John Dunlavy On "Cable Nonsense"

It's amazing how many responses to the Dunlavy piece have been posted. It just goes on and on and on. Going against my own personal grain, I will make it brief: no you can't always believe your eyes and ears. You have to find objectivity somewhere or else you're just groping in the dark. Does anyone out there honestly think that Dunlavy could produce the speakers he does using the anti-scientific mindset exhibited by most cable promoters? Do you guys really believe that measurement and double blind testing is a waste of time and that some audio guru can conjure up the perfect whatever in a magical, mystical golden ear trance? There's a big difference between building something and sitting on one's duff listening to it and haphazardly commenting using buzz words. Science is what got us here, as we say in French; "don't spit in the soup".

Pbb, in my opinion, you are missing a slight point, which I find surprising, since you seem to play the guitar:
Many audiophiles are avid concertgoers and if a piece of wire brings them closer to the experience of the real thing, who would bother then about measurements and double blind testing. For me, the only thing close to some objectivity here, is the live event and how I remember it and if science helps me along this goal, fine, je ne crache pas dans la soupe !

And p l e a s e , lets not start up this argument again. Its futile and leads to nowhere.

Pbb, measurements, multiple testing, etc., probably are useful for manufacturers. For users -- i.e. most of us here -- Detlof's summarised it all IMO.

Between you & I, how many of us can explain audible differences b/ween pieces of, say, active amplification based on (visible) differences in the design? Not I!

Cheers!

I have read thru this thread probably 3 times so far, Im not trying to start this argument back up, but I would like to try and say something to justify experimenting with cables to newbies.

I think cable prices are the biggest rip-off in the entire industry and cable manufacturers are complete a'holes. I have been to several cable manufacturing facilities and making any cable in mass is relativly inexpensive(for most designs) and I am talking about Category 6 cable AND fiber optic cable. Cable prices are completely inflated by the manufacture to pad their wallets. I would love to see some little company ruin the entire cable industry thru good products/pricing. Good justification ehh?

I would also like to state that Bose is also a doctor ;P and we know the general opinion of the products released under his name. Being a Dr. doen't mean crap, BUT being a good speaker designer does mean something, and what does it mean in this case, nothing. A signal is a singal right? NO, because was we would all be using class B solid state amps and chugging along happily. But differences are percived, and more, try running 1000Mbs on good ol' copmusa Cat 5...what do ya get? Packet Loss, signaling errors, and carrier drops; Is this all from cross talk...no, because I can get some Cat 5 to run at 1000Mbs. So what does this tell me? Use the right cable for the right job. Does this apply to audiophilia? Maybe.

Can I hear a difference between my kimber PJB and my homegrown pure silver lace interconnects which have very similar cable geometry(ahem like cat 5, try signaling over cable thats not twisted pair, props to bell labs), you bet your sweet a** I can, I can prove it six ways of sunday and Ill even do it with some headphones; can I measure it? Not yet. Yet being the important word.

Now don't gimme these stupid lines about being system dependant, that is irrelevant in a disccusion on cables in general. We are dicussing weather the phenomenon exists at all. My point being, that if in any system you can percieve diffenerces in cables, then there is something going on. Just because some people cannot hear the difference does not mean that they dont exist. What about measuring, well all I can say is that I dont trust anyone's lab techniques but my own, and what exactly were they measuring for, how accurate were there results, what was their base line measument, what was their list of uncontrollable variables(i.e enviornmental RFI, EMI), what kind of power were they getting, what kind of gear were they using etc etc etc...

SO, whats my point...there is none, this fight is for scientists who still believe the universe is heliocentric and its impossible to travel faster than the speed of sound.

If in your system you cannot hear the differences between cables then you are lucky and do not have to worry about cables and you probably dont like your power chords either, you can sell this stuff to me ;P

(if your feeling generous and want a definite answer then donate the equipment, have some good hunches I will find that answer for which all the measured and docmuneted evidance shows, my lab skills are excellent)

Remember, there are 3 fundamental structures to be successful in business; production, marketing, and sales. They are interrelated but have different goals. The cable industry is marketing driven. Marketing people will alot of times just pick a number, they never spend money upfront, they depend on sales to drive money. By marketing, I mean packaging, ads, websites, reviews, any print, etc...Just read the ads and website claims, makes your mouth water. Look at some of the slick packaging. Marketing will make commitments that sales can't possibly deliver in many cases, but 20 million percent markup will cover no matter if sales makes projection or not. BTW, I hear differences in interconnects but no so much in speaker wire, IMO diminishing returns come quicker in speaker wire. Just my 2 cents.