Too good a post to waste


On a thread that is a running example of the textual equivalent of nonstop cat videos. So here it is again.


I could understand the cables are snake-oil doubters and take them seriously- in 1980. Back then there was no internet, Stereo Review was pretty much it, and Julian Hirsch was the Oracle of all things audio. Stereo Review and Julian Hirsch said if it measures the same it sounds the same. Wire is wire, and that was that. 

Even then though J. Gordon Holt had already started the movement that was to become Stereophile. JGH took the opposing view that our listening experience is what counts. Its nice if you can measure it but if you can’t that’s your problem not ours. 

Stereo Review and the measurers owned the market back then. The market gave us amplifier wars, as manufacturers competed for ever more power with ever lower distortion. For years this went on, until one day "measures great sounds bad" became a thing.

Could be some here besides me lived through and remember this. If you did, and if you were reading JGH back then, I tip my hat to you, sir! I fell prey to Hirsch and his siren song that you can have it all for cheap and don’t really have to learn to listen. Talk about snake-oil! A lot of us bought into it. Sorry to say.

But anyway like I was saying it was easy to believe the lie back then because it was so prevalent and also because what wire there was that sounded better didn’t really sound a whole lot better.

Now though even budget wire sounds so much better than what comes off a reel you’d have to be deaf not to notice. Really good wires sound so good you’d notice even if you ARE deaf! No kidding. My aunt Bessie was deaf as a stone but she could FEEL the sound at a high enough volume, knew it was music. The dynamic punch of my CTS cables is so much greater than ordinary 14 ga wire I would bet my deaf from birth aunt Bessie could "hear" the difference. Certain so-called audiophiles here, I'm not so sure.

Oh and not done beating the dead horse quite yet, according to my calendar its 2020, a solid 40 years past 1980. Stereo Review is dead and buried. Stereophile lives on. A whole multi-billion dollar industry built on wire not being wire thrives. Maybe the measurement people can chalk up and quantify from that just how many years, and billions, they are out of date and in denial. 
128x128millercarbon
To get sort of back on track have some borrowed speaker cables that will be going in this afternoon that I have heard in another system.
Be interested to see how they " sound" in my system.
Arachnidism, do you sit on your face all day or only when you’re posting? 
MC

"Can" means might, may, could. "Can" does not mean "does".  Thus everything that follows is at best probability and imagination.“

While I have no knowledge of whether Almarg is a genius or a shill other than reading the quality of his posts and determining he is closer to the former, I find it fascinating that you are arguing against his comments and yet they allow for yours to be possible as well. He is laying out a thoughtful explanation of the science behind the Subjectiveness; In other words, YMMV. 
Not looking to pick a fight, I don’t really care enormously either way about cables, - if you want it and can afford it good to go- but what his point really drives home IMHO  is the inconsistency in your position, that everything matters, and yet a single cable company, or one speaker company, or a contact enhancer company can solve every single need. By your own starting position- everything matters- reinforced my Almargs post- a variety of manufacturers cables would most likely be needed to meet all the variabilities.. I recognize and freely admit  I am an audio dullard, but fully capable of debate. 
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