Perhaps it's just a matter of economics; you simply cant make a full living at doing audio, if you limit yourself to conducting business in a completely honest way. Or you give up half of what you could be making, by NOT selling all the snakey periphery jewelry, because you know it's all mostly just a song and dance marketing with no real basis - and you're unwilling to do that. "You can hear the difference when I place these $150 conical feet under the powerline conditioner, right? Right?"
Nevermind being a publicly traded company, where stockholders expect you to make money not only for yourself, but for them as well. Even at Intel we debated (on internal forums) if one really needs the latest, greatest CPU in order to do gaming. Of course they for sure wanted everyone to believe that, when actually the video card is doing all the work, the CPU basically sits there and feeds it periodically once the game is up and running. Oh, they went to all lengths to show all those 4,6,8 cores really were "active" during game play and such core redundancy really did give a competitive edge - when it was single thread execution that matters, if anything.
It'd be interesting to hear the true story of "Monster Cable". Probably started with a naturally convincing product - a speaker cable using big fat gauge wire. Then when they realized their value in brand recognition, they started dispensing everything they could shovel onto their product pile. I guess that's how it's done...
Nevermind being a publicly traded company, where stockholders expect you to make money not only for yourself, but for them as well. Even at Intel we debated (on internal forums) if one really needs the latest, greatest CPU in order to do gaming. Of course they for sure wanted everyone to believe that, when actually the video card is doing all the work, the CPU basically sits there and feeds it periodically once the game is up and running. Oh, they went to all lengths to show all those 4,6,8 cores really were "active" during game play and such core redundancy really did give a competitive edge - when it was single thread execution that matters, if anything.
It'd be interesting to hear the true story of "Monster Cable". Probably started with a naturally convincing product - a speaker cable using big fat gauge wire. Then when they realized their value in brand recognition, they started dispensing everything they could shovel onto their product pile. I guess that's how it's done...
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And thus the descriptive name "Monster" Cable at a time when normal speaker wire was pretty small. I remember it in the early-mid 80's, and don't remember them having much competition at that point.
Noel Lee came to the company where I worked in the early 90's when we picked up the line of Monster products. He came into our monthly installer meeting to explain to us car stereo installers why his products were needed. My young engineering student-self insisted on going head-to-head with him as soon as the marketing BS started up. Our discourse became similar to what you'd read in cable threads here, and the regional managers quickly redirected the conversation to another facet of the subject. After all, like many other accessories, cable sales were gravy, and I wasn't helping the cause by arguing against it.
It was obvious then that he was a good salesman, an engineer who could talk over most people's heads, and a good marketeer. It's obvious now that he's also a very sharp businessman.
At this point, life is too short to argue over such drivel. If someone gets some kind of personal value spending good money on accessories, let them have their fun.
Yes he was ... and so is anyone else who pays more than about $10.00 (cdn) for a patch cord.
Yes I know there are alternative ways to make a patch cord. I get it. I even follow your obtuse way of getting that into the conversation. (You could have just said so.) But surely none of them ends up being worth over $250 for a single short cord.
Where I think you've been off the beam here is that I'm not talking specifically about me, or my friend or any of the other examples I listed out. This is about the huge level of quackery in the audio accessories industry and how easily it is accepted among a group of technically inclined people (here) who should damned well know better.
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As it works out I agree that audio, even high end stuff is not a terribly profitable business in and of itself. The HiFi heyday of the late 60s through the mid 90s is long gone and over with, killed by mobility, ear buds and crappy little bluetooth speakers. Nobody is going to get filthy rich doing home audio alone.
Our beloved gear has always been a "side business" with companies like BIC piling up the cash from pens and office supplies but running a speaker division as a second interest. Even Beldon, the wire guys, make a lot more than just audio cables. It's a necessary part of their survival.
But I don't think there's a defence for running a business dishonestly, lying to customers, just to keep the cash flowing in. Companies like Monster and AudioQuest have been deceiving people from the beginning with convoluted sales pitches, flashy demonstrations and straight up lies to convince people to buy wildly overpriced products that, in all truth, offer no benefit whatsoever to the end user.
The immorality behind that is beyond despicable.
Sure thing... if someone wants to buy a Rolex, let them. Luxury items, known to be such have been a status market for a long time and likely will continue to be so in the near future... Just don't lie to them when they ask how a $10.00 Timex keeps better time. If they still want the luxury item, that's up to them.
But in the audio industry this hasn't been the case. The marketing press has always been to convince people there's something wrong with their systems that only their magic accessories can fix. I've posted a small sample of these deceptive techniques in this thread already and it would not take much to find a whole lot more. In fact, for anyone having a reasonable backing in electronic theory it is actually hard to not see it.
Both of you mentioned Monster cable. They pretty much invented this game with their speaker wires made from braided magnet wire. I was even somewhat in awe of it in the late 1970s when their showroom demo units first showed up at stereo shops all over the region. Flipping the switch between "Ordinary" wire and "Monster" wire to hear the difference was simply mind blowing. Well, until I was asked to see if I could fix one of them and discovered the "Ordinary" side was wired up with telephone wire (28 ga)... so OF COURSE there was a difference, the game was rigged from the beginning.
There is no denying the scar this kind of deceptive and predatory marketing has left on both the audio industry and our beloved hobbies. Where I once used to sit in on meetings of my music club and we'd pour over spec sheets and discuss new designs and features, these days the conversations I have are all about made up slop like Soundstage, Speed, Openness and Definition, all taken from these schyster outfit's demos, shows and advertising.
People have been convinced away from actual science, thinking their hearing is better than the test equipment needed to design and produce the products in the first place. They believe --100% incorrectly-- they can fine tune their systems by swapping cables and cords around, and of course, they hear the improvements as they go... so this drives them even deeper into buying their way out of problems they don't even have.
There are people (probably reading this) who go out buy gear with no idea of it's capabilities, bring it home and immediately pull it all apart and start replacing capacitors, opamps and other parts because they think they can second guess the engineers and get closer to the audio purity defined by the made up science they've heard in these demonstrations.
There isn't much room to wonder how the term "Audiophile" has changed from being a note of honour to one of derision. These companies have made a once valued hobby into a running joke.
Dave Jones summed it up best, more than a decade ago... "These things do kinda work. You will hear a difference. Just don't expect your friends to." ( EEVBlog #29 )
I get all of that ... what I don't get is why we put up with it.
Douglas, you are largely preaching to the converted. Perhaps it's time for you to take some direct action, just a thought 😉 Anyway, it seems to me that quite often what can happen on this forum is that some of the wilder claims made can pique people's interest into looking more deeply into how things work, in other words, stimulate a more complete understanding. Bob's suggestion is a good one IMHO, this is DIY audio after all 🙂
You mean, like the time, more than a decade ago, I sat in an AudioQuest demo and pulled one of their battery boxes apart to show that it had no actual connection to the cable? It was just a button and a battery that turned on an LED when you pressed it.
Or maybe the time a friend of mine went behind the display of a speaker vibration isolator demonstration and pulled out the equalizer hidden inside?
I already mentioned fixing a couple of Monster's speaker wire demo units. When I saw the problem I put in 16 ga wire... the difference vanished.
Not to mention the umpteen times I've sat with customers and explained just how little difference all this stuff makes.
Of course there's also the link in my signature space.
So if you're thinking that I just thought this all up a couple of days ago, you'd be wrong.
I may be preaching to the converted here... but I don't see anyone else trying to educate people about these frauds and help them get into a more productive knowledge of electronics.
In fact, this is a forbidden topic here, isn't it?
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Ummm ... you do realize that is just BS, right?
You can't ... simply cannot... "voice" a system with wires.
"Synergy" is just another made up term to sell stuff that does nothing.
And yes, zip cord is actually more than good enough in most cases.
I buy my "speaker wire" at the local hardware store... good old 16-2 lamp cord... a hundred foot spool costs me about $30.00, unless it's on sale for less.
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Well, @scottjoplin ... I've been reading here for about a year, took out a membership a couple of months ago and so far I've seen precious little evidence of it.
Just about every post by DF96 and AndrewT (RIP) for example, many others too. The more I think about it the list is endless, but I don't want to spoil your fun 😉
You could say, common sense prevails on this site
You could say, common sense prevails on this site
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Trust me, I would love to be wrong about this... but so far I've not seen much proof of it.
Try telling that to planet10. It depends what you mean by voice, it can definitely change the sound of some speakers and for the "better", for example high resistance wire used to reduce the damping on a full range speaker can improve the bass response. What I don't get though is why you might want to cryo-treat it too.
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And using a resistor gets the same effect in a far more controlled way.
But, why on earth would you want to reduce the damping factor? All that does is let the speaker cone flop around, producing sounds that are not in the source recording (i.e. distortion). More bass is not the same as better bass.
But at least now I understand why the multiple convoluted attempts to justify ridiculous cables ...
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What I find interesting is often knowledgeable people say and do sensible things, then they seem to get obsessed by little things like that and start saying and doing silly things. I'm afraid you will never separate audio from emotions and emotions make people do irrational things.
Yah, I’m really not really wanting to get into it with you on this but there is nobody selling me anything, my findings are strictly experience based.....A couple years ago I was in the same camp as you (it just doesn’t matter) I’m a master carpenter by trade and have dabbled in speaker building over the years, did ok but not to the level I wanted to be......couple years ago started getting into xo design and implementation. Got that figured out with great success, now I’m here trying to figure out my weakest area, electronics.......making headway but it’s an uphill battle trying to coincide my subjective findings with the objective, I’m finding many things I did not expect. The whole 5%er thing while thinking it was a joke at first I now really think it’s spot on......so my question here would be if it’s ‘good enough’ for 95% of the people should the other 5% just say ahhh well I know we can do better but there’s no need to rock the boat......I think not.
FFwd to today, while I fully agree with the snake oil and your friend getting ripped off, there are many ways to fine tune your system.
System being the operative word, everyone interested in audio has more than likely put together some equipment (of itself quality pieces) to find they just don’t ‘play well’ together?
Synergy.....(not a word made up by evil audio salesmen) ‘the interaction or cooperation of two or more ** to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their seperate effects.’
What I speak of does not require you put a second mortgage on your home, a little education and sourcing can go a long way......the speaker wire I mentioned earlier (cardas,mogami,belden etc) can be had in bulk for not much more than zip cord. You mention capacitors, my finding is there are differences between materials and even manufacturers.....but again, no need to go broke; a perfect example is Cornell Dubilier.
Capacitance of the speaker wire is where I’m finding the most varied and important to match in the ‘system’
But here again I’m just the lowly minority.......nothing to see here. 😛
Most of you are so much more knowledgeable than I on speaker cables.
I take a different view on the matter in general. Audiophile use relates to aesthetics which is a matter of a subjective appreciation and perception of qualities that cannot be proven or quantified. Aesthetics relate to high quality sound reproduction, art, jewelry, beverages in the expensive class, cosmetics, food in the expensive end, expensive clothing, cars, expensive furniture and many other areas…..At the same time we have capital accumulation with a minority of persons to the extent that this capital is partly inactive because even their consumption is limited.
Such fortunate people to a large extent buy the “snake oil”-coated or even -soaked products because they can afford it, it brings them “prestige” and they anyway have money to burn. Money need to be put in circulation in a society to create activity and wealth. Even when the most snake-oil soaked products are sold to such persons, money are put for circulation in society. In return, products like $70000 elevated speaker cables for people to stumble in are handed out for very subjective pleasure. It can also be seen as a money distribution mechanism that serves society in general as long as we allow such capital accumulation.
We, those with ordinary budgets, are much less prone to spend on snake-oil elements. We anyway can’t afford it and products with almost the same performance can be bought for much less. I have noticed that while there are considerable income differences (also after tax) here in Europe, the living standards are surprisingly less different.
Let’s imagine that we eliminate to a large extent products with snake-oil elements in the wealthy part of the world. No more $70000 elevated speaker cables, no more……...We all know where most of the basic consumer products are produced. What are the guys (or girls) selling expensive speaker cables today going to sell instead? Will they then be out of a job?
Differences in wealth will create social tension. Some can afford expensive speaker cables other can only afford to join DiyAudio and learn what is needed to have a good performing speaker cable for much less money. On DiyAudio we teach new, typically less wealthy members how high performance gear can be build on a very limited budget. Little snake-oil but a lot of technical understanding. This is where I see an important purpose with DiyAudio.
The way our societies function today, snake-oil is an integral part of their functioning.
I take a different view on the matter in general. Audiophile use relates to aesthetics which is a matter of a subjective appreciation and perception of qualities that cannot be proven or quantified. Aesthetics relate to high quality sound reproduction, art, jewelry, beverages in the expensive class, cosmetics, food in the expensive end, expensive clothing, cars, expensive furniture and many other areas…..At the same time we have capital accumulation with a minority of persons to the extent that this capital is partly inactive because even their consumption is limited.
Such fortunate people to a large extent buy the “snake oil”-coated or even -soaked products because they can afford it, it brings them “prestige” and they anyway have money to burn. Money need to be put in circulation in a society to create activity and wealth. Even when the most snake-oil soaked products are sold to such persons, money are put for circulation in society. In return, products like $70000 elevated speaker cables for people to stumble in are handed out for very subjective pleasure. It can also be seen as a money distribution mechanism that serves society in general as long as we allow such capital accumulation.
We, those with ordinary budgets, are much less prone to spend on snake-oil elements. We anyway can’t afford it and products with almost the same performance can be bought for much less. I have noticed that while there are considerable income differences (also after tax) here in Europe, the living standards are surprisingly less different.
Let’s imagine that we eliminate to a large extent products with snake-oil elements in the wealthy part of the world. No more $70000 elevated speaker cables, no more……...We all know where most of the basic consumer products are produced. What are the guys (or girls) selling expensive speaker cables today going to sell instead? Will they then be out of a job?
Differences in wealth will create social tension. Some can afford expensive speaker cables other can only afford to join DiyAudio and learn what is needed to have a good performing speaker cable for much less money. On DiyAudio we teach new, typically less wealthy members how high performance gear can be build on a very limited budget. Little snake-oil but a lot of technical understanding. This is where I see an important purpose with DiyAudio.
The way our societies function today, snake-oil is an integral part of their functioning.
Probably this:
Dielectric Bias System
Whether it's audibly meaningful is a completely different question but the application isn't quite as cynical as a unconnected box.