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1) The cable lie I believe he is correct on this with the exception of one company. That is MIT. MIT wires are not just wires but have "interface" boxes on them. I believe these boxes and the components in them, put them above all other wires. Are they grossly overpriced? Yes. However I didn't pay anywhere near the retail price. Anyone that does is wasting money IMO. Do I hold that against MIT? No. They can charge whatever they want if they can get it. I could care less if they are selling 20 cents of wire for $20,000. If they can stay in business that way then all the power to them. Regardless of price I find MIT wires to sound different and better to my ears than all the others I have tried. Especially when talking about their phono cable. 2) The vacuum tube lie Again Mr. Aczel, is probably correct when he says "Whatever vacuum tubes can do in a piece of audio equipment,solid-state devices can do better, at lower cost, with greater reliability." But do they sound better? I may just be listening to "tube distortion" but to my ears this "distortion" makes music sound more real. If, as Mr. Aczel suggests, "solid-state design could easily mimic the sound (of tubes) if the designer were perverse enough to want it that way." is correct I would love to find such a beast. I would buy it and I think so would many others. In short, if I or anyone else likes the sound of tubes, (and if listening to music is purely subjective) then who is to say it's wrong? 3) The anti-digital lie. Sorry but for the reasons stated above I think he is wrong here. Again, it may be distortion but I like it! I would agree with him that almost all of the digital gear I have heard sounds the same to me. Not bad, but not analogue. 4) The listening test lie. I'm not sure about this. I can't decide if ABX results are meaningful or not. So I'm neutral on this one. 5) The feedback lie. Again sorry, but I don't know nor do I care. 6) The burn-in lie. He may be right that it's just your brain that's breaking in. But so what? I can say that I don't like everything I hear even after extended listening so I'm sure I'm not getting "used" to bad sound when considering break-in. 7) The bi-wire lie. Don't know, don't care. 8) The power conditioner lie. I have owned and still own a Tice Power Block and Titan power conditioner. It's not in my system at the moment but when it was I thought I heard slight improvements. But there are other reasons to own a power conditioner besides sound. The main reason is spike protection. At the moment I have no power conditioners in my system, but may put one in for piece of mind in the future. I will be willing to admit that the Tice making my system sound better may very well have been in my head. 9) The CD treatment lie. This I agree with. 10) The Golden ear lie. I also agree with this one. So there you have it. These of course are just my opinion. Yours my differ. But basically it all boils down to this, If I like ketchup on steak who to say that I am wrong? If I like tubes and vinyl and you like digital and solid state, that's fine with me. Give me your albums and old tube gear. I'll be a happy man. The human brain is a powerful thing. If I "think" something sounds better to me, then it DOES sound better to me.
I enjoyed reading your opinions on the article. I am kind of in agreement with you regarding most. I LIKE the way tubes sound. On the cable myth, in other articles he talks about how the LCR (inductance, cap, resistance) of a cable pretty much defines how it will interact with your system. That is pretty much true. Many high end cables introduce higher LCR to alter the sound. He does not SAY anywhere that cables sound alike. He only says cabes with the same LCR values will sound alike. So the fact that you like MIT cables is not in any conflict with that article. I liked Transparent cables for the longest time, and then sold them. Did they alter the sound? Yes. -akhilesh