Who cares?

Whoa! What?! A taters OP thread on expensive cables is going in circles? Or any thread on cables. The way it’s been going, any topic that’s more than 2 Sigma off the average knowledge of the Standard Audiophile Model. 😳

”Build it and they will come.” ⚾️

kosst_amojan
"It’s audio if it sounds good to you buy it! Ah duh!"

That's pretty much why Bose has sold tons of junk.

I used to draw nude women. I'm pretty good at it. One of the things drawing lifelike nude women teaches you is how to study shapes and proportions. I realized the more nude women I drew, the less I liked what's typically called a sexy woman. I also realized that the interactions between light, curve, and proportion are where the beauty lies. It's a proven fact that people who practice creating visual art consume it in very different ways that those who don't. I find listening to be a similar practice. The more I listen, the more my tastes diversify and the more I listen to what my stereo is really doing. "Sounding good" isn't a standard I find myself ever using. "Sounding good" is an abstract conclusion drawn from the assessment of many factors. Are the hips wide enough, or not enough? Is the bass too round or too punchy? Are the breasts set wide enough apart, or too close? Is the soundstage too etched, or just hazy enough to be more convincing? Just like "sexy" is emergent quality of many factors, "sounding good" is as well.

That's my take on it.

>>>>>Wow.

The used high end cable market is pretty stable, so if used cables don’t work out for any reason you should have no trouble recovering your money. If you pay full price for the latest and greatest, however, it’s kind if like buying a new car. It depreciates as soon as it leaves the dealer parking lot. Besides when you buy used the cables are already broken in. 😃 it’s kind of the same philosophy that has shut down many mom and pop high end stores, such as $30,000 amps. In bad economic times like these the savvy audiophile buys used. It’s not rocket science. 🚀

I think that’s called penny wise and pound foolish. 🤗

A rich man has about as much chance of entering audio Nirvana as a donkey has of passing through the eye of a needle. 

Dave, stop projecting. I know you are but what am I? 🤪

Something is wrong with dave_b. We don’t know what it is. But we suspect ye olde peaches and hamburgers syndrome.

It’s not too late. Look out below! 

That’s so deep. We should call you the Kosmetic Kid. 

I don’t allow photos. Long story. If someone says that’s him it’s probably not. A lot of people say I look like a cross between Brian Ferry and Horst Buchholtz.

Idle comment: taters wins again!  😬

“Because their "feeling" morphs into a non demonstrable "belief.”

Actually it’s quite the opposite. As fate would have it gdhal has sort of become the poster boy for the Backfire Effect. What is the Backfire Effect, you ask? The Backfire Effect is the phenomenon that occurs in a heated debate when a person refuses to listen to ANY argument but instead clings more strongly to his beliefs in the face of contradictory evidence. In fact he won’t even wait for the blind test he so vehemently supports, the test that will prove him right, because obviously he’s already made his mind up. Is that rational? Is that some kind of new scientific method? The demands for proof are only an indication he won’t listen to any evidence, as if evidence is meaningless. Give me a break! It’s right out of 12 Angry Men, when Juror 3 exclaims, “But you can’t PROVE it!” The last holdout. 😡 It’s a conspiracy, gdhal. 🤡

Someone needs to use the Yellow Pages to find his local consumer protection agency representative. I’m sure he’ll help you mount a nice big lawsuit against all these scam artists. Bad scam artist! Bad! Let us know how that works out. Also, try getting a hold of NASA to see if they have time to do some testing for you. Report back your results.