Speaker Wire Myths and Truths

[hyghwayman]

Don't be fooled into thinking you need to buy name brand speaker wire.
Wire is wire, the difference is in the size!

Click the link below and read about the hype.

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm#house


hyghwayman, helping others to hear the truth.

 

[jaxvon]

Don't be fooled into thinking you need to buy name brand speaker wire.
Wire is wire, the difference is in the size!

Click the link below and read about the hype.

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm#house


hyghwayman, helping others to hear the truth.

While maybe news on some forums, that's old hat around here. In any case, I agree.

 

[markw]

Boy. talk about an understatement.

While maybe news on some forums, that's old hat around here.

Heck, on some forums, them's fighting words and will get you tarred, feathered, and banned. Can you say "cable asylum"?

In any case, I agree.

so do I.

 

[mtrycrafts]

so do I.

And a good many others here

I just hope that Oxygen peroxide treatment doesn't dilute the cable thinking around here

 

[skizzerflake]

Don't be fooled into thinking you need to buy name brand speaker wire.
Wire is wire, the difference is in the size!

Click the link below and read about the hype.

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm#house


hyghwayman, helping others to hear the truth.

Some years ago I read a study done in an audio magazine in which they did a double blind experiement comparing expensive speaker wire, cheap but competant wire and Romex (the stuff you buy at Home Depot to wire outlets). When the listening panel chose the Romex, the hard core audiophiles decided that double blind studies were invalid. As long as it is competantly manufactured and well connected to clean contacts, getting weird about wires is seriously superstitious.

 

[MDS]

When the listening panel chose the Romex, the hard core audiophiles decided that double blind studies were invalid.

Isn't if funny how that is always the case? I read one study recently where the self-proclaimed 'audiophiles' were allowed to design parameters for the test - they got to pick the equipment, the source material, the wire, characteristics of the room - basically everything. Guess what happened? The audiophiles as a group did far worse than the casual listeners (statistically) and yet STILL proclaimed the test invalid because they were absolutely sure that they heard differences that should be readily obvious.

 

[mtrycrafts]

and yet STILL proclaimed the test invalid because they were absolutely sure that they heard differences that should be readily obvious.

Isn't there a medical name for that illness, when you keep hearing voices but no one is saying a thing?

 

[skizzerflake]

Isn't if funny how that is always the case? I read one study recently where the self-proclaimed 'audiophiles' were allowed to design parameters for the test - they got to pick the equipment, the source material, the wire, characteristics of the room - basically everything. Guess what happened? The audiophiles as a group did far worse than the casual listeners (statistically) and yet STILL proclaimed the test invalid because they were absolutely sure that they heard differences that should be readily obvious.

My favorite super-audio component was sold some years ago. It was called the Tice Power Conditioner. You plug it into any outlet in your listening room and it subjects the electrons in your wires to some sort of marching orders since, as we know, a disciplined electron is a happy electron. It cost $500. It came in a box labelled Radio Shack and looked just like a $12 digital alarm clock, comlete with obnoxious beeper that went off at 6 AM. Tice claimed that indeed it was a Radio Shack alarm clock but it had been subjected to some special treatment that made it work. He had a no-challenge money back warranty...if you didn't agree that it made your equipment sound better, you got the 500 bucks back. Apparently after positive reviews in Stereophile and Absolute Sound, thousands were sold and few came back. As PT Barnum said, one born every minute.

 

[hemiram]

The crap people will buy, and the price that they pay for it never ceases to amaze me. Never heard of the Tice "clock", but it fits in with the magic pebbles, bricks and other crazy BS products that have been sold over the years.

 

[Beachboy2]

I'm a semi-audiophile but as an mechanical engineer I knew enough electrical thoery to use power cord for speaker wire right from my first Sansui audio receiver. I remember the salesman at Tech Hi Fi in Boston who was totally horrified when I asked him why I should use wire heavier than the power cord for the unit because we both knew the receiver could not create power. He scolded me all the way to the door and swore I would be back to purchase their version of monster cables. That Sansui was great for quite a few years, and I still laugh when I see folks buying "monster" priced cables.

 

[mpompey]

I love the Monster display at Best Buy that shows how bad your audio sounds using household A/V current without using their $300 power conditioner.

I'm all for a decent surge protector, but don't tell me the Emperor is wearing clothes.

 

[sploo]

Isn't there a medical name for that illness, when you keep hearing voices but no one is saying a thing?

I think it's called 'religion'. Or was that so obvious I needn't have noted it

 

[jcrobso]

What this proves it that,,

The Emperors New Cloths Syndrome is real!! John

 

[no. 5]

here's one for you...

is it of note that videopiles don't seem to suffer the same delusions that audiophiles do? i.e. "puting this premium power cable on my DVD player greatly inhanced the picture quality, it's like I'm looking though a clean window now!" or: "compared to that copper componint cable, this pure silver/baby tears cable makes the picture less hazy, and the reds are more defind, with more 'pop', even the blues seemd less grainy"
maby I just have not looked hard enough, but I don't recall hearing things like that from hard-core videophiles.

 

[skizzerflake]

is it of note that videopiles don't seem to suffer the same delusions that audiophiles do? i.e. "puting this premium power cable on my DVD player greatly inhanced the picture quality, it's like I'm looking though a clean window now!" or: "compared to that copper componint cable, this pure silver/baby tears cable makes the picture less hazy, and the reds are more defind, with more 'pop', even the blues seemd less grainy"
maby I just have not looked hard enough, but I don't recall hearing things like that from hard-core videophiles.

I think that the finite limits of video quality due to the pixel count and frame rate makes it real hard to get all weird like you can about analog sound quality. No power on earth can put more than 1080 lines in an HDTV but there's no limit to what you can imagine in sound quality, especially if you're convinced that you are not getting all you can and that there's more money you can spend or another mysterious theory that will make it happen.

 

[evilkat]

I think that the finite limits of video quality due to the pixel count and frame rate makes it real hard to get all weird like you can about analog sound quality. No power on earth can put more than 1080 lines in an HDTV but there's no limit to what you can imagine in sound quality, especially if you're convinced that you are not getting all you can and that there's more money you can spend or another mysterious theory that will make it happen.

And I would add that Videophiles while away their hours on deinterlacers and how they perform. You will often see them squinting away, switching between still shots during a vertical pan trying to see if the resolution dropped due to a poor deinterlacer.

 

[MDS]

re: audio vs video

I think that although audio has been studied for decades and the principles are well known, there is still room for subjective evaluation; ie the old adage that we all hear differently and you cannot tell someone else what they hear or don't hear.

Video on the other hand can be calibrated and measured almost perfectly. While it is still possible for someone to claim they see or don't see something that others claim to see, it is more easily refuted because measurements don't lie when it comes to video. Also the eye is easily fooled (the ears too but not to the same degree) and your brain can easily see right through minor video anomalies without loss of information whereas you can never really be sure what you think you hear is 'correct'. Incidentally that is why I cringe when people talk about how 'the mid-bass is missing something' and things like that...take 100 audio enthusiasts and play a 300 Hz tone and ask them to identify the frequency and I would bet that less than 10 would get anywhere near the correct answer.

 

[Seth=L]

Tice clocks, Monster, and styrofoam lifters so you speaker cables don't touch the floor, Pish-posh.

Here is that stupid Tice Clock, pay close attention to the red ''X''s on the bottom right of the Tice Clock.

http://www.regonaudio.com/Tice Clock.html

 

[MDS]

The world is full of bogus unscientific/unsubstantiated claims and people eat them up nonetheless.

Secrets posted a press release from a company selling a demagnetizer for CDs (not that they endorse the product). Now the press release sounds plausible - basically that the dyes used in the CD label contain small amounts of magnetic material that can become magnetized and their product totally removes the magnetic field. The price? $1,800!

My first question would be what the h*ll does a small magnetic field have to do with a 680 nm laser that is reading pits and lands on an optical disc? I don't claim to be an expert on opto-electronics but huh? If it were $18 it would be worth a shot on the off chance that there is some unexplained phenomena of which we are not aware but I'd bet my net worth it doesn't do a damn thing.

 

[no. 5]

I have seen one of those too, but for $360 (what a bargain!).
BTW, Seth, the reson you haven't inproved your sound quality with styrofoam lifters is because you have to use myrtle wood lifters