Posted by BillEpstein [ 12.75.71.213 ] on February 21, 2005 at 04:31:05:
In Reply to: Re: Here's what the vinyl guy has in mind.... posted by manualblock on February 20, 2005 at 19:52:57:
.....it's the shmucks that pay $1,000 a foot for cable.
I've auditioned best-selling speaker cables and IC's: Coincident, AudioQuest, Mapleshade, Home Grown, DH Labs, Straightwire, etc. and made the DIY "giant-killers" made from Cat 5e Belden 89259 and Vampire CCC magnet wire.
As MB says, there are differences. And as Mr. Vinyl says, sometimes the differences are significant. However, $8/50 ft. Royal Cable speaker wire trounces all the above and my ca. 1986 Straightwire LSI IC's are clearer, cleaner and more musical than any of the above.
The Royal Cable is high quality copper 14 ga. and the Straightwire simply shielded copper, well-terminated.
The latest audiophile cables with 35 volt battery power supplies are the zenith of industry greed and cyncicism. Are cheap caps-in-a-box and batteries for "electro-magnetic shielding" design breakthroughs that merit compensation for vast R&D expenditures? Or are they the result of wee hours brainstorming for just another
bright, shiny toy that can be marketed at 100 times production cost?
And then there's the unblinking acceptance of whatever idea du jour is repeated more than once on these "cable forums". And if an industry figure opines positively on some magic it instantly becomes an immutable physical law. "Copper is good; silver is good; silver-coated copper is bad". "Solid sounds better than stranded."
How about the "fact" that every cablephile knows: it takes a pound-of-metal connector to get the signal to the speaker post. But, the best jumper for bi-wire posts is a piece of copper foil that barely makes contact.
Huh?
Let's talk about things we can pin a tail on and leave alchemy to the alchemists.
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