New Venture

read-alot

Thinking about a new business venture. With audiophiles spending so much on silver gold plated directional power cables only to plug them into the crappy power supplied by our local power company do yall think I could make a go of offering"audiophile generators" with soild gold armatures wound with solid silver wire? The big debate then would be if coal or natural gas gives better depth and sound stage over pump grade 93 octane. I would then offer the "ultimate" your own water wheel power.

phoneisbusy

bottled water or natural spring water?

jdhdiggs

Originally posted by phoneisbusy
bottled water or natural spring water?

Natural Springs tend to have a richer, warmer sounds, however, bottled tends to be a bit more accurate but can be a bit harsh at times.

read-alot

Bottled snake oil would make the wheel run smoother but it would costly this year cause our snake population was down. Wind turbine maybe another option but the degradation with dirty air is an issue.

F1nut

Let me quess...........you haven't ever tried some real good cables in your system. :rolleyes:

read-alot

Were talking "refined" power to the cables.

read-alot

http://www.bryston.ca/cablememo.html[/url]

F1
Maybe I have and maybe I havent. It all depends if we are talking $2500.00 Nordost Vahallas(not) or good quality quage with no snakes involved

F1nut

It's been my experience that the folks who think cable upgrades are snake oil haven't tried them for themselves or if they have and they didn't notice a difference that their gear wasn't very good. Of course, there is always the possibility that there wasn't a good match of cable and gear too.

For example: I just upgraded my IC's from a fairly expensive set to a very expensive set and the difference is absolutely amazing.

Here's a great example of what a power cord can do and it's not an expensive one either.

http://clubpolk.polkaudio.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=17884

Sign up for the demo and post your thoughts.

PolkWannabie

What did you upgrade from / to ?

DarqueKnight

All this talk of "snake oil" and cables reminded me of a letter written by audio legend John Dunlavy on the subtleties of cable marketing. You can find Mr. Dunlavy's comments at various places on the Internet. One such place is here: Dunlavy's "Cable Nonsense" Letters

I visited Dunlavy Audio Labs in December of 2000 to audition some speakers. I spent several hours listening to speakers and touring their facility. John Dunlavy came and talked to me for a while as I was in the audition room. As Mr. Dunlavy was pointing out the various technical features of his products, he seemed particularly proud of his speaker cable and interconnect products. He seemed especially excited about a new 00 gauge steel speaker cable that they would shortly be bringing to market. These were really thick, impressive looking cables, even though they didn't (yet) have a fancy outer jacket and shiny gold-pated terminations.

When I asked Mr. Dunlavy if this was a cable they had recently developed in their research lab, he laughed out loud and said "Goodness no! We get this from the cable hardware wholesaler down the street for a few cents a foot. All we'll do is dress it up a bit and put some nice terminations on the end." I prefer not to say how much Mr. Dunlavy was going to sell his 00 gauge steel cable for. I will share that Dunlavy was selling his current model DAL Z6 cable for $50 per foot/pair. Mr. Dunlavy further shared with me that, he got into the cable business with the greatest of reluctance. However, they (he and his marketing and sales directors) could no longer ignore the many requests from audiophiles for cables that actually delivered on the promises made by so many other cable purveyors.

I was somewhat slow to catch on, but it suddenly dawned on me that Mr. Dunlavy's excitement was not due to any recent cable engineering achievements, but rather to the wonderful gross profit margins that high end cables and interconnects provide.

Now, I'm not saying that good cables aren't worth the money or that there are no differences in cables. Good cables are worth what ever someone wants to pay for them. Furthermore, a good set of cables synergistically matched to an audio or video system facilitates optimum performance.

I just wanted to share an anecdote from my recent audio past.:)

read-alot

My new venture will also offer " Buzzard Salve ".
It will be a less expensive option for those like me who have 2 in college at the same time and the snake oil is a little out of reach.

gidrah

How's just offering an "audio grade" circuit breaker. Many enthusiasts have a dedicated circuit. The breaker on the other hand, is often standard (but beefier) equipment.

10% is all I ask.

read-alot

10% is reasonable if and when I can get the 1500 percent markup that Mr. Dunlavy makes on welding wire.Shame on him for tricking those golden ears with his blind studies ( and not telling them ). Honestly people would freak out to find under the breaker box cover cheap aluminum wire feeding cheap rails that our new addition "The Gidrah Breaker "attach.But we wont tell them until we offer the next upgrade.

F1nut

Those that don't know, don't know that they don't know!

Obviously, some of you guys don't know. There is a free cable demo that you can sign up for right here on the forum. Why not check it out, you've got nothing to lose except for your uninformed beliefs.

RuSsMaN

Don't go all Dan on everyone F1. You enjoy your cables, fine, you don't have to be on the crusade to convince others.

Cheers,
Russ

DarqueKnight

Originally posted by read-alot
10% is reasonable if and when I can get the 1500 percent markup that Mr. Dunlavy makes on welding wire.

If and when those 1500 percent markups start start stuffing your corporate bank account, there is still no guarantee of long-term market viability. Dunlavy Audio Labs was bought by Wybron, Inc. in February of 2002. Wybron is a manufacturer of professional stage lighting equipment and is located next door to the former DAL building in Colorado Springs, CO. I assume Wybron made the purchase just to acquire DAL's large building next to them.

In November of 2002, Wybron shut down DAL.

gidrah

If you go for a 1500% mark-up on a suggestion that I made, I will hunt you down and beat you with a sock full of pennies.

madmax

Cables are somewhat like medicine. It is not always the actual value of the raw ingredients but the research behind them that you are paying for. As for the Dunlavy thing, sure, there are those kind of people out there as well. What a shame for the respectable among us. As I see it he used his name to pull a scam (in his mind) if I read it right.
madmax

PhantomOG

Originally posted by madmax
Cables are somewhat like medicine.

As in the placebo effect? just kidding. i've already learned that this discussion doesn't lead to anything but a pissing contest. Ya'll have fun!

read-alot

Originally posted by F1nut
Those that don't know, don't know that they don't know!

Exackery,thats why we pay people with Phd. following their names to tell us just what and how much we dont know.

Seriously F1 would you spend two thousand five hundred dollars on the Nordost power cable ? Thats where I was going, not to the for sure better Signal power cable that would definitely help my old Phase Linear and my old Luxman giving it directions to my old SDAs that the sweet sound is being deprived from my brain by my hearing degeneration confirmed in my left ear.

The new OPIATE for audiophiles is the most expensive power cable.

F1nut

Thanks for the idea Russ. I can see it now, F1's World-Wide Cable Tour, coming to a town near you.

I'm no crusader, just offering a counter point and a chance for any nay-sayer to try some cables for themselves.

F1nut

Seriously? Yeah, if I had the money I'd try it. Actually, I'm waiting on PS Audio to come out with a 20 amp IEC end on their Statement PC, so I can try them on my new gear. I've used their PC before and liked the improvement.

madmax

Just a point of reference here F1. I used to think a $30 cable was way up there in status and a $90 cable was just stupid. I tried a few such as monster cable, phoenix gold and cheap line audioquest. I thought I could hear a difference but it was so small I couldn't be sure. Years later I decided to try the MIT S3 cables for $400. What do you know, I could hear a big difference!

No, it is not because it cost $400. It is because now I have the Jolida and Manley tube amps which allow me to hear the difference.

How do I know? Well, a few months ago I hooked up my Sunfire 300 amp in place of my Manleys just for the fun of it. Guess what, my $400 cables don't sound a bit different than my phoenix gold $50 cables or my $30 monster cables! Cheap **** SS crap is not good enough to allow you to hear the differences. I assume that once you get into the really high end SS you can but under a few thousand, not that I have heard.

madmax

F1nut

Madmax, that is a good point and one that I made a small reference to, "........if they have and they didn't notice a difference that their gear wasn't very good."

madmax

Lets just say not very good at a certain function: micro-detail. Take my Sunfire for example. If you use an 8 ohm speaker it will output 300 watts, a 4 ohm will output 600 watts and a 2 ohm will output 1200 watts. It is VERY good with this particular characteristic. It does suck at the little stuff though. My Soundcraftsmens are better at the small stuff but not as good with high current output. The tubes are incredibly good at micro detail but have very low current output.

I'm just saying it depends on your equipment (Both cheap or not) whether they are capable of allowing you to hear this stuff. A day or so after getting my first tube amp I realized how well we humans can hear and it really astonished me.
madmax

Edit: Oh yea, I left out the most important thing. SDA's. The SDA's spread the sound out very well over the soundstage. It is very easy for us to hear these sounds when they are presenting themselves in the middle of nowhere. When you take some of the speakers with a much lesser soundstage there may be many sounds coming from the same point. You just cannot hear the very fine differences (although huge in presentation) that cables make if a louder sound is coming from the same exact place as a quieter sound.

read-alot

Just what I was thinking there madmax, wonder what the differences would be if I was listening to some Wilson WAMMs that cost $225,000.00 and not using cables that cost more than my speakers. Damn,I dont know if they have a club but I can just imagine the threads if they do. Talk about trashing other peoples systems they could make the Christian Crusades look like childs play.

madmax

To tell you the truth I don't think cost has that much to do with anything. There are tradeoffs no matter how much you are willing to pay. The key is to get the correct tradeoffs for what you can afford.
madmax

DarqueKnight

Originally posted by DarqueKnight
Furthermore, a good set of cables synergistically matched to an audio or video system facilitates optimum performance.

As I, and others have alluded to in previous posts, perceiving a difference in cables and components is not always a reflection on component quality. Sometimes it is due to listener biases/preferences and system component interactions.

What level of "good" is "good enough"? It all depends on what your goals/preferences are. The owner of a Mecedes S500 might correctly assume that his vehicle is "better" than a Toyota Camry. Both the Camry and S500 are highly respected vehicles within their respective automotive market niches. If the Camry owner is receiving reliable and efficient transportation from his vehicle, then his Camry is "good enough" for him. If the Camry owner purchases a set of high performance tires identical to the ones used on the Mercedes S500, would he realize a noticeable difference in accelleration, ride, and breaking performance? Maybe, and then again, maybe not. If the Camry owner does not realize better performance with the high end tires, does that mean that his Camry is not very good? I would not think so. His vehicle, although a quality machine, was not engineered to utilize high performance tires.

While we are revisiting the cable differences debate, and since I have some free time due to being on vacation, I just wanted to make a quick comment on that other age-old audio question: Which is Better? Tubes or Transistors? I personally don't think one is better than the other....they are simply different. I primarily listen to acoustic jazz and I do not like the way tubes render bass and brass instruments. If I listened to mostly classical and vocal music, then my preference would be for tubes because I love the way tubes render voices (particularly female voices) and stringed instruments.

Even among my solid state brethren, there is strife concerning which transistor is better: MOSFET or Bipolar? Again, I don't think one is "better" than the other, they're just different. I like both, but for different reasons. I like any audio component that does not hurt my ears, but I like some more than others.

For several years, I have considered upgrading my 2-channel rig to some real, big deal, high-end amps, source components, and cables. I certainly can hear differences when I listen to the likes of Krell, Bryston, etc. However, I have not heard anything yet which makes me displeased, dissatisfied, or disgusted with what I currently have. Furthermore, I am well within the realm of "diminishing returns" where a small, but noticeable improvement in performance is going to cost me a lot of money. Assuming I one day find some real, big deal gear for a steal and my current amps, sources, and cables go out the door, the SRS 1.2TLs are staying put (unless, of course, MP decides to come out with a new, improved version).

Just some random thoughts as I am sitting here writing on a rainy afternoon in the Kingdom and I can't go outside and play.:mad:

Frank Z

As I, and others have alluded to in previous posts, perceiving a difference in cables and components is not always a reflection on component quality. Sometimes it is due to listener biases/preferences and system component interactions.

Very well put!!
Out of curiousity do you still live in Colorado?

amulford

Furthermore, I am well within the realm of "diminishing returns" where a small, but noticeable improvement in performance is going to cost me a lot of money. Assuming I one day find some real, big deal gear for a steal and my current amps, sources, and cables go out the door, the SRS 1.2TLs are staying put (unless, of course MP decides to come out with a new, improved version).

Here here. Now I was not of the cable mindset at first. I was definitely not a believer of power cables. I have heard the difference in my own rig.

Now I won't say that there is no difference, there is and the matter is entirely subjective to the individual. I personally can't afford 2500 power cords. If I could, I would consider it, but only after proving definitively the improvement would be worthwhile. It's according to means and personal preference, IMHO. Don't knock it til you try it...

DarqueKnight

Originally posted by Frank Z
Out of curiousity do you still live in Colorado?

No, I moved from Denver in August of 2001.