Top Ten Signs of Cable Vendor Snake Oil

[gene]

In order to help all fellow audioholics identify if a particular cable vendor is selling legitimately truthful product or snake oil, I have prepared a top ten list of common shams exotic cable vendors often use to lure unsuspecting audioholics into buying their products.  Feel free to expand upon this list if I missed any  

Top Ten Signs an Audio Cable Vendor is Selling You Snake Oil

[2x6spds]

I have a pair of Mapleshade Double Golden Helix Plus speaker wires in my tube amp system. They're weirdly thin. I didn't get the cable lifts. But I did run my wire through wooden thread spindles to keep them off the synthetic fiber carpet. (Bad vibes, evil dielectric interaction.) *I like the speaker cables. Altogether my sweetest sounding system.

Just a small swig of snake oil never killed anyone ... probably ... maybe not though, snakes and all ...

[Clint DeBoer]

Haha, I voted for cable elevators before reading the second post! That's definitely my favorite one...

I think everyone has a right to use whatever cables they want, and experiment with the vendors' claims - but to tout the voodoo "science" behind them (in order to make an expensive sale) is what's dishonest and incorrect... Not to mention charging an arm and a leg for some of the ones that are basically long capacitors.

Back in my college days, I had enough EM classes and Trans Lines and Waveguides classes to not fall for these rediculous claims. If one even dares to question a person at an "audio" shop, their attitude suddenly changes towards you.

I use Monster but that's because it's easy to get and from what I've seen, it's cheaper than most other cable yet everyone complains how expensive it is.

I'd say the cryogenically freezing process is the most obvious cable sham...

Doug

Sorry, delete one of those previous posts... My bad...

Doug

[PaulF]

I would vote for bonus #2, but it's not an option. I've even seen articles supporting this.

[Dan Banquer]

Well I'm certainly grateful that you had the foresight not to name kosher chicken fat as a cable scam. * My grandmother knows more about cable treatment than any of those idiots who treat their cables with snake oil.
* * * * * * *Go Red Sox!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * d.b.

[gene]

Dan;

Kosher chicken fat works wonders on my cables.  Thanks for the tip.  Now they are so slippery that I don't have to worry about my daughter pulling my speaker cables off from my speakers  

Clint;

I am in full agreement.  I don't have a problem with a cable vendor selling very expensive and cosmetically pleasing cables providing the cables measure well and the vendor doesn't use psuedo based Star Trek physics to rationalize their prices.

If they would just come out and say "Our cables perform at least as well as $.50/ft 12AWG Zip Cord, but are much prettier, and built better (IE. better terminations, nicer looking dielectric), we can stop debunking cable snake oil and move on to far more important topics like room treatments, system calibration, and speaker design.

[heebz6020]

I too have to agree with the "Monster is sooo expensive" claims out there. While I will agree that there are some good priced cable's  out there, Monsters are priced pretty competitively to others, and far less than some.   IMHO Monsters are built decently enough, and provide good performance. and thats not a knock on other cable makers in that price range. I think Monster gets a bad rap, and is one of those "love to hate" companies.

BTW, I love the "break in" claims that cable dealers make. I think it makes the electrons flow better....or something like that.

Matt

[gene]

Matt;

I suspect that the snake oil vendors tout "break-in" so that the consumer will keep the product for longer than the return policy.  Also, statistically if a consumer doesn't return a product within a weeks time, they are less likely to do so thereafter.

As for Monster products, they are well built and usually measure well.  The only problem I have had with many of their RCA type cables is the barrel is to narrow causing me to almost break the RCA plugs off of my electronics when putting them on or off.  And yes, I do twist while doing this procedure, but it still can be too challenging.  I really love the WBT locking RCA plugs that Kimber uses on his cables, but they are very expensive